New guidelines for short sales
December 9, 2009 by Fred Romano · Leave a Comment
The U.S. Treasury Department announced new guidelines last week designed to make short sales go more smoothly. To qualify under these new guidelines:
- The property must be the home owner’s principal residence
- The home owner must be delinquent on their loan or close to defaulting
- The loan must have been made before Jan. 1, 2009, and be for less than $729,750
- The borrowers’ total payment must exceed 31 percent of their before-tax income.
Why list on Realtor.com?
December 7, 2009 by Fred Romano · Leave a Comment
Why should you list on Realtor.com? The answer is simple… Each month, Realtor.com attracts more than 13.7 million visits per month* from consumers interested in buying a home. No other real estate site even comes close to that number.
The most comprehensive national collection of homes for sale, Realtor.com is the most powerful site of its kind!
- Number 1 in page views
- Number 1 in time spent searching and your
- Number 1 online sales tool (for agents)
Nearly 14 million people don’t visit a Web site by accident. It takes a great deal of work, as Realtor.com is increasing awareness and driving traffic with its public awareness campaigns.
NAR launches beta HouseLogic.com
November 11, 2009 by Fred Romano · Leave a Comment
The folks at NAR (National Association of REALTORS) just launched the beta version of their new consumer facing website HouseLogic.com
What is HouseLogic.com?
HouseLogic is a free source of information and tools—from the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®—that can help you make smart and timely decisions about your home.
The $8,000 Tax Credit: Where it goes
November 11, 2009 by Fred Romano · Leave a Comment
So you what to know what states are taking advantage of the $8,000 federal tax credit? CNN has a cool page on their site that shows a breakdown of the states and how many buyers used the tax credit.
CNN reports that through August, 315,000 first-time homebuyers took advantage of a Recovery Act tax credit of up to $8,000.
Visit the CNN live map to view statistics on where the $8,000 tax credit is going…
Home buyer tax credit details 09-10
November 6, 2009 by Fred Romano · Leave a Comment
Congress has extended and expanded the home buyer tax credit for 2009-2010, which is great news for sellers and buyers!
The modifications in the column labeled “December 1 – April 30, 2010” become effective when President Obama signs the bill. All changes made to the current credit become effective on that date, as well.
Buyer tax credit extension a go!
November 5, 2009 by Fred Romano · Leave a Comment
Good news for home buyers!
The House today and the Senate yesterday passed legislation to extend the $8,000 home buyer tax credit to May 1, 2010, for first-time buyers and add a $6,500 tax credit for repeat buyers if they’ve lived in their home for five of the past eight years. Home prices are capped at $800,000.
Get Your Finances in Order: To-Do's
October 26, 2009 by Fred Romano · Leave a Comment
Before starting your search for the perfect home, it’s a good idea to get your finances in order. In most cases, the process of buying a home involves applying for a mortgage, and you’ll need to have all your ducks in line to get approved.
1. Develop a household budget. Instead of creating a budget of what you’d like to spend, use receipts to create a budget that reflects your actual spending habits over the last several months. This approach will factor in unexpected expenses, such as car repairs, as well as predictable costs such as rent, utility bills, and groceries.
2. Reduce your debt. Lenders generally look for a total debt load of no more than 36 percent of income. This figure includes your mortgage, which typically ranges between 25 and 28 percent of your net household income. So you need to get monthly payments on the rest of your installment debt — car loans, student loans, and revolving balances on credit cards — down to between 8 and 10 percent of your net monthly income.
Continue reading this post…
Why you should own instead of rent
October 26, 2009 by Fred Romano · Leave a Comment
You’ve probably seen lots of financial arguments about why you should own your own home rather than rent. This includes budgeting (no rent increases) and the tax savings you’ll most likely have. Now I’m going to give you some reasons you probably haven’t heard.
Freedom to pursue other goals in life once the major goal of home ownership is achieved
Strange as it sounds, many of my first-time buyers have told me that once they bought the house, other things in their life started to fall into place. It’s as if not owning took so much of their mental energy that other goals were not worked on until that big goal was reached. So buy a home and get on with your life!
Home sales rebound in September 09
October 23, 2009 by Fred Romano · Leave a Comment
Some good news for the housing market today. Home sales rebound to highest levels since July 2007.
To sum it up by region…
The West: Sales climbed 13% to an annualized rate of 1.3 million.
The Midwest: Sales were up by 9.6% to a pace of 1.25 million
The South: Sales were up 9% from August and 10.8% from last September to a rate of 2.6 million
The Northeast: Sales up 4.4% from August to a rate of 950,000
Sales of previously-owned homes jumped 9.4% in September after falling for the first time in four months in August, said the National Association of Realtors. Year over year, sales of existing homes were up 9.2% in September.
National home prices forecast shrink
October 20, 2009 by Fred Romano · Leave a Comment
National home prices are forecast to shrink another 11%. That’s tough news for Miami, Las Vegas and Phoenix, reported to record steep declines, but a few cities will actually post gains.
If you thought home prices were bottoming out, you may be wrong. They’re expected to head a lot lower. Home values are predicted to drop in 342 out of 381 markets during the next year, according to a new forecast of real estate prices.