Mortgages and Real Estate

Want a smaller home? What would you give up?

Amy Pyle Nov 24th 2009 @ 4:15PM EST Filed Under: Budgets, Home, Real Estate, Saving Money, Mortgages

Survey after survey shows that, in the name of affordability, post-crash home buyers are opting for less square footage -- down 100 square feet or more on average.

People can't afford a big house and they can't afford to heat and cool it, either.

Smaller means less, of course and consumers are facing choices among some of the excess that had come to define the modern home: living rooms AND family rooms, big master bedrooms AND big master baths, walk-in showers AND jacuzzi tubs, the pantries the size of closets AND closets the size of bedrooms.

Take our WalletPop poll to see what you would choose to jettison:

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Continue reading Want a smaller home? What would you give up?

What to look for if selling your home with seller financing

Zac Bissonnette Nov 24th 2009 @ 4:00PM EST Filed Under: Real Estate, Mortgages

Think rich people pay cash for 8-digit trophy homes? Think again.

According to the Malibu Real Estate Blog, there are 18 homes in the Malibu market where sellers have specifically noted in the MLS listing that they are willing to provide financing to the buyer: "Homes range from $1.1m for a mo-bi-yal home in Paradise Cove to a $10m hillside mansion with jetliner views. There is even a newly remodeled home on Point Dume with tennis court, pool, and beach rights whose owner will carry."

The increase in seller-financing on high-end homes is a direct result of the tightening in the jumbo mortgage market. Without alternative sources of financing, buyers can't buy and sellers can't sell, and that's driving an increasing in seller financing.

Continue reading What to look for if selling your home with seller financing

A Black Friday real estate deal, of sorts

Ann Brenoff Nov 24th 2009 @ 3:30PM EST Filed Under: Real Estate, Black Friday

Not to be left out of the Black Friday hype, Beazer Homes is offering special Black Friday deals at five of its Orlando-area communities.

What's being given away is up to $2,000 in "free" appliances for contracts signed on Friday. But before you give up your place in the Wal-Mart line at 4 a.m., just know that in today's buyers-rule-and-developers-drool market, you can likely mosey on in any old day of the week and let the good folks at Beazer know which dishwasher you want them to throw in for free before you'll sign on the dotted line. Just saying ...

Beazer Homes USA, according to its Web site, "builds for the middle-class buyer who's ready to make the move into the white-picket-fence scene." They build homes with an average price of about $248,700 and courts the entry-level, move-up, and active adult markets.

As for Orlando-area buyers who want to be able to gloat about how they got their house in a Black Friday special, here's the skinny: The special one-day incentive is being offered at Heritage Commons in Winter Springs, The Legacy in Orlando, The Enclave at Moss Park, Sawgrass, also in southeast Orlando, and at Victoria Park Trails in DeLand.

The Federal Tax Credit for qualified new home buyers at $8,000 and $6,500 for existing home buyers is still available.

CPSC study confirms homeowner's worst fears about Chinese drywall

Tom Kraeutler Nov 24th 2009 @ 3:00PM EST Filed Under: Home, Real Estate, Health

A study of 51 homes released this week by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) found a strong association between homes with Chinese-made drywall and levels corrosive hydrogen sulfide, which gives off a smell similar to rotten eggs.

It was the largest investigation ever taken on by the CPSC, costing $3.5 million and involving 15% of the staff, according to the CPSC.

Continue reading CPSC study confirms homeowner's worst fears about Chinese drywall

Beachfront properties you can afford (prepare to travel)

Diane Wedner Nov 24th 2009 @ 2:00PM EST Filed Under: Bargains, Real Estate

For sale: Three-bedroom homes with heart-stopping ocean views. Big properties. Resort nearby.
Price: $139,000
Location: Not the Hamptons (or Malibu or Palm Beach)

What, you thought it was 1950? No matter. If you're willing to fly to Managua, Nicaragua, and make the two-hour trek to lovely San Juan del Sur, you will find your dream vacation house (or land on which to build it). High prices on home turf lured legions of American, Canadian and European buyers to this low-priced Pacific Coast town and other Central American destinations during the real estate run-up earlier this decade. When the bubble burst, investors stayed home, agents and developers say. Now, prices are in oh-my-god territory, and buyers are trickling back. In San Juan del Sur, you can build your own vay cay getaway for $85 a square foot. Compare that with $625 per square foot in Malibu last month. The median price of a home there was $2.1 million in October, according to San Diego-based MDA Dataquick.

Continue reading Beachfront properties you can afford (prepare to travel)

Foreclosures driving record gains in existing-home sales

Charles Feldman Nov 24th 2009 @ 11:00AM EST Filed Under: Home, Real Estate, Mortgages

I Just want to warn you folks right off the bat that this is going to be one of those is the glass half full or half empty? type posts.

On the one hand, the National Association of Realtors is reporting big gains in existing home sales for October (the latest figures) and credits first time buyers rushing to take advantage of the tax credit which has now been extended into next year. Inventories continue to shrink. All good. This now concludes the glass half full portion of this post.

If you look down -- far down -- the news release pumped out by the NAR, you will see something else: So-called "distressed properties" (which conjures up an image in my mind of a house, all by itself, phoning some shrink and asking for prescription meds to battle its depression) account for some 30% of all the October sales.

Distressed properties, of course, are foreclosed properties. This is a reflection of the still never-ending wave of foreclosures that shows no sign of abating anytime soon. Plus, because we are talking distressed properties here, we are also talking about a continuation in the slide of housing prices; with the national median existing-home price now at $173,100, which, says the NAR, is down 7.1% from October of 2008. This is all the glass is half empty portion of this post.

Continue reading Foreclosures driving record gains in existing-home sales

Renters have rights when owners lose building to foreclosure

Charles Feldman Nov 23rd 2009 @ 4:00PM EST Filed Under: Home, Real Estate, Mortgages

If you're a fan of disaster movies (and who isn't?) you already know that being in front of an oncoming tsunami wave is never a good thing. And, yet, for many renters around the U.S., this is exactly the position they are now in.

"We're at the front end of that wave...Are we concerned? Absolutely," Raphael Bostic, of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, tells the Washington Post.

By one recent estimate, as many as 75 percent of multifamily buildings could have problems refinancing, says the paper. Already, the number of foreclosures against multifamily rental and co-op homes is up in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and other large urban settings, and also in smaller cities and towns such as Des Moines, Iowa and Lexington, North Carolina.

Continue reading Renters have rights when owners lose building to foreclosure

Reckless lendings' fallout continues

Barbara Bartlein Nov 23rd 2009 @ 3:15PM EST Filed Under: Borrowing, Credit, Debt, Home, Real Estate, Bankruptcy, Mortgages

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports that a record number of loans -- one in seven -- is delinquent, up from one in 10 a year ago.

Today's numbers also show that one in 22 families in the U.S. is in the process of losing their home, up from one in 34 a year ago. Based on these figures, we are now on track for 2.9 million foreclosure starts in this year alone.

The lenders' trade association is quick to blame this worsening trend on higher unemployment levels. But that ignores the fact that reckless lending precipitated the economic crisis and prolongs it each day with every new foreclosure, which forces down surrounding property values.

Continue reading Reckless lendings' fallout continues

What you need to know about the mortgage process

Ryan Minick Nov 23rd 2009 @ 12:00PM EST Filed Under: Borrowing, Real Estate, Video, The2MortgageGuys, Mortgages, Refinancing, 101 mortgages

You're buying a house, your offer is accepted, but you still need to secure a mortgage -- now what? Check out this week's episode of Show & Tell with The 2 Mortgage Guys and we'll walk you through the steps of processing your loan application and explain what happens at the closing table.

Ryan Minick and Steve DeLon are The 2 Mortgage Guys. Subscribe to their newsletter or visit them at www.The2MortgageGuys.com.

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To have and to hold (Title, that is): Advice for the unmarried

Amy Pyle Nov 20th 2009 @ 3:30PM EST Filed Under: Borrowing, Budgets, Debt, Real Estate, Saving Money, Wealth, Investing, Personal loans, Mortgages

Who doesn't have an unmarried friend who lost the house, or at least their investment in the condo, when the relationship went sour?

The key question when buying property together, according to a new book -- "Living Together: A Legal Guide for Unmarried Couples" -- seems pretty simple: Does your legal relationship match your private agreement?

But who wants to have that conversation when you are newly in love, or at least new to nesting?

No one, the book's author admitted to WalletPop.

Continue reading To have and to hold (Title, that is): Advice for the unmarried

Recovery? Then why do mortgage loan delinquencies keep climbing?

Charles Feldman Nov 20th 2009 @ 12:30PM EST Filed Under: Home, Real Estate, Mortgages

The proof, they say, is in the pudding. Maybe it ought to be in the foreclosure rate?

Yes, I know we are being told on Sunday morning power-breakfast talk shows that the nation's economy is improving. But the latest survey on the delinquency rate for mortgage loans from the Mortgage Bankers Association would seem to indicate otherwise.

You can read the report itself for the hard numbers, but, the bottom line is, the delinquency rate has now broken the record set just this past quarter.

Continue reading Recovery? Then why do mortgage loan delinquencies keep climbing?

Earn $10,000 "buying" these houses -- but no takers

Amy Pyle Nov 19th 2009 @ 6:15PM EST Filed Under: Bargains, Real Estate

Imagine a town so motivated to move houses out of the way of progress that it will pay you $10,000 to take one off their hands. Imagine buyers so unmotivated there are no takers.

This is no fantasy on either end. It's status quo in the Chicago suburban village of Barrington, Ill., though you can only collect the $10,000 if you agree to keep the house somewhere in the village itself. Still, even if you want to schlep it on over to a neighboring town, the houses are a relative bargain, with bids starting at $1.

The homes are old -- though not technically historic now that the village voted them out of the historic district -- and former and current users variously describe them as "claptrap" and "charming."

Continue reading Earn $10,000 "buying" these houses -- but no takers

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