Jim Freeman Named Local Listing Broker For Western Washington State

The Department of Housing and Urban Development otherwise know as HUD after a few years of development has changed their methodologies to liquidate HUD houses. Known as P260 the new system combines communications and reporting technology to accelerate the means of selling homes acquired by HUD mainly through reposession. HUD is responsible for managing and selling homes acquired from homeowners with FHA mortgage insurance and other federal government backed home loan programs. Many believe that the administration may need to escape from guarantees of home loans altogether in order to restore confidence of bond buyers in the secondary mortgage market by letting private lenders able originate home loans with closer to historical yields and default rates without government backing.

With the failure of the housing finance system beginning in 2007 the FHA insured loans have grown to an estimated 40% of market share in 2010. This compares to approximately 3% by comparison in 2006. FHA loan programs were utilized by the government to bolster the supply of home acquisition financing, particularly for first time home buyers whose market share of the home sales figures have grown in parallel. Federal home loan programs and loans sold to the GSEs, fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are expected to be the only source of home financing until such time as the federal government decides how to end the losses debited to the treasury through loan defaults experienced by loans with government guarantees.

Home prices are still falling in most major markets around the country including Washington State. This means that loans originated in the early years of the current housing recession suffered asset value deterioration with the rest of the market and some of those loans defaulted when previously qualified buyers lost their ability to pay. Other borrowers that retained their capacity to pay defaulted because their home was worth less than what they owed. These are called strategic defaults.

Borrowers using loans insured by FHA are able to purchase a home with as little as 3.5% down payment and sellers are able to pay for the buyers closing costs up to 3.5% of the loan amount if they so choose. This arrangement is very attractive for borrowers needing leverage to purchase a home but when values drop much at all it is difficult for the lenders and the FHA insurance fund to make up the difference when liquidating houses for sale because of the lengthy foreclosure process and high cost of re-sale with standard market excise taxes, escrow fees, insurance, commissions and other costs.

With rising inventories and a desire to preserve and enhance local communities with responsible home ownership HUD has re-configured its methods for listing and marketing newly acquired homes by contracting with new regional asset managers, field service managers and local listing brokers. James Freeman of Coldwell Banker Park Shore Real Estate has been named as a local listing broker for western Washington State under contract with asset manager PEMCO Ltd. For more information and to obtain periodically updated lists of these well priced homes for sale please visit HUD homes in Washington.