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sacramento real estate: Preventing Fallout: 5 Questions Every Agent Should Ask (Part IV) - 07/21/07 09:14 AM
Okay, after covering down payment, income, and credit in Parts I, II, and III, let’s move on to the fourth important question.
Question #4: Are You Pre-Qualified or Pre-Approved? When I speak with Realtors, there is inevitably some question about the difference. And lenders will frequently take advantage of the confusion.
An agent of mine recently had a deal fall out at the 11th hour with a client whose lender had provided a pre-approval letter with the original offer. When my angry agent confronted the lender, the lender shrugged and laughed as if to say hey, I lied, … (4 comments)
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sacramento real estate: Family Opportunity Mortgage program - 07/20/07 04:53 PM
Through the years, I have helped many parents purchase homes or condo’s for college bound children. Because of the high demand for housing around college campuses, this has often proven to be a great investment.
Last year, my son lived in an 8 bedroom house near San Diego State University where he attended school and played soccer. Rent was $700 per bedroom! Do the math. That’s $5600 per month in rent! How’s that for positive cash flow while you wait for values to rise. I’ve seen appreciation cover the entire cost of the education.
Until now, however, parents have … (2 comments)
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sacramento real estate: Preventing Fallout: 5 Questions Every Agent Should Ask (Part III) - 07/17/07 11:09 PM
This is the third in a series of posts designed to help prevent fallout when dealing with buyers that bring their own lenders to the deal. Part I discussed down payment, and Part II income documentation.
No one wants to start a new client relationship off with an argument about lenders. But if they arrive with a pre-qual letter from someone you don’t know, don’t automatically put them in the car. These questions will help you determine if that letter is really worth the paper it’s written on.
Remember, if the borrower really is pre-qualified, they’ve been through these questions … (3 comments)
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sacramento real estate: PMI Report: Sacramento Real Estate Prices to Fall for Next Two Years - 07/10/07 11:28 PM
The PMI Mortgage Insurance Company has published its Summer 2007 Economic Real Estate Trends. For Sacramento area home owners, the news is not good.
While PMI’s previous model was tuned for the rapid appreciation of the first half of the decade, the revised model gives more weight to current price trends, area volatility, and the increased use of unfriendly variable interest rate products. While the inputs have been updated, the output is the same:
“…a risk index that predicts the likelihood that home prices in a given metropolitan statistical area will be lower in two years.”
How does Sacramento stack up? … (0 comments)
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sacramento real estate: Raiding the Nursery: How Quickly Will Sacramento Real Estate Recover? - 05/21/07 07:27 PM
What will it take to shock the Sacramento real estate market back to life?
Behind the mask of false bravado and feeble optimism worn by industry insiders who think wishing can make things true, there is an undercurrent of worry. Let’s face it. The patient is ill. What will turn things around? In a word, affordability.
It’s pretty clear that we chucked the idea of affordability in the early 2000’s as home prices and incomes parted company. People bought homes they couldn’t afford with loans that offered low initial payment but blew up after a couple of years. The speculative … (0 comments)
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sacramento real estate: Employment, the Housing Bubble, and the Hidden Work Force - 05/09/07 07:32 AM
I’ll apologize in advance for the length of this article. But it will enlighten you if you have the patience to finish.
Despite the bursting housing bubble and a fall in housing starts of over 30%, unemployment remains very low. How can that be? Home builders downsize crews, shrink their land acquisition and development departments, and put the brakes on construction.
Yet the employment statistics remain strong. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy, but puzzled. So I’ve been poking around trying to understand this phenomenon since the real estate downturn got its full head of steam last year.
Recently I was … (8 comments)
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sacramento real estate: Sacramento Mortgage Rate Update - 04/30/07 10:39 PM
The conforming 30 year fixed rate mortgage dipped slightly last week and came to rest around 6.16 at one half point. However, tomorrow morning’s rates should be a bit better.
What’s Going On? Recent economic reports show weakness in retail sales, consumer spending, and GDP, all perhaps a reflection of the housing slow down. Because consumption is 71% of GDP, there is reason to be concerned about a changing consumer mood in response evaporating home equity. But the Fed continues to worry more about inflation, and the bond market continues to trade sideways keeping rates stable.
read the full article … (0 comments)
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sacramento real estate: After the Housing Bubble–Toll Bros. CEO is Optimist About Home Prices - 04/27/07 01:20 AM
How’s this for divergent thinking? Granted, home builders are looking past the housing bubble as they try to anticipate future demand and position themselves in growth markets. But, if Toll is right, those who buy now will be richly rewarded.
Daily Real Estate News / April 25, 2007
Toll Bros. CEO Expects Housing Shortage Robert Toll, CEO of luxury home builder Toll Bros., predicts that U.S. home prices will climb so high in the next five years that housing will represent 45 percent to 50 percent of household income, up from 21 percent in 2006. Why? Toll says restrictive zoning … (4 comments)
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sacramento real estate: The Dark Cloud Over Sacramento Real Estate Has a Silver Lining - 04/21/07 10:56 AM
For those who missed it, the Sacramento Bee posted this article Tuesday. The 80 or so comments that follow the article make for a lively and sometimes ugly discussion. Not particularly cheery, but there is a silver lining.
Foreclosures in full boom In ominous sign of more to come, capital region default notices also hit record highs during first quarter of 2007. By Jim Wasserman - Bee Staff Writer Last Updated 1:11 pm PDT Tuesday, April 17, 2007Story appeared in BUSINESS section, Page D3
There’s a new kind of “For Sale” sign appearing in the region’s neighborhoods — offering property … (0 comments)
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sacramento real estate: Is California Saturated With Real Estate Agents? - 04/19/07 07:44 PM
One of my agents emailed this to me today. It’s part of a newsletter from National Realty News….
An Open Apology From The Publisher of The National Realty News
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Last November several of our staff attended the National Association of Realtors annual convention in New Orleans. Over the course of that event, we interviewed hundreds of agents, broker owners, and managers. During the course of these interviews, it became quite apparent that many seasoned real estate professionals, including many NAR executives and staffers, were predicting a noticeable decline in the number of agents as the … (5 comments)
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sacramento real estate: Are You Working With a Part-Time Lender? - 02/26/07 06:36 PM
“I can’t talk right now, I’m at my day job,” …came the whisper from the other end of the phone.
Escrows are falling apart at an alarming rate these days. Most of the fallout—according to my agents—is caused by incompetent lenders.
On a recent visit to Keller Williams, Chris DeMattei and his team shared a story with me. They had an escrow that was late in closing. Loan docs had not arrived in time, and they couldn’t get any information or a return call from the lender. Unsure how bad the problem was and totally in the dark, they were … (0 comments)
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sacramento real estate: 6 Reasons Your Next Loan May Take Longer Than It Should - 02/21/07 02:34 AM
The way the real estate market has slowed, you would think lenders would be just waiting to pounce on and approve next loan that comes through. You’d think our “turn times” would be faster for underwriting, drawing loan docs, funding and recording. You’d think loans should virtually fly through the approval process. You’d think all that, and yet you’d be wrong.
So just exactly why are loans taking longer than they should right now? Here are 6 reasons that come to mind:
Reason #1: Layoffs Like any business, when things slow down the mortgage industry lays people off. This slowdown started … (17 comments)
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sacramento real estate: Appraisers Pressured to Falsify Findings - 02/15/07 02:09 AM
It’s an ugly fact of life in a declining real estate market. Real estate appraisers are under pressure from all sides. Here’s a recent article I saved.
Daily Real Estate News | February 2, 2007
Appraisers Get Pressured to Falsify Findings The pressure is on property appraisers to come up with the right number, say 90 percent of appraisers surveyed by October Research Corp., which publishes Valuation Review, an industry newsletter.
That percentage is much higher than it was in 2003, the last time the survey was conducted, when only 55 percent of appraisers reported attempts by others to influence … (0 comments)
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sacramento real estate: Purchasing Sacramento Short Sales–A Waste of Time? - 01/27/07 05:39 PM
I am frequently asked these days about buying “short-sales”. Seems like a good buying opportunity. After what happened this week, I’m not sure anymore.
Nearly everyone knows what a short-sale is by now. But just in case, a short-sale is a home listed for sale that, when sold, will not yield enough to pay all the costs of the sale and pay off the existing mortgage(s) completely. So the lender is asked to accept less than the amount owed. If they agree, a short sale results. Sacramento area homes have fallen enough in value that short-sales are becoming commonplace.
Now, … (1 comments)
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sacramento real estate: Creating Affordable Payments (Part IV): Pay Option ARMs - 01/16/07 01:29 AM
Okay, in our effort to create affordable payments, we laid a foundation with the 15 and 30 year fixed rate loans in Part I. We stretched the repayment term out to 40 and 50 year loans in Part II, and then looked at shorter term intermediate arms—the 3/1, 5/1 and 7/1–-in Part III. In Part IV, we looked at interest-only loans that eliminate the principal portion of payments entirely.
Now,let’s pull the cover off the Pay Option ARM and see what lies beneath. Is this controversial creation a useful tool or a dangerous weapon? Will it solve a unique … (0 comments)
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sacramento real estate: New-Home Cancellations Distort Housing Market - 01/09/07 02:47 PM
This just out from Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com. I said the same thing in my post of November 30th October New Home Sales. Inventory levels are distorted by the HUD and the Census Bureau’s methodology, overstating the decline in housing inventory. The real estate hangover ain’t over yet folks
New-Home Cancellations Distort Housing Market Cancellations of new home sales are distorting the housing market, making it appear that things are better than they are, says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. If a contract to buy a home is signed in November, then cancelled in December, the Census Bureau … (2 comments)
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sacramento real estate: Sacramento Home Sales Pick Up in December - 01/05/07 02:48 PM
It’s just a gut feeling. You may not see it yet in the numbers, but industry partners agree. Real estate activity in the Sacramento region is picking up, and at the most curious time.
Normally, sales are slow through the holidays. We expect that. And the weather often discourages serious home buying reconnaissance. This past October, after twelve difficult months spent coming to terms with the new reality, the market seemed to sag under its own weight. It was so quiet in fact, that I was predicting a “nuclear winter” for Sacramento real estate.
So I was the most surprised guy in town … (0 comments)
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Marc Brinitzer
Sacramento,
CA
More about me…
Big Valley Mortgage
Office Phone: (916) 791-3760 x 340
Cell Phone: (916) 761-3760
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