Buyers Willing To Offer Full Price

Even in today's challenging market, buyers will pay list price and more if they perceive they're getting value for their money.

More than half of the stick built home sales on less the one acre in Bend this month have sold for at least 95% of their asking prices. In fact, 25% sold at or above list price! (Stick built houses on less than an acre account for well over 80% of all residential sales.)

The properties sold run the gamut, from typical owner occupied houses to rentals, short sales and bank owned foreclosures. So contrary to popular opinion, home sellers do not need to price in a "cushion" to negotiate with when marketing their houses. Often just making a house presentable and accessible and pricing it correctly is all that is needed to attract an acceptable offer.

If you're considering selling, contact me to find out what your property is worth, with no obligation of course.

More Lenders Coming To Grips With Realty Reality

As foreclosures continue to mount nationwide and with prices still declining, lenders are now more willing than ever to work with struggling homeowners to help keep them in their homes.

Hope Now, a consortium of loan servicers, lenders and investors reportedly restructured 192,034 loans in July alone. Of these, 80,000 or 42% involved permanently modifying the loan terms to make them more affordable. A year ago, only 24% of the workouts arranged included permanent modifications. The remaining 112,034 workouts involved new repayment plans. The coalition reports helping more than 2 million borrowers during the last 13 months.

Many lenders, servicers and investors were initially reluctant to restructure the original loan terms. But as it's become more obvious that the problem is widespread and not likely to turnaround anytime soon, they are now cooperating more with borrowers.

Surprisingly, the majority of struggling borrowers do not contact their lenders to try and arrange a solution. According to Faith Schwarz, the executive director of Hope Now, of 1.6 million letters sent out by the coalition since November 1 2007 to borrowers 60 days past due, 80% of borrowers had not contacted their lenders a month after receiving the letter.

If you or someone you know is struggling with making your mortgage payment, please contact your lender. Communication is key. And the sooner the better.

If you'd like to discuss your situation with me in strict confidence and without obligation, please call.

The Hope Now alliance can be reached at http://www.hopenow.com/

FHA Loans Gain Status In Today's Market

Lack of having the required down payment is the second most common reason potential buyers give as to why they don’t or can’t buy a house (just behind high home prices).

When times were good and money was cheap, the ability to fog a mirror was about all it took to get a home loan; lack of a down payment was rarely an issue and FHA-type loans were seldom used. But now most traditional lenders are demanding 5% or more down.

FHA however still guarantees loans with just 3% down. The difference between 5% down and 3% down may not sound like much, but it’s $6000 on a loan of $300,000. In fact, with the allowable FHA limit in Deschutes County now at $447,500, a buyer can get in to a house with a down payment of nearly $9000 less than a traditional lender would require.

If not having enough for a down payment is one reason why you've been holding off from buying a house, call me to find out more about FHA and other low down payment options. You might be closer to making your dream of being a home owner come true than you think!

Cost Of Getting A Home Loan Increases

Fannie Mae reported today a loss of $2.3 billion for the 2nd quarter. Earlier this week, Freddie Mac announced that it lost $821 million in the same period. As a result, both have said they will be making changes that will make mortgage loans harder and more expensive to get.

In effort to shore up their books, Fannie and Freddie will impose higher fees on lenders who sell loans to them. In turn, these lenders will pass their increased costs through to borrowers, which will result in higher interest rates for home loans.

In addition, Fannie will stop buying Alt-A loans by the end of the year. Alt-A loans are often used by borrowers who can't document their incomes, such as self-employed individuals. In the recent past, these people were able to obtain loans based primarily on their credit scores, often with little or no money down. In the wake of the housing market bust and the credit crisis, this option has been pretty much taken off the table.