What’s the difference between FHA and Conventional home loans?

May 10, 2010

The recent housing market has caused many a home seller and home buyer great consternation during the past few years, with the most land-mine laden aspect of the process being getting a new home loan.  For the seller of real estate, nervous anticipation awaits the news of their buyer procuring a loan and for the [...]

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5 Blunders To Avoid When Selling Your Home

April 24, 2010

Thinking of selling your house?  Almost every homeowner at some timeduring their ownership contemplates making a change in their livingsituation.   The decision can be perplexing, emotional and fraught with hesitation. 
 But once the determination is made, then your next move is to treat the resolution with serious decision making skills.  Here’s a helpful hint in the [...]

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New Home Sales Blow Past Analyst Expectations

April 23, 2010

Today the Commerce Department announced that New Home Sales rose in March to an adjusted annual sales pace of 411,000 and blew past Economist expectations of a 330,000 estimated sales pace. The February figures were also adjust upward to 324,000.
The new home sales report reflects signed contracts, not closed escrows. This gives economists a good [...]

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The Mystery of the FICO Calculation

April 22, 2010

This is the million dollar question. We do know that in the world of lending, FICO is king. The inner workings of the FICO system is closely guarded, in a recent article from Yahoo Finance, the general components of the FICO were discussed.
First is the payment history which amounts to 35% of the total credit [...]

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Jose Alkon and Chris Colaw join forces!

April 20, 2010

It gives me great pleasure to let everyone know that I have recently joined forces with a great friend, colleague, and tremendous Real Estate Broker. Chris Colaw and I go back to the late 1980’s when I started my Real Estate career. Chris has been in the business since the mid 80’s and has represented an array [...]

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Interest Rates Are Going Up! Follow up to earlier article

April 2, 2010

To follow up and keep you updated on my post regarding interest rates, as predicted, today rates went higher after the Labor Department said that for only the third month since the recession started, employers added jobs.
This news, combined with the Fed’s program to stop buying Mortgage Backed Securities will put pressure on the Treasury [...]

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Are Mortgage Rates Going Up?

March 30, 2010

Tomorrow will mark the end of the Federal Reserve ’s program to buy mortgage backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I have written several articles in my blog about the approaching deadline and the effects that it will have in the current mortgage rates. Since the bubble burst, the Fed has been buying [...]

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California Governor Approves Extension to State First Time Home Buyer Credit!

March 25, 2010

Today Governor Schuwarzenegger approved legislature (AB 183) to provide $200,000 million dollars for home buyer tax credits. The bill is split in half between new homes and re-sales. Each will be getting 100 million. There are several qualifying guidelines. The basic guidelines are:
Buyers who close escrow on qualified principal residences between May 1, 2010 and [...]

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HUD taking action to help speed resale of properties to new buyers

January 18, 2010

Today HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a temporary HUD policy change to aid on the stabilization and improvement of conditions where foreclosure activity is high. In the past, HUD’s policy stated that in order for the FHA to provide mortgage insurance on a loan, the seller of the property must have owned it for more [...]

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Mortgage Rates Rise for the fourth week in a row

December 31, 2009

After hitting an all time low,mortgage rates have been rising for the past four weeks in a row. If you all recall my post a couple of weeks ago, where I re-etirated that the rates would most likely go up the first quarter of the year, due to the fact that the Federal Reserve has [...]

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