Pictured above Teresa Goddard of Tucson, AZ shares her mortgage experience.
“Working with Tyler Ford of Sunstreet Mortgage was a wonderful experience!” Teresa Goddard
Listen in to the audio testimonial below.
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Currently browsing July 2008 monthly archives.
Tucson Bank owned properties may NOT be a great deal unless you’re ready!
Bank owned properties are all the buzz these days as would-be home buyers line up for the deal of the century. That is, after all, the good side of today’s real estate market – someone else’s loss can be your gain. Real Estate agents are bombarded with “how to get rich selling foreclosured properties” but there are down sides to this market. Being armed with good information will help you weed out the dogs.
First, buying a property from a Bank is not the same as buying from a person. It takes longer, requires more paperwork and while the Bank wants to sell the house the people handling the process probably have a large cache of inventory to deal with and yours is only one in their stack. Besides, they are what I like to call “box checkers” – follow rules, don’t make decisions, are paid by the hour, get sick days, and take vacations. 8-to-5′ers.
Second, the people that used to own the property probably did NOT take care of the property (not hard to imagine since they couldn’t make the payments). Most Bank owned properties have damaged windows, flooring, doors and/or walls, missing appliances and are generally not habitable. Since the home is collateral for your loan, the property must meet minimum condition standards and the Bank is not likely to work with you.
Occasionally, if you’re on top of new listings and ready to go, you can snag a real cherry of a home under market value in good (or excellent condition). The BEST things you can do to be ready:
1. Get full loan pre-approval through Todd Abelson and Tyler Ford at Sunstreet Mortgage so your offer stands out as saying “hey, we have our funds and are ready to close!”
2. Work with a Realtor® that can help you weed out the dogs and be ready to submit an offer with one visit to tie the property up. Give us a call and we can refer you to a Realtor that is an expert in deal with Bank Owned properties.
3. Use your “due diligence” period to make your final decision.
Be ready – work with pros – decide quickly – snag a deal!
The Inflation Calculator Checks Whether Your Income Is Keeping Pace With The “Cost of Life”
The phrase “Consumer Price Index” can be intimidating and unclear to Americans. It’s an economic term, after all, and not a part of everyday American language.
It even has its own abbreviation to add to the confusion — CPI.
So, when a layperson hears that “CPI is rising”, it’s not always clear what it means. The tendency, therefore, is to ignore the news.
This is one reason CPI is commonly substituted with the more down-home expression of ”Cost of Living”.
In contrast to the term “CPI”, the phrase “Cost of Living” is a lot more clear. When people hear that the Cost of Living is rising, instinctively, they get it. And now they can see how it works in numbers, courtesy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Inflation Calculator at the government Web site helps a person compare household income to the changing Cost of Living between any two years since 1913. For example, a U.S. household earning $48,201 in 2007 would have to increase that income to $50,868 just to keep up with “life”.
CPI touched a 17-year high in June, jumping 5.000 percent year-over-year. Without a 5.000 percent increase an income, a household falls behind.
Buying or selling a home and need a mortgage give Tyler Ford or Todd Ableson of Sunstreet Mortgage a call.
Mandatory FHA Loan Fees Increase For Some, Fall For Others
Brought to you by Tyler Ford and Todd Abelson of Sunstreet Mortgage – Tucson leading home mortgage team.
For the first time in its history, the FHA changed its funding fees and mortgage insurance structure this week. FHA-insured home loans are now subject to a risk-based pricing adjustment, as shown by the table above.
Because of risk-based pricing, FHA home loans are now more expensive for borrowers with less-than-ideal credit profiles, and less expensive borrowers with perfect ones.
Prior to the changes, most FHA borrowers paid an up-front fee of 1.500 percent, plus on-going annual mortgage insurance payments equal to one-half-percent on the amount borrowed.
FHA-insured mortgages have grown in popularity this year because, while the guidelines of other mortgage products have tightened, FHA program guidelines have remained loose. FHA allows 3 percent downpayments on purchases, for example, and allows “cash out” refinances to 95 percent.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do not.
(Image courtesy: FHA.gov)
Looking Back And Looking Ahead : July 21, 2008
Mortgage rates soared last week as mortgage markets experienced a 4-day freefall.
By the end of the trading week, conforming mortgage rates had jumped by as much as 0.500 percent.
The spike in rates can’t be pinned on any one factor, but 3 contributing factors include:
- The lingering impact of high energy prices on inflation
- The ongoing weakness of the U.S. dollar
- A rally in the financial sector, marking a return to risk-taking
Inflation and a weak dollar both devalue mortgage repayments, a well-chronicled relationship on this Web site. In short, when mortgage bond investors find that their repayments are worth less, they demand a higher return. This causes mortgage rates to rise.
But, it wasn’t inflation or the dollar that caused the majority of the damage to mortgage rates last week — it was the rally in the financial sector.
Rates had edged higher Tuesday on the inflation data but it wasn’t until Wednesday’s morning stronger-than-expected announcement from banking leader Well Fargo that mortgage rates really started to spike.
In its quarterly report, Wells Fargo said that its balance sheet was strong and that it planned to increase shareholder dividends. The rosy announcement sparked a strong demand for all things financial and — by day’s end — the sector scored a 12.3 percent gain on Wall Street.
It was the largest one-day gain in financial stocks ever.
Then, following Wednesday’s rally, financials picked up additional momentum and ended up closing out the week higher by 21 percent.
Unfortunately for mortgage rate shoppers, a large chunk of the money that fueled the rally came out from the mortgage bond market.
As investors looked for cash to buy financial stocks, many chose to sell mortgage bond holdings, creating excess supply. More supply leads prices lower and, in the mortgage world, when prices fall, rates go up.
Because mortgage bond prices fell a lot last week, mortgage rates rose by a lot.
This week, expect momentum to be The Big Story. There is little data beyond Thursday and Friday’s Existing Home Sales and New Home Sales, respectively, and Friday’s Consumer Sentiment Index. And only a few members of the Fed will be speaking in public.
The one bright spot last week was falling oil prices.
After an 11 percent decline, Americans are waking up this morning to lower gas prices. This is anti-inflationary and could help tug mortgage rates lower.
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