Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) is designed as an incentive to borrowers and lenders for one main purpose – to avoid foreclosure. Taking effect this April, HAFA lasts until the end of the year and provides dollars in funding for homeowners who have an unpaid principal balance no more than $729,750 or monthly mortgage payments [...]
When the economic collapse hit, did you feel as if the sturdy boat you were in suddenly capsized? If so, you are experiencing negative equity. In the real estate market, it is more commonly referred to as being upside down on your mortgage. And the negative equity waters are still rising. Homeowners with upside down [...]
As millions of Americans are being faced with foreclosure, short sales have become a quick way avoid this disastrous financial tumble. So if you find yourself in a mortgage pinch with no where left to turn with the house, how do you navigate a short sale? Obviously, you have are considering a short sale because [...]
There’s a new buzz word hovering over our real estate bubble: Greenurbia. A little bit eco-friendly, a little bit urban, and you’ve got a new term that explains what the house-dwelling future of tomorrow is going to look and feel like. The future of the economy – the year 2050 to be exact – will [...]
The 2011 U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget was recently revealed calling for a 5% decrease in spending. The Los Angeles Times was one of the first papers to break the story about President Obama’s “hard freeze” on discretionary housing spending. Their series of recent government spending articles are found here. HUD claims the [...]
Despite modest gains in the real estate market, reports show mortgage rates are set to rise again. This comes with a level of trepidation as one in seven households with mortgages was either in foreclosure or delinquent on payments last fall, which is the most recent data available about the housing crisis from the Mortgage [...]
This New York Times article shows an increase in buyer reluctance to take on a second mortgage. As long as the trend shows consumers becoming more fiscally responsible or conservative, refraining from commonplace risks from the past like Helcos, also known as tapping into lines of home equity, will continue. The article found a peak [...]
Would a reverse mortgage work for you? Like any other financial dilemma, something as serious as deciding to cash in on house equity and putting a bank in the position to own your home requires the weighing in of many sides. In a reverse mortgage, if you own a home and are 62 or older, [...]
The average home being built has shrunk down 7% in square footage for first time since like 1960, according to this USA Today article. The story interviewed Sarah Susanka, author of the best-selling 1998 book The Not So Big House. Susanka offers several tips when remodeling small, such as setting building priorities and well-designed storage [...]
Setting your New Year sites on owning property or a home for the first time? Assuming you’ve got clean credit, enough of a down payment and minor real estate savvy, you’re now ready to find out just how tight-fisted banks are about loans or how a market mixed with short sales and foreclosures can work [...]