Fred's Mortgage Blog

HUD announced Friday that the rules on flipping homes will be changing Feb. 1. This could have a huge effect on the Eugene/Springfield, Lane County Oregon market. This is being done in an effort to stabilize home values and improve conditions in communities where foreclosure activity is high according to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. I see this as being a boon to our are in getting rid of more of the foreclosures that have been plaguing our market. Under current rules, foreclosures that were still owned by the banks that purchased them could be bought with an FHA loan but any that were purchased from the bank had to be owned for 90 days before an offer could be made on them for an FHA loan.

"As a result of the tightened credit market, FHA-insured mortgage financing is often the only means of financing available to potential homebuyers," said Donovan. "FHA has an unprecedented opportunity to fulfill its mission by helping many homebuyers find affordable housing while contributing to neighborhood stabilization." So, as a result of the recent change, the prohibition of FHA insuring a mortgage on a home owed by the seller for less than 90 days will be temporarily lifted on Feb. 1. "This change in policy is temporary and will have very strict conditions and guidelines to assure that predatory practices are not allowed," Donovan said.

Since it often takes less than 90 days for someone to purchase a foreclosure and ready it for resale, FHA buyers were taken out of the buying pool for these properties because the sellers wanted to recoup their capital as soon as possible. Therefore, in many cases were not willing to wait until the 90 day period was expired. Under the new policy, there may be requirements of a second appraisal or proof of improvements, but overall, it will, at least, put FHA buyers on an even footing for some excellent deals out there. "This action will enable our borrowers, especially first-time buyers, to take advantage of this opportunity." said FHA Commissioner David H. Stevens. The waiver will take effect on February 1, 2010 and is effective for one year, unless otherwise extended or withdrawn by the FHA Commissioner.

To protect FHA borrowers against predatory practices of "flipping" where properties are quickly resold at inflated prices to unsuspecting borrowers, this waiver is limited to those sales meeting the following general conditions:

• All transactions must be arms-length, with no identity of interest between the buyer and seller or other parties participating in the sales transaction.
• In cases in which the sales price of the property is 20 percent or more above the seller's acquisition cost, the waiver will only apply if the lender meets specific conditions.
• The waiver is limited to forward mortgages, and does not apply to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) for purchase program.

As always, I am available to help with the transaction. I would assume that offers should not be made on any of these properties until Feb. 1. If I can help with any FHA purchase transaction, contact me at Alpine Mortgage Planning, 541-342-7576/541-221-3455 cell or e-mail me. We are located at 1200 Executive Pkwy., Ste. 100 in Eugene.

On January 1, the new 2010 Good Faith Estimate came into being amid a lot of hoopla and consternations. Now that it is here, many people don’t know exactly what it does and doesn’t do for the consumer and how it will effect and what affect it will have on Realtors®. This is a major change in RESPA (Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act). Because of the changes, I will be holding webinars for Realtors® in my service area (Oregon, Washington and California) with a limit of 25 per day allowed to register. Here is the sign up link for the webinars.

The webinars are free and I will be sending a one hour certificate of attendance for each attendee. The changes in this form are huge and should be considered a must know for any Realtor®. I have held many seminars in the past for Realtors® and consumers on subjects ranging from First Time Homebuyer information, to FHA ins and outs, to blogging for your business. I will also be holding seminars in the near future for potential home buyers. The nice thing about a webinar is that you don’t have to figure in the travel time from your busy day. Each one will be held at your desk.

Be sure and get registered, I expect these slots to fill fast and will be strictly first come first served. If you have any other real estate mortgage questions, don’t hesitate to contact the Eugene Loan Guy, 541-342-7576/541-221-3455 cell, 1200 Executive Pkwy., Ste. 100, Eugene OR, or e-mail me.

Interestingly, while doing some web surfing trying to find out who my competition is in the blog-o-sphere, I wasn't entirely pleased with who was out there. I wanted to know who else was writing about the place I call home and who was writing about lending, mortgages and loans. It is interesting what I found. Like this site, for example. Neighborhood Expert Online is a place where you can come and find someone that is actually in your Neighborhood to help you with whatever you need. Granted, the availability is kind of limited right now, but it is a fairly new site and as such, will take some time for the various neighborhoods to be represented in the various fields. Right now, I want to focus on the Eugene/Springfield Oregon Neighborhood.

Who are these guys?

As an veteran searcher, I use Google a lot to search to see who is writing what about my area and my field. By doing that, I found the this blog called roost. It is an interesting blog and has some good information about Eugene but I have no idea who writes it or where they are or if they really know about the Eugene/Springfield Market. There is no information on the home page about who the blog is done by. On my blog sites, I am very firm about who and where I am.

Now you know who this is

A different site talks about 48 hours in Eugene. Now, Nancy D. Brown is the writer of this and she is obviously a good travel writer. She also has her name and contact information on her website. I think she is a pretty good writer too and appears to really like traveling.

Excellent Local Information

Then there is this article about planting more trees in Eugene. This is obviously by and about Eugene. Again, a nice piece that has the right local information attached. This is what I like to see when I am looking for local information. Take a look at this local information that I posted on my website. Again, plenty of acknowledgement as to who and where I am on the site.

Local Expertise

Now, how about my field of expertise? When I posted about First Time Homebuyers, you know who I am and how to get in touch with me. It isn’t a website designed to gather names so that they can be sold. That is so much different that this site, that says it is information for Oregon, but is actually another of the “contact” gather sites. Fill out the form and someone will contact you. that someone has probably purchased your name and will probably be one of several that will call, none of them necessarily knowing anything about the local area.

I believe you should chose to work with someone local to your area that knows the area. Otherwise you are taking your chances with one of the “no name” contact gather sites. Personally, I prefer to work with people that know what they are doing and know my area.

For those that think loan officers and bankers are just hard hearted meanies that just want your money, take a look at this video about a bank loan officer in Spokane Washington helping a whole family find safety in an unsafe world.

Eugene Loan Guy, my outside blog, has a new heading and I have decided to make all of my outside blogs, Eugene Loan Guy,  FHA Loans Oregon and No Money Down OR/WA/CA, similar in appearance with the same heading. For those of you familiar with Oregon, you might recognize the picture in the heading below as being the Three Sisters, located between Bend and Eugene.

I think that having this new heading that is so specific to my area is a great addition to my web presence. I have to thank my webmaster(s), Danny Thornton and Rich Dansereau of RandDArt, took this wonderful picture and transformed it into the heading. I will continue to use the fantastic heading that Marti designed for me here on A/R, but I wanted to make sure that my branding was consistent.

I will eventually use the same blog heading for my posting on Positive Real Estate Professionals. That will give me brand recognition wherever I am posting. I have to also comment on the great things that Danny did with my blogs as far as blog rating. The changes and adjustments for SEO and blog rating has really made a huge difference in the number of visits and business coming from my websites.

It is amazing what can happen when you know the details that bring more searches to you blogsite. Since Eugene Loan Guy has only be in existence for about six months and the other two for just over 3 months, Alexa ratings of under a million are unheard of and mine was just over 200,000 last month for Eugene Loan Guy. Admittedly, it is worse this month (345,969), but that has to do with not making my consistent postings. Please note, Alexa ratings are better low than high.

The biggest problem that most first time home buyers have is coming up with the down payment. I have posted several times in the past various ways to get the down payment together, but it has still been out of the reach of some people. Now, that could change. The First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit is going to be available for the down payment on FHA loans in the near future, according the the Secretary of HUD.

Shaun Donovan, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said that the Federal Housing Administration is going to permit its lenders to allow homeowners to use the $8,000 tax credit as a down payment. According to Secretary Donovan, the FHA's approved lenders will be permitted to “monetize” the tax credit through short-term bridge loans. For the first time, eligible home buyers will be able to access the funds immediately at the closing table.

Needless to say, there are no procedures in place at this moment to take care of the “bridge” loan, but this should be done in a fairly short fashion since HUD wants this to be the new way of doing things. My suggestion is that those that qualify for the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit on an FHA loan start looking for a home now. The procedures should be in effect by the time the purchase is ready to close…..at least I hope that is the case. This should be a boon to the Real Estate purchase market and start using up some of the excess inventory. That may also mean rising home prices in a short period of time.

This is a second in a two part series by George. I think it is a very good read and something that covers a lot of details about the new refinance plan for those that are underwater on their current mortgage.

I think the George may have hit this program right on the nose. I hope that it helps people but the chances are not as good as the government may lead many to believe. The big thing is, and always has been, participation of the servicers.

Come by the site and see my latest pictures. I think you will enjoy what Danny and Rich have done.