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Short Sale/Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure Waiting Period Changes

SUN IS SHINNING THROUGH THE CLOUDY DAYS AGAIN!  YOU CAN BE A HOMEOWNER AGAIN AFTER FORECLOSURE OR SHORT SALE 

Fannie Mae has recently announced the waiting period requirements for borrowers who have had a previous deed-in-lieu of foreclosure or pre-foreclosure sale are being updated to now require a four-year waiting period; though a two-year waiting period will be permitted if the event was due to extenuating circumstances and the loan complies with all requirements specific to a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure or a pre-foreclosure sale due to extenuating circumstances, as specified in the Fannie Mae Selling Guide. The loan-to-value restrictions previously tied to different waiting period time-frames are also being removed. 

Short Sale/Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure

(Changes for applications taken on August 16, 2014 or later)

Waiting Periods Under
the Old Guideline
(On or before 8-15-2014)

Waiting Periods Under
the New Guideline
(On or after 8-16-2014)

7 years if the borrower puts <10% down
Recovery period must have elapsed prior to the date of the application.

4 years from the date the deed to the property was transferred back to the servicer. No LTV/CLTV limitations.

4 years if the borrower puts 10% down
Recovery period must have elapsed prior to the date of the application.

2 years if the borrower puts 20% down
Recovery period must have elapsed prior to the date of the application.

Zillow buys Trulia for $3.5 billion

The two biggest names in online house hunting -- Zillow and Trulia - are joining forces in a stock deal valued at $3.5 billion.

Trulia shares jumped 12% on the news that it's selling to Zillow.

Zillow will continue to operate two separate websites, where consumers can search listings of homes for sale. Zillow and Trulia together attract more than 130 million visitors a month.

Both companies post detailed listings of homes for sale, and charge agents to post their names alongside their listings. Some agent teams spend $20,000 a month with Zillow, Trulia, or both.

Still the websites' revenue only add up to about 4% of the $12 billion the real estate industry spends on marketing via newspaper and television ads, billboards, direct mail and the like. Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff sees an opportunity to capture more of those marketing dollars via mobile.

"Mobile is becoming the medium of choice for home shopping," said Rascoff.

Trulia's current CEO Pete Flint will continue to head Trulia's operations and report to Rascoff.

The two real estate portals have transformed the housing market over the past decade by making information that was once only available through realtors easily accessible to consumers. The sites have made the home buying process much more transparent and stripped real estate brokers of their traditional role of gatekeepers of information.

Zillow, for instance, has its own home value algorithm called Zestimates. Trulia offers extensive rankings on crime, public transit and schools.

The ultimate fear: Zillow and Trulia could make brokers irrelevant.

The new Zillow will still have plenty of competition from other sites such as Realtor.com, Homes.com as well as from Coldwell Banker, Re/Max, Century 21 and other real estate brokers.

But it will give the combined company the leverage to charge realtors more, said Steve Murray, editor at Real Trends a real estate communications and consulting company.

http://www.zillow.com/blog/zillow-trulia-announcement-156309/

THE HOUSING MARKET IS IMPROVING, BUT THERE STILL AREN'T ENOUGH AFFORDABLE HOMES TO GO!

The Housing Market Is Improving, but There Still Aren't Enough Affordable Homes to Go here's good news and some not so good news on the U.S. housing front.

Let's start with the good. According to the latest update to Zillow's U.S. Home Value Index, out Monday, the average nationwide home value as of June 2014 is $174,200. That's a peak that hasn't been seen since March 2005.

We're still below pre-recession levels, but it's an improvement by any measure: 

Zillow.com

Housing inventory has also been ticking up. As the report's authors note, "the number of homes listed for sale on Zillow was up 17.7 percent annually in June on a seasonally adjusted basis, the fourth straight month in which inventory has increased. Inventory rose on an annual basis in 81 percent of metros covered by Zillow."

This higher inventory indicates housing prices may start to weaken, which could also be exacerbated by forecasts of rising mortgage rates. 

Zillow.com

Housing prices remain terribly uneven across U.S. metro areas. Single-family homes in San Francisco, for example, averaged $692,100 in June, more than four times the national average. In Los Angeles, they averaged $539,800, more than three times the national going rate. In New York and Washington, D.C., housing prices were at least double the national average. Conversely, housing values hovered around $113,000 in Detroit, even when including that city's more affluent suburbs. Prices were also below the national average in the faster growing Sunbelt metros of Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Tucson.  

Which brings us to the not so good news. According to Zillow, there is not enough affordable housing inventory to go around in most of the country's large metro areas. Homeownership may in fact be slipping out of reach—not just for lower income Americans, but working and middle class people as well. 

The graph below, drawn from the report, paints the picture. Notice how tight and top-heavy available housing stock looks to be in many metros. The graph is broken down by color—the most expensive housing stock is in orange, the middle value tier is in green, and the least expensive housing is in blue. 

Zillow.com

In Dallas and Denver, only about 15 percent of homes available for purchase are in the least expensive tier. In Atlanta and Sacramento, the affordable home market is less tight, but still notably scarce, in the low 20s. In Charlotte, Las Vegas, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and D.C. (and other metro regions), less expensive homes make up around 25 percent of the market. There are just three metros—San Jose, San Francisco, and Seattle—where the least expensive tier of housing makes up a third or more of inventory, and all of these are extremely expensive markets. 

As Zillow's researchers note, this tightness of supply will continue to have an impact "on first-time home buyers, as well as anyone trying to buy a low-end home."

High prices in some markets combined with the dearth of affordable homes for sale in others continues to put pressure on rents. The Zillow Rent Index, which covers 862 cities, shows that national rents are up 2.5 percent year-over-year. And a number of markets saw very high increases in rent, including San Jose (13.5 percent), San Francisco (11.0 percent), Denver (7.9 percent) and Austin (7.6 percent).

It's high time to rethink America's housing policy, which has long incentivized homeownership over renting. While this made sense for the old industrial economy—when building homes in the suburbs helped create demand for factories producing everything from cars to TVs to washing machines—it makes much less sense for the knowledge economy, which is powered by density and clustering.

Indeed, what we're currently going through is not a typical housing cycle, but what I have termed a "great reset." The reset includes increased demand for housing in large, dynamic metros—especially knowledge-based ones—slack demand in older metros and exurban locations, and increased demand for locations at or near the urban core and walkable suburbs serviced by transit.

Most of all, the reset involves a shift from homeownership to renting, especially in highly priced, dynamic markets on the East and West coasts. The rate of homeownership has been falling since the crisis, and in some of the densest and pricier metros, it's already below 60 percent.

This shift from homeownership to rentals can be a good thing. My own research indicates that metros with the highest rates of homeownership (say, in excess of 60 to 80 percent) also have the most sluggish rates of innovation, productivity and economic growth, while metros in the range of 55 to 60 percent homeownership have faster rates of innovation and growth. A balance between renters and homeowners, then, seems to provide the flexibility of housing types needed to support more dynamic economies.

It makes little sense to expect our homeownership rates to rebound to what they were before the housing crisis. We need to accept the fact that the housing system we have today and will have tomorrow will have to be different from the one we had in the past. 

By Richard Florida- from The Atlantic Citylab

Housing market is a 'crapshoot'

The housing market is a "crapshoot" now, according to one of America's leading real estate experts.

Karl "Chip" Case is an economist whose name is synonymous with home prices. He is co-creator of the much watched S&P/Case-Shiller home price indexes with Bob Shiller, who won the Nobel Prize in economics last year.

"You've got much more negative vibrations in the housing surveys about homeownership than we ever had before," Case told CNNMoney. "I think it's because people got hosed. They thought that housing prices will never go down. That's just bull -- you know what."

At age 67, Case still rattles off housing data with the kind of enthusiasm that most people use to recite popular song lyrics. For Case, the key metric to watch is housing starts, a measure of new residential home construction.

The housing starts figures have been "unbelievably regular" for 50 years, oscillating between a million a month (annualized) in not so great times and two million during peak economic times.

"Every time it's gotten below a million in the past, it's come right back," Case says. Every time except the Great Recession.

Housing starts fell below 500,000 for several months in 2009, an unthinkable level. And they have been slow to rebound. They finally eked above the million mark in April, but it's unclear to Case if this is a true turning point.

He calls the real estate market "segmented" these days. It's no longer a guarantee that housing prices will go up across the country. That only happens in some places at some times.The demand side of the equation will also be key. Will millennials actually purchase homes? Will foreign buyers keep coming?

"The Chinese are coming over here with millions and billions of dollars, and they want to spend it on assets that tend to hold their value. And at least the theory is that housing does. But it is far from what it was in 2004," Case notes.

The advice Case gives to first-time homebuyers is familiar to most. Be sure you can afford the house and don't expect a quick profit.

"If you're not buying it for the long haul, don't buy because there's a good chance you'll have to sit through some down cycles. But when it goes, it's very nice," he says.He calls the real estate market "segmented" these days. It's no longer a guarantee that housing prices will go up across the country. That only happens in some places at some times.

Case has studied housing extensively. But he's not just an academic. He's a homeowner too. He still remembers the house he bought in 1976 for $54,000 and sold years later for $240,000. Another home in the Boston area he purchased for about $375,000 is now worth a million.

But even Case doesn't always call housing trends correctly, at least in the short-term. He estimates that another property he owns lost close to half its value in the downturn. For now, he's keeping it.

Arguably his best property move, however, is his permanent parking spot at the Boston Federal Reserve -- which is near Fenway Park. He's had it since the late 1980s and uses it when he goes to watch his beloved Boston Red Sox play. 

By Heather Long  @byHeatherLong July 7, 2014: 1:55 PM

1200 PCH - Ocean View-Huntington Beach

This is a most beautiful two bedroom two bathroom, ocean front penthouse in Huntington Beach- California. Please call Shadi @ 949-510-1955  for more information. This type of property are very rare to come by.

Rossmoor/Los Alamitos Single Story Home

This beautiful home is located in an upscale community called Rossmoor. Homes are rarely available in this community for sale. This is a very unique home for a growing family with many potentials. Rossmoor also in demand for its highly graded Blue Ribbon schools. Please call me at 949-510-1955 for more information. Open house May 24th from 12:30 - 4:30.

South Orange County Luxury Living- Minutes from The Blue Ocean

2 Bedroom one Bath Condo On Pacific Coast Highway- Huntington Beach

3245 San Amadeo # A Laguna Woods - CA. Life Style you always dreamed of .

This is a great buy! You walk into this unit, you want to own it. Corner unit, open and bright and priced to sell. Call me at 949-951-7048 for more information.

Proposition 13! What does it do for us Californians and what we need to do about it?

Proposition 13 has protected California home owners and taxpayers. While our sales and income taxes have increased and currently to be the highest in the nation, property taxes remains low and predictable. Home owner can expect their base property taxes will be 1% of their assessed valuation and will rise at a rate of no more than 2% per year. Before the Proposition 13, the average tax rate increase was 2.67. On top of that homes were revalued frequently. During times of rapid property inflation we experienced the increase of the property taxes nearly to double in some areas. This was hardest on our seniors and those on fixed incomes.  Recently, local elected officials were solicited by a San Francisco based organization called “Evolve” that was drumming up support for an effort to change Prop.13 by reducing or eliminating the protections for commercial properties. This would represent a $6 billion tax increase with money going to local governments throughout the state. This $6 billion tax increase will show itself in higher rents as building owners recoup the taxes from their tenants.  Business owners get hit with higher occupancy costs.  The biggest possible impact will be in the increased unemployment.  Pepperdine University estimates that the so-called split role will result in a loss of 390,000 California Jobs initially and the continued loss of 100.000 jobs each year thereafter.  If the high-tax-lobby can increase the commercial property tax now, they will be back in the future to raise taxes on residential properties. We should all respond with a resounding NO to this San Francisco-based tax grab.

Sourced and written of  OC Realtor magazine article by Mr. Keith Curry Newport Beach Council Member. 

Buyer Tips Video

Got a job at age 70, do I pay into Social Security again?

I'm 70 and have collected Social Security since age 62. Do I pay in again if I return to work? -- Mike Mobley, Sacramento, Calif.

Yes. Even though you're already collecting, you'd have to pay Social Security taxes: 6.2% of your earnings on wages up to a cutoff that will be $117,000 in 2014, says AARP's Jonathan Peterson, author of Social Security for Dummies.

Some good news: Because you are beyond your full retirement age of 66, working won't reduce your benefits. (In years before your full retirement age, benefits would be cut by $1 for every $2 you earn over an exempted amount -- $15,480 in 2014 -- although you'd get that money later as a higher benefit.)

Your new work may boost your future benefits, which are based on your top 35 years of earnings. But any bump is likely to be noticeable only if you haven't already had 35 years of earnings. 

First Published: December 23, 2013: 4:43 PM ET

By Stephanie AuWerter  @CNNMoney December 23, 2013: 4:43 PM ET