Fremont Real Estate Blog

FHA Delinquencies Fall for Fifth Consecutive Month The strides made by the Federal Housing Administration in lowering delinquency numbers are turning into a long-distance marathon run. The federal mortgage insurer's delinquency rate dropped again in June, marking the fifth straight month of declines. According to FHA's latest operations report, as of June 30, 532,757 of the mortgages it guarantees had spent at least 90 days in a delinquent status, which equates to a seriously delinquent rate of 8.3 percent. That's down from 8.4 percent in May, and 9.4 percent during the first month of this year. -sunil SUNIL SETHI REAL ESTATE Sunil Sethi / Broker, President, REALTOR, MBA / SUNIL SETHI REAL ESTATE 38750 Paseo Padre Pwky Suite B3 / Fremont, CA 94536 www.sunilsethi.com CA DRE#: 01173766

Fannie Mae is implementing a new rule on unacceptable properties. A property foreclosed upon is ineligible for Fannie Mae Financing until the redemption period is over. Fortunately, most foreclosures in California are non-judical and therefore have no redemption period. Click here for more on California's Redemption period . TBWS alert where I learned about this Watch Video

Want to know if the condo you are considering is already FHA approved. research it here: https://entp.hud.gov/idapp/html/condo1.cfm

My Wells Fargo rep just passed this to me. MBA Hails Extension of Loan Limits WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 29, 2009) - The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today applauded passage of legislation that will maintain the existing loan limits for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) through December 31, 2010. An extension of the current loan limits (which had been due to expire December 31, 2009) was included in the continuing resolution (H.R. 2996) that passed the House and Senate today. MBA's Chairman, Robert E. Story, Jr., issued the following statement. "Given the lack of a private secondary mortgage market, FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are pretty much the only game in town. Extending the current loan limits through 2010 will allow more loans to qualify for these important programs and will help keep mortgage credit more accessible and affordable for qualified borrowers. "As we try to maintain the momentum of the housing recovery, pro...

C.A.R. just gave us notification that next year’s loan limits will be announced shortly. Currently conforming loans are at $417,000 and Jumbo at $729,750. However Jumbo loans could drop to $625,500. If they did you could expect pricing pressure on homes preiced greater than $781,875 since buyer’s would need to put more cash down than 20% to meet the PMI exemption. -sunil SMA REALTY Sunil Sethi / Associate Broker, REALTOR, MBA, CPA / SMA Realty 38350 Fremont Blvd. #202 / Fremont, CA 94536 Office 510 793 8600 / Mobile 510 388 2436 / Fax 510 431 9046 My Bio: http://sunilsethi.com/about_me.htm Personal: http://www.sunilsethi.com My blog: http://fremontrealestate.blogspot.com/ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/fremontrealtor CA DRE#: 01173766

I was reading John Occhui's post The Next Wave of Bad Loans - Option Arms This is not new news; this is a rehash of what has been said about Option ARMS since the beginning. My tag line that I print on my business card and had on my website during the go-go years was, "Friends Don't Let Friends Buy Options ARMS." I once had a booth at the Fremont Art and Wine Festival, with a big poster with my tag-line, and all the mortgage brokers that passed by laughed because they understood what it meant, but they'd loved the money they were making off option ARMs. With the exception of the little old blind ladies, there is no sympathy here for borrowers, you were focused on your cash-out and paid no heed to the consequences. If you take a loan with a variable element, you have to be prepared to deal with the variable when it happens. At an open house last week, a mortgage broker came by all excited because he now was offering an FHA with only a 0.5% down payment. I asked him...

As you know, this is tough selling environment, and as such, your listing agent really needs to know how to know their buyer profile, what they're looking for, how to get them to notice your property, and how to excite them to buy. If you do that well you'll get offers on that property within the first 2 weeks if not sooner, however, before you accept that buyer's contract, and label the property pending, you want to have done your home work on the buyer's qualification. Given that most deals fall apart because the borrower couldn't obtain financing, your listing agent should know how to judge a borrower's financing approval. If you listing agent isn't able to do this, you could be wasting time with buyer's who have little or no chance of closing the transaction. It's not enough to simply rely on a pre -approval/ pre -qualification letter. You have to talk to their loan officer, and confirm what they've done, what's left and ask to review the...

California Association of Realtors, sent me this brief on President Obama’s plan to help solve the mortgage crisis. Wednesday, February 18, 2009 Brought to you by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Feb. 18, 2009 Dear C.A.R. Member, Earlier today, President Obama unveiled the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan, which will offer assistance to as many as 9 million homeowners, while attempting to prevent the destructive impact of foreclosures on families and communities. The plan contains three main components, and only applies to primary residences. The loans referenced in the plan cannot exceed Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae conforming loan limits. I’ve outlined the plan in greater detail below. The first component is directed toward homeowners suffering from falling housing prices who still have equity in their homes, but no longer have the 20 percent equity needed to refinance. Under the plan, homeowners who have conforming loans owned or guaranteed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae w...

It used to be that the difference between a no-cost and cost refinance was about a .25% however today the difference can be as high as 1%. So consider both options in deciding which way to go. The math basically involves determining how long it’ll take to recover your upfront costs. If it’s less than 2-3 yrs, and you plan to stay in the home for at least 5+ yr, than consider paying the costs.

There are so many programs being announced by the government, HUD’s housing counselor’s are supposed to be a resource for those in need of guidance. I don’t have any feedback from anyone having talked to one, but if you are having problems paying your mortgage, I would give them a call to see what they say. Good luck. This info was passed to me by CAR: Are you looking to work with a U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-approved counselor. For a list of HUD-approved counselors in California, visit the HUD Web site at http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/hcc/hcs.cfm?webListAction=search&searchstate=CA . Sunil Sethi Fremont Real Estate Realtor

we've had the new conforming jumbo since about April 2008, and lot of you have been asking to consolidate your existing 1st and 2nd's into this product which until 12/31/07 has a max limit of $729,750. Unfortunately, if your 2nd is greater than $100k, your out of luck since the guidelines don't allow more than a $100k consolidation (cash-0ut). For example if you had a: 1st loan of $350K 2nd loan of $80K 3rd loan of $100K Total debt of $530k it would be nice to get one new 30 yr fixed for $530k, unfortunately the way to get their involves multiple refinances. 1st you'd refinance to $417,000 on the 1st and choose to subordinate the existing 3rd for $100k. Since the current 1st and 2nd = $430k you would need to come up with $13K to close. All of this assume your FICO and LTV are within the lender's guidelines (think FICO 720 min and LTV So now after you complete the 1st finance you move on to the 2nd one. This time you get a new loan for $517,000 (remember we're ca...

Every week some new bank rep will come to my office telling me about their bank, and their products. Most of these folks are usually pitching sub-prime products (how low a FICO score they can qualify for) or Option ARMs (how many points I can make originating them). In the end I usually give them my business card and ask them to read my tag line on back of the card -"Friends Don't Let Friends buy Option ARMs ". Well, a couple of months back, a rep came in talking about a new product called a Hybrid ARM. On the surface a H ybrid ARM sounds great - (the marketing guys, who came up with the name, probably thought they could ride-share on the euphoria over Hybrid cars). Well in this case what you're buying is an Option ARM with a fixed rate. The argument these reps always gave me about Option ARMS, was that you get four options- 1. the option to pay the low monthly payment calculated using start rate of 1%-1-1.75% 2. the option to pay interest only 3. the option ...