Exactly What Is The $8,000 First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit?

* The tax credit is for first-time home buyers only. For the tax credit program, the IRS defines a first-time home buyer as someone who has not owned a principal residence during the three-year period prior to the purchase.
* The tax credit does not have to [...]

Read Full Post »

Good News So Far This Week

Read Full Post »

Signs of Stability

We are finally seeing multiple signs of bottoming out at the same time (whew, it took long enough!).
In addition to the news that February existing home sales were up over 5% and that the median price actually rose 1.7%, today we have the following good news:
New Home Sales – which have been deader than [...]

Read Full Post »

How Much Should I Budget For My Mortgage Payment?

As the lending environment has irrevocably changed in the last year, many are asking us how much should I budget for my mortgage on a monthly basis?
We just found a great article on it here.

Read Full Post »

We Told You So….

We’ve been calling the ‘near bottom’ of the market since last December and it is finally showing up in the market statistics. We still don’t think the rallies we are seeing on the Street are justified but we are seeing solid signs of recovery in our SoCal real estate market.
Decent REO listings are receiving multiple [...]

Read Full Post »

California Market Analysis

As the global economic woes continue, there are encouraging signs that the real estate market in California is on the rebound. The closed sales for January 2009 were up 84.9% from January 2008. Even more telling was the number of sales in January: 624,940. This is the most since October 2005. Approximately 85% of the [...]

Read Full Post »

February Existing Homes Sales Unexpectedly Jump 5.1%

Sales of existing homes rose from January to February in an unexpected boost for the slumping U.S housing market as buyers took advantage of deep discounts on foreclosures.
The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes grew 5.1 percent to an annual rate of 4.72 million last month, from 4.49 million units [...]

Read Full Post »

Fed Launches The New “Making Home Affordable” Website

The new “Making Home Affordable” website was launched by the government and is available here.
It allows you to see if you qualify for refinancing your mortgage or getting a loan modification. Be forewarned, most people in California who bought or refinanced their homes in 2005, 2006 and 2007 do not have Fannie or Freddie [...]

Read Full Post »

CALIFORNIA HOMEOWNERS ARE BEING TARGETED BY CON ARTISTS OFFERING FORECLOSURE ASSISTANCE

San Francisco – The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today warned that California homeowners are increasingly becoming the target of “scammers” and con artists trying to loot families of their bank accounts with phony promises to avoid foreclosure. HUD officials are warning homeowners seeking assistance to contact a local HUD-approved housing counseling [...]

Read Full Post »

Here Comes The Fed-inator!

“Rambo Fed”, “Fed Throws The Hammer Down” and “Bernanke Puts A Ceiling On Treasury Yields” were among the headlines greeting me at 5:30 this morning.
While there are a lot of questions about the moves being made by the current Administration and Treasury, I have to give my vote of confidence to Ben S. Bernanke. Here [...]

Read Full Post »