First Time Buyers

Condo financing near-impossible to get

Buyer Help

A while back, I wrote a piece called Condo Re-Financing: Tricky to Impossible. Nowadays, that lending dilemma has grown — it’s next to impossible to get a new mortgage to purchase a condo, according to my favorite lenders Kevin Reiser and Jeannie Bolger. (need an ace loan officer? call me or text me and I’ll [...]

19 September 2011 Read the full article →

Metro Phoenix: cheaper to buy than rent

First Time Buyers

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Trulia regularly tracks the buy vs. rent equation and reports again that it’s cheaper to buy a home than to rent in metro Phoenix. See full story here: http://explore.trulia.com/datavis/rentvsbuy/Q2-2011/ Meanwhile, mortgage rates are in free-fall, according to an Inman.com interpretation of Freddie Mac’s rate survey… Rates on fixed-rate mortgages declined for a seventh week in [...]

3 June 2011 Read the full article →

Buy a home for 1% cash down

Buyer Help

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Although most of the low-down and no-down payment purchase programs are long gone with the financial crash of 2008, we do have 1 lender who has 1 loan program that’s a 1% cash down payment program. Here’s an example of a recent client of mine who used this program. Home purchase price – $85,500 Seller [...]

7 January 2011 Read the full article →

Home buyer tax credit extended

First Time Buyers

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Legislation that extends until Sept. 30 the closing deadline for claiming the homebuyer tax credit — HR 5623, the Homebuyer Assistance and Improvement Act of 2010 — was passed by the Senate by unanimous voice vote Wednesday and could be signed into law by President Obama today.  (source, Inman.com) Buyers still needed to be under [...]

1 July 2010 Read the full article →

The Shiny

First Time Buyers

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Real life observation: women who go to the gym in a full face of makeup with their hair done just so. . . . they crack me up. This has nothing at all to do with real estate. Or. . . does it? Many of the buyers we’ve worked with in the past 2 years [...]

27 June 2010 Read the full article →

Buy for less than you pay in rent?

Buyer Help

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The conventional wisdom (and a lot of mortgage companies’ advertising) currently says that you can buy a house for cheaper than you can rent an apartment in the Greater Phoenix area.  Is it true? Mmmmm…  Yes and no. Case in point: First time home buyer, starter home in the south end of the 85016 ZIP [...]

4 June 2010 Read the full article →

FHA.com is not the FHA

Buyer Help

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File this in the category of Stuff You Should Know. The website at FHA.com is not run by the FHA (Federal Housing Administration) or by HUD (Housing and Urban Development) or by any other governmental agency. It’s run by a (presumably for-profit) group that collects information from users including their social security number, credit information, [...]

8 May 2010 Read the full article →

90 Day Fix and Flip Rule

Buyer Help

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You know how fix and flipping works in a cynical world, right? Basically. . . . investors buy a craptacular house at foreclosure auction or elsewhere and do no substantive repairs. They slap a thick coat of paint on everything and install cheap new carpet, then resell it as “Remodeled!” with a seriously  jacked up [...]

1 April 2010 Read the full article →

Is That Condo FHA Approved?

Buyer Help

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Buyers using an FHA mortgage who are shopping for condos (or patio homes, or townhomes) need to be aware there’s a list of FHA-approved communities. If the community is not on the FHA-approved list, your FHA mortgage money might not be good there. Bookmark this website and check for FHA-approved status before you fall in [...]

7 January 2010 Read the full article →

$8,000 Tax Credit for Buying $10,000 Home?

First Time Buyers

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Question: Could a qualified person get a $8,000 tax credit to buy a $10,000 house? Answer: In short, no. You can’t get $8,000 for buying a $10,000 house. Why? There’s no minimum purchase, but the tax credit is written as “10% of the purchase price, up to $8,000″. Thus, if you spent $10,000 on a [...]

27 December 2009 Read the full article →

FHA and Fix ‘n Flip Do Not Mix

First Time Buyers

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This is a phrase you’re seeing a lot lately in the MLS listings on entry-level housing in metro Phoenix: This is a property acquired at trustee sale in the past 30 days and will not qualify for FHA due to the cure period requirements. Will qualify for VA or conventional. Well, actually what you typically [...]

29 November 2009 Read the full article →

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