While it’s too early to celebrate the news that the first time home buyer credit that so many people have taken advantage of to get into a new home, the talk of extending the incentive is starting to build.
It appears as if Senators have agreed on the idea of extending the credit, but they haven’t quite nailed down all the logistics of the extension. And while the extension would prolong the $8,000 tax credit enjoyed by first-time home buyers that purchase a new home, it looks as though it might go beyond that to include those that aren’t first-time home buyers.
The new provision of the extension would provide up to $6,500 in assistance to those that have lived in their current residence for at least 5 years.
Again, as of right now most of this is still talk, but as we all know, anytime we can get both political parties in Washington to agree on something, it’s got to be a good sign!
If you’re still in the market to purchase a new home or you’d like to sell your current home, the market is still very warm and there are plenty of homes available for purchase and willing buyers looking to buy.
Contact me and let’s discuss your real estate options!
Filed under Buy Your Dream House, Home Buyers, News Reports by 
To Stop Foreclosure in nearly any city in the United States of America, there are basically only a few legitimate options. Some of these you’ll know, and some will be brand new to you.
Here are a few directions you can take:
- Sell your house prior to the foreclosure auction. The value of this idea will vary heavily depending on the nature and quality of your local real estate market. If you’re in a market that still has very slow resale rates, selling your home could be a challenge. Ask a local real estate agent to determine the average number of days on the market for properties in your area.
- Initiate a loan modification. A loan modification is a process through which your lender changes the payment terms of your loan to more closely match your ability to pay. While this is not a guarantee, loan modifications have become more popular in the last 12 months.
- Refinance the property. If you are not yet fully into the foreclosure process but have reason to expect you will fall behind on your payments, it may be wise to try to refinance your mortgage to a lower rate. If your property is worth less than the balance of the mortgage, you’ll want to inquire regarding a “short refinance”, which is when a lender forgives a portion of the debt against you in order for you to refinance your property and pay off the remainder of the debt you owe.
When you’re trying to stop a foreclosure, the key is fast action.
However, a warning for you: be very wary of people who aggressively attempt to purchase your home for investment purposes. While there are many legitimate real estate investors, there has been a significant amount of fraud with “Stop Foreclosure” scams, and it is wise to be very, very careful.
Please remember: The crisis you now face will soon be over. Remain hopeful and understand that your future does not equal your past!
If you’d like to speak with a real estate expert that can help you take fast action on a potential foreclosure, please contact Sharon Salisbury, your Fort Mill SC real estate expert.
Filed under Carolina Real Estate by
There are more foreclosures in the United States right now than we have ever experienced before. However, opportunistic real estate investment professionals are turning the recession into great profits with a bit of creativity.
‘Bulk REO Investing’ is the name of the new strategy, and it’s captured the attention of many well-heeled investors.
Take a just a minute to consider the basics of this highly profitable business.
To understand investing in Bulk REO, you have to understand the foreclosure process.
A home owner who misses one or more mortgage payments is faced with an ever-increasing volume of threatening correspondence from their lender. The lender directs the subsequent timing of the actual foreclosure proceedings. The ‘pre-foreclosure’ time starts with filing of foreclosure paperwork and concludes at public auction.
When a defaulted property is placed up for auction, the foreclosure process is completed. If the property is not purchased at auction, ownership reverts to the original lender. The lender then categorizes the property as ‘Real Estate Owned’ – or ‘REO’ for short.
Typically, lenders list their REO properties with local real estate agents in hopes of selling the property to a retail buyer who will pay full price. Yet with increasing frequency, REO properties are being sold for pennies or dimes on the dollar. The trade-off is that the buyer must purchase multiple REO properties in each transaction.
There is huge profit potential in these REO packages for qualified real estate investors. The most successful Bulk REO Investors will have a well-respected source of funding for their transactions. There are many sources of funding for these transasactions including: hard money and commercial financing, as well as non conventional sources such as hedge funds and private investors. Additionally, one man is becoming very well known in the field of bulk REO investing, and his name is Salvatore Buscemi of Dandrew Capital Partners, a hedge fund in New York.
Filed under Carolina Real Estate by
In this type of economic environment people are trying everything to save money.People are not spending as much whenever they go out.They just are not spending as much on entertainment. They don’t spend their money as freely as they used to.To put it another way, everyone is making an effort to save money wherever they can.One method they are looking to use to save with is their electricity. In a time when every dollar counts a few dollars saved in energy can mean a lot.
One of the methods people are using to save money is by using solar energy in their homes.Most of the time this is quite expensive to have done. But people have been very resourceful and have found many ways to get cheap solar panels for their solar energy system.Usuallly what it would cost to have some electrical company go and install it for you would cost thousands of dollars. But by finding low cost systems this is saving them money as well.
Another way they have chosen to go is intstead of buying some solar panels they have chosen to learn how to build a solar panel themselves. It isn’t as hard as it sounds. Also there are many instructions out there that can teach them how to do it.By going and doing it by themselves this will save thousands of dollars.
Now everybody may not be the DIY solar panels maker but these guides are so good you could even have someone build it for you. Once again this would save much more than buying some manufactured solar panels.
Either way you will be saving money and energy in the long run.So if you choose to find some solar panels that aren’t that expensive and getting it installed yourself that will be a lot of savings.Or if you make the choice of building it yourself, you are going to be saving quite a bit of money.So in times such as these when you are trying to find ways to save money, this is one way you could go.
Filed under Carolina Real Estate by
The big US housing boom really started to dwindle in 2006 and increasing foreclosed news is constantly heard from media networks. Homeowners began to lose their homes or are threatened with foreclosures because they have failed to keep up with the payments on their mortgage.
Many of the foreclosed homes are tied to neighborhoods where subprime martgages were widespread. MS Foreclosure are just one example. Unfortunately this has led to a decrease in home values as well which just adds fuel to the fire. Additionally, state and most local governments were forced to cut back on their spending because the drop in the value of these properties sharply decreased their tax bases.
There were signs of this coming however, three of them in fact. First was the bailing out of property owners due to the plummeting prices of real estate. The second sign was all of the sub-prime loans and adjustable rate mortgages beginning to implode. Lastly, the third sign has been the fact that even prime rate loan holders are losing their homes now due to job loss and the economic crisis. Most of them even have good credit ratings. Unemployment is now forecast to impact about 60 percent of all of the mortgage defaults. Unfortunately, this means that even more foreclosure news will be heard through the rest of this year.
According to an analysis made by New York Times in February 2009 (data provided by First American Core Logic), the number of prime mortgages that have delinquent payments exceeded 1.5 million with loans totaling to 4 billion. On the same month, delinquencies on subprime mortgages reached 1.65 million while the Alt-A loans rose to 836,000. In all, a total of 7 billion worth of loans were recorded in February – this is an increase of 60 percent from last year. All of these foreclosures have also dramatically impacted Wall Street and mortgage bonds. These also lead to bank loses of hundreds of billions. (Note: Search on ‘forecloser‘ as well because it is a very common miss-spelling of foreclosure and is prevalent in the foreclosure news posts.)
The Obama administration announced in February that they will be spending billion to save as much as four million homeowners from foreclosures through mortgage incentives and reduced payments. The effects of this plan are expected to be felt in the next coming months. Until that time comes, you will need to brace for the storm and all of the foreclosure news that is still looming out there.
Filed under Carolina Real Estate by
