16 Oct 08 
San Bernardino Home Foreclosure Prevention Seminar
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On Saturday, October 18, 2008 the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chairman – Paul Biane, and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are hosting a free seminar designed to help aid Inland Empire homeowners from losing their homes to foreclosure. Additional co-sponsorship is provided by the city of Fontana, city of Rancho Cucamongo, and city of Upland.
Attendees of the Home Foreclosure Prevention Seminar can expect to receive personal advice from various real estate professionals, banks, lenders, and nonprofit groups that have been preapproved by HUD.
Educating homeowners is the goal of the seminar; organizers want those who may be facing foreclosure to know that help is available. Speakers are expected to address the issue of “scavengers trying to take advantage of others’ misfortune”, said Biane, in reference to the shady businesses who prey on financially stricken homeowners, by promising “help”.
Biane stated, “we want to get residents reliable information from people they can trust so they can stay in their homes and get back on the path to financial stability.”
If you, or someone you know, would like to attend the seminar, visit www.mybchouse.com to receive important pre-event information. It is suggested that residents, who wish to attend, visit the site where you can print and complete the HUD form and bring it to the seminar on Saturday; however, this isn’t required, and attendees can sign-in on location Saturday morning.
This information is gathered from: http://www.bigbeargrizzly.net/articles/2008/10/15/news/latest_news/tforeclosureseminar.txt.
Tags: banks, city of fontana, city of rancho cucamongo, city of upland, department of housing and urban development, hud, lenders, nonprofit groups, paul biane, real estate professionals, san bernardino county board of supervisors, www.bigbeargrizzly.net, www.mybchouse.com
03 Oct 07 The Real Solution is In the Supply
One-way to rebuild a healthy real estate market is to decrease the amount of homes available for sale. Our recent efforts have been geared towards increasing the demand to buy homes. It’s pretty obvious that several experts, and the media, aren’t going to stop highlighting every negative aspect in the real estate market, so it might be a little difficult to increase demand. It’s their job to report the news, but why can’t they report positive news as well? When you want to know about something don’t you turn to the news or a well known expert?
What if a program, or several programs, were developed that encouraged owning a rental property or keeping your home off the market? If there were a few programs, homeowners could choose which works best for their situation.
The government could give tax incentives to sellers that agreed to keep their property off the market for X-amount of years? This might entice investors or homeowners because their payoff, if they agreed to hold onto their investment, would be greater.
The government, or lenders, could offer an annuity type of loan to homeowners. The loan would slowly tack onto the principle of the home loan each month. Homeowners wouldn’t receive a large lump sum of money, but their mortgage payment would decrease by X-amount each month and would slowly increase over the years. The lender and borrower would determine how much of a loan was suitable based on the homeowner’s needs and the lenders ability. The lender could stop paying the annuity at anytime if a borrower failed to meet their payment obligations.
Lenders could offer locked or lower interest rates to homeowners that agree not to refinance or sell their homes for X-amount of years (same concept as a pre-payment penalty). They could set the homeowners up on steadily increasing payment plan giving them lower payments initially, similar to an ARM, but instead of giving these incentives to new customers, lenders will be trying to avoid costly foreclosures.
Hopefully, these programs would keep homes off the market and help regulate when homes are placed back on the market. Programs like these would interest some sellers because many of them can’t sell their homes right now; in many cases, if they do, they’ll take a loss. I think most sellers would love to hold if they could cover or minimize their negative monthly cash-flow and others will be happy with keeping more of their money from the eventual sale of their home(s). Not everyone would qualify or benefit from programs like these but it could be a nice way to decrease the supply of homes for sale and improve the health of the real estate market.
I am pretty sure that we’ll need to develop several solutions to fix some of the mistakes or oversights that helped fuel this “over” correction. I know real estate is cyclical, but feel that some decisions have lead to a rougher market. There are some possible downsides to this solution such as the probable increase in new home cancellations, possibility of homeowners defaulting on new agreements and difficulty in implementing these plans, but there definitely could be a viable solution found in focusing on our supply of homes for sale as opposed to trying to increase the demand. Many of our markets have great potential and with a little help, we could be back on track!
Just a thought…
Tags: homeowners, housing information, housing programs, interest rates, lenders, property, Real Estate, refinance, rental property, sell a home
30 Sep 07 Little Things Add Up…
Traditionally, as home buyers, after we found the new home of our dreams, we spend hours and even days searching for the best home loan with low interest rates and low closing costs. We fight for the lowest possible monthly payment and most of the time don’t think twice about our total cost of interest or if we can pay off our home loan a little sooner. For most of us, after we sign our closing documents, we forget about it, and go through life paying the minimum payments.
Little things add up when paying down your home loan. The most popular loan program most homeowners do take advantage of is bi-weekly mortgage payments. This approach is a great way to pay down your loan faster and save money on interest payments. It basically adds up to an extra payment a year and makes a huge long and short term difference on the interest you pay. Lenders usually charge a set up fee but this is offset with the eventual savings. If you didn’t have the option to take advantage of this approach, or opted out of it, you may want to contact you lender to see what you can do to set up a bi-weekly payment option. If you are unable to make bi-weekly payments you can always pay a little more on each payment or make a large lump sum payment each year. By paying your principle down faster, you will save thousands of dollars during the life of your loan. Recently, several programs have developed that can help you pay your mortgage off in as little as 15 years.
Like everything else in life, it’s the small things that matter, and your efforts to pay your principal down now can put you in a great place in the near future. Before agreeing on a loan, ask your lender what you can do to pay your loan off faster and save money on interest. Many lenders have great programs and useful information. Taking the time to learn a little more about paying your principle down faster can significantly reduce the interest costs of your real estate investment.
Are there any loan programs you recommend?
Tags: home buyers, home loan, Homes for Sale, interest payments, lenders, mortgage, new homes
