One week left to claim homestead exemption

Remind 2011 buyers: They must contact their county property appraiser’s office before March 1 to claim the exemption.

USDA Rural Home Loans
USDA Streamline Refinance | USDA Rural Home Loans
Georgia | Alabama | Tennessee | South Carolina | Florida
In 2009 the USDA enacted changes that opened up USDA Rural Financing to hundreds of thousands of borrowers across Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida and the rest of the southeast.

USDA Loans are not just for farmers anymore. RD loans have become an option for a whole new generation of rural home buyers.

Many home buyers dream of purchasing a home but don’t necessarily have the cash on hand to make the hefty down payment required by some conventional home loans. USDA mortgage loans solve the cash to close issue.

With ZERO DOWN and the ability to finance your closing costs (if the appraised value allows for it), USDA rural home loans present the lowest out of pocket mortgage option on the market.

With housing affordability at record levels not seen since the Great Depression and foreclosure super deals littering the housing market, now is the perfect time to buy. Why pay rent when you can buy a home with a cheaper payment and benefit from the mortgage interest tax deductions?

Get your homestead, get the acreage to play and finance the property with no money down. USDA mortgages can help you do that.

USDA 100% home loans are the ANSWER to the down payment issue. Some other highlights of USDA Rural Home Loans;

NO Down Payment Required

Low Mortgage Insurance

Flexible CREDIT Qualification

Finance CLOSING COSTS

Large Acreage Amounts OK

100% Mortgage Financing

USDA Rural Mortgages are one of the LAST loans standing at 100% financing with NO money down. They are one of the most affordable mortgage loan options available.

With the lowest mortgage insurance outside of VA loans and the ability to finance closing costs, USDA Loans are the preferred mortgage financing option for home buyers living in rural areas.

Although USDA Loans are a great mortgage financing option for many people, sometimes the property may not qualify due to the home being in a state of disrepair, foreclosed and vandalized or other property condition issues.

If you are looking at a foreclosure in bad shape you need to look at a FHA 203K renovation loan. 203K Loans allow you to finance in improvements , repairs and updates all in one convenient 3.5% down FHA mortgage.

Another great option for our foreclosure driven real estate market!

Whether you need a traditional FHA loan, Construction Loan, FHA 203K Renovation Loan or a Jumbo Mortgage – we can help!

With 40+ of the best mortgage lenders on the market to choose from as well as an amazing in-house underwriting team, we are the best USDA mortgage lender option available.

Want to know if you if qualify? It’s EASY, just complete the simple form on your right and one of our USDA experts will contact you with the full qualification details immediately!

USDA Mortgage Loans – Alabama | Georgia | Florida | Carolina | Tennessee
Looking to buy a Fannie Mae Homepath or FHA 203K property that needs a LOT of TLC? We have you covered! Our friends over at 203KLoan.net are masters at the 203K, Fannie Homestyle and Homepath Renovation loans. They can help!

Are you an UNDERWATER Homeowner? Don’t think you can refinance? Guess again! FHA Streamline Refinances, VA IRRL and the HARP Program do NOT have equity requirements.

****We are NOT the USDA or Affiliated with ANY Government Agency****

USDA Rural Home Loans – Offering 100% Purchase Loans & USDA Streamline Refinance Loans that require NO APPRAISAL, NO CREDIT and, basically, no qualifications other than making your USDA mortgage payments on time.

Short sale sellers need to close in 2012
WASHINGTON – Feb. 3, 2012 – If a bank writes off debt in a short sale, it’s a “taxable event,” and the lender tells the Internal Revenue Service about the deal by submitting a “Form 1099-C, Cancellation of Debt” at the end of the year. Home sellers must acknowledge the amount when they fill out their federal taxes. Through Dec. 31, 2012, however, the federal government forgives any tax liability associated with forgiveness of a mortgage loan.

“In general, homeowners believe the government will extend this tax provision,” says San Diego Realtor Joy Bender. “However, as evidenced by the First Time Homebuyer Credit expiration in 2010, you can’t always count on the government to bail you out.”

The government generally considers forgiven debt to be income. If a seller has signed legal loan papers to take out a $200,000 mortgage and the lender accepts $100,000 in a short sale, for example, the seller received the equivalent of $100,000 in free money by government estimates. As a result, the IRS taxes it. For tax year 2012, however, the government still forgives the debt; in 2013, it might not.

The tax amount can be significant. On a debt of $100,000, a short-sale seller in the 25 percent tax bracket could end up owing $25,000 in income taxes.

Since short sales can take months and even fall through, homeowners considering a short sale may want to start the process sooner rather than later.

Homeowners by Age
On January 13, 2012, in Economist Commentaries, by Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist
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In 2000 (a very normal housing year without a bubble), with virtually no discussion of it in the media or in the academic community, 67 percent of Americans lived as a homeowning household. Then came the easy credit conditions which fueled home buying beyond normal and the ownership rate rose to 69 percent. But the subsequent bust brought the ownership rate down to today’s 66 percent.

Not all age groups had similar experiences throughout this cycle. The very young were mildly impacted. The very old did not on average feel any pain – at least according to the statistics, though no doubt there were some retirees who painfully lost a home to a foreclosure. The big impact was felt among people in their 30’s, who have much the same homeownership rate today as back in 2000, well before the bubble. It is also this group where there is potential for re-entering into the homeownership market in the near future.

Also note the general higher ownership rate as people get older and more mature and presumably become more responsible. Note the very high ownership rate among the 65-and-over population, who would have for the large part already paid off their mortgages.

Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist
Lawrence Yun is Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of Research at NAR. He directs research activity for the association and regularly provides commentary on real estate market trends for its 1 million REALTOR® members.

These are the total numbers of single family homes, and condominiums  sold in Crestview, Destin, Fort Walton Beach, Navarre,  and Niceville.

Housing Market: Current Conditions and Policy Considerations acknowledges that much of the weakness in the housing market is related to poor labor market conditions and will take time to be resolved but outlines three dimensions along which policymakers could take action to ease some of the pressures on the housing market:
…The large inventory of foreclosed or surrendered properties (REO), perhaps representing one-quarter of the 2 million vacant homes for sale in the second quarter of 2011, is putting downward pressure on house prices,and exacerbating the loss in household wealth.

…The price signals in the markets, that is the decline in house prices and the rise in rents, suggest that it might be appropriate in some cases to convert foreclosed homes into rental properties and, at this time, with no indication that the downturn in homeownership being likely to reverse in the immediate future, there are indications of a longer-term need for expanded rental housing stock.
…Second, attracting investors to bulk sales has typically required REO holders to offer significantly higher discounts relative to those given owner occupants, in part because it can be difficult to investors to obtain financing for such sales, and third, the supervisory policy of GSE and banking regulators has generally encouraged sales of REO properties as early as practicable.
…Despite the mandate of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) as conservator of the GSEs to minimize taxpayer losses, some actions that cause greater losses to the GSEs in the near term might be advantageous if they lead to a quicker and more vigorous recovery.

…An REO to rental program that relies on sales to third-party investors will be more viable if the cost-pricing differential can be narrowed which might be done by (a) structuring sales as competitive auctions; (b) making sales packages more attractive to a variety of investors, or (c) providing investors with the debt financing.

…The paper also suggests some innovations for reducing the amount of time that a vacant property remains in inventory such as auctioning the rights to acquire a future stream of properties that might be foreclosed in a given neighborhood rather than auctioning existing REO holdings or to encourage deed-for-lease programs which circumvent the REO process entirely by exchanging a deed-in-lieu for a rent-back arrangement.
…The paper touches only lightly on this topic, saying that the regulators have been in consultation with the GSEs and originators about the sources of the apparent tightness in lending standards and that balance is needed between prudent lending and appropriate consumer protection on one hand and not unduly restricting credit on the other.
…Beyond the personal suffering, foreclosures can be a costly and inefficient way to resolve mortgage payment obligations because they can result in “deadweight losses”, i.e. costs that do not benefit anyone such as neglect and deterioration of properties and neighborhoods and the impact of that in putting additional downward pressure on prices.

…Many homeowners who could benefit from refinancing are unable to do so, and the paper credits recent changes in HARP with helping in this area but suggests possible further expansion to borrowers whose existing mortgages are not guaranteed by the GSEs even though this raises a host of risk management issues.
…An alternative would be aggressively facilitating refinancing for underwater borrowers who are current on their loans, expanding modifications for borrowers who are struggling with payments, and providing a streamlined exit from homeownership for borrowers who want to sell their homes.
…It is clear from the conclusion to the paper that the Fed is not just searching for short-term solutions to the current market disruptions, but a fundamental restructuring of the system so that these problems are better packaged for management in the future.

How does the guys who started FSBO(dot)com sell a home.

It can be done.

Preparation: Paper work.

What you will need to locate.

1. Your mortgage pay off.

2. Any 2nd loan or HELOC loans

3. If you have any open lines of credit tied to home equity. Close them.

4. Get your old survey.

5. Any warranties or paperwork for appliances

6. Deed

7. Permits if you have had an addition or new roof anything that required a permit.

8. If there is anything unusual or you would like to pass on to the new owners

9. pictures

Bank of America’s cash-back incentive, which tempted delinquent borrowers to do a short sale over a lengthy foreclosure, ended Dec. 12 with mixed reviews from Realtors and a tepid homeowner response.
  The Florida-only program offered between $5,000 and $20,000 in relocation expenses to qualified homeowners who agreed to vacate their homes through a short sale in lieu of the average two-year foreclosure process.
  But as of early December, only about 3,000 homeowners of 20,000 solicited by the bank had expressed interest in the plan, which one real estate consultant said was unthinkable before the robo-signing scandal heightened the foreclosure chaos.
…  “It’s costing banks a fortune to do the foreclosure, and they want to cut their losses,” said Sherry Lee, broker/owner of Lee Property Sales in West Palm Beach.
…  But she had little luck with Bank of America’s test program, which she said used an unwieldy computer program and had unclear directions on who was eligible.
…  Bank of America spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens said she couldn’t comment on concerns unless they dealt with a specific case, but that the company was “pleased” with the homeowner response. …  Krasker in West Palm Beach, said he hasn’t received any approvals yet on client short-sale submissions to the new program, but that the system is too new to judge. …  Liane Jamason, a Realtor with Smith and Associates Real Estate in Tampa, said she had one client get a $20,000 offer from Bank of America in writing.

Do you want to sell your home in Fort Walton, Niceville, Destin or Crestview this year you need to start now.

You are asking what do I need to do.

1. Start planing

More to follow…