The Making Home Affordable refinance program received a small boost last week when the cap on Loan to Value was raised from 105% to 125%. In plain terms this means that if you owe up to 125% of what your home’s current value is, then you are eligible for the Making Home Affordable Refinance program.

 This shift in LTV guidelines opens the doors for many additional homeowners who are currently “underwater” in their mortgage scenarios – meaning that they owe their mortgage servicers more than what the home is currently valued in the marketplace.
The underwater provision only applies to the Making Home Affordable Refinance and not the Making Home Affordable Modification program. Remember that with the Modification program, lenders/servicers will work with you to get your payments down to 31% of your gross monthly income – but eligibility doesn’t mean that you will necessarily qualify for the program – either short or long term....

One step forward, one step back. This seems to be the trend these days in housing, mortgage and economic news. Certainly interest rates have been quite volatile over the past few weeks. Climbing from record lows this spring – rates are still very attractive but some of the glitter is gone from the very enticing low to mid 4% rates we were experiencing just a few weeks ago.

 Existing home sales are up – new home sales are down. Foreclosures are still a problem – housing inventories have improved. Companies are beginning to spend again, but the number of people filing for unemployment benefits climbed again last week.
It seems as though we’re stuck in trough of daily economic volatility. What’s going to bring us out of this?

 Jobs! We need people getting back to work. With employment returns people’s ability to purchase - and with that ability comes confidence to spend – and by spending on housing, durable goods...

We’re seeing some upward pressure on interest rates right now in a market that simply cannot afford to endure such a move. Here’s why…

 The unemployment rate has jumped to its highest levels in 26 years to 8.9% - obviously not a strong indication of economic conditions improving at this point in time.
Housing inventories have jumped to a 10.2 months’ supply – still too high an overcapacity number to have healthy statistics in housing. Consumer Confidence – while the sentiment number has increased recently – my concern is that there is a real disconnect between the Consumer Confidence number that was released and the reality of what is happening in the checkbooks and mindsets of consumers across the land. Foreclosures are still climbing within the US – adding to inventory levels, and still causing a serious financial hardship for many in the country today.

 To me it’s counter-intuitive that you would...

The tax credit available to first-time homebuyers is now available as an advance to be applied to your down payment.

Foreclosures are still the talk of the town. Nationally and here in the triangle, the foreclosure numbers have been climbing since the foreclosure moratoria was lifted earlier this spring – meaning that the foreclosure process can again be started by lenders, which will certainly be adding many more foreclosures to the already staggering figures out in the country today.

 But with every tragedy comes a silver lining and in this case it is the opportunity for many new first time home buyers to enter the home marketplace. During the real estate boom over the last ten years, many first time home buyers were priced out of the market forcing them to rent and delay their dream home purchases. There are many heavily discounted homes available across the country, just waiting for buyers to snatch them up. For the aforementioned first time homebuyers, now could not be a better time to be thinking about purchasing one of these homes. Tax credit incentives, historically low...