Aaron Dickerson of Edina Realty, a fellow agent and Twin Cities real estate blogger, published this post a couple of days ago with a list of questions one should think about before buying a foreclosure. They are worth the read.
Northern California November Sales – 50% Were Foreclosures
December 18, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Calculated Risk has posted some of the details and additional commentary regarding the Northern California sales numbers that just came out for November. He makes the point that I have also been trying to make and that is:
Be careful with median prices. This doesn’t mean prices have fallen to an eight year low – this means that a combination of price declines and a significant change in mix (to lower priced homes) has happened. The Case-Shiller repeat sales index is a better measure of actual price declines. (Calculated Risk)
Other highlights from DataQuick’s report include:
- FHA loans now represent 20% of purchases – up from 1% a year ago
- Jumbo loans (those over $417,000) were 62% of all purchases in Aug. 2007…they were 23% in November
- Median sales price dropped 44% from $629,000 to $350,000
Looks like the price swings are a little more extreme in California than they are here. Because our average priced home has typically been in the $220,000 – $240,000 range, it’s not quite such a hit when we see so much activity in homes under $150,000, but in California where they were seeing homes typically sell for $600-$700k, it’s a bigger impact when they fall to $350k.
Today’s Mortgage Rates – Live Look
December 18, 2008 By Leave a Comment
If you’d like to see where rates are on any given day, this is a live link to today’s mortgage rates. It does a nice job of breaking down the various loans and their corresponding rates. You might want to bookmark it.
4.75% on a 30 year conventional – not bad.
IRS Show Flexibility on Tax Liens – Allows Buyers to Refinance
December 18, 2008 By Leave a Comment
The IRS is now trying to show its sensitive side during this housing and mortgage crisis as it is willing to allow home owners to refinance who have an IRS tax lien on their property.
If you’re not aware, the IRS always comes first. You might owe Bank of America $400,000 for your mortgage, but if you’re $4,000 behind in tax payments, the IRS can put a lien on your home and they automatically move to the first lien position.
With this story from Housing Wire, the IRS is saying they will move out of that first position in order for home owners to refinance. I would imagine once the refi is done that the IRS would then move back to the first position just in case that home owner decided to sell.
The IRS said it takes about 30 days to make the request and have the lien position changed. There are about 1 million IRS tax liens outstanding right now.