The Money

[This is a guest post]

Purchasing a home can be an exciting and frightening experience. Making the decision to take the risk and invest in a home can seem dangerous, but with high risk comes high reward. Fortunately, home loan rates are historically low and lenders are helping people get into homes for prices and at rates that would have previously been impossible. Even those who are making payments on a mortgage have the option to refinance and save thousands over the life of their loan. It goes without saying, then, that now is a great time to purchase a home and make an investment in real estate.

Home buyers and current home owners are already enjoying the lowest rates in history; options get even better for those who have served in the US Armed…

While ordering coffee. "I don't need a lid, thanks" I said. The nice girl replied, "I have to put on the lid for hot beverages. You can take it off after you leave the counter, but I have to put it on." All I could do is smile and take my coffee and dump the lid a few feet away before I sat down to drink it.

The Business of Real Estate

The business of real estate can and is often a stressful job, that is if one cares, about the outcome. When a client need to close on a home because he's moving here and an appraisal comes in completely off the mark, that's a problem that may or may not be resolve. It's stressful situation for everyone, even though it's one of the hurdles that comes up in some transactions, though it can't always to resoved to…

This months Phoenix housing market report is being relegated to inphoenix.com from it's normal place at PhoenixMarketTrends, but only for this month as we gear up PMT for a relaunch into version 3.0 on a completely new platform and new simpler design. In September market reports will begin anew there.

So let's get down into the July 2011 Phoenix home sales numbers.

Active inventory continues a nose dive into nothingness. We'll not quite that deep I hope because we'll have nothing to sell, but it's getting close, close enough that the market is extremely competitive: it's certainly a seller's market.  My friend who rents told me the home he lives in went on the market for $100,000, but the seller got multiple offers and it sold for $120,000.  These…

Since financing is such an important factor in the home buying process we've asked several lenders to give us occasional updates on any interested changes.  Below is a succinct update by one of the lenders used by our clients.

1. Private Mortgage Insurance guidelines have loosened up lately.  Conventional loans for a Primary Residence now allow a 3% down payment with a 680 fico score. 

A buyer with a 620 credit score can get a Conventional loan with 5% down.  The maximum loan amount is $417k for Conventional loans. 

2. Smart Financial Mortgage is able to offer HomePath financing on Fannie Mae REO properties that have this designation.  The best part about HomePath is that Investors with a 660 fico (and 2nd/Vacation Home buyers) are able to…

This is a great book, despite the cover which initially turned me off. Get rich stuff is a dime a dozen and most of it is basic and overall useless. I'm especially disappointed in the recently released 'Get Rich Click' a book so basic it should be free, but this - The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime. - is not the typical book about making money, it's really not about the money, though it is.  

This book will open your mind, make you mad, turn your gut and it will get you thinking about the common conventions. It's about destroying the myth of get rich slow or of waiting until you retire to be wealthy and enjoying wealthy. 

I'll state up front that it's not for everyone, but your though process will…

HomePath is a program by Fannie Mae which has some advantages over other loans, even FHA. Recently Fannie Mae released a new incentives program for HomePath qualified properties.  Amongst others they are offering a New Buyer Incentive of up to 3.5% buyer assistance. See details below.

There are 1,658 residential properties that are HomePath qualified in Greater Phoenix. 190 are between $200,000 - $430,000 and 610 properties from $100,000 to $200,000. At last look properties range in price from under $20,000 to $430,000.

On a $200,000 the incentive is worth up to $7,000 - that's a good bit of change and will lower your buying cost. Check out the easy but extensive and informative mortgage calculator to get an idea what your payment may be.

From…

This is a guest post/article by Dale Walters who also published, Buying Real Estate in the US: The Concise Guide for Canadians.

There are a number of questions being asked of me, time after time, which tells me there is a lot of misinformation out there. Here are two of misconceptions I hear the most often.

1. If I report the rental (or capital gain) income on my Canadian return, I will not have to report the income on a US return. Conversely, if I report the income in the US, I will not have to report in Canada.

2. The US estate tax will impose a tax of 50% on all of my US assets.

Like myths and legends, misconceptions typically have some component of fact to them. I will discuss each of the three items and explain why each of them are wrong…

It's inevitable that a certain amount of home won't sell.  In fact it's quite a large number that does not sell and it happens for many reasons: there are dozens into which I won't go into, except for the most common one: price.

I don't know how many times it can be repeated, but the price matters and the price is not a fixed figure because the market is not fixed.  Just as the market changes so should the price, within reason of course.

So the price is important and every seller wants to obtain the highest price possible.  There are ways to help a seller obtain the top possible price, but despite all that is done it will never be beyond what the market will bear, but it can be on the higher spectrum of the range. 

So let's take a look at a…

Question: How do I determine a price range when buying a home?

Answer: The first thing is to determine how much can you spend: in total for a home and on a monthly basis.

To do that consider all your finances.  Take some time to write down all your income and expenses.  Where does the money go?

At this point you can determine what can stay and what your willing to sacrifice to buy the home.  If you're renting, remember, that homeownership has expenses in addition to the mortgage payment: repairs and deferred maintenance are two of them so be sure to consider them when making your budget.

When you look at what you've written down consider the sacrifices you're willing to make carefully.  Do you really want to stop doing those things or…

The most updated ARMLS PPI - a forecasting measure that tried to predict future price movement by pending sales data shows the median price may dip down to a 9 year low.  

That's assuming the prediction comes to fruition as prescribed.  Overall the results of the now well past us peak in notices of trustee sales and the now occurring sales and resulting active bank owned homes has something to do with it, especially in combination with the end of the home buyer tax credit.

What this shows is the the market is far from stable, but it's also important to remember that prices fluctuate seasonally as a norm of the market cycle which usually peaks in June and July.

About the ARMLS Pending Price Index:

"The ARMLS Pending Price IndexTM (PPITM)…