First Time Home Buyers Tax Credit Info.How the New First-Time Buyer Tax Credit Works, an article from Realtor Magazine Online, reports that under the new housing bill, home buyers who have not owned a home in the last three years will be eligible for a tax credit equal to 10% of the property up to a maximum of $7,500. The program is a loan, which home buyers must repay over 15 years at 0% interest beginning in the second year after they purchase the home. For example, a home buyer who qualified for the whole credit would pay $500 for 15 years or about $41.67 per month. The credit applies only to homes purchased on or after April 9, 2008, and before July 1, 2009. Short SalesWhat is a short sale? Basically a short sale is where the bank is agreeing to take less then what they are owed so a sale can happen. This often occures when someone is in foreclosure or behind on payments although in rare cases it does happen without that happening.
With so many banks having made bad loans in the last years a short sale has become a very common solution. If you are facing a situation where you are behind on your payments a short sale might be a good option for you. Please feel free to contact me about how these work. There are many facets to a short sale and many potential issues the might come up. It is important to have a full packet of put together according to what you lender may need to access this option. It is very important to have someone with a lot of experience working these kinds of deals on your side.
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Got News.
Annexation at Centerra to be taken up by Loveland City Council, an article from the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald, reports that on Tuesday night the Loveland City Council will consider the annexation of 294 acres at Centerra. The annexation, called the Grange Addition, consisting of five separate parcels, including the former Cloverleaf Dog Track and the property across from Marketplace, could be added to Loveland and to Centerra. Greg George, director of development services for the city of Loveland said, "We don't really have any issues with the annexation. The Millennium (General Development Plan) over the last 10 years has resulted in very high quality development over there." According to documents in the application from McWhinney, the addition of these parcels of land will mean more nonresidential development will happen at Centerra than expected, and it will develop sooner.
Over the horizon, a housing recovery, an article from CNNMoney.com, reports that according to a new study from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, "The State of the Nation's Housing 2008," the country is poised to see an increase in housing demand over the next decade. Nicolas Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies and on of the study's authors said, "The good news is that we still have a growing population. As long as you have more households, more people are going to need places to live." The Harvard study also found in early 2008, the nation had an 11-month supply of unsold new homes and a 10.7-month supply of existing single-family homes. A 6-month supply of existing homes is considered a buyers' market. In order to reduce the current supply, the market will require price declines, a decrease in interest rates, employment growth, a return of consumer confidence and the revival of accessible mortgage credit.
Additional articles that you may find of interest:
Loveland sees more annexation requests
Home built to withstand tornadoes to be auctioned for children's charities
Area FHA loans tripled since '07
Realtor carves senior niche
Windsor Fire Museum location in question
Dude ranches grow in popularity
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Medical campus vote is Tuesday
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States take a whack at foreclosures
Lawmakers to take last shot at housing bill
NAR Adopts Rules for Disclosure of Short Sales in MLS MAY Sales StatsLooks like in some prices ranges the market is hot! Sales are much lower then last year at the same time. (-22%) However inventory is also Down which is helpful and absorption in some price ranges is Smoking Hot! Colorado Tornado, Fort Collins, Windsor, GreeleyIT has been a crazy day with lots of bad weather in the Northern Colorado area. Windsor so far has been the worst hit. There was a few Big hits and reports say the tornado was 3/4 of a mile wide with many power lines down.
The Denver Post covers Fort Collins COFort Collins bucks trend in housing With stronger home prices, the city is surviving the market better than most. By Christian Toto Broker associate Marcus Valdez has a hard time drinking tap water when he travels across the country. The water in Fort Collins, where Valdez works and lives, has spoiled him to lesser streams, he said. To him, it's a small but telling reason why Fort Collins appeals to home shoppers. Combined with its scenic vistas and proximity to Colorado State University, it has also helped the city consistently show up on lists of the "best places to live." "There's an environment here that's safe, nice and clean," said Valdez, who works with Keller Williams Realty in Fort Collins. And homebuyers are eager to check it out. While the housing market continues to stumble, homes in Fort Collins are bucking national market trends. In 2007, 3,363 homes in Fort Collins sold, up 16 percent from the 2,910 that sold the year before, according to Keller Williams. The median sales price was also up 2 percent. "We had less supply then most markets," Valdez said. Business is up A flood of new and existing businesses is keeping local real estate agents busy. Fort Collins already is home to CSU, Hewlett-Packard and Intel. Danish wind energy company Vestas recently opened a plant in nearby Windsor and is aggressively expanding in the area. Data from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight shows that home prices in Fort Collins gained 1.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared with the same quarter in 2006. Prices in the Denver metro area dropped 0.49 percent during the same period. "Fort Collins has weathered the (housing) storm better than a lot of areas in Colorado," said Dave Pettigrew, a broker with Prudential Rocky Mountain Realtors in Fort Collins. Home prices in Fort Collins might not be as reasonable as in some smaller cities, but they hold up well compared with Boulder. A home that might sell for $210,000 in Fort Collins would fetch roughly $400,000 in Boulder, said Chuck McNeal, chairman of The Group, a family of real estate companies in northern Colorado. Appealing location Cincinnati resident Dick Easley, 63, just bought a home in Fort Collins and will be moving west at the end of the month. "I love the view of the foothills and the mountains. I bought a house that looks out that way," Easley said. Easley previously called San Francisco and Los Angeles home, but now he craves the beautiful vistas and slower pace that Fort Collins affords. "We like the fact that we're near the mountains but it's not mountain rustic," Easley said, adding he doesn't want to live too far from a major city. His daughter moved to Boulder recently, and he spent the past year visiting Colorado and considering it as a place to which he might move.
"I didn't even know where Fort Collins was when we started thinking about where we wanted to live," Easley said. Local residents helped win him over. "They seemed happy and friendly. If you travel around the East, you don't get a lot of that," he said. Few regions get as much glowing press as Fort Collins does. Money magazine ranked the city as the No. 1 place to call home in 2006. In 2003, AARP dubbed it the best place to re invent your life. "The news gets around," Pettigrew said. Housing Market Great in Northern Colorado.Larimer County's housing market remains stronger than national trend, an article from The Coloradoan, reports that in the Larimer County housing market, March home sales were down 12.2%, but average sales prices were up 4.5%. According to Prudential Rocky Mountain Real Estate of Fort Collins, for the first quarter, home sales were down 13.8% with sales prices up 5.1% from last year to $257,625. Eric Holsapple of Loveland LLC said the residential construction market will start to rebound this year. He said, "We have one of the best residential markets in the state. The existing 'for sale' market has stabilized, and we're not really out of balance with lots. We will be one of the leaders in coming back in the single-family market." He added that the surplus of homes dumped at discount prices by national builders as they fled the region have been absorbed and developers, including his company, are starting to build again. Got News?Colorado Foreclosure Hotline sees surge in calls, an article from The Coloradoan, reports that the Colorado Foreclosure Hotline has seen a recent increase in homeowners seeking help and many of those calls were directed to a local housing counseling agency. Housing experts said the increased traffic is a promising sign that people aren't waiting so long before asking for help. Zachary Urban, hotline administrator said, "Traffic has been simply amazing. People are reaching out for help and responding to our outreach." The hotline was created in October 2006 to better facilitate communication between lenders and borrowers. In March alone, the hotline received 3,050 calls and more than 8,000 calls have come in since the beginning of the year. Billie Jo Downing, a local Realtor with Re/Max said, "It's nice to have the hotline; we can share information with one another and it better enables us to serve the public and try and get them some help."
Investor Report: Fannie Mae and Short Sales, an article from RealtyTimes.com, reports that there is good news for investors interested in short sales. Fannie Mae plans to speed up the pace of short sales on properties in its portfolio. Fannie intends to "streamline" procedures to enable pre-foreclosure sales to speed through what is currently an extended and complicated process. According to Fannie Mae, it plans to "pre-approve" certain short sales and wants to provide higher commission incentives to realty agents who can connect sellers with qualified buyers. Despite complications, short sales are on the rise. Some industry estimates indicate that so far this year, 1 of every 5 home sales in the U.S. has been a pre-foreclosure transaction of one sort or another. Fannie Mae's new policy should mean more opportunities for investors, first-time home buyers, and brokers alike.
Additional articles that you may find of interest:
Olson annexation up for council discussion Tuesday
Original architect might design Chilson Center expansion
Hope Now's numbers don't add up to much help
The big risk in the foreclosure fix
Senate passes bill to ease housing crisis
Do You Provide World-Class Real Estate Service? 6 Ways to Find Out
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Marcus Valdez Fort Collins, CO More about me… Keller Williams Realty of Northern Colorado Office Phone: (970) 231-0890 Cell Phone: (970) 231-0890 Email Me ;) Links;) Tags (Tag Cloud);) Archives
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