http://mortgage-buy-home.com Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:13:51 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Rotten Neighbor is entertaining enough, what with toxic hipster couples and all.  But the banker in us has always found it far too subjective for any real use. For instance: We dig it when a certain young man in the neighborhood walks down the middle of the street rapping unintelligbly at ... http://mortgage-buy-home.com/2008/07/24/is-your-neighbor-in-the-slammer/ Before we can talk about the good news of a recession, lets define exactly what a recession is:   ”In macroeconomics, a recession is generally associated with a decline in a country’s real gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth.  According to widespread definition, a recession occurs when real growth ... http://mortgage-buy-home.com/2008/07/24/the-good-news-of-recession/ As expected, the omnibus housing bill was passed by the house yesterday.  There's all sorts of housing related fine print in this bill, but here are what we see as the key provisions: 1.  Raises FHA required investment (down payment + costs) to 3.5%, from 3%. 2.  Abolishes seller-funded down payment assistance ... http://mortgage-buy-home.com/2008/07/24/housing-bill-passed-awaits-senate-vote-presidential-signature/ A 53 year old Massachusetts woman killed herself after faxing her mortgage company that she was going to do so. Her family home was due to be foreclosed upon later that afternoon, and in a last gasp desperate attempt to save the home, she committed suicide. This is a tragic ... http://mortgage-buy-home.com/2008/07/24/hours-before-home-foreclosed-upon-woman-kills-herself/ Housing prices dropped 4.8 percent in May from the previous year according to the Office of Federal Housing Oversight. The most severe hit occurred out west where housing prices fell 14.5 percent while prices actually rose in the West South Central region of the country (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana). What ... http://mortgage-buy-home.com/2008/07/24/a-48-drop-in-home-prices-for-may-2008/ FHA seller-funded downpayment assistance programs (wherein the seller of a property makes a donation to a non-profit, and then this same non-profit gives this money to the buyer for their down payment) have been on Death Watch for years.  HUD and FHA have tried to eliminate them at various points, ... http://mortgage-buy-home.com/2008/07/23/pulling-the-plug-on-fha-down-payment-assistance/ I am one of the cheapest people you will ever meet. I drive a 1999 Toyota Corolla with 126,000 miles on it (a car is a depreciating asset, why would I spend a lot of money on one?). A few weeks ago when I was at Disney World ... http://mortgage-buy-home.com/2008/07/23/do-you-want-to-be-cheap-or-do-you-want-to-be-rich/ Candy Spelling, widow of TV mogul Aaron Spelling, has bought a record setting Los Angeles Condominium for the tidy sum of 447,000,000. The new condo will be on the top 2 floors of The Century, a new condominium in Century City right across fro the Century Plaza Hotel. Candy Spelling ... http://mortgage-buy-home.com/2008/07/23/candy-spelling-trades-in-mansion-for-record-47-million-dollar-la-condo/ If you are wondering why the housing credit crisis happened, and the implicit role the government, media, and press played in it, please read this editorial by Paul Gigot at the Wall Street Journal. He and his staff have been on this story since 2001. That is right, 2001. While the ... http://mortgage-buy-home.com/2008/07/23/so-you-want-to-know-why-we-are-in-this-mess/ You wonder why it is hard to resell homes today? Just take a look at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae has 5 billion worth of unsold property on it’s books. That is not properties in foreclosure, that is 5 billion dollars worth of property they have already taken ... http://mortgage-buy-home.com/2008/07/23/fannie-mae-has-5-billion-worth-of-reo-property/