HR 5830: The FHA Housing Stabilization and Homeowership Retention Act of 2008, is designed to provide relief for homeowners in trouble by
refinancing their loan to reflect lower housing valuations. If the
current lender ˜forgives 10% of the loan balance, it allows a
homeowner to enter into an equity sharing type of arrangement for a
refinanced loan.
The real estate market in Long Beach has begun to shift. We have witnessed a steady rise in homes and condos for sale in Long Beach since the beginning of the year, as is witnessed by the chart provided. Buyers who have been waiting out the real estate market hoping to get that incredible deal are now buying those Long Beach homes and condos they have been wanting.
Interest rates are still great, although lenders are tightening up on lending standards. It is getting more difficult to procure a home loan unless your income and credit scores are high, your credit history is good and your debt ratio is low. As we progress into the summer months lending standards will become even more stringent.
If you are one of the consumers who has been sitting on the sidelines waiting for Long Beach real estate prices to drop before you begin your buying process, you might want to speak to a mortgage lender pretty soon. Run your credit, find out if you qualify for a home loan sufficient to make that purchase. You may also decide to go ahead and buy now while Long Beach prices are low, some concessions are still being granted and home loans are still available to consumers with less than pristine credit.
There are many REO (Real Estate Owned) or bank owned homes and condos on the market in Long Beach. There is a huge demand for these homes, especially the nicer ones, and many are receiving multiple offers and selling quickly. When a bank, or a seller, receives multiple offers, they generally are not willing to grant much, if anything, in the way of concessions, which means the buyer is paying a higher NET price.
Recently many home sales have been at or near full price with minimal contribution, if any, toward closing costs. Some bank owned properties, which have sat on the market, have been successfully negotiated at considerably lower prices. Most of these have been purchased by contractors or other professionals who know how to make the necessary repairs and upgrades at minimal cost. First Time Buyers do not have the after purchase cash to bring these homes up to standard.
All cash buyers are shopping and closing deals, and thier money is making waves here in Long Beach. A seller of a Long Beach home or a bank will gladly accept a cash offer. For them a cash offer means they dont have to worry about a loan program disappearing or a lender closing its doors in the middle of their transaction. They dont have to worry about a buyers credit position changing during the course of the transaction or the lenders guidlines changing and precluding the buyer from the loan program midstream. They know that an all cash purchase has an excellent chance of actually closing escrow. Many escrows have not been successfully closing here in Long Beach, especially those with 100% financing programs involved, which makes the all cash buyer - or the buyer with a large down payment very attractive to a seller. Sometimes a seller will accept a slightly lesser offer for the assurances an all cash deal can provide. Money talks¦
Home sales in Long Beach are on the incline, prices are down, interest rates are still great; now is a good time to buy.
Lets
lock all mortgage rates at application, regardless of when its
closing. I think this is about as good as it gets for a while. I
still see 30 year fixed rates a tad under 6% (5.875%) but the good
economic data, released today, could drive Long Beach mortgage rates up
next week.
I recommend a 7/1 ARM today. Rates offered for a 7/1 ARM, for loans
under $417,000, are OVER a half a percentage point less than the 30
year fixed (5.25%). Most borrowers will feel comfortable with a seven
year time frame. This means that 5.25% rate is locked in for 7 years-
thats until 2015.
(all loans offered to the consumer at the wholesale or ˜par rate. We are paid 1% by the consumer.)
To give you an idea of how long 7 years is, Disneylands California Adventure opened in early 2001. You probably thought it was around forever.
The bond traders wont be merciful next week unless recessionary data are overwhelming. Jump on these low rates now.
Laurie MannyLong Beach Realtor (562) 212-5420
Main Street Realtors Belmont Heights 244 Redondo Avenue Long Beach California 90803
Here on our Long Beach Real Estate site I usually write purely real estate related articles targeted at educating and informing buyers and sellers of Long Beach Real Estate. Today I would like to give you a little peek into the business side of things and explain how they can affect the sale or purchase of your Long Beach homes.
These are difficult times for those of us surviving in the real estate industry. Going into this down market there were about 2900 licensed Realtors on record, there are currently about 1600 licensees active in the Long Beach area. Every market will support a certain amount of agents based on the closed sales of that market. Each agent needs a certain amount of closed sales in order to survive. Lets assume that 8 to 10 closed sales for the year are required for a Realtor to even survive this market; 674 closed sales would produce 8 to 10 sales for the year, for between 200 and 250 Realtors. Those sales are currently spread across 1600 current licensees, which would equate to less than ½ of a sale for each Realtor for the first 4 months of 2008.
In the real estate industry we have an 80/20 saying. It states that 20% of the agents do 80% of the business. 20% of 1600 agents = 320 which would equate to about 2 closed sales for the majority of the 20% still doing business.
So how are 1600 Realtors surviving a market with sales that will currently only support 200 to 250?
Some have other income, or a spouse or significant other with income.
Some have taken on Part or Full time jobs, while trying to juggle their real estate.
Some have anticipated this market and made plans to survive it.
Some are making enough sales to manage.
What of the 80%? That is 1280 agents, still active, for the last 4 months. How are they surviving with little or no sales? Well, they either have spousal support a trust fund or they have accepted salaried positions. Lets take a look at that. Real estate is a more than full time job; it is a commitment which permeates every hour of every day of our lives. Real estate transactions require a lot of attention on a daily basis. Escrow, title, lenders, inspections, appraisers banks and more need to be attended to, mostly during normal business hours. Buyers need to see properties around their schedules which often means after work or weekend showings. Sellers properties often need tending, flyers run out; keys go missing from a lock box or end up in another box on the same property. A pipe may burst on a listing with an out of town owner; anything can happen. How is an agent who has accepted employment elsewhere, with a set schedule, going to be able to deal with the schedule and responsibilities of a full time Realtor? How does that affect the buyer or seller? Has the agent even disclosed to the buyer or seller that they are not fully available? Do you know if your agent is available to conduct business, full time on your behalf?
The buyer, who sees property after work, writes an offer, has it accepted, goes into escrow, has a right to expect their Realtor to be available during normal business hours to properly handle their transaction. Why isnt my Realtor answering their cell phone? Why isnt everything moving along? Why is everything taking so long? I called escrow today, they havent heard from the agent either. Whats up with that? They are not available. If they spent the time required to handle your transaction on the phone, fax and email from their place of employment, they would lose the job they need to survive.
Too many agents are not answering their phones when other agents and buyers are calling to see properties they have listed. Every one of these missed calls is a missed opportunity for a seller. Agents and buyers just move on to other properties and more cooperative agents.
So how do you figure out who is doing business and why? You go to the internet. 80% or more of buyers begin their search and find their agent online. Which agents do you find online promoting their business? Go ahead and put Long Beach Real Estate into the Google search engine. You will find a small handful of Long Beach Realtors who have made it their business to acquire a very substantial position in the #1 search engine online to not only promote their business, but to drive traffic through their listings and to attract buyers. You will also find a group of vendors who have property searches, none of which include the entire MLS property search. Why? Because they are not real estate brokers; they are in the business of selling advertising and buyer/seller leads to Realtors. They do not have access to this level of information. They can only provide the listings which SOME of the larger brokerages and individual agents provide to them. How does this help the buyer see ALL of the listings available?
Realtors who have a substantial internet presence understand what it takes to promote traffic to your home or condo for sale; the more traffic that passes through your home, the higher the chance that your buyer will be among them.
We are proud to be in the #1 position in Google for the term Long Beach Real Estate; we worked very hard attaining that position for our clients benefit. We are also in the #1 position for many other important search terms and are on page 1 of Google for just about every conceivable real estate search termrelated to LongBeach and Long Beach real estate. We have spent many years working on our websites and our internet presence. We anticipated the shift onto the internet and have been developing relationships with technology experts and other professionals to provide the best possible experience for our Long Beach Sellers and our Long Beach Buyers.
Buyers will find a multitude of helpful information and tips on our sites, all geared toward educating and informing about todays market and real estate issues.
In addition to our already highly successful site www.longbeachrealestatehome.com we are thrilled to announce our new site is up and running. We have moved www.lauriemanny.com to a new site. This site will not only improve the consumer experience, but should drive even more traffic. We love it and hope that you will too.
What makes a real estate site successful? We provide educational and helpful information for consumers. Consumers bookmark our site and become regular readers.
How do you judge the success of a real estate site? By its traffic.
How much traffic do our sites get daily? A lot! No really - a lot! We are now averaging about 5,000 hits a day and still growing. Most Realtor websites nationwide receive a few hundred hits a day if they are doing well.
How does that translate into business? Many consumers read us for months before contacting us - they bookmark our site or are subscribed either by email or by a feed reader. Many buyers and sellers contact us, some we can help, and some we cannot. We promote properties on our sites. Buyers find us on the internet. Buyers call their agents and ask to see properties. Sellers get traffic - a lot of it.
Do you see the value in hiring an internet savvy Realtor with a substantial internet presence yet?
The Long Beach Real Estate Home site has attained national recognition for it hyper-local focus on Long Beach real estate and its unprecedented success. Recently Laurie was one of four Realtors statewide called upon by the California Association of Realtors (CAR) to participate in a round table discussing social media on the internet and its impact on the real estate industry. CAR is releasing portions of this roundtable in its June/July Realtor magazine. Video clips from this event will be available on the CAR site shortly. Laurie will be speaking at the BloodhoundUnchained Conference in Phoenix May 17 through May 20th, sharing her knowledge with Realtors from across the USA and Canada. Laurie has also been invited to share her knowledge and experience with the national real estate industry at the annual Inman News conference in San Francisco this summer.
Laurie has been invited to contribute to several nationwide real estate sites. Keep your eyes open, you never know where Laurie is going to turn up with more valuable information for buyers and sellers. (I will always share with my Long Beach readers)
