Tag Archives: Government

Use FHA Streamline to Save on Mortgage Insurance

Interest rates are slightly above recent lows and now may be the perfect time to refinance. Especially if you currently have an FHA loan.

The FHA Streamline Refinance is an extremely easy mortgage program. FHA has guidelines that permit borrowers to ignore most traditional mortgage verifications associated with a refinance, including those for income, credit and employment.

And with FHA mortgage rates in the 3 percent range, refinancing homeowners can also ignore the FHA mortgage insurance premiums. That alone could save you a huge amount of money.

For current rates.

Read the story.

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EPA Fines Landlords for Failing to Provide Lead Paint Disclosures to Tenants

Landlords.  when renting a unit/property do you provide and document an EPA lead paint disclosure pamphlet?  If you don’t you are placing yourself at serious risk.

The EPA is on a crusade, and you are the target.

The EPA has levied fines of as much as $40,000 for failure to kneel at their altar.

Read the story.

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Recent Foreclosure Laws do More Harm Than Good

When Reuters finally figures something out we should all sit up and take notice.

Reuters has discovered that the blizzard of foreclosure laws, which were intended to solve the foreclosure problem actually caused more harm than they did good.

Nevada’s AB 284 is the case in point.  When AB 284 went into effect foreclosure action ground to a halt.  The banks were fearful of doing what needed to be done.  Consequently, the needed cure was delayed and the crisis was prolonged.

Notice of Default Filings

The government caused the foreclosure crisis.  And now the government set out to fix the crisis.  And whenever the government gets involved we can be sure that the government’s solution will be much worse than the original government induce problem.

When legislators attempt to protect the homeowner who hadn’t paid his bills they actually harm the lender and anyone that may want to get a loan in the future.  Why would a lender make a loan where the legislature could just declare that the loan never needs to be repaid?

“Many state laws that stretch out the period for legitimate foreclosures result in no added benefit for the homeowner and produce harm to the housing finance system and to neighborhoods,” said Alfred Pollard, general counsel to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, at a House of Representatives oversight hearing in March.

Ricky Beach, a Reno real estate agent thinks the law killed the market in the Reno-Sparks area.

Ricky Beach, a real estate agent in Reno, Nevada, said the new law, AB 284, “has pretty much killed the market here.” The lack of foreclosure activity has led to a dearth of inventory, he said, with the number of homes for sale in the area down to 778 today from more than 1,700 in September.

And,

“The bill did nothing to solve the crisis – it’s just prolonged it,” Beach said. “Sooner or later the banks will work out how to deal with the law. And then foreclosures will hit the market, and prices will crash back down.”

Malik Ahmad, a Las Vegas attorney agrees:

Malik Ahmad, a Las Vegas foreclosure defense lawyer who has spent the last six years trying to help vulnerable borrowers deal with unscrupulous banks, said the law had completely changed his view of the nature of the crisis.

“This law has become a mockery,” Ahmad said. “I am now turning down clients every day who I know have no intention of ever trying to pay their mortgage. They just want to stay in their homes for free. And that is a bad situation for everyone, lenders and homeowners.”

Read more here.

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New Tax Sale, But Nothing to Report

Washoe County held its tax sale this past week but I have nothing to report. I confess. I missed it completely.

I hope I can pay better attention next year.

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FHA Loans Soon to Become More Expensive

Do you need/want an FHA loan? It will soon get more expensive.

Expect to pay more. FHA needs the money and thinks you can afford it. The new fees are set to begin April 1 of this year.

Even though FHA itself doesn’t make the loans, it insures them.

First, the mortgage insurance premium will rise from 1.15% to 1.25% for loans under $625,000. The premium will be even larger for larger loans.

FHA will also increase the upfront mortgage premium from 1.0% to 1.75&.

According to The New York Times, a borrower with a 3.5 percent down payment with a mortgage of $193,000 can expect to pay an upfront mortgage premium alone of $3,377, compared to the prior $1,930

The premium can be rolled into the mortgage.

The FHA expects to raise $1.25 Billion additional revenue by Sept. 2013.

The NAR (Realtors) is strongly opposed to this action.

Read more on mortgage fees.

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Former Nevada State Senator William Raggio Dead at 85

Former Nevada State Senator William Raggio died yesterday, 2/23/2012 while vacationing in Australia.  Raggio was 85.  He was the longest serving member of the Senate’s history.

Nevada State Sen William Raggio

Sen William Raggio

R.I.P.

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Freddie Mac Lied to the Nation

If you ever bought or even tried to buy a short sale you are aware of the problems and difficulty in completing the transaction.  You might have wondered, “how could the banks be so obstinate?”

We now learn that even though the banks may have been difficult to work with, much of the problem came from the government in the name of Freddie Mac.  “But, I thought the government wanted to help us,” you say.

Freddie went out of their way to paint the investors as the enemy.  They issued policy letters describing potential mortgage fraud with the intention of making the investor out to be the criminal.  The only problem was that Freddie itself was the real fraudster.

The truth is that Freddie Mac actually placed their bets against the housing crisis actually ever getting solved.  Freddie made money whenever they were able to stop a short sale.  Freddie benefited whenever the rest of us lost.

For more than a year, Freddie Mac has adopted numerous policies designed to prevent the private purchase of toxic assets and forced servicers to enforce these policies. Demands for unreasonable offers on short sales, delays in processing short sales, affidavits preventing resale of their properties after being rehabbed and deed restrictions on real-estate-owned properties restricting resale price are among the myriad obstacles private buyers face in trying to buy Freddie’s inventory.

Besides delaying the unwinding of the troubled entity, several of these policies may in fact be illegal. Restricting the ability of private buyers to resell their properties and attempting to dictate resale value constitute unreasonable restraint on alienation. In plain English, once Freddie sells one of its toxic assets, it has no standing in future transactions related to the property.

Freddie has attempted to justify these policies through a taxpayer-funded media campaign arguing that the act of buying, rehabbing and reselling a property constitutes a crime and is inherently an act of fraud. Both Freddie and Fannie Mae have worked with enforcement officials to convince them of this lie. To the embarrassment of these enforcement officials, Freddie left out one important detail: Every time it stopped a short sale, Freddie made money.

Read more: http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_96/john_grant_end_freddie_mac_policies_against_private_market-212409-1.html?pos=oopih

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Reno Makes another Worst of List

Here’s another “best of”, “worst of” list and Reno wins another prize. It may not be the prize that Reno would like on its resume although it’s not necessarily our fault. It is not just a story about Reno or Northern Nevada. This is an American problem, and I believe it was completely caused by politicians.

This is a list from 24/7 Wall St. of 9 cities that the article claims were nearly destroyed by the recession. Reno was scored in second place.

2. Reno-Sparks, NV
> Pct. jobs recovered: 1.6%
> Q4 2012 jobs: 187,600
> Pre-recession jobs peak: 225,200
> Recession jobs trough: 187,000
> Pct. jobs lost: 16.9%

Between 2007 and 2010, the median home value in Reno-Sparks, Nevada declined 37.4%, the 13th biggest drop in the country among metro areas. The problems of the recession have plagued states in the southwest, which once had booming housing markets, arguably more than any other part in the country. From the beginning of 2007 to the third quarter of this year, jobs are projected to decline by 38,200, or 16.9% of the workforce. And according to the report, only 600 jobs, a mere 1.6%, will be recovered by the end of the year.

Read more: http://247wallst.com/2012/01/19/the-nin-cities-that-havent-recovered-from-the-recession/

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Foreclosure Starts are Down Across the West

Foreclosure starts are down all across the West Coast for December. Reduced filings were reported in California, Nevada and Washington. Nevada showed drops of 14%.

According to ForeclosureRadar the drops were due to the closing of trustee sale locations in California. Riverside County passed an ordinance prohibiting solicitation on all County property. California law only specifies that the location must be within the County where the property is located and must be published in the Notice of Sale. Nevada law states

2. All sales of real property must be made:
(a) In a county with a population of less than 100,000, at the courthouse in the county in which the property or some part thereof is situated.
(b) In a county with a population of 100,000 or more, at the public location in the county designated by the governing body of the county for that purpose.

Here in Reno trustee sales are conducted on the steps of the Court House on Virginia Street.

The slow down in Nevada was attributed to AB 284 which established new foreclosure rules requiring the lender and trustee to certify that they have done everything correctly.

“Nevada’s new foreclosure rules appear on track to bring a near complete halt to foreclosures in that state,” said Sean O’Toole, founder and chief executive officer of ForeclosureRadar.

“In the near term this will certainly help homeowners who were facing foreclosure, eviction, and potentially deficiency judgements. Longer term, we believe there will be unintended consequences for the state as business declines for the many real estate related companies that would normally service, resell and finance those foreclosures.”

Read more: http://www.housingwire.com/2012/01/13/foreclosure-starts-drop-across-the-west-coast?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+housingwire%2FuOVI+%28HousingWire%29

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Unemployed Borrowers Get Break from Fannie Mae

New guidelines from Fannie Mae followed similar guidelines from Freddie Mac on forbearance for homeowners that are unemployed and facing foreclosure. The loan servicer can grant six months forbearance without the GSE’s approval.

If the borrower is still unemployed Fannie Mae can approve an additional six months forbearance. After that the lender and borrower must consider other options.

The borrower is expected to repay the lost payments over a longer period. But in reality, in many cases the forbearance would simply amount to one year free rent.

This follows a similar program last summer for FHA loans and loan modifications.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/business/unemployed-mortgage-holders-get-payment-extension.html

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