FHA Homes for Sale
By admin on March 17, 2008
Have you ever seen an advertisement for a buyer’s guide to purchasing homes that are sold by the government? The commercial or ad usually tells you that there are loads of homes, cars, and other property that is seized by the government all the time, and you can learn how to buy these properties for pennies on the dollar if you purchase their book, subscribe to their website, or pay a one time fee for an ebook.
The truth is that you do not need to pay money to find out how to purchase homes from the FHA, you only need to go to their homes for sale website at http://www.fha.gov/homes.cfm Here you will find information including:
• How to purchase a home from the FHA. The homes that the FHA are selling are foreclosures that were guaranteed by the government, and now that the mortgage loan was foreclosed on, the government owns the house and is responsible for the sale. This site also features the homes that are for sale from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
• Once you go to the site you can enter the state you are interested in purchasing a home in, and the city. Then a list will come up that shows the price of the home, square footage, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, and more. It will also tell you if there are any buyer incentives or broker incentives for the home.
• The FHA offers discount ts and incentives for owner-occupants. Owner-occupants are people who purchase the home as their primary residence. The FHA and VA offer their homes for sale to people who plan to occupy the home before they offer them for sale to real estate investors.
• You CAN NOT purchase homes from the government for pennies on the dollar. Sometimes there are discounts available to non-profit organizations or other government agencies that are purchasing a home from the FHA, but a normal civilian citizen will pay a reasonable price for the home, but it is usually under the appraised value of the home, which is still a good deal.
• Each home has a specific period of time in which the FHA will accept offers on that particular home. If you are interested in buying a home, you must have a broker make a bid on the home during this allotted time. The FHA accepts the highest bid for the home from a registered FHA broker.
For more information on purchasing homes from HUD, the FHA, or the VA go to http://www.fha.gov/homes.cfm
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FHASecure Program
By admin on January 23, 2008
On December 3, 2007 President Bush addressed the concerns of many homeowners facing foreclosure with the news about a government backed refinancing program called FHASecure. FHASecure is a government-insured program designed to avoid foreclosure with sub-prime loan homeowners. In three months the initiative has helped over 33,000 avoid foreclosure with the hopes of helping over 50,000.
“FHASecure is providing tens of thousands of families with a powerful incentive to obtain affordable and safe home loans,” Jackson said during his keynote address to the Office of Thrift Supervision’s National Housing Forum. “Homeowners finally have an opportunity to save their American Dream without risking their financial future, and they’re taking advantage of it everyday.”
The program was established in August of this year and provides individuals who have a history of making their payments on time in accordance with their original loan interest rates but once the rates were increased they became delinquent. These loans are becoming more of a viable option considering FHA Loans are less likely to become foreclosure cases.
For information regarding this program or any other FHA program you can visit the FHA.gov site or you may also visit the Mortgage Loan Place.com, an FHA approved lender.
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Mortgage Brokers, the FHA, and approved fees
By admin on January 2, 2008
If you are planning to get a mortgage loan through the FHA you should be aware of the fees that are allowed or not allowed by the FHA. The FHA has approved mortgage lenders and brokers that you are allowed to use if you want to get a loan through one of their programs.
Some of the rules about fees that are associated with FHA loans include:
• An FHA approved mortgage broker can be paid from the loan for the loan origination fee for this service. This fee is considered standard, and is usually included in the closing costs of the loan.
• If the broker is not FHA approved then their loan origination fee can not be paid from the proceeds of the loan.
• Not only would their services not be paid for from the loan, but you would have to pay for their services, which the FHA would then require you to repeat with an FHA approved lender or broker. This means that you will pay this fee twice if you mistakenly do not use an FHA approved lender.
• If you did pay a fee to an unapproved lender or broker, you must disclose this information to the FHA. The FHA needs to determine your eligibility for the loan based on this information.
• You must not pay higher than the market rate fee or else the extra money would be considered a referral fee which is not allowed with FHA loans and could cause you to be rejected from the loan program. Referral fees are a type of kick back and are not permitted by any party in an FHA loan.
It is important to understand the fee rules of the FHA, because if you don’t know the rules then you may go to an unapproved lender who you will have to pay a fee for helping you, and this fee may cause you to be turned down for your FHA loan. Make sure that you go to an FHA approved lender right from the start to make sure that you do not get turned down for your mortgage loan over a simple mistake. You can find a list of FHA approved lenders by going and searching for a fha lender that is the closest to you.
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FHA required home inspections
By admin on November 15, 2007
If you are planning to get an FHA secured mortgage loan to purchase a home then you will be required to have the property inspected. Many buyers make the mistake of not having a home inspected before they buy, and they get stuck with expensive problems that should have been fixed before they bought the home. Even though there is a fee for the inspection, it is well worth the piece of mind in the long run.
In order to get a home inspection you can talk to your FHA approved lender. They will be able to recommend you to a reputable approved inspector that will thoroughly go through the home and let you know if there are any areas you should be concerned with.
When you first get the inspection report look it over with your real estate agent or FHA approved lender to see if there are any real problems. If there are issues, then you can choose to ask the seller to fix the problems, take money off of the asking price to reserve for you to have the problems fixed, or look for a different home to purchase.
For more information on home inspections and FHA loans go to http://www.fha.gov/buyer/process.cfm
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Back by popular demand
By admin on October 17, 2007
Michigan has hit a five year high in number of foreclosed FHA Loans. With the rising number of foreclosure across the country this statistic should really come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the housing market this year. Nearly 4 percent of the 5,235 FHA loans in the state of Michigan were foreclosed on ending Sept. 30th and 9,000 more are over 90 days delinquent with many of these headed towards foreclosure as well.
The expert consensus says that these foreclosures go beyond what is seen across the country and point towards Michigan’s poor economic state.
“In Michigan, we have determined that the situation has just gotten so severe we need to get out front more,” said Laurie Maggiano, deputy director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Asset Management and Disposition. “We don’t like the numbers and we want to see them go down.”
Help may be on the way in the form of Michigan only initiatives from the HUD. The HUD themselves are directly contacting the delinquent borrowers to meet with and discuss a way to avoid foreclosure. The HUD generally does not contact individuals directly.
If you would like to read more about the Foreclosure problem facing the state of Michigan you should visit The Detroit News.
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Sorry for such a long layoff
By admin on July 17, 2007
The dream of homeownership is one that every American shares. Modernizing programs to expand homeownership is shared by nearly 80 percent of Americans as well. These Americans believe that the legislation currently in Congress to modernize the FHA would be a safer and more affordable way for Americans to purchase a home rather a subprime loan.
Those surveyed were given a short description of the act itself and 77 percent of responders agreed that modernization is what the Housing and Urban Development’s FHA loan program is needed to help out those first time homeowners. These loans are designed to help middle to lower income families secure a home loan with little to no credit.
The FHA loan program, having just celebrated its 73rd birthday, has had little to no changes since then, much like a 73 year old. Many of the changes proposed could help out those where real estate prices are much higher than the loan limit allows for.
“Americans are in support of an FHA that could help even more first-time homebuyers and people with moderate incomes have access to safer mortgages. This survey demonstrates the urgent need for Congress to pass legislation that modernizes the FHA to help both promote and protect homeownership.”
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Ah, the Sunshine State
By admin on July 9, 2007
Foreclosures in the state of Colorado are still looming with Weld County ranking near the top nationwide in total number of homeowners who have lost their home. Check out the rest of the story here.
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Slow week, a little bit of fun
By admin on July 6, 2007
Slow news week for the FHA so I have decided to post up a couple clips from youtube.com.
This first clip is Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross.
It does have obscenity so here’s your warning.
This second clip is from Boiler Room.
Ben Affleck’s motivational speech
Again watch for the profanity.
I hope you enjoy your weekend.
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Books, check’em out.
By admin on July 5, 2007
As I have blogged about before, reverse mortgages are becoming more and more of an option of the baby boomer generation. They allow the homeowner to earn a credit line or monthly check from the equity in their house.
Reverse Mortgages: growing opportunity for today’s seniors
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Period numbers down
By admin on July 3, 2007
Fewer Americans are taking advantage of FHA Loans from the previous year. In FHA Lending from October of 2006 to May of 2007 the FHA has seen a 35% declining in the number of loans insured over the same time frame from the previous year. During this period the FHA insured $2.33 billion in loans where the previous year saw $3.56 billion.
There was also a drop in refinancing activity where they saw a 45% decrease in volume. There we saw a drop of $1.44 billion from $2.61 billion.
The FHA continues to lose market share to a variety of aggressive capital providers. “They’re struggling,” said Mark Ragsdale, senior vice president of originations at PNC MultiFamily Capital. “There’s still a great role for them, and they still have great programs; they just have to work on their execution.”
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