Archive for July, 2008
Bernardo Point In Rancho Bernardo – No Mello Roos and Low HOA’s Make For A Fabulous Buy!
July 28th, 2008 Categories: Rancho Bernardo, Real Estate News
We just took another fabulous new listing in Rancho Bernardo in the exclusive gated community of Bernardo Point. This development, located adjacent to 4S Ranch, has large homes on good sized lots without the high Mello-Roos and HOA fees common in new developments of Rancho Bernardo and the 4S Ranch.
The home is located in the gated community of Bernardo Point. Sitting on a large lot on a beautiful street, you’ll live in a very desirable neighborhood. With its nicely done landscaping and entertaining backyard, you’ll be able to relax and enjoy your own oasis while being just minutes to everything the Rancho Bernardo area has to offer.
This architectural beauty offers the perfect balance of functionality and design, along with modern luxuries. Dual entry doors welcome you to the large open living room with vaulted ceilings and dining area. Lots of big windows will bathe you in light, and lead you out to the relaxing backyard.
Designed for an active and social family, the home features proximity to Interstate 15 and Route 56, the new 4S Commons shopping center, Westfield North County Fair Mall and much more. Priced to sell, please call us today for your private showing or go to www.HotOnSanDiego.com for more information.
Watch The Virtual Tour: Click Here
Send The V-Flyer: Click Here
MLS# 080042497Seller to entertain offers between $759,000 to $799,000
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New Fannie Mae Investor Rule
July 26th, 2008 Categories: Mortgage News
Many buyers are choosing to retain their current residences and turn them into rental properties. Ideally, the rent received will be enough to cover the mortgage payment if not more, and in the long run the buyer will enjoy appreciation on the property as well. As far as qualifying for their home purchase, lenders would typically accept 75% of the new rent to help offset the mortgage payment of the retained property instead of counting the entire payment against their debt to income ratios. 
Big change to FNMA guidelines: The underwriter must now obtain a statistical appraisal (also known as an AVM) on the borrower’s current residence to determine the percentage of equity in that property. If the borrower has a minimum of 30% equity in the current residence, then normal underwriting guidelines apply. However, if it is determined that the borrower has less than 30% equity in the retained home, the entire mortgage payment, including taxes and insurance, will be counted against them, regardless of down payment on the new home, credit, etc. This can be a deal killer.
Unfortunately, there have been many buyers that provided fake lease agreements so that they could buy their next home, wrongly assuming that the home would rent quickly. After a few months of the retained property sitting vacant, the mortgage payments still being due, and a depressed real estate market, some of these folks chose to walk away from the old home.
If you have a client that plans to rent out their current home and needs that income to qualify, run comps on the retained property to be safe. You do not want to wait until after you already have an accepted offer to find out they do not qualify. This guideline change is affecting almost all conventional loans including Conforming, Conforming Plus, and true Jumbo even though Jumbo loans are not insured by FNMA. Not the greatest of news, but in the long run this can help in the effort to reduce loan defaults.
Should you have any questions especially if you have a client that might be affected by this change, please feel free to call (760)500-1919 or email me.
And remember to always get your clients pre-approved not just pre-qualified.
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Skyrocketing Gas Prices In San Diego Impact Realtors
July 13th, 2008 Categories: Real Estate News
I had to stop for gas yesterday on my way home, having milked my gas tank down to 3 miles remaining. Since I was driving my Mercury Mountaineer SUV, I paused to think as I looked at the $4.47 price per gallon. I did a quick calculation in my head…$4.47 times 21 gallons, gee that’s over $90 bucks! And that didn’t include the quick drive-thru car wash I was going to get and desperately needed.
After the pump stopped filling up, at $97.43 (I guess my tank holds a little more than 21 gallons) and I added the $10 car wash, my stop cost me $107.43 cents! As I pulled out of the wash, looking down at my “miles remaining” guage, my vehicle told me I could go another 311 miles until the next day that I would be totally depressed. That works out to about a whole lotta cents per mile. At these costs, thoughts of getting a bigger better and newer SUV evaporated and were replaced with the thought of that itty bitty car, what’s it called, the “smart-car”.
Now somehow I just don’t see me or my fellow REALTORS carting around people in one of these. Does it even have a backseat? What’s funny is that just last week I saw one truckin down Hwy 15 that was “wrapped” in advertisement and the owner was a REALTOR!
I don’t remember what the name of the REALTOR was or his company name, but I guarantee you that I’m on the lookout for him. Is this the next big thing for us real estate pro’s? Are we showing our clients that we are no longer wastefully driving around previewing homes for our buyers burning large amounts of gas? And then I wondered…how would I feel about my REALTOR if he showed up to meet me at a property driving one of these things?
What with all the history behind rising gas prices, OPEC, the War in Iraq, don’t you ever feel like your just the victim of world politics? There’s a funny video on YouTube that was forwarded to me…click the arrow at the bottom of this page.
Most successful REALTORS drive nice cars. It’s been a part of our culture for many years. Part of the vision I had for myself when I decided to get into the real estate business was a mental picture of me in my big black Mercedes 500 series. Is that image now going to be replaced by a smart car?
The price of gas has definately been a water cooler topic around my offices. REALTORS are becoming more creative, planning more carefully, and even carpooling more because of the price of a barrel of crude oil. For those of us who were driving back in 1974 (I had just gotten my license a year or two earlier), I can remember the impact it had on American car makers. Big Chevy Impala’s were replaced by the Vega and Ford’s Pinto. This was a very depressing period of time for those of us who enjoyed the 60’s muscle cars.
So on behalf of all my fellow REALTORS, I hope and pray that our government does something to reduce the price we pay at the pump to something more reasonable. Gas prices seem to be at the top of people’s minds when they think they have to cut and save. This will definitely have an effect on our housing market recovery and lengthen the time it takes.
I’m not ready for the smart car yet, and I can’t sell my SUV because nobody wants to buy one now. So I guess I too will have to be more creative and plan more carefully my routes, but it’s not gonna stop me from being the best REALTOR I can be!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on1xPlV-rhs[/youtube]
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Are You A Sitting Duck?
July 9th, 2008 Categories: Real Estate News
Ever feel like a sitting duck in a pond with a bunch of hunters surrounding you?
In this current Real Estate climate you’re not alone. Not only are we, the agents, feeling like sitting ducks, so too are you…our potential buyers and sellers.
Just imagine, you’re minding your own business, doing your job, providing for your family and drawing a pay check so you can pay all your bills and all of a sudden your mortgage company sends you a letter. In the letter they inform you that your loan is about to recast, to a much higher percentage, and your mortgage payment is going to go up.
In fact, your payment is going to go to a point where you might not be able to pay all your bills anymore. To make matters worse you find out that the value of your home has gone down to the point where you can’t refinance it, in order to lower your payments.
What do you do?
You could try to sell the home, but then you find out that it’s worth less than you owe.
Where do you turn now?
Even though we as agents find this market difficult and sometimes irritating, our problems could be worse. The real sitting ducks right now are those who count on us the most; our potential clients.
The good news is people need our expertise. People are counting on our experience to help them get out of the problem I just described. No, we can’t solve all of the problems but we sure can help, and dog gone it, that’s what we are supposed to do, help our clients!
We can grouse about the difficulties of short sales, we can complain about lenders and the lack of communications, we can wish for the good old days, or we can do what we are trained to do and that is help homeowners deal with today’s issues.In order to help people we may need to provide some tough love and help them negotiate with their lenders, or help them sell their current home and get them into a home they can afford. Whatever the need is, we need to step up and figure out what is in the best interest of our clients and try to help provide that to them.
Too often, we the agents are seen as a necessary evil.
Let’s think of ways to be a real asset to sellers and buyers, so they look at us an avenue of hope and possibility. We can be a conduit for them to their lenders. We can be a provider of valuable information so they can make inform and intelligent decisions. We can guide them through this ever changing market. We can provide them with professional help which may preserve their most valuable asset, their home.
We don’t need to be a hunter in these times. We need to be provider, a provider of help to the best of our ability. So the question is…Are you a sitting duck?
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