Home Guide Realty

Protect Your Family from Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

2011-10-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

SAFETY TIPS:

Have your home heating systems (including chimneys and vents) inspected and serviced annually by a trained service technician.
Never use portable generators inside homes or garages, even if doors and windows are open. Use generators outside only, far away from the home.
Never bring a charcoal grill into the house for heating or cooking. Do not barbeque in the garage.
Never use a gas range or oven for heating.
Open the fireplace damper before lighting a fire and keep it open until the ashes are cool. An open damper may help prevent build-up of poisonous gases inside the home.
Install battery-operated CO alarms or CO alarms with battery backup in your home outside separate sleeping areas.
Know the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning: headache, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, sleepiness, and confusion. If you suspect CO poisoning, get outside to fresh air immediately, and then call 911.

KNOW THE SYMPTOMS OF CO2 POISONING:

Because CO is odorless, colorless, and otherwise undetectable to the human senses, people may not know that they are being exposed. The initial symptoms of low to moderate CO poisoning are similar to the flu (but without the fever). They include:

Headache | Fatigue | Shortness of breath | Nausea | Dizziness

High level CO poisoning results in progressively more severe symptoms, including:

Mental confusion | Vomiting | Loss of muscular coordination | Loss of consciousness | Ultimately death

Symptom severity is related to both the CO level and the duration of exposure. For slowly developing residential CO problems, occupants and/or physicians can mistake mild to moderate CO poisoning symptoms for the flu, which sometimes results in tragic deaths. For rapidly developing, high level CO exposures (e.g., associated with use of generators in residential spaces), victims can rapidly become mentally confused, and can lose muscle control without having first experienced milder symptoms; they will likely die if not rescued.

Forecast Says Double-Dip Recession is Imminent

2011-10-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

The U.S. economy is staring down another recession, according to a forecast from the Economic Cycle Research Institute.
"It's either just begun, or it's right in front of us," said Lakshman Achuthan, the managing director of ECRI. "But at this point that's a detail. The critical news is there's no turning back. We are going to have a new recession."
more...

Kamala Harris Pressured to Reject Bank Foreclosure Settlement

2011-10-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

A group of California union leaders, politicians and activists are urging the state attorney general to reject any deal that lacks significant principal reduction for distressed homeowners. Click here for full story...

What You Need to Know About Upcoming Changes to FHA Loans

2011-09-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

As you may know, unless Congress extends the expiration deadline, Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan limits set in 2008 will drop significantly beginning October 1. Congress raised the loan limit amount in response to the housing crisis to help spur the homebuying market. FHA loans offer borrowers very competitive rates and terms, and they only require a 3.5% down payment. Allowable debt ratios are higher than the typical debt-ratio limits imposed for conventional loans, and there are no income limit qualifications, so more people can qualify for them.

If the loan limit drops on October 1, many California homebuyers will face higher down payments, higher mortgage rates and stricter loan qualification requirements. Borrowers seeking larger mortgages will have to apply for conventional loans or jumbo loans, which may be subject to higher interest rates and down payments. Here are four things you should know now.

1. LOWER LOAN LIMITS.

The conforming loan limit determines the maximum mortgage amount that FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy or guarantee. If you want to stay under the current loan limits, you want to purchase now and close by September 30th.

2. DROPS BY COUNTY.

Under the new FHA loan limits, some counties will see significant drops in their loan limits. San Diego County will experience a $151,250 drop!

3. JUMBO LOANS.

The current FHA loan limit is $729,750. After October 1, that limit may drop to $625,500. Mortgage loans higher than that amount will be considered non-conforming jumbo loans, which typically have rates that are 0.875% to 1.5% higher than conforming rates, depending on the loan product, and require higher down payments.

4. MORE STRINGENT REQUIREMENTS.

FHA loan requirements may allow for lower credit scores. So an applicant with a lower FICO score can still qualify for an FHA loan, even if they can’t for a conventional loan. You may be able to obtain an FHA loan three years after defaulting or having a loan foreclosed.

Mortgage Rates Change Home Affordability

2011-07-19T08:10:00.000-07:00

Once you’ve made a budget, be sure to keep tabs on it. Your budget can be victimized by mortgage rates.

Homes are more affordable today than at any time in recorded history, but it’s not because home prices are down. It’s because mortgage rates are. And every time mortgage rates change, your maximum purchase price changes, too.

Did you know : In June 2011, mortgage rates changed every 3 hours, 23 minutes on average.

With mortgage rates changing as rapidly as they are, your home affordability can be short-lived. Consider the budget-busting impact of rising mortgage rates.

For every 1 percent rise in mortgage rates, a buyer’s maximum purchase price falls 10.75%.

For example, if you have 20 percent to put down and see a $300,000 home, today, you can borrow at 4.500% and pay $1,216 monthly. But if you want to wait for a price reduction and, 4 weeks later, you get it — all the way to $285,000, you're ecstatic. Until you talk to your lender and find out mortgage rates are up 1 point.

That same home — selling for $15,000 less — now costs $1,295 to carry. It’s a $79 monthly increase, and $28,440 in extra payments over the life of the loan.

This is why it’s foolish to “time” the housing market. Sure, you may get your “great price”, but rising mortgage rates wipe out the savings (and then some).

Squeezing Extra Dollars From The Budget

So what do you do when you need to squeeze a few extra dollars from your budget? You can’t wait for mortgage rates, after all, because mortgage rates are random; there’s unpredictable day-to-day. But, you can do more with a mortgage.

Specifically, you can avoid ”over-paying” on your mortgage.

The most common example of “doing more with a mortgage” is recommending against the 30-year fixed rate mortgage when a lower-rate adjustable rate mortgage is more suitable. Homeowners planning to sell within 7 years, for example, don’t need a 30-year fixed-rate loan. Many will opt for the 30-year fixed anyway, however, citing “peace of mind”.

That can be an expensive insurance policy.

Example: In July 2011, mortgage rates for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage were 130 basis points higher than for an otherwise identical 5-year ARM. As a result, buyers financing with a 30-year fixed paid 12% more each month for their mortgage.

It must be said: Although adjustable-rate mortgages are “cheaper”, they should not be used as a means to “afford more home”. They’re most suitable for people with a relocation history and/or with the ability to manage higher housing payments in the future. When appropriate, ARMs can be a huge money-saver.

Obama Administration Boosts Aid for Unemployed Homeowners

2011-07-10T21:37:00.000-07:00

Unemployed homeowners with government-insured mortgages will be allowed to miss a year of payments while they try to find a job... more

Apartment Rents Increase as Vacancies Fall...

2011-07-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

Demand for rental apartments in the U.S. has soared as foreclosures forced people out of their homes and prospective home buyers found it harder to get mortgages... more

Why 2011 May Be the End of the Housing Crash

2011-03-04T06:05:00.000-08:00

Interesting read from the Wall Street Journal

6 BIG-TIME HOMEBUYER TURN-OFFS

2011-03-01T07:00:00.000-08:00

FROM Trulia.com:
Here are 6 big-time homebuyer turn-offs that make buyers cringe at the thought of your home, and action steps you can take to prevent your home from being an offender:

1. Stalker-ish sellers. I know you think you’re being helpful, walking the buyer through your home and pointing out the wagon-wheel light fixture you made with your own two hands, the custom mural of a stingray you paid top dollar to have painted across your living room wall and the way the sounds of happy schoolchildren running across the front yard of your corner lot to get to the school in the next block lifts your spirits. However, the buyers might be trying really hard to ignore, minimize or figure out how to undo the very features of your home you hold dear. They also may want or need to have personal space and conversations with their mate or their agent while they’re viewing your home - you being there, especially walking right alongside them while they’re in your home, prevents them from being comfortable about doing this, or discussing all the things they would change if the home were theirs. In my experience, the more nitpicky a buyer gets about a house and the more detailed their list of things they would change, the more serious they are about considering making an offer on this place.

What’s a Seller to do? Back off. Let your home be shown vacant, or leave the house when people come to see it. If you need to be there, at least walk outside or go sit at the coffee shop down the way while prospective buyers view your home. If the buyers have questions, their people will contact your people.

2. Shabby, dirty, crowded and/or smelly houses. You already know this one. Yet, buyers constantly marvel. The buyers who come to see your home are making the decision whether to choose your home for the biggest purchase they’ve ever made during the worst economic conditions most of them have ever experienced. Your job is to get your home noticed – favorably – above the sea of other homes on the market, many of which are priced very, very low.

What’s a Seller to do? Other than listing your home at a competitive price, the only tool within your control for differentiating your home from all the foreclosures and short sales is to show it in tip-top shape. Pre-pack your place up, getting rid of as many of your personal effects as possible. Do not show it without it being completely cleaned up: no laundry or dishes piled up, countertops freshly washed, smelly dogs (I have a couple who smell on occasion – no judgment – but don’t show your house with pet odors) or litter boxes cleaned and/or out of the house.

3. Irrational seller expectations (i.e., overpricing). Buying a house on today’s market is hard work! On top of all the research and analysis about the market and situating their own lives to be sure they’ll be able to afford the place for 5, 7, 10 years - or longer, buyers have to work overtime to separate the real estate wheat from the chaff, get educated about short sales and foreclosures and often put in many, many offers before they get even a single one accepted. The last thing they want to add to their task lists is trying to argue a seller out of unreasonable expectations or pricing. And, in fact, there are so many other homes on the market, buyers don’t have to do this. When they see a home whose seller is clearly clueless about their home’s value and has priced it sky-high, most often they won’t bother even looking at it. If they love it, they’ll wait for it to sit on the market for awhile, hoping the market will “educate you” into desperation, priming the pump for a later, lowball offer.

What’s a Seller to do? Get real. Get out there and look at the other properties that are for sale in your area and price range. Get multiple agents’ take on what your home should be listed at, and don’t take it personally if their recommendation is low. If your home has much less curb appeal or space or is much less upgraded than the house across the way, don’t list it at the same price and expect it to sell. If you owe more than your home is realistically worth, you may need to reexamine whether you really want or need to sell, or consider a short sale, if you simply have to sell. Don’t be tempted into testing your market with an obviously too-high price, unless you’re prepared to have your home lag on the market and get lowball offers.

4. Feeling misled. Here’s the deal. You will never trick someone into buying your home. If the listing pics are photo-edited within an inch of their lives, or your home is described as an “approved” short sale when, in fact, the bank approved another offer, now withdrawn, but will require a new offer to go through any sort of approval process (even a truncated one), buyers will learn this information at some point. If your neighborhood is described as funky and vibrant, as code for the fact that your house is under the train tracks and you live in between a wrecking yard and a biker bar, prospects will figure this out. If the detailed information about your home, neighborhood or even transactional position (e.g., short sale status, seller financing, etc.) is misrepresented, the sheer misrepresentation will turn otherwise interested buyers off. If you authorize your agent to “verbally approve” the buyer’s offer, don’t go back the next day demanding an extra $5,000. In cases where the buyer feels misled, whether or not that was your intention, running through the buyer’s mind is this question: If they can’t trust you to be honest about this, how can they trust you to be honest about everything else?

What’s a Seller to do? Buyers rely on sellers to be upfront and honest – so be both. If your home has features or aspects that are often perceived negatively, your home’s listing probably shouldn’t lead with them (like the ad I recently saw with the intro line: “this place is a mess!”), but neither should you go out of your way to slant or skew or spin the facts which will be obvious to anyone who visits your home. Make sure you know what the listing of your home reads like, before it’s published to the web, and that a prospective buyer will not feel misled by it.

5. New, ugly home improvements. Many a buyer has walked into a house that has clearly been remodeled and upgraded in anticipation of the sale, only to have their heart sink with the further realization that the brand-spanking-new kitchen features a countertop made, not of Carerra marble, but brand-new, pink tiles with a kitty cat in the middle of each one (I saw this once, people – no joke). Or the pristine, just-installed floors feature carpet in a creamy shade of blue – the buyer’s least favorite color. New home improvements that run totally counter to a buyer’s aesthetics are a big turn-off, because in today’s era of Conspicuous Frugality, buyers just can’t cotton to ripping out expensive, brand new, perfectly functioning things just on the basis of style – especially since they’ll feel like they paid for these things in the price of the home.

What’s a Seller to do? Check in with a local broker or agent before you make a big investment in a pre-sale remodel. They can give you a reality check about the likely return on your investment, and help you prioritize about which projects to do (or not). Instead of spending $40,000 on a new, less-than-attractive kitchen, they might encourage you to update appliances, have the cabinets painted and spend a few grand on your curb appeal. Many times, they will also help you do the work of selecting neutral finishes that will work for the largest possible range of buyer tastes.

6. CRAZY listing photos (or no photos at all). Here at Trulia, we’ve seen listing photos that have dumpsters parked in front of the house, piles of laundry all over the “hardwood” floors touted in the listing description, and once, even the family dog doing his or her business in the lovely green front yard. Listing pictures that have put your home in anything but its best, accurate light are a very quick way to ensure that you turn off a huge number of buyers from even coming to see your house! The only bigger buyer turn-off than these bizarre listing pics are listings that have no photos at all; most buyers on today’s market see a listing with no pictures and click right on past it, without giving the place a second glance.

What’s a Seller to do? Check your home’s listing online and make sure that the pics represent your home well. If not, ask your agent to grab some new shots and get them online (and say pretty please, pretty please!).

Thank you, Investors...

2011-02-23T13:41:00.001-08:00

It's the cash deals that are pushing prices higher...

DataQuick: San Diego foreclosures up 34% in January

2011-02-23T13:39:00.000-08:00

Click here for full report...

Light at the End of the Tunnel - Home Prices actually going UP?

2011-02-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

Click here for The stats...

Deficit Reduction Commission? NIMBY!

2010-12-02T08:31:00.000-08:00

The White House’s Deficit Reduction Commission issued a proposal this week that calls for changes in how the country spends money and collects taxes. Among the recommendations that could be made to Congress is a proposal to change the mortgage interest deduction.

The proposal recommends offering a 12 percent nonrefundable tax credit to all taxpayers and capping the mortgage-interest deduction to loans less than $500,000, with homeowners receiving no credit from mortgages on a second home.

The California Association of Realtors strongly opposes the proposal and has consistently communicated its opposition to any such change to elected officials. As the housing market continues to recover from the worst financial crisis in recent history, any change that reduces the ability of the market to heal is misguided and must be rejected. The proposal from the Deficit Reduction Commission will negatively impact the housing market, further erode opportunities for homeownership across the country, and will contribute to further price declines and diminished equity for homeowners.

C.A.R. is working closely with the National Association of Realtors staff in Washington, D.C. to make certain that the real estate industry’s opposition to this proposal is heard and its far-reaching implications understood.

Price Reductions Continue to Increase

2010-10-27T08:50:00.000-07:00

Trulia.com recently announced that price reductions for homes currently listed for sale have increased for the fourth consecutive month to an all-time high of 27 percent and account for a total reduction of more than $30.7 billion nationwide.

“We would normally expect to see a seasonal uptick in price reductions between June and October, as motivated sellers whose homes are still on the market after the summer selling season aggressively cut prices in an effort to get their homes sold before the holidays,” said Tara-Nicholle Nelson, consumer educator, Trulia.com. "Comparatively speaking, we've found that seasonal considerations combined with a lack of urgency on the part of would-be buyers and continued job market doldrums nationwide have led to more significant reductions during this time period than during the same time frame in 2009."

Five California cities were on the top 10 list of “Highest Percentage Increase in Price Reductions: June to Oct. 2010”:

Number 2, San Diego, 64 percent increase

Number 3, Sacramento, 61 percent increase

Number 4, Fresno, 51 percent increase

Number 5, San Jose, 46 percent

Number 9, Oakland, 31 percent

Since June 2010, the five largest increases in price reductions have occurred in the Western U.S., with Las Vegas registering the most substantial increase (194 percent). Five major California cities remain beneath the national average in October, but price reduction rates in all seven of California’s largest cities have increased dramatically since June, with San Jose, Fresno, Sacramento and San Diego seeing the largest increases, according to the report.

The American Dream of Home Ownership Has Become a Nightmare

2010-09-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

Culturally a decent house has been a symbol of middle-class family life. Practically, it has been a secure shelter for the children, along with access to a good free education. Financially it has been regarded as a safe store of value, a shield against the vagaries of the economy, and a long-term retirement asset. Indeed, for decades, a house has been the largest asset on the balance sheet of the average American family. In recent years, it provided boatloads of money. to homeowners through recourse to cash-out refinancing, in effect an equity withdrawal from their once rapidly appreciating home values.

These days the American dream of home ownership has turned into a nightmare for millions of families. They wake every day to the reality of a horrible decline in the value of the home that has meant so much to them. The pressure to meet mortgage payments on homes that have lost value has been especially shocking—and unjust—for the millions of unemployed through no fault of their own. For the baby boomer generation, a home is now seen not as the cornerstone of advancement but a ball and chain, restricting their ability and their mobility to move and seek out a job at another location. They just cannot afford to abandon the equity they have in their homes—and they can't sell in this miserable market.

American homeowners have experienced an unprecedented decline in their equity net of mortgage debt. The seemingly never-ending fall in prices has brought an average decline of at least 30 percent. Furthermore, the country is now going through an unprecedented nationwide slide in sales, despite the fact that long-term mortgage interest rates nationwide plummeted recently to a record low of 4.3 percent before rising slightly. The result is that home occupancy costs for home purchases are now down to roughly 15 percent of family income, dramatically lower than the conventional, affordable figure of 25 percent of family income devoted to home occupancy costs. Yet new home sales, pending home sales, and mortgage applications are down to a 13-year low.

Read more...

California Housing Prices on the Rebound

2010-09-17T07:35:00.001-07:00

The national housing market is shrouded in uncertainty. But in California, there are glimmers of stability. Click here to read the full story at cnnmoney.com.

Inventory Up... not good...

2010-09-10T09:18:00.001-07:00

Housing inventories rose in many U.S. cities for the eighth straight month in August in a sign of the continued headwinds facing a soft housing market.

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/business/economy/06housing.html?_r=1&ref=realestate

"Let" the Market Fall?

2010-09-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

The unexpectedly deep plunge in home sales this summer is likely to force the Obama administration to choose between future homeowners and current ones, a predicament officials had been eager to avoid.

full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/business/economy/06housing.html?_r=1&ref=realestate

Looking to Qualify for a Mortgage?

2010-09-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

Lenders scrutinize all elements of a mortgage application, but one factor remains critical: The debt-to-income ratio, or the percentage of a borrower’s monthly gross income that goes toward housing expenses. If it surpasses 36 percent, lenders typically will reject the loan.