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My dad always advised me to buy low and sell high! You would be hard pressed to find a better market for mortgage rates and real estate pricing. Have you heard that the affordability index has measured that home buying is at it’s most affordable level in since the 60′s?  Tucson is a great market for buying real estate and it’s no secret that housing values have plummeted in Arizona. There are lots of foreclosures and short sales offering  very low home prices. Check out www.homepath.com for Fannie Mae owned properties. My company, PHH Mortgage offers special financing terms for a Home Path Mortgage (we are not currently offering the Home Path Renovation Mortgage at this time). Home Path Mortgages can be obtained with a 3% down payment (or more), there is no mortgage insurance and they do not require an appraisal. Fannie Mae often pays for the buyers closing costs too.

If you already own your house, have you thought about a refi? Here’s an article from yesterday’s USA today: Mortgage Rates Reach Record Lows, Sparking Refinancings.

The article indicates 63% of residential mortgages have rates above 5% and 46% of homeowners have 20% or less equity in their home. It is harder to refinance your home without sufficient equity. It can be hard to refinance your home with equity too as underwriting guidelines continue to get tighter. However if you qualify, now is the time. 5/1 ARMs are currently below 3% APR. According to this week’s Freddie Mac survey, 15 year fixed rates are at 3.5% and 30 year fixed rates are at 4.32% which is very near the record low. Freddie Mac has been tracking rates for over 40 years.

What if you don’t have equity and you still want to refinance?  You might qualify for the HASP (Home Affordability and Stability Plan) program that can enable you to refinance your loan even if the current mortgage is up to 125% of the home’s value. You had to have purchased your home before June of 2009 and the existing mortgage is with Fannie Mae (www.fanniemae.com) or Freddie Mac (www.freddiemac.com). Go to the Look Up tool to see if Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac owns your mortgage. They do not service the loans, but they are the investors.

Call me to review your options. David wolsky at 520-275-2536 or david@davidwolsky.com.

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Bank regulators and Congress are looking to make more changes to guidelines for conventional and FHA mortgages. Congress would like to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The timing of these changes is challenging, considering the struggling housing market and anemic economic recovery. Among the proposed changes being proposed are increasing the minimum down payment for conventional loans to 20%, setting higher income and credit qualifications and reducing the maximum loan limits. FHA proposals include increasing the minimum down payment to 5%. These changes will certainly eliminate potential buyers, causing the housing market to take a longer time to recover.

Short Sales Aren’t Alway Short!

In my mortgage practice, a large percentage of my deals are “short sales” or bank owned properties. Recently, I had a customer that offered to buy a home with a short sale. The listing agent set the sales price, the buyers agreed and  after several weeks, the bank declined the offer. The house will be foreclosed instead. It is likely that another buyer could buy this house on the steps of the courthouse for a lower price than the short sale offer than my customer had offered on the home. I guess the bank decided they could make more money foreclosing the property than accepting the short sale offer. Why else would they turn down a qualified buyer. In fact, he decided to pay cash for the house and the bank still turned him down. Another factor that makes short sales so tough to execute is junior liens. In other words, the current owner of the house has a first and second mortgage and both lien holders have to agree on the sale. This dynamic usually means the junior lien holder (second mortgage or HELOC), is taking a beating on the balances owed on their loans.

I had another interesting deal that closed a few weeks ago. The buyer was buying a short sale and it took months for the first and second lien holder to agree on the terms of the sale. Once it was finally approved, we put the loan in process. The listing agent requested that we close the loan within three weeks of the short sale approval. During those three weeks, we find out that Fannie Mae was going to auction off the house in a foreclosure acout a week before we were scheduled to close. We were able to stave of the foreclosure with a lot of persuasion from the REALTORs involved with the sale and the buyer was able to get the house. The first mortgage lender probably should not have approved the short sale if they knew the investor (Fannie Mae) had begun foreclosure proceeding.

Foreclosures are much easier to buy. The lenders are offering terms to sell the homes. For example, Fannie Mae (FNMA) has a program known as HomePath. They typically will offer 3.5% of the sales price as a concession to the buyer for a primary residence or a second home. The offer 2% for investors. The program does not require an appraisal and there is no mnortgage insurance required if you have a down payment below 20%. A million foreclosures are anticipated again this year. Half of the homes in Arizona have negative equity and home values continue to go south. Hang in there as time heals all wounds. The first quarter of 2011 has been robust for home sales in Tucson.

Tucson Is #4!

According to Inman News, Tucson is considered a top five best markets for investors thanks to the declining housing prices. Of the top ten, only two cities were out west (Tucson and Salt Lake City). The report looks at economic data, housing and demographics including the median price of homes, loan data and foreclosure sales.

If you have any questions about real estate in Arizona, contact David Wolsky at 520-275-2536 or david@davidwolsky.com.

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With declining home values, rising interest rates and FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac changes around the corner, now is the time to take advantage of the Tucson housing market and buy that house! Even waiting 60 days could cost you thousands.

The Obama administration released their “white paper” this past week on the housing market. The impact of their proposals could launch major changes in the mortgage industry. FHA has already announced .25% higher mortgage insurance fees effective on April 18, 2010. You can expect monthly payments to rise $30 per month for a $150,000 mortgage. It is my understanding that the government would like to reduce FHA’s exposure from its 30% market share of mortgages down to 10%. It is unclear where homebuyers can turn to for loan programs that will be similar to today’s FHA mortgages. Tomorrow’s FHA home loans will consider raising the minimum down payment which are currently 3.5%. As you can imagine, most people are already strapped for down payment money. The report also suggested that higher down payments should also be considered for conventional loans. A 10% down payment was recommended. The current terms allow a 3% to 5% down payment depending on the borrower’s qualifications. Other changes include reducing the maximum loan amounts under FHA and conventional mortgages in the so-called “high cost areas”. Those changes do not appear to impact loan limits in Tucson or Phoenix. Fannie and Freddie have raised their fees charged to lenders to guarantee pools if their mortgages for resale to bond investors. Lenders will pass along those charges to consumers. The hits just keep on coming! Fannie and Freddie recently began charging additional fees for borrowers with a credit score below 740 and down payments less than 25%. Those charges will translate to slightly higher rates or points for consumers.

If you are on the fence to buy that house, don’t wait! Call me, David Wolsky for mortgage advice. I can be reached at (520) 275-2536 or at david@davidwolsky.com. My company, PHH Home Loans is offering a $350 lender credit towards are closing costs which are already amongst the lowest in the business.

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Call me at 520-275-2536 or email David Wolsky @david@davidwolsky.com for details on how PHH Home Loans can save you money every month on your next mortgage! Licensed in Arizona. NMLS#182108.

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For up to date rate information, email david@davidwolsky.com or call me at 520-275-2536.

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Tucson is a great place to live! I visited “The Old Pueblo” for the first time in 1978 and immediately fell in love with the desert as I went through Gates Pass on my way to the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum. I came back year after year. In 1994, my family and I moved here and I joined the mortgage industry which connected me to home buyers relocating here from all over the world. I have been sharing my zeal for Tucson with anyone in earshot for these last 16 years and counting!

CNNmoney.com recognized Tucson as one of the top locations to buy a retirement home in their recent article, Best Places to Retire.

You probably know that Tucson has 350 days of sunshine, more than two dozen golf courses designed by the likes of Tom Fazio and Jack Nicklaus, and some of the best Southwest cuisine this side of the border.

What you might not know is that Tucson is surrounded by four different mountain ranges, and there’s even skiing at nearby Mount Lemmon. The city has a wealth of historic places to explore, from the 19th century St. Augustine Cathedral to the old homes and store fronts in El Presidio. Just outside of Tucson, you can visit old mining towns, missions and archaeological sites, including the petroglyphs at Signal Hill and the reconstructed dwelling as Dankworth Village. When temperatures get too brutal for outdoor pursuits, such as hiking the 150 miles of trails in the Santa Catalina Mountains, you can always hop in a summer class with the University of Arizona at Tucson’s lifelong learning program. There’s even a course on pirates!

Tucson was also featured in the article “Where to Buy a Retirement Home for Under $600 a Month” provided to Yahoo by U. S. News and World Report.

With 350 days of sunshine a year, Tucson residents don’t have any excuses for staying indoors. Retirees can hike through the five surrounding mountain ranges, explore a nearby cave, visit a Native American archaeological dig, or check out the Center for Creative Photography. The median home price in Tucson declined 14 percent, to $150,000, from the second quarter of 2009 to the same period of 2010. Buyers that put 20 percent–or $30,000–down on a median-priced Tucson home will pay roughly $599 a month in mortgage principal and interest payments.

If you would like to know more about Tucson, call me, David Wolsky at 520-275-2535 or email me at david@davidwolsky.com. It would love to talk to you about Arizona and to help you buy your next home.

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Back in Tucson, my mortgage license was approved. All originators (except for the originators in those big banks like Wells Fargo, Chase and Bank of America) needed to be fully licensed in Arizona on July 1st to continue taking loan applications. National licensing is also required for originators including a background check. Several thousand loan originators have left the business because of the licensing requirement and thousands have been forced to the sidelines while going through the licensing process.

FHA announced some good news and some bad news. The upfront mortgage insurance premium has been reduced from 2.25% to 1%! The bad news it the monthly premium has rise to .9% from .55% for most transactions. Please get off the fence if you are thinking about purchasing a home with a FHA loan! You will save about $40 per month for a $200,000 loan. The implementation date is scheduled to be September 7th, but I have heard that it may get postponed until October 4th.

In other mortgage news, interest rates have been continuing to drop to record low levels in Freddie Mac’s weekly surveys. Freddie Mac has been reporting the weekly average of mortgage rates for over forty years. The phones have been busy with refinance and purchase applications. Unfortunately, not every applicant will qualify these days. The most common reasons for denials include credit issues, lack of down payments or lack of  equity for refinances, inability to verify income or assets and insufficient work history. Don’t despair! We are getting our qualified borrowers approved! I welcome your inquires and referrals.

For further information, contact David Wolsky at david@davidwolsky.com or call 520-275-2536. I have over 16 years of experience!

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I’ll be taking a break from mortgages and Tucson for a couple of weeks. My family and I are headed to Argentina and Uruguay for a couple of weeks while we are visiting our son and extended family in Buenos Aires. It seems hard for originators to go on vacation! We always have our borrowers relying on our expertise and guidance. I have a great team covering for me locally and in our loan processing center in Mt. Laurel, NJ.

Timing can be so very tricky. For example, as I write this blog, interest rates are at a fifty year low low according to the Freddie Mac weekly survey. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that demand has been relatively flat because  many homeowners were able to take advantage of low rates in 2009. Here in Tucson, a third of the houses are under water! Less than 40% of borrowers are able to qualify for a refinance and many don’t feel the closing costs are worth the potential savings. It’s not easy to get a mortgage these days and refinances can often become even more challenging.

It is also more challenging to become a mortgage originator. Did you know that over 30% of originators fail the exam for their licenses? I am proud to let you know that I passed all of my requirements with flying colors! The number of loan originators in Arizona has been drastically reduced. You can count on me to be there for your mortgage needs, now and down the road!

I’ll be back on July 13th! I can be reached at david@davidwolsky.com and 520-275-2536.

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