Tara Bianco talks with Rebecca about refinancing options.  If someone can either PURCHASE a home or qualify to refinance- they should- today’s rates are the lowest ever in history!

Part of her team at Amerifirst Financial is Jeff Underwood who speaks here about Upside Down Mortgages with Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac that can refinance at today’s low rates as well.

If you want to stay in your home and need help affording it, before you try for a loan modification- you should see if you can refinance today first.  Loan modifications are bandaids to the real problem of being upside down, so please consider a Short Sale before you decide to ding your credit with a loan modification attempt, which most seem to fail.

Full Details

http://www.integrityhomebuyingguide.com/listing/mlsid/8/propertyid/4424818/syndicated/1/cgltguid/58C107A1-DE95-4E1C-BE8C-A34E1FFC7AFB/?ts=crg

Listing Courtesy of Dena Jones, Integrity All Star Realty, LLC

Based on the graph provided by The Cromford Report (please click photo for full articles from Mike Orr explaining our current market as well) :

• During the peak of our marketplace in 2005, we had seen annual appreciation rates from 16% up to close to 50%.
• During 2008; we saw a steady decline from just below 0% declining down to below –40%.
• During 2009; we saw our market do the exact opposite and have a steady appreciation throughout the year climbing us almost entirely out of the declining market.
• During 2010; “The Year of Hope” as dubbed by Mike Orr in January 2010; we saw our market have a huge increase in appreciation due to the Obama Tax Credit for Home Buyers.  Unfortunately we now see that was an artificial demand and since it’s expiration, we’ve seen yet another decline and we are now back in the negative as of late August.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have also stopped granting postponements to their borrowers in default working out either loan modifications or short sales, which is increasing our supply of Foreclosure Inventory. Seems contradictory to what our marketplace needs in order to recover.

Interest rates are still in their lowest in years- but there seems to be so much fear out there right now as a result of the lumps and bruises we’ve endured the last few years, those people in a position to purchase seem to be holding out to make sure that pricing isn’t going down further.  Seems the last month we’ve stabilized and we are naturally correcting ourselves; but we do need to have our investors back in our marketplace to drive up demand again.  The job market still seems strong in Arizona, which definitely helps. 

Back before the craziness of 2004-2005; the average appreciation in Phoenix area had always been about 6% since the time I started in Real Estate in the early nineties.  Much of that has a lot to do with the continued job growth overall in Arizona, cost of living and quality of life with our great weather.  It’s just a matter of time before we get back to the normal 6% appreciation; especially as those borrowers re-enter our marketplace that lost their home to short sale or foreclosure in 2006/7—they are already candidates to purchase again.  By next year, the demand will increase just to that because a huge percentage of homes lost went in 08/9.

For those of you hanging on to your homes because you are afraid to Short Sale and damage your credit; we are seeing more and more people get approved to Short Sale and repurchase immediately as long as they stay current on their mortgages, so they can take advantages of today’s low low rates and low low prices.

REMEMBER- THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW WE’VE HIT OUR BOTTOM UNTIL ITS ALREADY PASSED!  IF YOU NEED HELP WITH REAL ESTATE TO EITHER BUY OR SELL A HOME- CALL US TODAY AT 480-243-4242 OR CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED!

Looks like I am going to have to eat my words from the blog I wrote back in April; & I am very happy to do so! http://integrityallstars.com/hafa-hafa-hafa-what-the-heck-is-hafa/

Reason being, the Government just recently announced that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be participating in this program which was the main reason I and so many other professionals in my industry felt it was off target when it started back in April- looks like the government was listening however it may be too soon to see since it doesn’t start officially until August 1.  See https://www.efanniemae.com/sf/servicing/hafa/index.jsp for more information straight from their website.

Give me a call at 480-243-4242 if you want to find out if you will qualify for this Government program.

(Click on the photo above for a downloadable PDF document that will be easier to read and printable)

What’s HAFA mean to you? It actually may not mean much… unfortunately our government has good intentions but missed the mark in my opinion on this program that started on April 5, 2010. 

Perhaps a step in the right direction but… not worth getting too excited over unless they change a few major conditions!

The biggest issues are:

• Only 4.5% of loans in default will qualify for it- that’s just 1 out of 22.5 families that are a minimum of 2 months behind on their mortgage MAY get help from this government sponsored program.
• NONE of the major investors are participating- FANNIE MAE, FREDDIE MAC, FHA, VA are all NOT participating???
• Seems misleading because if you go to this link at "Making Homes Affordable.gov", it appears for appearances sake that just about every “Lender/Bank” (a.k.a. Servicer) IS participating. SO… What’s the deal? 
• The deal is like most government programs that cost us tax payers BILLIONS of dollars.  It looks good in the media and creates a false sense that the big players are doing something to really help the little guys.

Why if the “Servicers” of the loans are participating but the majority of “Investors” are not IS there such hype out there right now??? …You can thank the media and the Government I suppose…

Why aren’t the investors on board to help???  …… drumroll please….. it’s because IF the investor accepts the government assistance they MUST agree to WAIVE their rights to pursue for a deficiency- in plain English that means they must agree not to go after and SUE the borrower for their loss afterwards! 

LUCKILY for us in Arizona, we have laws that do protect people in the majority of cases of such deficiency judgments- please go to our resource tab on this site for the links to our state laws or contact us for more details. 

We are happy to help you find out if you are one of the 1 in 22.5 families that MAY qualify for this HAFA program. 

If you don’t, don’t fret! We can and are happy to still help you navigate thru the “normal” Short Sale process and successfully sell your home and help you and your family get a clean slate financially on life.

The Integrity All Star Team is here to help you and anyone you know with their Real Estate needs.  Just let us know who you know that is considering giving their home back to their bank and we’ll gladly do everything we can to help them avoid Foreclosure.