RECENT BLOG POSTS
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With dropping home prices, record-low mortgage rates and special offers, buyers who missed out on the $8,000 federal tax credit are coming out further ahead House hunter Karen Kosnikowski gets good news from real-estate agent Terry Penrod. Prices are dropping on several homes she has seen. H...
06/30/2010
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Economic forecasters appear to be split on the outlook for residential real estate values. The news this week regarding new- and-used home sales in May seems to support the views of bears like Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Baker projects that home prices...
06/25/2010
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Important Changes to Mortgage Underwriting Could Affect Many Buyers By Jim Dinkel and Ken Trepeta The real estate industry and especially the mortgage industry have been overwhelmed with changes, regulations and consolidations recently. In the last couple of months, many transactions nationally h...
06/25/2010
At a recent meeting of the Urban Land Institute of Minnesota, Senior Fellow John McIlwain said "a new normal" will be created in the housing market over the next 10 years, and he marked the end of "the suburban century." He noted that markets offering "a vibrant 24/7 lifestyle" will see the most...
06/24/2010
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Inmates Get $9.1 Million in Home Buyer Credits More than 1,200 prison inmates, including 241 serving life sentences, applied for and received first-time hom ebuyer tax credits, according to a Treasury Department report released Wednesday. Treasury said many filed multiple claims, even some outsid...
06/24/2010
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By Venessa Wong Even the housing crisis has not stopped suburban sprawl. Urban centers may be retaining their populations better than in the past decade, but growth is still occurring outside of city boundaries. Since the start of the recession, thousands of people have moved to communities near ...
06/24/2010
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Mortgage applications declined 1.2 percent last week compared to the previous week on an adjusted basis, according the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly survey. On an unadjusted basis, purchased applications declined 2.3 percent and they were 36.8 percent lower than they were the same week a y...
06/24/2010
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Economists said May’s decline in home sales may weaken an already tepid economic recovery. New-home sales tumbled 33 percent last month, the biggest drop on record, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. “If there is a sharp decline not only in housing sales but in housing prices, that could...
06/24/2010
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So here you are a few days before settlement - the movers are scheduled, the utilities switched over in your name and the post office has the order to foward your mail - a call comes in from your lender: OOPS! Your loan is not approved and that gorgeous home that you and your agent negotiated so...
06/23/2010
In these trying times where Real Estate takes 5 times the work to make the same ends meet as in preceding years, it is a wonder that we Active Rainer's are still able to push forward. Pig Headed Determination and Discipline are not to be taken for granted. With a focal point off of the "closing"...
06/23/2010