Joseph & Cheryl Melendez's (melendezteam) Blog

I think most everyone would agree that the real estate business right now is frustrating.  The sheer amount of paperwork required to get a transaction closed is incredible .  Everything is of course taking longer and delays on everything from inspections to appraisals are an every day occurrence...

Orange County Register newspaper reported today that the demand for housing is up 33% over a year ago.  They also reported that the time a property is on the market for sale now stands at 2.97 months as opposed to 6.55 months a year ago.  This could be signs of the market beginning to stabilize. ...

I get a lot of questions from clients on why it is so hard to get a loan right now.  The short answer is that these is a shortage of investors to buy closed loans.  The better answer has to do with who is buying the funded and closed loans.  Remember that almost all lenders sell their closed loan...

As a Realtor in La Habra as well as a neighbor of Octomom I have first hand information about how a public figure can impact property values. Her street has been packed with news trucks and onlookers daily, which makes getting home for us very hard and frustrating. Our neighbors have had to use p...

Lenders are slowly getting their staffs up to speed and the back log in underwriting is getting much better. In most cases priority is given to purchase transactions and the turn times are as little as 3 days. We are still seeing a lot of loan conditions that we consider stupid or unneces­sary bu...

As discussed before in my last blog, the government has no direct control over long term fixed interest rates.  The government does however have lots of money which they announced yesterday will be used to purchase mortgage backed securities and treasury notes and bonds.  This will make more mone...

 The Federal Reserve just announced plans to expand their buying of mortgage backed securities and alsobegin buying treasury bonds and notes.  This is huge news and should inject billions of dollars into the economy and help push interest rates down even further.   How Does This Affect You ?  Wit...

Increased Loan Limits for Buyers  Part of the New Stimulus Bill signed into law a couple of weeks ago contains a provision to in­crease the loan limits back to the temporary limits of 2008 for both conventional and FHA loans.  Lenders are finally underwriting the increased FHA loan limits ($729,7...

 The government has announced two new plans to help strapped homeowners stay in their homes and avoid foreclosure.  The details are still being worked out.  One part of the plan in­volves revisiting the modification process.  Homeowners must prove financial hardship by pro­viding income documenta...

  Wall StreetWhatever has led the executives on Wall Street to believe they can take taxpayer's bail out dollars and not be accountable for how they spend it? Nobody should expect to spend like a drunken sailor with one hand while dipping the other into public coffers. But that is exactly what th...