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This update from Mortgagee Letter 2009-09 establishes appraisal requirements for declining markets. Here are the 10 things your appraiser must do or provide for all FHA appraisals done after April 1st, 2009:

While pending home sales declined on a soft economy, housing affordability is at the highest point since the numbers have been tracked in the 1970's. read the full report on NAR's site. NAR President Charles McMillan, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Dallas-Fort Worth, said it’s ironic with the weak housing market that [...]

Here we go again... For a few months now we have been trying to give our clients early notice of is again being noticed and reported on by the national media.  This time it is the Wall Street Journal. According to the journal... The relative cost of owning versus renting is swinging back in favor [...]

Kim and I wanted to make sure that you heard about $10,000 tax incentive that has just been approved in the newly signed California budget. While this does nothing to shrink the inventory of existing resales homes, it will put some people back to work in the badly hit construction industry. The bottom line... $10,000 [...]

As part of the Federal governements new stimulus package, we now have a new set of loan limits for 2009.  Most, if not all counties in California will benefit from these new loan limits. Sacramento jumps to $580,000 San Diego jumps to $697,500 Click on this link to see a PDF from the feds about [...]

Time Magazine has recently posted an article making the case for buying a home!  Though a number of us in the industry have felt this to be true for some time now, it is interesting to see the national media involved in the conversation.  It had to happen at some point! You can read the [...]

You have probably heard quite a bit about the credits and incentives being offered to help new home buyers realize a dream of homeownership.  These incentives are critical to our economic turnaround as well and as such, the Federal government has made them very compelling.  From our perspective, this credit is literally like the tax [...]

I just ran in to an old friend (well, not old but....) the other night at a gathering over the weekend and she teased me "Rob, I think that we are ready to refi.  I want 4.5% and no points!".  Doesn't everyone?! I thought about this a bit. Now, I could start out by saying [...]

  Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 2:06pm PST Home sales increase 10% Sacramento Business Journal Sales of all homes in the four-county Sacramento area in December increased by 10.7 percent compared with November, to 3,422 new and existing homes, and were well higher than the same period of 2007, home analyst MDA DataQuick reported Wednesday. Median [...]

  It looks like the Fed will lower the the Federal Funds rate in their December 16th meeting. It may cause the incredible rates we're seeing now to creep up a bit. There are some analysts who argue that the rate cut is so certian that it is already factored into the bond market and [...]