Gevon Polgar - Real Estate

Mortgage rates leveled off this week at or near their lows for the year after declining for eight consecutive weeks, Freddie Mac said in releasing the results of its latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey . Low rates appear to have sparked interest in both refinancing and home purchases, according to a separate survey of loan applications conducted by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Freddie Mac's survey showed rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, which last week hit a low for the year of 4.49 percent, averaging 4.5 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending June 16. Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages hit an all-time low in Freddie Mac records dating to 1971 of 4.17 percent during the week ending Nov. 11, 2010, before rebounding to their 2011 high of 5.05 percent in February. Rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.67 percent with an average 0.7 point -- a new 2011 low, but essentially unchanged from 3.68 percent last week. Rates on 15-year mortgage

As home prices fall and rents rise, some investors are plunking their money into real estate, chasing the cash flow that comes along with becoming a landlord. “For the first time in a long time, you can buy that home and can get a cash-on-cash return immediately,” said William King, director of valuation services for Veros Real Estate Solutions, a supplier of housing data to the country’s largest banks, as well as government organizations. “There are a lot of places in the country where an investor can buy a single-family home, rent it, and get a positive cash flow.” In fact, investors bought 20% of all the homes sold in April, according to the National Association of Realtors. Some of them are buying with cash. But even if they do finance part of the purchase, they’re able to turn around a profit much quicker than they would have been able to in the past, King said. And the return on rentals can be much better than returns on other investments these days, he added.

Today’s buyer-take-all bonanza is a boon for fence-sitters and buyers with great credit and deep pockets. But sellers are steeling themselves to new realities that include paying (rather than making) money at the closing table, providing extras to sweeten the deal, and spending more time and cash making the home camera-ready. For first-time sellers who have never been through the process before, it’s a different world. One where the value of the house isn’t measured in the profit made on the sale, but by the enjoyment the owners had from living in the home. Here are three things experienced sellers would tell you, if they could. Price it realistically from the start “Your largest number of showings will occur in the first two to three weeks,” says Mark Ramsey, a broker in Charlotte, N.C. One reason: “The (multiple listing service) systems and the Internet tend to drive the majority of showings,” he says. Many buyers are plugged in electronically. So the minute something new pops

Construction spending rises in April Construction spending during April rose 0.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $765 billion compared with March’s estimate of $762.1 billion, but was 9.3 percent below the April 2010 estimate of $843.1 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau of the Dept. of Commerce. Residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $232.1 billion in April, 3.1 percent above the revised March estimate of $225.1 billion.

GSEs complete more than 1.6 million foreclosure-prevention actions Government-Sponsored Enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have completed more than 1.6 million foreclosure-prevention actions since the beginning of conservatorship in the fourth quarter of 2008, with more than half of the actions resulting in loan modifications, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s First Quarter 2011 Foreclosure Prevention & Refinance Report. According to the report, loan modifications declined for the third consecutive quarter, but resulted in larger payment reductions for more homeowners. Additional findings of the report include the following: Total completed foreclosure-prevention actions declined in the first quarter to 171,531 from 208,416 in the previous quarter, primarily driven by decreases in loan modifications and repayment plans. The GSEs’ completed loan modifications decreased to 86,201 from 119,778 during the first quarter. The cumulative total o

When it comes to private mortgage insurance (MI), there are several myths that exist that make buyers reluctant to consider a conventional loan with MI as an option when purchasing a home. One of the more common misconceptions is that cancelling MI is a difficult—not to mention time-consuming—process. The irony is that the majority of buyers don’t harbor those same beliefs or reservations about an FHA insured loan when, in reality, FHA coverage may be less easily cancelled, or take longer to cancel, than MI. HPA Makes Cancellation Clearer When it went into effect as a new federal law, the Homeowners Protection Act (HPA) of 1998—which applies to both FHA and MI insured loans—required lenders and servicers to provide disclosures regarding MI for residential loans obtained on or after July 29, 1999. Prior to this, consumers were responsible for requesting MI cancellation if they met two factors: one, their loan balance was paid down to 80 percent of the property; and two, they had a g