Short Sale Valuation Problems by Realtor.org

 In this article it directs a Realtor to the necessary online form to dispute a valuation of a Fannie Mae listing price. Fannie Mae is in a fight against investors. Fannie Mae is helping the Banks sell their foreclosed properties at a much higher price to first time home buyer than the property is really worth. Invests will not pay the high  price of HomePaths' homes. Realtors have the right to dispute the value and a good Realtor should help an investor that wants to buy it.


January 23, 2013

Beginning in the latter part of 2012, a number of REALTORS® across the country reported that Fannie Mae had started jeopardizing short sale transactions by requesting purchase offers at significantly higher prices than market values. REALTORS® continue to report that Fannie Mae’s actions have led to a decrease in the number of Fannie Mae short sale transactions, an increase in the number of borrowers going through foreclosure producing further negative effects on surrounding property values. As a first step to address these concerns, Fannie Mae expanded its online HomePath for Short Sales tool to help speed up its escalation process in order to review problematic transactions more efficiently.

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U.S. Housing Market Mortgage Purchase Applications Running Out Of Time by Doug Short

The article and chart from Doug Short shows that wages have been declining. In Fact it shows median wages have declined to 2005 level. following the decline is mortgage applications. Both wages and mortgage application peaked at the end of 2006, What the chart doesn't show is the huge rise in the median price of a house. The median price of a house has rose 14% nationally. In Florida where I live prices rose over 20% in 2013. With house prices rising and wages on the decline house sales will decline in 2014 if one of two things do not happen soon. Either the twenty percent of people who are not looking for a job anymore find a good job or prices of houses must decline. If income remains the same most sellers will bot be able to find enough qualified offers to float the market.

by Gene Hoffman

U.S. Housing Market Mortgage Purchase Applications Running Out Of Time by Doug Short

For 2013, one of the main stories in housing was the cool down in existing home sales numbers over the second half of the year, in spite of the relative strength in GDP. What was the main reason for this? Follow the data and the answer appears. When interest rates spiked we did not see the mythical sideline home buyer rush to the market place. Rather what we saw was a collapse of the mortgage purchase application index.

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Immigration Minister Chris Alexander reveals contradictions in citizenship law by Jenny Uechi

Should I or should I naught by Gene Hoffman

Should I or should naught get my Canadian citizenship. I had the choice to have dual citizenship before I was eighteen, but then the law changed. Now the opportunity has arisen once again. I would love to live in Vancouver or better yet Victoria Island. It is above my pay-grade because all the rich Chinese have moved there and they bought up all the nice homes. Their houses are now priced as the second highest in the world(I have an article on my blog site).

Read about the new Canadian immigration policy by Jenny Uechi

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Christopher Alexander tread a fine line between sympathy and sticking to government script when speaking about the overhaul to citizenship law proposed by the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act.

Speaking at the Sutton Hotel ballroom on Tuesday at an event hosted by the Canadian Club of Vancouver, Alexander spoke about the injustice suffered by Lost Canadians: legitimate Canadians whose citizenship was removed due to archaic and often blatantly discriminatory provisions of past laws. While the majority of Lost Canadian cases were resolved in 2009, it continued to exclude people born before 1947, as well as creating a whole new category of stateless children born abroad.

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Colorado's marijuana firms beg banks to take their cash By Kim Gittleson of BBC

The Federal Government has found a way to punish people who try and make a living growing plants for profit. They are doing in a similar way(but different) they control the gun owner's bullets. The US has contracts with all the major manufactures of ammo to sell Homeland Security 85% of their product to control supply. This has driven prices more than the 3% inflation(CPI) that is reported. In the article I have attached the BBC article that explains how the US Fed is trying to control the the Marijuana Industry. First they they need to get an idea how big the market is and then they will find a way to get their "cut". The mafia usually wants about 50- 50. We will have to see what history brings.

Look what happened in Montana and how voters changed their minds on Medical Marijuana to De-crimalized system allow people to grow pot for their own use. Other states have done this and it appears to work better in my opinion.

by Gene Hoffman

Article  By Kim Gittleson of BBC

"Let's just say we have a couple of armed staff," he says.
The owner of Pink House, a marijuana dispensary in Denver, Colorado, Mr Klug has armed his employees because he has been unable to find a bank that will accept the thousands of dollars of cash he takes in each day since recreational cannabis became legal in Colorado on 1 January.
"Even armoured cars have been told not to do business with us," says Mr Klug.

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Home deals worth checking out by The Courtant

Let me try and give you an idea how the Fannie Mae, the banks and the Realtors are over charging people with bad credit. Read the last line of the article first. If you do not understand what I mean call me , email me or leave a comment.

Gene Hoffman

email: bearlakegroup@gmail.com



If you're planning to shop for a home in the coming few weeks, here's an early spring buying season come-on that just might save you some money if you qualify.
Fannie Mae, the largest mortgage investor in the country, has a bulging portfolio of houses acquired through foreclosures nationwide. Roughly 31,000 of these properties are listed on its HomePath (www.homepath.com) resale marketing site. To move them quickly out of inventory, Fannie temporarily is offering qualified owner-occupant purchasers — but not investors — cash incentives toward closing costs of 3.5 percent of the purchase price. But you have to submit your initial offer no later than March 31 and close by May 31.

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How big is a house? Average house size by country by Lindsay Wilson

I read an article today(02/2014) in Reality Trac that the median income need to purchase a median price house in San Fransico is $228,000. That was a staggering number in my mind, but what is even worse is the median price of a house in England. I say this because the median square foot of a house in England is 884sF and the median cost has gone over $400,000. That equates to $450sf. The reason prices increase so much in 2014 is because of a loosing of loan qualifications at the beginning of 2014.

Hong Kong has the most expensive housing on Earth by income; plus their median size house is 484sf in size. The second most expensive homes by income is in Vancouver Canada. I have an article about that in my blog.

Gene Hoffman

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The Vampire Squid Strikes Again:by Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone Magazine

Call it the loophole that destroyed the world. It's 1999, the tail end of the Clinton years. While the rest of America obsesses over Monica Lewinsky, Columbine and Mark McGwire's biceps, Congress is feverishly crafting what could yet prove to be one of the most transformative laws in the history of our economy – a law that would make possible a broader concentration of financial and industrial power than we've seen in more than a century.

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Cost of owning a home is spiking in 2014 By: Diana Olick CNBC

Supply and demand will balance out soon and I believe home prices will decline a small amount in the next two years before the next election. In order for a seller to find a qualified buyer two things must happen. A seller must be willing to a sell at both an affordable price and the home must appraise at the selling price. Second item the market must be big enough to attract dozens of qualified buyers with strong incomes and having good, well paying jobs.

Article by:  Diana Olick    CNBC

The sharp rise in home prices in 2013 caused two conflicting results: The return of positive home equity for hundreds of thousands of borrowers and considerably weaker affordability for an equally Read More... large pool of potential homebuyers.

While positive equity allows more borrowers to move, weaker affordability keeps them in place. So which will be the greater driver of housing this spring?

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‘Boomerang buyers’ could boost market by Kimberly Miller

JUPITER, Fla. — Some housing experts are trumpeting changes that allow foreclosure sufferers to buy back into the American Dream sooner than they probably imagined, calling 2014 the year of the “boomerang buyer.”
Revisions made over the summer to Federal Housing Administration guidelines and technical updates in November to Fannie Mae loan approval systems have opened the door for some former homeowners to buy again just one year after foreclosure.
Founders of the San Diego-based company AfterForeclosure.com said last month that millions of banned borrowers nationwide will be eligible for a mortgage this year, while Jupiter, Fla., mortgage broker Skip McDonough said his firm is already doing deals with homebuyers who were forced into default during the housing bust.

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Banks Loosening Mortgage Lending Standards by Philip van Doorn

It feels like 2006 again. I believe the mortgage market is heading to financing sub-prime borrowers. This smells bad to me.

Gene Hoffman

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The decline in mortgage activity in the United States continued in January and big banks, including Wells Fargo (WFC) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) are responding by lowering their underwriting standards.
The Mortgage Bankers Association projects that originations of one-to-four family mortgage loans in the U.S. will decline to $1.116 trillion in 2014 from an estimated $1.755 trillion during 2013, with the wave of refinancing slowing as long-term interest rates have risen.
According to a preliminary estimate from Inside Mortgage Finance, the issuance of single-family mortgage-backed securities by Fannie Mae (FNMA), Freddie Mac (FMCC) and Ginnie Mae totaled $67.8 billion during January. That's down 10% from December and is also the lowest figure since January 2009.

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Housing market pits younger buyers against older homeowners flush with equity by Wall Street Journal

Housing sales will continue in 2014 much like sales were in 2013 with one difference. First time home buyers are through. Cash buyers will make up a larger portion of the market.

GeneHoffman


HOUSTON, Feb. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- While rising home prices are leaving older homeowners flush with increased equity so they can buy new or second homes -- increasingly outright with cash -- younger people are finding it more difficult to buy into the American dream of homeownership with price tags that outpace their income growth, according to the latest BBVA Compass research.
"For these prospective homebuyers, home prices have risen faster than their incomes during the recovery," BBVA Compass economist Jason Frederick wrote in his 2014 housing outlook. "Currently, home prices are now on the high end of a historical relationship between median home prices and median family income, and young families will need to see faster income growth and save additional money to make a larger down payment."

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Republican Party Platform of 1956

This was a viable program and at the I was born this was the direction the United states of America was heading.


President Eisenhower has given the world bold proposals for mutual arms reduction and protection against aggression through flying sentinels in an "open sky."
We support this and his further offer of United States participation in an international fund for economic development financed from the savings brought by true disarmament. We approve his determined resistance to disarmament without effective inspection.
We work and pray for the day when the domination of any people from any source will have ended, and when there will be liberation and true freedom for the hundreds of millions of individuals now held in subjugation. We shall continue to dedicate our best efforts to this lofty purpose.
We shall continue vigorously to support the United Nations.
We shall continue to oppose the seating of Communist China in the United Nations.

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Bitcoin Plunges as Exchange Halts Withdrawals Due to Technical Problems by Matt Egan

Bitcoin tumbled as much as 37% on Friday after the crypto currency’s leading exchange temporarily halted all withdrawals due to “technical” problems caused by increased withdrawal requests. The decision by Tokyo-based Mt. Gox to “temporarily pause” all withdrawal requests highlights the uphill battle facing the relatively young digital currency.

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Report: Seriously delinquent mortgages persist across South Florida By Paul Owers

South Florida's seriously delinquent mortgage rate has declined over the past four years but still remains the highest of the nation's 100 largest metro areas, a new report shows. As of the third quarter of 2013, 15.8 percent of all first mortgages in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties were at least 90 days past due or already in the foreclosure process, according to the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research group based in Washington, D.C. The three-county region has posted the highest seriously delinquent mortgage rate since the third quarter of 2009, when it was 23.7 percent. The group began tracking mortgages on a quarterly basis in early 2009. RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, Calif.-based company, releases monthly figures on homes in some stage of foreclosure. The Urban Institute data go beyond that to include loans that are nearing the foreclosure process. While the housing market is improving, "it's far too early to say the crisis has passed," said Rob Pitingolo, author of the report.

Why the Housing “Recovery” is a Farce – Illustrated by Two Charts By: Louis Cammarosano

The economic recovery has been touted in terms of stock and real estate market gains while employment and wage growth have been non existent. During the housing “recovery” the home ownership rate has fallen to an eighteen year low.
We have blamed this unsustainable high price/low sales housing “recovery” dynamic on the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing programs (QE) whereby the Fed buys trillions of dollars worth of U.S. Treasuries and Mortgage Backed Securies (MBS’s) from the Too Big Too Fail (TBTF) banks with money they print out of thin air with the ostensible purpose of stimulating the economy by keeping interest rates low. In reality, QE has been an enormous continuation of the 2008 Troubled Assest Relief Program (TARP) bailout whereby the Fed continues to remove MBS’s from the TBTF banks’ balance sheets by spending trillions of dollars to buy them from the TBTF banks.

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10 Virtual Assistant Services for Your Business by Sara Angeles,

As a business owner, your time is best spent running and growing your business — not getting bogged down by routine tasks and growing to-do lists. Virtual assistant services save you time by allowing you to offload tasks to highly efficient remote workers, wherever you are. From administrative duties to making sure your personal life doesn't fall into shambles, virtual assistants help busy business owners stay more productive and organized at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-time employee. Here are 10 virtual assistant services to help you get started.

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'Time Is Short' On Debt Ceiling, Treasury Secretary Says By Mark Memmott

Warning that "simply delaying action on the debt limit can cause harm to our economy," Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew repeated Monday that he believes Congress should act soon to raise that limit so the federal government avoids even looking like it might default on its debts.
"Time is short," Lew also told an audience at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization founded by four former Senate majority leaders — Republicans Howard Baker and Bob Dole; and Democrats Tom Daschle and George Mitchell.

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What is the qualified mortgage? By Jim Gay

Oh boy, more government regulations affecting consumers seeking mortgage loans that are eligible for Fannie Mae, FHA and Freddie Mac pricing. Could this be the last? We can only hope. However, for now the letters QM or qualified mortgage need to be understood and dealt with, like it or not. It is one of the final pieces of the Dodd-Frank Act. Whew!
On Jan. 10, QM went into full swing. It contains two main terms we all need to understand: “ability to repay” and “qualified mortgage.” Ability to repay is merely a refocus, once again, on the borrower’s income, credit and liabilities. If you have a mortgage, you surely went through this taxing scrutiny. It is the name of the game. So, what’s new? Extra scrutiny on the borrower’s income calculations and a new limit of 43 percent debt-to-income ratio.

A qualified mortgage is defined somewhat differently than mortgages have been for the last three decades. Negative-amortization loans, interest-only loans, loans exceeding 30 years, and balloon loans are not allowed. Also, a limit has been set on the fees normally paid to the mortgage companies or banks and may not vary even for the benefit of the borrower. Generally, under QM, the limit of points and fees associated with a home loan is now 3 percent of the total loan amount.

What is wrong with this? It sounds like these new QM rules will keep consumers from making unwise mortgage decisions. Yes and no. Qualified borrowers have long enjoyed the options of interest-only loans, balloon loans with lower rates, and amortizations longer then 30 years, but not any more.

Remember, also, that these rules are only for loans eligible for Fannie Mae, FHA and Freddie Mac, which means that jumbo loans are not part of the QM definition.

Most of the details in the QM regulations test the resolve of lenders and homebuyers will never see the complexity involved. So what is the bottom line for the consumer? Associate yourself with a lender possessing experience and knowledge to guide you through any new regulation.

All regulations that make the lending world more complex have the result of shrinking the available lenders that can complete your home loan. For the last three to five years, mortgage companies and loan officers have been leaving the business. Eventually, this trend may result in higher costs for loans because of less competition.

For the family looking to buy or refinance, my continued advice is to find a trustworthy and knowledgeable loan officer as an ally and proceed to accomplish your goals. Ignore the new QM regulations implemented on a national level. Let your chosen loan officer deal with any changes in the mortgage world.

The Nation's Housing: Mortgage experts sound alarm at massive identity theft, data breaches by NewsOK

Downward pressure is being applied to home prices, however because new home starts have been at historically low levels prices may push higher. When new construction picks up in class B apartments in 2015 we may see a stabilizing effect. FHA buyers may take longer to get an approval in 2014.

Eugene Hoffman

The Nation's Housing: Mortgage experts sound alarm at massive identity theft, data breaches

  The numbers of affected consumers are as yet impossible to predict, but mortgage credit experts warn that the recent massive data breaches at Target, Neiman Marcus and other retailers could have significant side impacts on some real estate transactions in the coming months, as damaged credit files depress scores and jeopardize loan applications and home sales.
The Target breach alone could touch as many as 70 million credit and debit card customers, according to the company. Neiman Marcus said that data on 1.1 million of its customers may be vulnerable to fraud. Data security researchers report that at least six other merchants have experienced data breaches from point-of-sale malware similar to what was used in the Target thefts.

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Paper Money vs. Gold Money by Michael Edward and Vincent Cate

This article is very easy to follow and states the facts about the future value of our fiat money printing.

In 1913 the US took a big step away from gold when it authorized the Federal Reserve to issue paper notes that were only 40% backed by gold while claiming they were fully convertible. This fell apart when people tried to exchange their paper money for gold in 1933. Instead of admitting the central bank was bankrupt, the government confiscated everyone's gold, made it illegal for them to hold gold, and devalued the paper to $35 per oz of gold. At Bretton Woods the US agreed that central banks around the world could redeem $35 US for 1 oz of gold. As countries tried to exchange their dollars for gold it became clear US did not even have enough gold to back the dollars returning from overseas. Instead of admitting the central bank was bankrupt, the US said it was "closing the gold window". In reality this was stealing from billions of people. By the time the dollar:gold ratio went from 35:1 to 800:1 the government was able to stabilize the dollar by buying up dollars using gold and raising interest rates to 20%.

"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you" - Friedrich Nietzsche.

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Western Gold bars have disappeared. Why Germany wants its gold back

Peter Krauth

After spending more than 50 years in foreign hands, Germany's gold is finally going home.
In a recent watershed decision the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, has decided at least half of its gold should be held in its own vaults.
Since the Bundesbank is the second-largest gold holder in the world, that's going to mean moving 54,000 bars of the shiny metal.

So why does Germany want its gold back, and why now?

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