Entries Tagged 'Mortgage' ↓

I have decided to do the update of San Mateo homes every 4 weeks, and the last update is pretty interesting. In 4 weeks there were 126 unique properties totaling 142 listings that are listing less than their last sale price. This is an increase of 50% from the last report in January. Here are some highlights.

Total Count of San Mateo Home Sellers in Trouble for 1/14/2008 to 2/10/2008: 126

Average Time from Last Sale Date: 1.87 Years

Average Annualized Loss: 14.1%

Average Absolute Percentage Loss: 24.8%

Average Size of Home: 1224

Average Price Per Square Foot: $444.42

Biggest Loser: 649 Hurlingame Ave in Redwood City with an annualized loss of 77%

A notable home is this mansion in Hillsbourough, which sold for 7.9 million dollars in 2001, but is now listing for 6.95 million. I guess we are rolling back to 2001? It is a beautiful property from the looks of the pictures. This is the most expensive listing I have found to date.

In the spreadsheet you will see that over 1/4 of the properties have listing prices that are over 25% less than their last sale price. The worst example is a home that is listing for 47.5% less than its last price. It seems that the Goldman Sach’s prediction of Californian homes losing 40% of their value is coming true one house at a time.

I expect that the next report will be even worse as more people try to list their homes for the spring selling season. They will be competing with so many banks and other desperate home sellers who already have their homes on the market. There is quite a bit of news that many homedebtors are just mailing their keys back to their lenders, and that may be a prudent thing to do if it costs even more to carry the home and try to sell it.

Until next time, enjoy!

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I am sure that most Americans are quite excited about the tax rebates that may be coming soon this year due to a major economical stimulus package. What is lesser known about this package is that it will also raise the “conforming” mortgage loan limit from $417,000 to $729,750 in high priced regions until the end of this year. This means that government sponsored enterprises such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will be able to purchase loans as large as $729,750, and any loan under this limit will not be a jumbo loan. Basically, people will be able to borrow more money and pay less interest. Who is cheering for this change and why? More importantly, how will you be affected?

Opposing Views on the Issue

What I found interesting is that the National Association of Realtors put out an extremely positive review about this move stating that “NAR’s research found that simply increasing the loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to $625,000 would permit as many as 300,000 families to enter the housing market, reduce foreclosures by as many as 210,000 and allow as many as 500,000 jumbo loan borrowers to refinance to lower cost loans, saving these people $274 to $411 a month.” On the other hand, this article states that “the director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), which is the governing body over America’s government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), warned the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week about expanding the GSEs’ ability to take on jumbo loans without first having the appropriate stipulations and regulatory structures in place.”

Who should we believe? The glowing report of an association of realtors who have lobbied for the change or the director of a branch of the government that has been tracking housing prices and demographics for more than three decades? I personally believe that the director of OFHEO’s opinion is prudent and logical. With bigger loans, the government sponsored enterprises will be taking on more risk, and if these agencies are destablized by more risky debt then the entire economy could collapse even further.

Best Case Scenario for the Average American

The best case senario I see is that nothing really happens and very few loans get funded under the new limit. These few homeowners will benefit from the lower rate and keep on paying their bills. Hopefully, the paltry number of these homeowners will not affect the housing market in any significant way. The prices of houses continue to decline for a while making homes more affordable and lowering the need for jumbo loans. Basically, the best we can hope for is that nothing changes.

Worst Case Scenario for the Average American

Unfortunately, I think it is possible that this footnote to the stimulus package could have a devastating effect on the current mortgage crisis. First, it may prolong the bubblicious prices in California and the Northeast. Right now I am reading many stories where offers on homes fell through because of the lack of financing. Considering the fact that the average price of shacks in my neighborhood is $700k to $800k, most of these buyers are trying to secure jumbo loans. Once this package goes through, financing will be possible, and the prices on the shacks will not come down as quickly. Even though this higher limit is only in effect for one year, it is possible that more speculators and fraudsters will get into the market and drive prices up even higher. After all, it only took about two years (2004 to 2006) for home prices to double in many parts of California. You may say that this is not a problem for the rest of America, but if Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae become insolvent because of more risky debt, then all Americans will have to pay dearly with mandatory bailouts. Then we can kiss that tax rebate and even more money goodbye.

What I Think Should Happen

I am not an expert, but I firmly believe that what we need is more affordable homes, and not larger loans. So it is probalby best if the limit was left alone and the ridiculous prices fell back down to earth. I think it is ludicrous that the “conforming” loan limit is being lifted more than $300,000 in this package in the blink of an eye considering that it took a span of 23 years for the loan limit to go up from $115k to $417k. Is more debt really good for Americans? What do you think should happen?

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As expected, the Fed cut the interest rate by half a point today. It was really a move that they had to do because if they did not the market would have tanked once again. I wrote an article about this about a week ago on Wise Bread and said that I expected a rate cut and wrote down some things people could do to reduce their debt and take advantage of this development. I hope some people find that article useful.

My favorite article that I contributed to Wise Bread is 8 Fun and Frugal Things to Do with Origami. The hubby is the featured photographer on that article and I linked his site, too. Origami is really a hobby of ours that kind of is a staple of our relationship.

Another article I really liked writing was a guide on how to join great startups. Unfortunately it was not that popular on Wise Bread because I guess not everyone wants the startup life. However, if you’re curious about how to join the next big thing you can take a look.

Finally, I did a writeup on a new site called NotchUp which pays you to go on interviews. It is too early to tell how the concept would work out, but it is interesting and I feel like it doesn’t hurt to try it. A commenter on Wise Bread cautioned people about privacy, and I do agree with him, but I feel that the information I gave to LinkedIn is public forum anyway. You can just search for my name and find a profile so I didn’t mind duplicating the information.

Enjoy!

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Well, this morning my computer mysteriously shutdown and would not boot up again.  I will try to go home and fix it tonight but it may be that the CPU is dead.  I really hate hardware because once it’s dead it’s pretty much dead and I would need to buy a new part (bleh).  So there will probably not be much blogging until it is fixed.  So I’m here on my lunch hour and I am quickly dropping a couple links  to my articles this week on Wise Bread for your amusement:

Five Interview Lessons Learned from Horrible Interviews -  This is a sequel to this article: Comical and Craptacular Interviews - Lessons Learned in Silicon Valley Recruiting.  Just when you think it couldn’t get worse!

How the Banks were Fleeced - A Primer to Mortgage Fraud - This is a collection of the people who lied and defrauded the banks.  It’s pretty boring actually.

Anyway, hopefully I can fix my computer tonight.  I also wish I knew as much about cars as I do computers, because then I could save so much money by fixing my car, too.

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So, it’s New Year’s Eve and it’s time for me to write down my goals for next year. I am usually pretty clear what I want to do and I always want to reach my goals early. So hopefully I can accomplish the following.

Personal Goals:

1. Get more involved in volunteering — There are definitely opportunities to volunteer here in San Mateo. I just need time and a good cause.
2. Get more than 1000 visitors to this blog daily — I am averaging about 100 to 200 visitors a day now, so 1000 seems a reachable goal by the end of next year if I continue to write quality articles that people are interested in. I write a lot about my life and the Bay Area, but these are the things I know well.
3. Maybe lose a bit of weight – I know almost everyone has this goal and only a few of us actually manage to achieve it. My workplace does offer a gym membership reimbursement of $60 a month so I really should take advantage of it.
4. Help out more around the house — Every time my mother sees me she tells me to help my hubby clean. I guess I’m really not big on cleaning and cooking. My hubby actually said to me once, “you’re not good at anything but making money”
5. Be awesome at my job – I am still in my adjustment period at my new job, but I am definitely getting the hang of things and I am contributing. Next year I want to be recognized as one of the best. Though I have to say my whole team is pretty awesome.

Financial Goals

1. Pull in more than $100,000 in income — This would include my salary and all dividends & capital gains, and of course blog income! I am not including the hubby’s income in this goal because he is free to do what he loves and not care about the pay as much. I am actually pretty close to this goal this year but I took on a new job that doesn’t have as many bonuses as my old job so next year the salary income may not be as high. Then again there is no guarantee I would get good bonuses next year at the old job because revenues have been eroded by the mortgage crisis.
2. Increase our networth by 40% — This is a bit of an aggressive goal since I’m not sure what will happen to the stock market, but the hubby and I have been doing quite well in saving money. We have saved around 50 to 60% of our net income every month in the four months we have been married. Lately I have been sort of cautious about the stock market so I haven’t made any new equity investments, but we saved a good chunk in our Vanguard money market fund and 401ks.
3. Perhaps turn this blog into a business — From what I read many bloggers register their income producing blog as a business and then deduct expenses such as internet fees as business expenses.  I think this is something I could look into because right now my blog income pretty much covers our internet access and if that is tax deductible then that’s great.

As long as I set my mind to accomplish these things I will be able to conquer these goals. I think nothing on this list is outrageously difficult. We will see in a year what happens!

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