The Home Front
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Builder Lures Home Buyers With Free Hondas
Continue reading… 0 CommentsWith home sales increasingly hard to come by, builders and real estate professionals have grown more and more creative in their efforts to attract new business.
Now, one builder is offering free fuel-efficient cars—2008 Honda Civics—to anyone who buys a home in his rural development.
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President Bush Signs Housing Legislation
Continue reading… 3 CommentsAs home prices continue to tumble across the country, President Bush quietly signed the gigantic housing bill that recently passed congress.
From The Associated Press:
President Bush on Wednesday signed a massive housing bill intended to provide mortgage relief for 400,000 struggling homeowners and stabilize financial markets.
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Another Foreclosure Pot Bust
Continue reading… 5 CommentsIs there anyone left who isn't growing pot in their foreclosed home? This latest one comes to you from lovely Minnesota:
From KAAL Television:
An inspector, changing the locks on a foreclosed home, discovered a major drug operation in Bloomington Thursday.
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'Extreme Makeover' Home in Foreclosure
Continue reading… 221 CommentsYou know that show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, where needy families get luxurious new homes from ABC's enthusiastic team of do-gooders?
Turns out things don't always end up happily ever after...
From accessAtlanta, via the Real Estate Bloggers:
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Is the Rate of Home Price Declines Slowing?
Continue reading… 0 CommentsThe S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices—released today—showed that home prices continued their decline in May, with the 20-city composite index posting a record 15.8 annual drop. (That's a shade better than consensus estimates.)
But Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics, said that when seasonally adjusted, the figures contain a potential sliver of sunshine:
From Ian Shepherdson,
This is interesting. We estimate that the seasonally adjusted [month over month] decline was 1.3%, the smallest drop since October last year. It follows a 1.6% April decline and an average plunge of 2.2% in the three [months] to March. We can't be sure these data are [reliable] over such short runs but they do seem to suggest the rate of decline of existing home prices is slowing. To be sure, [prices] are still falling very rapidly, and there is no prospect of any rebound this year and probably next, but a slower rate of fall is welcome nonetheless.
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Did Your Senators Support the Housing Bill?
Continue reading… 0 CommentsWondering which lawmakers supported or opposed the massive housing legislation that recently cleared the Senate?
Here's the score card:
From the Associated Press:
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7 Things Every Home Buyer Needs to Know
Continue reading… 5 CommentsInteresting post today over at Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed. In it, mortgage lender Tom Vanderwell lays out his "7 things (in random order) that I think everyone who is looking to buy or sell in today's market needs to know."
Check out the full post here.
1. 6 months ago is ancient history. What your neighbor sold his house for 6 months ago doesn't matter. What the seller was asking for the house 6 months ago doesn't matter. What matters is what the market will support today.
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Healy Wins Housing Rumble
Continue reading… 3 CommentsUnited Nations election officials (or perhaps it was just me) today certified as "clean" and "without improprieties" a vote to decide a heated online real estate debate and declared Greg Healy the winner.
At 1:13 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Healy, vice president of operations at ForSaleByOwner.com, a Web-based company that markets the homes of independent sellers, was officially handed the title, with 66 percent of the votes. His debate counterpart, Jay Thompson, a blogger and real estate broker in Phoenix, received 34 percent.
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Bush Scraps Housing Rescue Objections
Continue reading… 0 CommentsThe prospects for the gigantic housing rescue that had been fumbling through Congress got a huge boost on Wednesday when President Bush withdrew his objections to the legislation.
From The Associated Press:
President Bush dropped his opposition Wednesday to a broad housing package aimed at bolstering the sagging economy, despite his objections to including $3.9 billion for neighborhoods hit hardest by foreclosures. The House was expected to vote on the bill Wednesday, and it could become law as early as this week.
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Ex-Subprime Lender Confesses to Jon Stewart
Continue reading… 0 CommentsAs a rule, mortgage lenders don't usually make the guest list of the popular Daily Show with Jon Stewart. But Richard Bitner, author of Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider's Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance , had a great appearance just recently.
Check it out here.
Bitner currently works for Housing Wire, an outstanding website that anyone interested in real estate and housing issues should be reading every day.
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8 Tips to Help You Qualify for a Mortgage
Continue reading… 2 CommentsThe folks over at PeopleJam.com—an online self-help community—sent me a list of 8 tips to help you qualify for a mortgage. Some are quite obvious, but on the whole, it's worth checking out:
1. Inspect All Three of Your Credit Reports. Pull your credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and Transunion. Make sure that all of the information is accurate. If you find an account that doesn't belong to you, submit the necessary form to all three credit reporting agencies to dispute the account.
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Housing Rumble Polls Open
Continue reading… 12 CommentsNow that both sides have had their turns, it's time to find out who won the Rumble.
The Housing Rumble is a regular feature here at Home Front that will match up opposing sides of an issue in an online debate and let readers decide the winner.
The current Rumble features Jay Thompson, a blogger and real estate broker in Phoenix, and Greg Healy, vice president of operations at ForSaleByOwner.com, a Web-based company that markets the homes of independent sellers.
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Police Say Man Stayed in Foreclosed Home
Continue reading… 6 CommentsExpect to see more stories like this as the national housing crisis rumbles forward.
From the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star:
Police arrested a 53-year-old man on suspicion of trespassing after he refused to leave his southeast Lincoln home, foreclosed upon a year ago.
He had moved back into the house after Nov. 16, 2007, according to a Lincoln Police affidavit. On that day, a US Bank real estate employee called police to say [Kerry] Donovan had refused to leave the property that was deemed in May 2007 to belong to the bank.
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The Chuck Norris Home Deduction
Continue reading… 0 CommentsInviting a SWAT team over to kick in your doors, dangle from grappling hooks, and twist "bad guys" into humiliating chokeholds isn't just fun—it's also tax deductible.
Just look at Jon and Barbara Scoll, an apparently free-spirited Minnesota couple that casually sipped coffee and watched a group of Chuck Norris types ravage the home they had lived in for two decades.
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Housing Rumble: Do You Need an Agent? (Day 6)
Continue reading… 7 CommentsWelcome to the sixth and final day of the Home Front's new Housing Rumble feature, a regular series that will match up opposing sides of an issue in an online debate format and let readers decide the winner.
The current Rumble features Jay Thompson, a blogger and real estate broker in Phoenix, and Greg Healy, vice president of operations at ForSaleByOwner.com—a Web-based company that markets the homes of independent sellers.
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Housing Pain: Broker Allegedly Swipes Pills
Continue reading… 2 CommentsThe national housing bust has put real estate agents in a world of hurt; as business has slowed dramatically from its once-booming clip. In the face of such misfortunes, one broker has allegedly found a creative—if questionable—way to take the edge off.
From the Associated Press, via the Real Estate Bloggers:
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Housing Rumble: Do You Need an Agent? (Day 5)
Continue reading… 6 CommentsWelcome to Day 5 of the Home Front's new Housing Rumble feature, a regular series that will match up opposing sides of an issue in an online debate format and let readers decide the winner.
The current Rumble features Jay Thompson, a blogger and real estate broker in Phoenix, and Greg Healy, vice president of operations at ForSaleByOwner.com, a Web-based company that markets the homes of independent sellers.
The subject: "Do you need a real estate agent to sell your home?"
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Donald Trump Pulls a Slowdown Flip
Continue reading… 5 CommentsAs American families are tossed out on the street, once-proud neighborhoods turn to plywood ghost towns, and financial markets undergo a terrifying buckle, the housing crisis has been business as usual for real estate mogul Donald Trump.
From the Associated Press:
The real estate market might be slumping, but not for Donald Trump, who sold his Palm Beach mansion for $100 million, his spokeswoman said Wednesday.
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Housing Rumble: Do You Need an Agent? (Day 4)
Continue reading… 4 CommentsWelcome to Day 4 of the Home Front's new Housing Rumble feature, a regular series that will match up opposing sides of an issue in an online debate format and let readers decide the winner.
The current Rumble features Jay Thompson, a blogger and real estate broker in Phoenix, and Greg Healy, vice president of operations at ForSaleByOwner.com—a Web-based company that markets the homes of independent sellers.
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Don't Go for the Housing Report 'Head Fake'
Continue reading… 0 CommentsAlthough a government report on new residential construction may look optimistic, it's really just more depressing news.
The Commerce Department today reported that housing starts in June surged by more than 9 percent from May. Permits, meanwhile, increased even more so, rising nearly 12 percent from the previous month.
