Posts Tagged ‘California real estate’

Sorting How To Apply For And Quicken A California First Time Home Buyer Grant

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

Finding methods on how to apply for and quicken a California first time home buyer grant can get a little time-consuming and complicated, especially when someone is new to buying a home. Generally, purchasing any kind of home under any circumstances can be a bit of a trial, however, with proper planning and taking things into consideration ahead of time, you can help to ensure better results with the overall loan or grant process.

While many are wanting to find out how they can come by a grant or even a government loan, it’s important to first understand the difference between the two. While they may be similar in their assistance with financial housing matter, they are quite different in the end. Loans, for example, are issued on the agreement that the borrower will pay back the loan, often followed by some kind of interest rate tacked onto things. A grant, on the other hand, is something that the individual is awarded and does not need to pay back.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, as well as the California Department of Housing and Community Development are some of the places in which Californians may be able to obtain grants, as the California Department of Housing and Community Development generally offers some form of limited HUD-issued block grant. Local cities are another place one can check, as well as Grants.gov online.

For those who are seeking loan programs, there are many more resources available. Both HUD and the California Housing Finance Agency offer loans, as well as local city community contacts. Other well-known programs may be with entities that may assist with housing issues would be the California Affiliates of Habitat for Humanity, U. S. Department of Agriculture Rural Housing, Cal Vet Home Loans, the State of California Housing and Community Development, HUD-approved counseling agencies and so forth.

Generally, special housing programs and grants for home buyers often requires meeting a certain criteria in order to qualify. Such points may be meeting a certain yearly income limit that is based on location and size of family, being first-time buyer, as well as being a citizen of the United States or qualified alien.

Other programs may need individuals to possess a certain credit, loan and income level to meet the required criteria. Some may also want participating applicants to gain home buyer’s education training. In some cases, programs may have specific criteria when regarding what an actual first-time home buyer is such as CalHFA and their policy of not residing within or owning the desired residence within the last three or so years.

Although it’s wise to speak with any real estate agent that you may be dealing with, it’s often a good rule of thumb to make sure that your history and scoring of credit, as well as general debt, are in good standing. Many suggest making sure that any debts do not carry over 50% of the actual credit line that you have in order to help achieve this.

In the end, understanding how to apply for and quicken a California first time home buyer grant or housing loan might seem like a bit much at first. However by maintaining your finances and doing that bit of research and preparation, you can may find that you have more options than one would think.

If you’re a CA first time home buyer you may want to learn as much as you can about first time home buyer grants and how they can help you.

Will California Foreclosures Begin To Taper Off Or Go Down?

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Will the rate of California foreclosures finally begin to go down or stabilize out in the Golden State? That is a question currently up for debate, though many experts looking at a California real estate market are hopeful that state leaders have finally gotten a handle on a foreclosure rate that had been steadily increasing over the last few years.

In the nation and over the course of the current recession, an average of 250,000 to 300,000 home owners a month found themselves dealing with the foreclosure process. California is one of six states in the country that has contributed almost 60% of the foreclosure total since late 2008, when the financial markets suffered steep declines. California, Florida and Arizona together account for 44%.

California also is the leader in the number of cities that have the highest rates of foreclosure, placing six of its municipalities within the top 10 nationwide. What this helps to do to the rate of California foreclosures is complex and it appears that California has some distance to travel if it hopes to get a handle on foreclosures while also bringing in increasing revenues from its property inventory.

As far as the cities within California, the state has the number three and number four positions (Modesto and Sacramento) while also running the table from five through eight as well. There is no particular region hardest hit, and cities are located in both the southern and northern areas of the state. California is large, unfortunately, because any other state would have been dealt a fatal blow from having so many cities on that list.

Fortunately, the Golden State was hanging in there and trying to deal with the rate of CA foreclosures as best it can and with the help of the federal government, which has offered certain mortgage stabilization and foreclosure prevention programs to the state’s residents. Unfortunately, though, many people bought a lot more home than they probably should have at the peak of the real estate boom.

Many of these home owners are occupying properties that are worth less than half, in extreme cases, and what they paid for them. They owe much more on their homes and the home would be worth on the market. To compound issues, they got into these homes using exotic home loans that were bound to rise greatly in terms of payment. This has also increased the rate of CA foreclosures as well.

At present, 1 in every 409 homes in the country has begun to enter the first stages of the foreclosure process. In California, that rate is probably somewhat higher, meaning that it will be vital for leaders to stabilize real estate markets as best they can in order to ride out the continuing storm that the recession has caused, especially in California.

There has been signs lately that it just may be possible to get the rate of California foreclosures down to manageable levels once again. Recently, there’s been a month-over-month drop, both nationwide and in California. This could be extremely good news over the long-term. If things can be straightened out, California could once again become the “golden” state it once was.

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Taking A Close Look At How California Foreclosures Are Related To The Recession

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Understanding and appreciating how California foreclosures are affected by the current recession afflicting not only California but also the rest of the nation is important for anybody owning or considering buying real estate out in the Golden State. It may not seem as if now is the best time to buy property, but it’s certainly the case that anybody owning it should learn a few things these days.

For anybody who hasn’t been reading the newspapers over the last couple of years, it might come as a surprise that California especially, and the rest of the country generally, has been in the grips of a stinging recession. Some say it’s the worst since the Great Depression. California doesn’t seem to be especially “Golden” at the present time, though that will surely change in the future.

It’s important that people continue to believe that things can be done when it comes to the rate of California foreclosures, especially as they pertain not only to the foreclosures themselves at their affect on the broader economy. It’s hard, though, to do so because, of the top 10 cities in terms of foreclosure rate, California can boast of having six of those. Some are in the north and some are in the south.

The reasons for why California has ended up in the real estate and housing market trouble it now finds itself in are varied and interesting. For one, rampant speculation and the belief that home values would continue increasing nicely for pretty much forever turned out to be the fallacy that most fervently hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be. The boom-and-bust cycle, though, reasserted itself vigorously.

It’s the belief of most experts that California and its real estate markets will straighten out in the future, though it’s true that the present is being hurt by the economy and the recession that it is experiencing. While most experts think the recession has ended in most of the country, they also believe that California may not see any relief until 2012 or later.

This usually means that real estate will continue experiencing a lack of ready, willing and able buyers, and this is especially so out in the Golden State. There are also a number of budget problems that can be out of any state’s control, and California has more than its fair share of them. For one, people have been leaving California over the last decade in numbers greater than have been coming in. Of course, revenues go down when this happens.

Losing population also helps to contribute to the rate of CA foreclosures, it would seem, because there is less of an expectation that anybody will be coming along to purchase a home in danger of foreclosure at anywhere near the price needed by its owners. It’s an unfortunate fact that many owners are now sitting on homes worth far less than they owe on them. Finding a buyer in that circumstance will be very tough.

If there’s any upside to the fact of the rate of CA foreclosures it’s that California will be acting as an example to the rest of the country and its leadership that taking strong action to control uncertain circumstances may be the way to go in the future. Given that 2010 is an election year, it may be that California will not see additional strong action again until January of 2011, it would seem.

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Taking The Measure Of California Foreclosures And California’s Possible Futures

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

A look at California foreclosures and the future future of California is easier looked at than assessed. This is especially when it comes to the Golden State of California, because the state has been so affected by the downward turn in the broader economy as well as in its real estate market. Answering it, therefore, requires looking at how the foreclosure rate went up in the first place.

Much like the rest of the country, foreclosures out in the Golden State began to occur as people who held property — either as an investment or who bought homes they maybe shouldn’t have — began to find that they couldn’t afford the payments on those properties any longer. Many people in California were speculating that they’d be able to get into and out of the market with a profit.

The recession, though, begin to put a stop to that sort of speculative activity and it did it first out in California several years before it broke out into the wider nationwide real estate markets. Many who bought into properties with low teaser-type mortgages ended up staring at steep monthly payments that had been readjusted after a certain period of time.

Equally as sadly, many of these people bought much more home than they really couldn’t afford, with the expectation that they’d be out of those homes before their original mortgages adjusted upwards. Most times, the gamble would pay off in they’d be gone and into an even bigger home but with a significant profit on the sale of the original home in their pockets.

But this is all part of a natural boom and bust economic cycle, not only in real estate but in most other aspects of the economy. The bust eventually occurred and it was a very sudden one at that. However, the difference this time is that more people are less hesitant to go the foreclosure route, which means that the rate of CA foreclosures is steeper than many economists assumed it would be.

It doesn’t help that California was somewhat limited in what it could do to bank money or fund mechanisms that might have been able to deal with this before hand because the property tax revenue it was collecting was artificially limited by the famous Proposition 13, the famous anti-property tax initiative. Once the decline in home values began it was inevitable that the rate of CA foreclosures would go up.

Looking back, it’s easy to see why what happened did indeed happen. The trick for the state has now to get the right kind of mortgage assistance and legislation true that will help people stay in their homes more easily and avoid going to foreclosure right off the bat. Unfortunately, many are looking at that route as the way to go instead of trying to stay within homes that are worth less than they owe on them.

CA foreclosures and the rate at which they’ve increased is a natural consequence of a wildly exuberant economic cycle that eventually had to move into a bust period. Add in that California as a state is restricted in what it can do in terms of property taxes on homes and land in California and it’s easy to see that the state will really need to put together a comprehensive package to deal with the issue.

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Appreciating The Intensity Of California Foreclosures In The New Decade

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

Coming to grips with rate of California foreclosures in California will be necessary for owners and investors of real estate in the state if it’s going to be able to emerge from the current recession and budget ills plaguing California. There are a number of different reasons for how California got to where it is today and there are no easy solutions, it needs to be said.

Many people in the real estate world and a number of economists think that the problem that arose with CA foreclosures is traceable all the way back to the mid-1970s. At that time, a popular uprising over the increases in property taxes led to the passage of Proposition 13, which was an attempt to rein in what many people thought were unfair annual property tax increases.

As to the pros and cons of whether or not Prop 13 might be beneficial or detrimental to the state, there are certainly valid arguments on both sides of the discussion. What’s clear, though, is that California has a current problem with foreclosures and their increasing rate. It’s hoped that the state and its leadership will be able to come up with solutions to get a handle on the problem once and for all.

For years, most states and municipalities have looked at tax collection as a way to fund a variety of public services, many of which are extremely laudable though maybe unaffordable in the current steep recession. As with most anything else, California has been a trend setter in this regard as well, with the recession first taking off out in the Golden State and spreading eastward.

Once the crash in the markets really took off in earnest in late 2008, people began to look back at the way they looked at real estate as investment and found that some of that outlook helped to contribute to the problem. With no buyers waiting to eagerly snap up basically overpriced housing, the housing inventory literally exploded. Nobody wanted to buy and nobody could sell.

Given that environment, it should have been accepted as a given that CA foreclosures would soon begin to rise from what was a steady and low level to where it is now. Large numbers of homes and other properties have been foreclosed and are sitting unsold and not generating anywhere near the tax revenues they would be generating if they were occupied and worth what they once were.

California has also seen a growing number of people looking at the idea of foreclosure as something that isn’t unusual. In fact, many people are considering foreclosure as a first resort. Whether this is a worthwhile or helpful phenomenon means to be seen, but when thing that’s for sure is that with more people looking at foreclosure first, California can expect a further erosion of tax revenue in the near term.

California, though, is a resilient and strong state and there have been indications lately that the rate in CA foreclosures could be stabilizing or even starting to drop, at least in the short term. Whether that stabilization lasts for any length of time is a question worthy of examination. It probably depends on how California deals with its current budget woes if it does so effectively, investment may rush back in sooner than most think.

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Understanding How California Foreclosures Can Be Dealt With By Calfornia’s Leadership

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

Understanding how CA foreclosures can be dealt with by California leadership means first of all understanding how the Golden State got itself into the foreclosure problem that much of the rest of the country began to experience a few years after California began to. Some of the problem has to do with speculation and some of it has to do with a failure of political will. It all added up to a significant issue, though.

As it relates to the issue of CA foreclosures and how they increase or decrease (they’ve been increasing for the last few years), it’s worth noting that California, Las Vegas, Florida and other areas all featured extremely vigorous real estate markets for a number of years. With the supply and demand model completely in favor of the seller prices for homes went up, sometimes unreasonably or unrealistically.

California political leadership (to be fair, other states also suffered from a failure of leadership) tacitly encouraged much of this speculation for number of different reasons. More people owning homes meant more homes that were worth more in terms of property tax revenue. States and municipalities could add services, then. Unfortunately, the bust — when it hit — hit very hard in this case.

In the case of California, a true “bust, ” or drop in the price of both new and existing homes began sometime in 2006, though home prices were a little “soft” in some areas (San Diego, for one) for about a year before that. But easy lending standards and a ready supply of cheap money (low interest rates) ensured that many people would be able to obtain home loans for several more years before it all came to a head.

And decline it began to do starting around the middle of 2007. Once the financial markets themselves collapsed in late 2008, all of that speculation and buying and selling out in California dried up and blew away. It was then that real increases in CA foreclosures began to appear. California now has six out of the top 10 cities in terms of their rate of foreclosure, which is not a record to brag about.

There are a number of steps leaders in the state have been taking in an effort to reduce the rate of CA foreclosures. Working in conjunction with federal agencies, they’ve been giving current homeowners plenty of instruction on how to go about taking advantage of loan modification programs being back up by the federal government. There’s also a law — due to run through January of 2011 — aimed at stretching out the foreclosure process.

California leaders hope that the combination of loan modification and lengthening of the foreclosure process may convince more home owners to try to stay in their homes. But with California home prices declined by 30% or even more, it’s the case that a lot of people are sitting in homes worth much less than they owe, meaning they are increasingly looking at foreclosure as the first choice rather than the last.

Whether anything to do with the rate of CA foreclosures will ever be truly amenable to anything other than the natural corrections that market forces seem to impose as a matter of course is a question for the ages. Some think that the Golden State’s foreclosure rate may even be stabilizing and could even be dropping. Time will tell on that forecast, it seems.

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Thinking On Attempts To Keep California Foreclosures From Increasing Drastically

Saturday, August 7th, 2010

Examining California’s effort to keep the rate of California foreclosures down invariably means that one needs to examine how foreclosures went up over the last two to three years, much of which can be chalked up to rampant speculation. Additionally, California has been suffering from a number of structural defects in terms of its real estate markets for quite a while as well.

For starters, most everybody in the real estate industry understands and accepts that real estate in California is pricier than real estate in most other parts of the country. There are notable exceptions, of course (Honolulu, Marin County and Boston come immediately to mind). The false assumption that California real estate could continue to climb forever has now proven to be just that; false.

Unfortunately, a great many speculators and buyers of real estate in California thought just such a thing, never mind that every economic boom is eventually followed by an economic contraction, correction or bust. This one, when it finally came (and it took quite a while) was particularly severe and more vigorous than is normally the case.

There were also a few problems with the state’s real estate market that helped it in one way but also tended to be a drag in another way, especially when it came to collecting property tax revenues from it. That’s because of California’s famous Proposition 13 and its prohibition against raising property taxes more than a certain specifically delineated amount over time.

For anybody who was out looking at property in California, it’s certainly the case that Proposition 13 tended to make Golden State real estate look attractive because of its damper on property tax raises. With taxes relatively reasonable, at least for California, a large number of buyers jumped into the markets over the decades. When the recession hit, though, the markets were bound to be affected more intensely than might usually have been the case.

Now, the state is being forced to deal with a rate of CA foreclosures that it might not otherwise have had to deal with if all things were equal. In 2009, California enacted an amendment to the California Civil Code known as the “California Foreclosure Prevention Act.” It’s basically an attempt to slow the building rate of residential foreclosures through a series of measures.

This is mainly done through what the state calls a 90 day “holding” period, which is added on to the normal time line that most standard foreclosures must adhere to. It is requiring that lenders wait an extra 90 days after they’ve sent a notice of default to be recorded before they can move to record and publish a Notice of Trustee’s Sale. There are certain criteria that must be met, by the way.

Even though California foreclosures have climbed steadily to heights not seen just several years ago, that rate actually shows some signs of decline and improvement though there are an equal number of economic experts who say that it is sure to climb further in the future. At present, what’s more important is that California is trying to stop the bleeding and stabilize its rate and force it down. There are many people who are hoping it succeeds, and soon.

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Pondering Just How California Foreclosures Affect Commercial Property Markets

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

California commercial real estate and how California foreclosures affects it should be a subject for study for any person looking to invest in Golden State property markets or even its economy in general. Whether to stay in any sort of California real estate at present is a question, but there are always diamonds among a mountain of coal if one has the patience to look for them.

With a year-over-year increase of 15% in the rate of CA foreclosures now might not seem to be the greatest of times to get into a market that may actually not have found bottom, but there are a number of experts that believe it has. They also believe that these foreclosure rates portend an issue with commercial real estate that an investor might be advised to pay attention to.

In the commercial property markets, it might be that holders of notes on all those properties have been reluctant so far to begin foreclosing on them, which is one reason why the rate of commercial CA foreclosures has remained lower than the residential rate. They have a great many residential properties to deal with and are trying to get rid of those properties before calling in their commercial notes, perhaps.

The key words, of course, in this scenario are “some loss.” This means that an acceptable loss is far preferred nowadays than a complete loss, which commercial real estate could end up costing many a bank if the situation is allowed to remain at the status quo. Investors with solid cash financials and backing by syndicates and the like may be able to make something out of this situation, by the way.

Investors of these kinds are sometimes known pejoratively as “vultures” but that’s not exactly a fair description of either their value or what they do. Any market will require investors willing to come in and take distressed goods, services or properties and they’re often needed as much as so-called prime investors, especially when a market depends on investment to bounce back from a down cycle.

There’s great debate as to whether or not now is the exact moment to jump back into buying up distressed or greatly devalued properties, because some economic experts believe that CA foreclosures, after stabilizing for a short time, may begin to climb again. This is basically what is known as a “double dip” in terms of foreclosure rates. Rates will decline slightly after rising steadily and then begin to climb again, in effect.

What this basically means for most investors is that they should keep a close eye on the market and look at whether or not it has truly bottomed out and has now begun to climb back up to more stable levels. Investors, therefore, will need to either execute a “buy and hold” strategy or wait out the market until the predicted second dip occurs before beginning a real upward climb.

This is where guts and a flavor for real risk can stand an investor in good stead when it comes to considering CA foreclosures and what they may portend for the state’s commercial real estate markets. At present, there’s a lot of square footage chasing very few lessees or renters, for a fact. This creates a supply and demand scenario favorable to a buyer, though it should be a buyer who’s very savvy.

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Generating Income From California Foreclosures In The Current Recession

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Pulling profits out of CA foreclosures in the current market environment can be done, though some experts advise waiting to see if Golden State property markets have finally reached a point of natural equilibrium. Even if they haven’t, though, there might still be several ways for patient investors to take advantage as long as they’re willing to use a “purchase and hold” strategy, though it can be risky.

It is still the case — even in the worst of markets — that buying low and selling high is a recipe for success. When it comes to CA foreclosures this is just as applicable as with any other sort of investment or purchase of stocks, for example. Finding a foreclosed home held by a lender or a bank that can be bought for $200,000 and then sold for $250,000 is entirely possible these days.

That’s because the Golden State has been experiencing a rise in the rate of CA foreclosures for as long as five years, by some estimates, though things can really begin going far south until 2007 or even 2008. This last figure coincides with the general decline in the financial markets, and the way. This also highlights the fact that California is still a leading indicator for most anything.

What “early indicator” means is that the Golden State quite often experiences first what then spreads to the rest of the country and its rate of CA foreclosures was a fairly reliable indicator of coming problems. Unfortunately, many chose to ignore what was going on — especially leadership out in Florida and Arizona as well as in Las Vegas, all of which have felt the decline in real estate markets keenly.

What much of this might mean as far as being able to pull a profit out of CA foreclosures — for the investor or just a regular person thinking of taking on a California home that’s now priced well below what it once was worth — remains to be seen. Certainly, a certain amount of speculation will be just what the Golden State requires. Finding buyers for all those foreclosed homes is paramount, of course.

It may be that much of this problem might be ameliorated or even eliminated through the sale of these real estate-owned (REO) properties to investors or people who can get the credit and the money needed to purchase them. There is a risk that one will be getting into a market that hasn’t yet stabilized, but it’s still possible to buy low and sell high, even, in relative terms.

Perhaps the best news of all would be that buyers might now start considering purchasing a home in California to be an actual home and not just as an investment instrument. If a $400,000 property can be bought at $300,000 or $200,000, either out in California or across the country, it might be that the recession could be put to bed once and for all as buyers begin to ease back into the marketplace.

At any rate, turning a profit from CA foreclosures in these trying times — at least at present — is probably more for those who are stout heart and who also have a great deal of patience. They probably will need to engage in a buy and then a long-term hold until there is a certainty that the market in California has bottomed and is now climbing out of the trough, for a fact.

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Finding A Silver Lining In California Foreclosures To Try To Generate Some Good News

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Finding a silver lining in California foreclosures if possible is going to be something that anybody either holding real estate in California or thinking of investing in it in the future will have to come to grips with. There’s always an upside to any down market, for a fact, though investment in a down real estate market will require real savvy and guts.

Commonly, most people who invest in these kinds of distressed markets when it comes to something like CA foreclosures are known as “vulture investors.” This is an inaccurate term for a group of investors that help to keep economic activity going at least at low levels while the broader markets recover from a recession. Banks and other lenders are also counting on these kinds of investors to take properties off their hands, at present.

The reason they’re hoping that these investors — or any investors, for that matter — show is that the California real estate market has been going through a decline over the last several years. It’s been doing so for a number of reasons, some of which have to do with buying and selling behaviors while others have to do with how the state collects revenues from its property inventory.

Today’s foreclosed and “distressed” housing inventories in states like Florida and California tend to be higher in quality than such homes were in the past. Back then, homes that ended up in these categories were usually run down and needed a lot of rehabilitation. Leaving aside why homes today are ending up in foreclosure so quickly, an investor might do well by looking at this kind of market.

For a fact, an investor hoping to profit through CA foreclosures would first want to look at properties known as REO or “real estate-owned” homes. These are properties now owned by lenders who foreclosed after owners were unable to keep up with monthly payments, for the most part.

Any investor hoping to get into the California real estate market — when it comes to these sorts of CA foreclosures — is going to have to make sure that he or she (or their advisers) understands the particular market in California very well. This is because the theory is that one will purchase an REO property at a low price and try to get the maximum market price for it, whenever that happens to be.

For example, Riverside and San Bernardino out in California have properties in their inventories that are listing for under half of what they once would have listed for. Finding a lender, a bank or an owner who’s willing to sell for $. 50 on the dollar could mean that the property could then be turned around with minimal investment and might return at least 10% on that investment in just a short amount of time.

In the past, such a relatively low return on investment in California (30% was more common) might not have made much sense but that’s not the case nowadays. Taking CA foreclosures, turning them around and then reselling them, could be much more of a success than would normally be possible, in fact. For smart investors, who are willing to invest properly, there are real upsides to this kind of investment activity.

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