Click on the brochure below to see our new listings for the week of April 18-24.  There are some amazing homes on the market!  Now is the time to buy.  Rates are at a historic low, and one more week until the tax credit expires!

View over 29,000 Charlotte area home listings (and 7900 new listings) on www.helenadamsrealty.com.

Lake Norman was made by Duke Energy in 1963.  Lake Norman is 34 miles long and has 520 miles of shoreline.  Cornelius, Davidson and Huntersville, NC are towns that are nestled on Lake Norman. Please feel free to review the lake levels at Lake Norman.  You can rent boats and other water toys for the lake at Carolina Boat Rentals. There are also a plethora of marinas around the Lake Norman area.  You do not have to live in Lake Norman to enjoy the water access. There are many locations for public access to Lake Norman for a minimal fee. If you are visiting the Lake Norman area and need a hotel or motel to stay at please feel free to click on the links to make your search hassle free. Below is a market absorption rate on a community called The Peninsula which is a community near Lake Norman.

Charlotte Homes :   3030 South Charlotte NC3 is a unique blend of contemporary architecture and urban planning with focus on modern day transit needs.  At first glance, you’ll think that this hip complex is just that–a new, architecturally appealing condo complex in South End Charlotte NC! This complex is a mix of flats, townhomes and live/work townhomes.  The lower level of the 4-level live/work townhomes, is zoned for commercial use, just for your office, hair salon–the possibilities are endless! There’s plenty of parking for your visitors and you, of course, will have a large office and storage area on the ‘business’ level as well as two entrances on that same level.  Your home, above your office, has its own entrance–either through the garage or on the main level.

For more information contact me at 704-491-3310  or visit my website.

Starting January 1, 2010 the federal government will fully implement the new regulations that were published on November 17, 2008.

What is RESPA? RESPA is about closing costs and settlement procedures. RESPA requires that consumers receive disclosures at various times in the transaction and outlaws kickbacks that increase the cost of settlement services. RESPA is a HUD consumer protection statute designed to help homebuyers be better shoppers in the home buying process, and is enforced by HUD.

HUD is requiring that loan originators provide borrowers with a standard Good Faith Estimate that must clearly disclose key loan terms and closing costs and that closing agents provide borrowers with a new HUD-1 settlement statement. If you are interested in reading HUD’s  “New RESPA Rule FAQs” click here.  The FAQ’s were comprised from industry questions.
Why was RESPA created? It was created because various companies associated with the buying and selling of real estate, such as lenders, realtors, construction companies and title insurance companies were often engaging in providing undisclosed Kickbacks to each other, inflating the costs of real estate transactions and obscuring price competition by facilitating bait-and-switch tactics.

For example, a lender advertising a home loan might have advertised the loan with a 5% interest rate, but then when one applies for the loan one is told that one must use the lender’s affiliated title insurance company and pay $5,000 for the service (whereas the normal rate is $1,000). The title company would then have paid $4,000 to the lender. This was made illegal. The reason is to make prices for the services clear so as to allow price competition by consumer demand and to thereby drive down prices.

For more information on RESPA contact Helen Adams Realty at 1-800-851-5253 or visit our website.

Changes are coming to FHA standards for 2010.  A bill with 27 co-sponsors HR 3706 is moving through the house to alter basic criteria for borrowers next year.  The major areas impacted are: increasing the minimum down payment from 3.5% to 5%; adding some additional fees; increasing the minimum FICO or credit score from 500 to 580-620 range.  All of these changes are designed to help the FHA balance sheet.
The Obama administration is moving to tighten underwriting standards on FHA-backed loans by increasing the amount of upfront cash homebuyers must bring to the table, raising minimum FICO scores for new borrowers, and reducing maximum seller concessions from 6 percent to 3 percent.

Larry Mullins writes:

More money down: The FHA’s low down-payment requirement—of just 3.5 percent—is one of the main reasons that agency-guaranteed loans have become so popular. Home loans without FHA backing can come with down payments anywhere from 10 to 20 percent, depending on the market, borrower, and other factors. But the FHA’s deteriorating balance sheet has triggered calls for the agency to force borrowers to put more cash down.

Higher fees: The major downside to getting an FHA-backed loan is that borrowers must pay into an insurance
pool through upfront and annual fees. The agency uses the cash to reimburse lenders in the event of default. But with its cash reserves dwindling as more loans go bad, Donovan said the agency is considering increasing the insurance premiums as well. Although the current 1.75 percent upfront insurance premium remains below its statuary cap, the annual fee is already as high as the law allows it to go.

Donovan also said the agency would—at least for now—increase the minimum credit score for new borrowers. The FHA’s current minimum credit score is 500, and the agency did not detail the new threshold

For more information please check out US News and World Report has a great blog article by Larry Mullins article.

The National Association of Realtors reports that existing home sales surged 10.1 percent year over year to annual rate of 6.1 million units.  That is the highest total since February 2007.    The previously reported pace of 5.54 million units reported in September has been revised.  Most analysts agree that people rushing to beat the deadline of the first time home-buyer credit is responsible for the surge.

To read a full article from CNBC click here.

My personal feeling is that BOA isn’t going anywhere!  Do we really care where the CEO lives?  BOA owns TOO much real estate here in Charlotte and to sell it and purchase FAR more expensive real estate in NY is ludicrous!  And, to whom are they going to sell it?!

Also, imagine the cost of relocating the administrative personnel to NY and the taxes that they’ll spend well above and beyond those here in Charlotte.  Those three items would deter any business from relocating from ‘reasonable’ Charlotte, NC to ‘exorbitant’ New York! 

I had a conversation with John Lassiter, and he feels the same way.  The city and the Chamber are both working towards a more appealing business climate here in Charlotte and I think we’ve always been ahead of the curve with small and large business relations here in Charlotte.  Over the last decade, Charlotte has been one of the most forward-thinking metropolitan areas in the country—that is expected to continue with new leadership.

 Just my humble opinion!

 Debe