Helen Adams Blog » Charlotte North Carolina

New Home Listings in Charlotte, NC

Holly — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:02:50 +0000

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, a man made jewel for the Charlotte metro area

Scott Farrell — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:24:05 +0000

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.

New Rules for RESPA (Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act) take effect January 1, 2010

Scott Farrell — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:14:17 +0000

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.

FHA’s New Criteria will make it tougher to close on a home in 2010

Scott Farrell — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:16:02 +0000

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.

Existing-Home Sales Jump To Highest Level in 2-1/2 Years

Scott Farrell — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:08:38 +0000

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.