I can give you access to ALL the dreams homes of Marco Island and Naples. Complete with photos and visual tours, they are just a click away.
Call me today.
Joanne Tailele
ERA Flagship Real Estate
239-784-2637
JoanneSellsMarco@gmail.com
I can give you access to ALL the dreams homes of Marco Island and Naples. Complete with photos and visual tours, they are just a click away.
Call me today.
Joanne Tailele
ERA Flagship Real Estate
239-784-2637
JoanneSellsMarco@gmail.com
On Aug. 6, 2013, President Obama delivered a speech and released a fact sheet on the Administration’s proposal for housing finance reform. This was the Administration’s most significant discussion on housing finance since the release of the Treasury Department’s 2011 white paper, “Reforming America’s Housing Finance Market.”
In the speech, the President outlined key principals of comprehensive housing finance reform, many of which NAR has been advocating since 2009:
NAR will continue to work with Congress and the Administration to develop policies that ensure mortgage credit is always available at reasonable costs so that everyone who is willing and able to afford a home can do so.
When President Obama took office, our housing market was in free-fall, leaving many families feeling trapped and anxious about their mortgages. The President took immediate action to stabilize our housing market and protect the middle class. These steps helped millions of middle class families stay in their homes, save money on their mortgages, and turn their communities around.
Working together we need to build a more durable and fair system that promotes the American Dream of homeownership, while preventing the nightmare of another crisis. Today, our housing market is coming back. Home values are rising, foreclosures are at the lowest levels since 2006, home sales have increased at double digit rates, and American families are on pace to purchase over 5 million homes this year. In part because of President Obama’s tough regulations that cracked down on the most reckless practices from the housing crisis, responsible Americans can feel more confident and secure when they borrow money to purchase their own home. But the job is not done, and restoring security to homeownership is one of the President’s top economic priorities.
In today’s speech, the President laid out his ideas to help more responsible homeowners refinance, to cut red tape, to increase home values by fixing our broken immigration system, to help the hardest hit communities rebuild, and to ensure those who rent have decent and affordable options. The President also made it clear that going back to the same bubble-and-bust housing system that caused the financial crisis is not acceptable. We need a rock-solid foundation for financing homeownership with a bigger role for the private sector, where taxpayers aren’t on the hook for the irresponsible behavior or bad decisions of financial institutions and we finally put an end to an era where Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could expect a bailout for risky behavior in pursuit of profits. These bipartisan solutions will help build on the progress we’ve made over the last four years, and together we can make owning a home a symbol of responsibility and a source of security for generations to come.
A Better Bargain for the Middle Class: Housing
A Better Bargain for Responsible, Middle Class Homeowners:
Core Principles for Durable, Fair Housing Finance (GSE) Reform:
Making Families’ Most Important Financial Decision Safe and Simple:
Confirming Mel Watt Will Provide Certainty and Leadership During This Key Phase:
A Better Bargain for Responsible, Middle Class Homeowners
There are several additional steps – including legislative proposals – that could immediately work to further strengthen the housing market and ensure that the middle class can secure affordable mortgages, refinance their loans at today’s low rates, and build housing wealth while ensuring that no communities or homeowners are left behind by the housing recovery.
These steps could help a typical family save $3,000 or more per year.
Core Principles for Durable, Fair Housing Finance (GSE) Reform
B. Intermediate Steps to Transition to a New Housing Finance System: While bi-partisan legislation will be critical to creating a new housing finance system, non-legislative steps can be taken now to facilitate a gradual transition to the new system and to facilitate the wind down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including:
Making Families’ Most Important Financial Decision Safe and Simple
For most middle class families, buying a home is the most important financial decision they will ever make. Unfortunately, in the lead-up to the foreclosure crisis, too many borrowers were steered into predatory or unsafe mortgages that they could not afford or understand – often a result of confusing mortgage forms, conflicts of interest in the lending process, hidden fees, and complex products. This is why President Obama took unprecedented steps to strengthen consumer protection and to ensure that mortgages are safe, sustainable and simple to understand.
The President fought for and signed into law the strongest consumer protections in history with the Dodd-Frank Act. The Dodd-Frank Act created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and tasked it with one job: to protect families when making financial decisions. The first-ever independent consumer watchdog, the CFPB protects middle class families by making it safer and simpler to apply for a mortgage and know that it is sustainable. To this end, the CFPB has done the following:
While these unprecedented consumer protections are making a big difference, more can be done to protect middle class families. That is why the President supports the CFPB in finalizing its simplified mortgage disclosure forms, is calling for improved rules that encourage lenders to care more about borrower success, and made clear that any future housing finance system must ensure a level playing field for community-based banks and financial institutions so borrowers can work with the lender that is right for them.
Confirming Mel Watt will Provide Certainty and Leadership during This Key Phase
The President’s Policies Helped Stabilize a Housing Market in Free Fall
When President Obama took office, our housing market was in free-fall. The President immediately took unprecedented steps to stabilize our housing market and protect the middle class, and later, when there was a log jam in Congress, the President took a number of significant administrative and enforcement actions that helped heal the housing market. While more work remains, the important actions by the President helped millions of families stay in their homes, save money on their mortgages, and turn their communities around.
Most people wade into homeownership for the first time in their 20s and early 30s, when they still have the bulk of their working years ahead of them and a long runway to build equity – a key asset for eventually moving up to a bigger home.
But what if you’ve reached midlife and still envision buying a home one day? Tackling that first home purchase after 40 can be easier in some ways than when you’re just staring out in your career, but it also brings its own set of financial factors.
“It’s important to consider the financial work you have left,” says Eleanor Blayney, consumer advocate for the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards based in Washington D.C. “The financial hurdles you still have over the rest of your life and how homeownership and debt in particular are going to impact that.”
A National Association of Realtors survey of people who bought a home between July 2011 and June 2012 showed that nearly 80 percent of first-time homebuyers were 32 years old or younger.
In the next age bracket, those age 33-47, 36 percent were first-time buyers; between the ages of 48 to 57, only 19 percent were first-time buyers. The rates of first-time homeownership generally declined as buyers got older, according to the survey, which featured 8,500 respondents.
Even so, the last decade’s economic downturn and housing crash has forced many to put off that first home purchase.
Here are some things to consider if you’re over 40 and eyeing homeownership:
Lending rules don’t change for older buyers
Good news: Being closer to retirement age than someone in their 20s and 30s can’t legally be held against you by a lender when they consider you for a home loan, regardless of the loan period.
“So if somebody was to walk in today, and they’re 114 years old, and they ask for a 30-year mortgage and qualify for it, we have to give it to them,” says Tom Jarboe, regional manager at lender Primary Residential Mortgage Inc.
The decision on whether one qualifies for a loan hinges on the borrower’s income, assets, credit history and other factors.
Banks generally look back two years to establish a borrower’s income history and also look to evaluate the likelihood that the borrower will continue to make the same level of income for at least another three years.
If you’re in your late 50s or early 60s and disclose that you’re planning to retire within three years, a lender will evaluate your projected earnings from Social Security, retirement accounts, dividends on investments and other sources.
Consider benefits of paying off loan
Most banks operate under the assumption that even a 30-year fixed mortgage will be swapped out for another loan within eight years, if not sooner. That’s because many homebuyers often end up refinancing, or moving for work or due to family considerations.
But paying off a home and owning it free and clear by the time one retires is a smart play, particularly as the cost of housing is a significant expense for a person relying on a fixed income.
That can be tougher for someone who puts off that first home purchase two decades into their prime working years, assuming they haven’t saved up money to make a hefty downpayment – think at least 30 percent.
But it’s doable.
Blayney recommends that even older borrowers who take on a 30-year mortgage take steps to pay off the loan or lower the monthly payment significantly by the time they retire.
That could mean making extra payments during the early years of the loan, or putting up more than the minimum downpayment so the borrower is financing a smaller amount. A 15-year mortgage, which typically translates into lower interest, but higher monthly payments, is another route to a quicker loan payoff.
Look into first-time buyer assistance
One of the biggest obstacles to homeownership is coming up with a downpayment to qualify for a loan.
Federal and state housing agencies offer assistance for first-time homebuyers, including in many cases former homeowners who haven’t owned a home for at least three years. You can find a list of some programs by state at http://www.hud.gov.
Remember though, while some loan programs allow homebuyers to make a downpayment of as little as 3.5 percent of the purchase price, experts say you’ll need to save enough for at least a 20 percent downpayment in order to get the lowest interest rate and avoid having to pay private mortgage insurance, or PMI.
And they can come with hefty fees and restrictions.
Ask yourself if this is the right time to buy?
You may want to own a home, but are you financially ready to take on the financial commitment that comes with a home loan?
Experts recommend borrowers consider the implications of buying a home in their later years, as well as taking on a large loan.
“This isn’t the situation where if you happen to time your purchase incorrectly when you’re 25 and you buy at the top of the market, you still have most of your life left to recover financially,” says Rick Sharga, executive vice president at home auction site Auction.com.
Consult with a financial planner
Buying a home in midlife or beyond has direct implications on retirement.
Homeownership can bring stability to one’s monthly housing costs, versus rental housing, as well as tax benefits, but it also carries with it a trove of costs, including property taxes, insurance and maintenance.
A good way to evaluate all the ways to buy a home, whether in cash or through financing, will affect one’s retirement finances is to enlist a financial planner to go over one’s retirement goals.
“You have to sharpen your pencil, sit down and do all the math,” Blayney says. “There’s no one answer.”
Copyright © 2013 The Associated Press, Alex Veiga, AP business writer.
from Florida Realtor News
IRVINE, Calif. – July 11, 2013 – U.S. foreclosure activity decreased 14 percent in June to its lowest level since December 2006, despite a 34 percent jump in judicial foreclosure auctions from a year ago, according to RealtyTrac’s Midyear 2013 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.
The report finds 801,359 properties with foreclosure filings – which includes all default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions – in the first half of 2013. It’s a 19 percent decrease from the previous six months and down 23 percent from the first half of 2012. One in 164 U.S. housing units had at least one foreclosure filing in the first six months of the year.
June report
• 127,790 U.S. properties had foreclosure filings in June, down 14 percent from the previous month and 35 percent from a year ago. It’s the lowest monthly level since December 2006 – a six and a half year low.
• The number of new foreclosure starts in June dropped 21 percent from the previous month and 45 percent from a year earlier, hitting its lowest monthly level since December 2005 – a seven and a half year low.
• In Florida, new foreclosure starts dropped 26 percent. Other states with a significant drop in starts include Nevada (down 84 percent), Colorado (62 percent), New Jersey (40 percent) and Illinois (39 percent).
• June bank repossessions (REO) decreased 9 percent compared to May and 35 percent from one year earlier. Bank repossessions in June decreased from a year ago in 34 states.
• Judicial foreclosure auctions (NFS) were scheduled for 28,296 U.S. properties in June, up less than 1 percent from May but up 34 percent year-to-year. States with substantial annual increases in scheduled judicial foreclosure auctions included New Jersey (up 103 percent), Florida (up 100 percent), Maryland (94 percent), New York (66 percent), and Illinois (65 percent).
• Florida, Nevada, Illinois, Ohio and Georgia posted the top five state foreclosure rates for the first half of the year, while five Florida cities posted the top five metro foreclosure rates: Miami, Orlando, Jacksonville,Ocala, and Tampa.
Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac, says that foreclosures are “no longer a problem nationally,” but they continue to be a problem in states like Florida where the long court process has delayed the progression. However, even states like Florida will soon see an improvement.
“The increases in judicial foreclosure auctions demonstrate that these delayed foreclosure cases are now being moved more quickly through to foreclosure completion,” says Blomquist. “Given the rising home prices in most of these markets, it is an opportune time for lenders to dispose of these distressed properties, either at the foreclosure auction to a third-party buyer, or by repossessing the property at the auction and subsequently selling it as a bank-owned home.
Half-year 2013 Florida report
Florida posted the nation’s highest state foreclosure rate in the first half of 2013: 1.74 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing (one in every 58) during the six-month period – nearly three times the national average.
A total of 155,264 Florida properties had a foreclosure filing in the first six months of the year, the most of any state and up 12 percent from a year ago.
In June, Florida foreclosure starts (LIS) decreased 23 percent from a year ago but scheduled foreclosure auctions increased 100 percent and bank repossessions increased 14 percent during the same time period.
Other states with foreclosure rates among the 10 highest in the first six months of 2013 were Arizona (0.81 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing), South Carolina (0.80 percent), Maryland (0.80 percent), Washington (0.78 percent) and Indiana (0.66 percent).
Half-year 2013 Florida cities report
Florida had all five of the top metro areas for foreclosure in the first half of 2013. Miami ranked No. 1 among metropolitan statistical areas with a population of 200,000 or more – 2.35 percent of housing units had a foreclosure filing (one in every 43) during the six-month period – nearly four times the national average.
Four other Florida cities joined Miami to round out the top five metro foreclosure rates in the first half of 2013: Orlando at No. 2 (1.94 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing), followed by Jacksonville (1.91 percent), Ocala (1.85 percent) and Tampa (1.74 percent).
Florida cities accounted for a total of 12 of the top 20 metro foreclosure rates.
In Florida, the foreclosure process – from first notice to REO status – took an average of 907 days in the first half of 2013, or roughly two-and-a-half years.
In the U.S., a foreclosure averaged 526 days, though two states have a longer foreclosure process than Florida. In both New York and New Jersey, the average foreclosure takes 1,033 days.
© 2013 Florida Realtors®
From Florida Realtor News.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – July 3, 2013 –
Question: I got divorced in 2010 and deeded the house to my ex-husband. Little did I know that mortgage would still be haunting me today. I’m trying to get a loan for a new house, but the lender sees that other mortgage and won’t approve my financing. What can I do? – Anjie
Answer: The first thing to do is to ask your ex-husband to refinance the mortgage in his name alone. Normally, a married couple will borrow for their home together and have to put both names on the mortgage to qualify. When the marriage turns sour, one spouse will get the house and make the mortgage payments going forward. The divorce, however, is from each other. The loan from the bank is not affected.
The other spouse rarely realizes this until he or she gets turned down for a new mortgage because the debt load is too high. Or he or she gets served in a foreclosure lawsuit when the ex-spouse stops making the payments. This sort of problem is best dealt with before the divorce is final. Have the property sold or refinanced into one name while all of the other details of the divorce are being negotiated.
Trying to get a former spouse to cooperate several years after the divorce can be an exercise in futility. By shopping around to several lenders, you may find one that will look at the situation and the divorce paperwork and make an exception for the debt on the old house – especially if your ex-husband makes his payments on time.
About the writer: Gary M. Singer is a Florida attorney and board-certified as an expert in real estate law by the Florida Bar. He is the chairperson of the Real Estate Section of the Broward County Bar Association and is an adjunct professor for the Nova Southeastern University Paralegal Studies program.
The information and materials in this column are provided for general informational purposes only and are not intended to be legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed. Nothing in this column is intended to substitute for the advice of an attorney, especially an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
© 2013 Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.). Distributed by MCT Information Services
With my twenty four years of experience in real estate, I can safely say that a Home Warranty is one of the best securities both buyers and sellers can have. Who pays for the warranty can be a negotiated item, but I recommend sellers to take one out before listing their home. Like Murphy’s Law, the minute you put your home on the market, unexpected repair issues arise, either while it is on the market or discovered during a Home Inspection.
A home protection plan is a service contract that covers the repair or replacement of many of the most frequently occurring breakdowns of home system components and appliances. It lets homeowners know they’re okay if something goes wrong with a covered item.
Home protection plans can cover a wide variety of properties, including single family homes, new construction homes, condos, vacation homes, townhouses, foreclosure properties and multi-unit properties such as duplex/triplex/fourplex.
Besides helping to take the worry out of purchasing a home with older systems and/or appliances, a home protection plan helps guard against potentially high costs of repairing or replacing items in case of a breakdown. Unexpected repairs can be expensive for most families. A home protection plan can help guard against some of the unexpected costs of home ownership.
HOW DOES A HOME PROTECTION PLAN WORK?
When a covered item breaks down, customers can request service online or by calling to speak with a trained customer service representative. After a service request is received, one of our approved contractors will contact the customer to schedule a time to diagnose the problem. A service call fee, per trade, is due when the service contractor arrives to diagnose the problem.Typically, once repair or replacement is complete, a follow-up survey will be sent out to measure your satisfaction regarding the service performed.
WHO DOES THIS PLAN BENEFIT?
For Sellers
For Buyers
THE ERA SELLERS SECURITY PLAN.
It’s an innovative program that gives qualified home sellers accepted into the program the assurance that your home will sell within a finite sales period. And if it doesn’t, ERA Franchise Systems LLC will buy it from you.* See your ERA agent to find out if you qualify. To learn more visit http://www.era.com.
solely by ERA Franchise Systems LLC, based upon a discount of the home’s appraised value.
Call me for details Joanne Tailele ERA Flagship Real Estate 239-784-2637
Check out my website for the visual tour of this home on Bimini Drive and many others.
http://www.J0anneSellsMarco.com
For all your lending needs, call Peter Prodanav
Conforming 30 Yr Fixed —————- 4.000%
Conforming 15 YR Fixed—————-3.250%
JUNE 2013
The Nation. New York – May 28, 2013 – The Consumer Confidence Index is arguably the most important economic statistic released each month that most NEW – YORK May people ignore.
A positive index number means Americans are feeling secure in the economy and their ability to spend – and their spending feeds an increased rebound as they buy homes, furniture, cars and more. Upbeat attitudes are a precursor to other positive indicators, such as a rising home demand and selling prices.
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had improved in April, increased again in May. The Index now stands at 76.2 ( 1985=100 ) , up from 69.0 in April. The Present Situation Index increased to 66.7 from 61.0. The Expectations Index, which gauges attitudes about the future six months from now, improved to 82.4 from 74.3.
Consumers were considerably more optimistic about the short-term outlook. Those expecting business conditions to improve over the next six months increased to 19.2 percent from 17.2 percent ( an 11.6 percent increase ).
NAPLES / MARCO ISLAND. Home prices is nationwide close are to on the a front of the pack. When it comes to year-over-year price increases, the Naples-Marco Island metro tear, Marco and Island the metro Naples-area area is outpacing many major cities, whether or not you include distressed sales, defined as bank-owned transactions and short sales. In Naples-Marco Island, home prices, including distressed sales, increased by 10.8 percent compared to a year earlier. On a month-over-month basis, prices grew by 5.1 percent. Excluding distressed sales, they rose 13.2 percent year-over-year and 3 percent the previous month.
Nationally, home prices rose 12.1 percent year-over-year. The national numbers represent the biggest year-over-year increases since February 2006 and the 14th consecutive monthly increase. Do these large leaps mean consumers should worry about a new housing bubble, like the one which popped seven years ago? Sam Khater, deputy chief economist for CoreLogic, says no, because “ prices have fallen so far from their peaks.”
Nationally, prices remain 22.4 percent below their April 2006 peak, including distressed sales. In Florida, which was infested with investors looking to cash in on vacation-home price run-ups during the boom and then hard-hit by foreclosures, prices are still 40.5 percent below the state ’ s peak, which happened in September 2006. Still, CoreLogic expects that overall prices will stay on the upswing, at least for the short term. Tight inventory for both new and existing homes, coupled with pent-up demand from buyers, are driving the price bump-ups, the report stated.
Khater adds that both individual and institutional investors also are pushing up prices in many places as they scoop up properties, particularly bargain-priced foreclosures — though the pool of such properties is rapidly shrinking.
MORTGAGE RATES ( 2.625%; 5/approx. national average ) : 30 yr. – 3.375%; 15 yr. -2.625&%; 5/1 Adjustable – 1.875%
EDITORIAL by Marv Needles, Broker of ERA Flagship Real Estate
This been that the case a few years back, things are booming and they are expected to continue through the summer months. The big problem: may have inventory is down nearly 25% over the same period in 2012. In some cases, depending on what the buyer is seeking, their only option is to build. Enter the home builder. Many have re-entered the market ( from working renovations ) , with models and spec homes, thereby offering the buyer more options.
Sources: Naples Daily News, Florida Realtor, Florida Trend and RIS Media
The Ship’s Journal is a publication of ERA Flagship Rel Estate. Reports are obtained via many media outlets.
When investing in real estate, one should consider consulting with a tax professional.
To answer your real estate needs, call Joanne Tailele at 239-784-2637,
email to JoanneSellsMarco@gmail.com
or consult my website at www.JoanneSellsMarco.com
I am sure you are thinking the world does not need another new blog. But if you are reading this, you must have some interest in real estate or Marco Island.
This blog is to inform you about this beautiful island and to give you solid information about the real estate market and what is new happening in the industry.
The biggest news here is not a big surprise. Inventory is depleting, consumer confidence in the economy is climbing and the new construction is back. What does this mean to the buyers and sellers out there? Mainly it means that prices are on the rise. The few distressed properties that are out there are now receiving multiple offers and bidding wars are common place. Sellers can feel more confident in pricing their homes that they will get a fair market value. Buyers can still take advantage of the market if they act fast. Prices are climbing but it is not at a dramatic pace. Therefore, if they want a good deal on an island home, they will have to act soon before they are priced out of the market.
To learn my audience, please let me a reply and tell me if you are a resident of Marco Island or Collier county, whether you have ever visited here or if you have never heard of our little paradise.