In 2009, multifamily lenders provided a total of $52.5 billion in new financing for apartment buildings with five or more units, representing a 40 percent decline from 2008, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Annual Report on Multifamily Lending for 2009.
The 122 most-active lenders represented just four percent of active lenders, but 77 percent of the dollar volume lent. Three-quarters of the active lenders made five or fewer loans over the course of the year.
NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in July, rose 5.2 percent to 79.4 from a downwardly revised 75.5 in June, but remains 19.1 percent lower than July 2009, when it was 98.1. The data reflect contracts and not closings, which usually lag one or two months. In the West, which includes California, the index increased 11.6 percent to 95, 17.6 percent lower compared with a year ago.
“Home sales will remain soft in the months ahead, but improved affordability conditions should help with a recovery,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. “Affordability could reach a generational high in the second half of this year because of rock-bottom mortgage interest rates, helped partly by the Fed’s very accommodative monetary policy. The loan underwriting standards are tighter, but home buyers can improve their chances of getting a loan by staying well within their budget.”
C.A.R. issued a Red Alert! today asking REALTORS® to contact Gov. Schwarzenegger and urge him to sign SB 1178 (Corbett), extending anti-deficiency protections to homeowners who have refinanced “purchase money” loans and now are facing foreclosure.
C.A.R. is sponsoring this critical piece of legislation to protect homeowners in foreclosure from attempts by lenders to sue homeowners for the difference between the value of the foreclosed property and the outstanding balance on the mortgage loan.
Take action today by visiting http://takeaction.realtoractioncenter.com/campaign/sb1178 and telling Governor Schwarzenegger to sign SB 1178 and correct this unfairness.
Once you finally go to settlement it would be wonderful if all the loose strings were neatly tucked in and all the checks were written to make all parties happy. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Especially when it comes to the exchange of moneys between buyers and sellers to wrap up a transaction when walk-through items have been identified and must be remedied.
The walk-through by the buyer usually takes place just before settlement. Depending on your market and whether or not the sellers are out of the house, the walk-through can happen a few days before settlement, the day of settlement, or in the case of a rent-back by the seller, several days, weeks or months after settlement.
It is at this time that the buyer accepts the final condition of the property and signs away his life for the mortgage. If items are found not to his liking, then let the negotiations begin — again.
Common items might be something like stains in the carpet hidden by rugs, dings in the walls, electrical outlets or light switches that don’t work, sinks dripping, commodes leaking — you name it. While these may not be large items, if you add up the expense of fixing a few of them, you can be at a few hundred dollars to haggle over right at the last minute.
If you find you’re in this situation, you have three options:
The problems with letting a house exchange hands that is not completely clean of defects (at least at the time of settlement) go on and on. If the lender wants to sell the loan after settlement, outstanding repairs make it difficult, if not impossible to sell it on the secondary market.
Relocation companies won’t allow escrow money, period. They want the transaction ended on the day of settlement. In other words, the settlement may be postponed until the items are fixed.
If you decide to leave money in escrow, what will you do if you’ve left too much? For some reason, many buyers believe that since you agreed to $500 to repair and paint the wall in the living room, that if the actual bill comes up to only $300, they’re entitled to the remaining 200 bucks.
Unless the buyer and seller agree to the release of the escrow funds, it customarily cannot be released. Remember, the settlement/escrow company is the representative of the transaction, not necessarily the buyer or seller. They must protect the escrow fund until all parties agree or a court orders the release of the money.
The best practice is to simply not do escrow. Fix the problem and finish the deal. If you must, however, make sure the seller and buyer draw up a very detailed agreement that answers at least these questions:
Written by M. Anthony Carr
Don’t let a new identity theft study confuse your approach to warding off the crooks. No matter the source of the pilfering, the fundamentals of ID theft prevention apply.
A new study indicating who is likely to steal your identity shifts the blame from people you know to those who are more likely to be strangers.
In its “Identity Fraud Trends and Patterns”, Utica College’s Center For Identity Management & Information Protection (CIMIP) tracked Secret Service arrests and convictions of offenders and found that identity thieves used these methods of operation.
The study is in contrast to reports from Javelin Strategy & Research, which has studied the issue from the perspective of victims, rather than the crooks.
“Online Banking and Bill Paying: New Protection from Identity Theft,” a study released several years ago by Javelin Strategy and Research, a consultant for financial services, payments, and commerce sector companies, analyzed findings from Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Postal Service reports, as well as its own studies.
That study said ID theft stems from a paper trail — 40 percent of all ID fraud starts with the theft of a wallet or a purse; 14 percent of the time when someone sets up a new account it’s done with information the perpetrator took out of a mailbox.
Javelin also said the most likely culprits are friends and family.
James Van Dyke, responding to the Utica study, said he didn’t see a conflict with his firm’s results because the Secret Service takes on high-dollar cases — the median loss in the Utica study was $31,000.
A recent Gartner Inc. survey of victims found the average loss to be about a tenth as much, $3,300.
Van Dyke also says smaller investigations are handled by local or state police.
It doesn’t really matter how or by whom identity is stolen and used illegally, the experts says. Consumers are advised to guard all the possible approaches to personal information.
Written by Broderick Perkins
