When: Saturday March 7, 2009
Where: Riverside Park on Old 41 in Olde Bonita
Time: 7:00 p.m. the movie starts, my band of merry thieves and I will be giving out glow necklaces starting at 6:30.
Movie: The Never Ending Story.
What to bring: Blanket, chair, sweater, food and drinks will be on site, but you are welcome to bring your own.
No alcohol, of course.
Two weeks ago, President Obama introduce his plan to stave off foreclosures by giving incentives to banks to help homeowners that are not currently in default lower their payments and take advantage of lower rates. Today, that plan was approved and rolled out by Fannie Mae through its Home Affordable Modification Program.
Homeowners that are currently struggling to make their payments, but are not yet behind now have relief. They can refinance their home through FNMA’s Home Affordable Modification set to roll out in April. Foreclosures will be temporarily suspended while this and other options are looked into; however, if these are not viable solutions, then the foreclosure will continue.
Lenders are encourage tolower interest rates to where a homeowners monthly mortgage payment (principal, interest, taxes, and insurance) are less than 38% but greater than 31% of their monthly gross income. If a drop in interest rate is not enough to get to this limit, then a the loan term shall be increased to 40 years. If this is still not doable, then the lender canforbear principal. And should a lender choose, it can forgive principal.
Any rate changes are valid for a period of five years. After the fifth year, the rate shall increase up to 1% per year until the interest rate cap is reached. There is a whole detailed explanation on the rate cap that I will not get into at this time, but the cap is fair.
Mortgage insurance may not be required for these transactions that may now exceed 80% loan-to-value. The decision is based on the overall strength of the loan being refinanced/modified. Home values will be based on either a Automated Valuation Model (AVM) or a Broker Price Opinion (BPO). In other words, no appraisal.
Over the course of the next couple days, I will be putting more information up about this plan and program, as there is many variable surrounding it. In the meantime, feel free to click here and download the program guidelines for your own reading
For some time now, Knightlines Mortgage Services has been offering the people of Florida a convenient way to finance and re-finance their residential property.
But that isn’t the entire story - we are also doing commercial lending in all 50 states. AND - now we can offer commercial financing OUTSIDE of the country as well. Caribbean, South America, etc - just call for the details.
If you’ve had your Bonita Spring Florida home and condo for sale this winter and you still haven’t found a buyer for it, here’s a startling piece of information for you. Easter Sunday arrives in just five weeks.
I’m not telling anyone this for the benefit of scouting the best Easter egg hunt but to prepare for the northern migration of our snowbirds and vacationing Bonita Springs real estate buyers. The clock is ticking and they’re packing their bags.
It's crunch time for a lot of home owners that absolutely, positively must sell. If you’re a strapped home owner and your goal is to find a buyer before “season” ends you’ll need to reevaluate your home’s price and condition, again. Even if you did it just a few weeks ago, follow up to see if the competing pending sales have closed sale and re-price your home accordingly.
Next, evaluate the all of holding costs for the home for six months. Best case scenario you may not see another bevy of buyers until the fall. If you’re one of the do or die sellers you should consider subtracting the holding costs off of your new improved best price to attract a buyer. If you don’t sell before Easter and end up holding for the summer you’ll end up spending the difference anyway.
Considering the condition of the economy and real estate market you can only sell your home if it’s priced well enough to entice a buyer. It is also a bunch easier to sell a home when the buyers are actually in town.
Here are a few facts that you should have interest in knowing if you’ve been struggling to sell your home by the end of spring. Of all the Lee and Collier home closings in the month of February 2009, about 78% of the total sales were homes and condos priced under $400,000. There are a few ways to look at this information.
If you’re home or condo is priced above $400,000 you’re currently in the position for fewer potential buyers simply because fewer transactions are occurring in the higher price points. The highest priced sale in February was nearly $5.2M which leaves a lot of other homes in the price spread between $400,000 and $5M hopeful for buyers.
If your home is priced below $400,000 you have potential to attract more buyers, buyers who choose FHA financing and first time home buyers. You have to stay on top of market conditions and pricing to make sure those buyers are finding your home.
The first time home buyer tax credit is bringing a lot of buyers priced out of the real estate market back in and they’re on the entry level market like white on rice. In the year 2008 41% of home sales involved first time home buyers. The number is expected to be even higher this year. That’s a huge clue for sellers with homes price $400,000 and under.
The ugly truth remains; until the excess inventory is absorbed selling real estate will continue to be about competitive pricing. The inventory has to be absorbed from the bottom up and sooner we soak up entry level pricing, the better.
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Real Life in Bonita Springs is a project by Chris Griffith dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers about the Bonita Springs, Florida area. Find out what it is really like to live in Bonita Springs, Florida by reading about our fair city. You’ll get the latest in local real estate information, Bonita Springs real estate market reports and a little bit of humor. If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story about the idea, after all, this site is just for you.
You can subscribe to a weekly email newsletter by visiting www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com and entering your email in the subscription area on the left pane of the web page or by adding us to your reader by subscribing to this blog. Oh, and if you’re reading this content anywhere else but www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com or the Naples Daily News it is probably stolen.
HomePath Mortgages - What You Need to Know
Earlier in the month, I discussed the new Fannie Mae mortgage loan program, HomePath : no mortgage insurance, no appraisal, low down payments, and contributions up to 6% of the purchase price. Now that the program has been running for a couple weeks, I am going to reveal what I have found to be true about this program.
Let’s begin with the issue on credit score. The advertising that I am seeing is that this program is available for people with credit score as low as 580. True… at 580 a borrower does qualify for the program, but only at 80% loan-to-value. To get the 95-97% loan-to-value, the mid-score must be ata minimum of 660. Now, before someone tries to argue this, yes 95% combined loan-to-value is available for a 580 credit score. Problem… unless the seller is willing to do a 2nd mortgage for the 15% or you can get a grant/aid (IE S.H.I.P.) to help cover that difference. Sorry, but the lender will not budge. It is all or nothing.
Now, on to the closing costs concession. The program allows for up to 6% of the purchase price to be given by the seller towards closing costs and pre-pays. This means that you have to convince FNMA to give up money to help you get into the home. GREAT NEWS!!! So far, I have seen FNMA consistently give $5000 to help. In one case, this was over the 6%, so we had to cut the concession back. In most cases, the $5000 has covered all the closing costs leaving the buyer to just bring money for their down payment.
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Marc J Blasi
For some time now, Knightlines Mortgage Services has been offering the people of Florida a convenient way to finance and re-finance their residential property.
But that isn’t the entire story - we are also doing commercial lending in all 50 states. AND - now we can offer commercial financing OUTSIDE of the country as well. Caribbean, South America, etc - just call for the details.
This is where I spent a few hours yesterday, on Hickory Island. I listed a Dolphin Way condo on the beach and it was picture time. It will probably upset you to now that I take Bonita Beach for granted. I do. I have lived here for about 25 years and can't tell you the last time I was at the beach. Yes, I can. It was last summer. I made a special trip to expose myself to ultraviolet light and it rained no more than 10 minutes after I got there. Just my luck.
This condominium is someone's dream. It's perfect. The view is perfect, the location is perfect, the beach is perfect. I just wish I wasn't so spoiled by this atmosphere to feel that joyful exuberance of seeing all of this blue water at one time. When is the last time you've been to the beach?
Photo Credit Vintage Lulu's photostream
Our little portion of the “retail nation” has really been feeling the heat. I don’t only mean the individual businesses that are distressed or closing but the actual over production of retail space. If you’ve lived in southwest Florida for any amount of time you watched it all happen and wondered when it would stop, wondered who they were building it all for and why so much of it was coming out of the ground.
What was the housing growth based on? It was based upon the housing starts of imaginary people, plain and simple. Add a twist of projected retiring baby boomers and a swipe at that money tree that was available to anyone with a pulse and things got crazy.
The explosive growth wasn’t limited to residential development. Even commercial land was developed for imaginary people. The housing boom was at a rolling boil and then developers began building commercially to match housing starts.
Tens of thousands home starts meant that grocery stores needed to be built to feed those home owners. Each of those homes would need a wall mount, flat screen TV with a sound system so the big box electronic store went in. In went another four and a half miles away. Certainly dueling pharmacies should be on every corner because medical intervention is required in order to maintain the cholesterol, mental equilibrium, blood pressure and sex life of the masses.
Most recently the barrage of layoffs and store closings are continuously in the news. I wonder how many of those layoffs and closings aren’t as much from a bad economy as they could be from greed, stupidity and creation of commercial space for people that would never materialize.
When there are several hot-cup-of-name-brand-coffee stores in less than a five mile radius, could that not be a tad excessive? Each of those stores was located in a shopping center or a mall, which means several shopping centers or malls in that same five mile radius. Every publicly traded franchise crammed their storefronts in.
After a while the saturation has the effect of trying to sell sand at the beach. Combine that with how much a steaming, hot cup of that sand actually costs and the desire to consume it eventually diminishes, bottom lines get affected and the business model either changes or dies.
Who doesn’t remember bagel stores on every corner and frozen yogurt boutiques? Besides finding a way to trick people into eating yogurt, a fad was born that eventually faded. Nothing lasts forever.
Soon enough everyone would know that the building would slow to a crawl, the people that owned the homes wouldn’t move into them and that the mocha choka latté yaya was overpriced and just giving consumers muffin tops, anyway.
Everything within our economy is cyclical. When things will change and get better, nobody really knows for sure. More importantly, when things do get better will we all grown and learned from it?
It sure doesn’t seem like anyone learned from The Roaring 20’s or any of the other economic bumps in the road in between. This time we just drove better cars and washed the good times down with mochaccino instead of bathtub gin.
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Real Life in Bonita Springs is a project by Chris Griffith dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers about the Bonita Springs, Florida area. Find out what it is really like to live in Bonita Springs, Florida by reading about our fair city. You’ll get the latest in local real estate information, Bonita Springs real estate market reports and a little bit of humor. If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story about the idea, after all, this site is just for you.
You can subscribe to a weekly email newsletter by visiting www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com and entering your email in the subscription area on the left pane of the web page or by adding us to your reader by subscribing to this blog. Oh, and if you’re reading this content anywhere else but www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com or the Naples Daily News it is probably stolen.
The communities of Barefoot Beach and Bonita Beach in Bonita Springs, Florida are home to the most prestigious real estate in Bonita Springs, Florida. Due to the proximity to the Gulf of Mexico most homes and condominiums are steps to Barefoot Beach, Bonita Beach and some homes and condominiums have access to back bay estuaries for boating and fishing.
The prices for Barefoot Beach homes and Bonita Beach homes starts at $1,700,000 and prices vary upwards to about $9,000,000.
Pricing is currently from the $800,000 to about $1,900,000 for the condos at The Barefoot Beach Club.
Current pricing for the attached villa homes at Barefoot Beach: $695,000 to $2,400,000. There are no recent closed sales to report.
Priced for condominiums located along Bonita Beach on Hickory Boulevard currently starts at about $320,000 and caps off at about $1,300,000.
Attached luxury villas at Solenzara are currently on the market, however there are no recent closed sales to report. Solenzara prices: $1,100,000 to $2,895,000
There is one manufactured home on Hickory across the street from Bonita Beach currently offered in the high $200,000’s.
That’s a very common question and the basic answer is: If you can save money, then yes you should.
BUT-
To arrive at the conclusion that you will actually save money, you’ll have to look at several things:
#1 How much will it cost to get the loan? EVERY loan costs something. If all other factors were equal, the loan with the lowest fees would be best. (The 'No-Cost mortgages you hear about are a crock. No, you aren't paying anything up front, but to compensate for that you will be paying a higher rate so there certainly IS a cost for the loan!)
#2 How much lower will the payments be on the new loan? If you currently have a 30 year, fixed-rate loan for $300,000 @ 7.00% your monthly principle and interest would be $1996. If you could get a new rate of 6.00% your monthly payment would drop to $1799, while 5.00% would be $1610.
So now you take the cost of the new loan and divide it by the amount of money you'll be saving each month. That shows you how long it will take before you REALLY start to save money with the new mortgage.
For example:
If the loan cost $3500 but your payment dropped by $250 per month, it would be 14months before the cost of the loan was equaled out by the savings. A relatively short time. In this case the refi would make sense.
But if you were only saving $50 each month it would take 70 months nearly 6 years before the refi would be worth it. Will you even be in the home that much longer? If not there would be no reason to refinance the loan.
Another reason would be to turn an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) into a fixed one.
The interest rate on most ARM's can actually increase up to 6% over the initial rate! Imagine starting at 5%, that would be great, but how would you feel if it went up to 11%? If you want to avoid that possibility, refinancing to a fixed-rate loan (even at a slightly higher rate) would ensure that you no longer have that risk. (BTW, with ARM's you should always prepare for the worst - that way you'll never be caught off-guard.)
Once we figure out what you qualify for we can quickly determine whether or not refinancing would be the best thing for you to do.
Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.
--Marc J Blasi
For some time now, Knightlines Mortgage Services has been offering the people of Florida a convenient way to finance and re-finance their residential property.
But that isn’t the entire story - we are also doing commercial lending in all 50 states. AND - now we can offer commercial financing OUTSIDE of the country as well. Caribbean, South America, etc - just call for the details.