About New Haven County, CT

With qualified buyers in the market place looking for the best deal they can get, they are first drawn to the idea of getting a bargain with a foreclosure. The belief is that the desperate banks will accept a good offer even if it's not near the asking price.

If the foreclosure is a clean home requiring minimum work to make it move in comfortable, then it's not likely to stay on the market long and often will see multiple bids, ultimately being sold over asking.

The market demonstrates a reluctance to pursue a listing that is being offered as a distressed or short sale listing. So much is written about the banks' reluctance to negotiate a short sale, or lack of response, or delayed response. This leads to the frustration of waiting weeks or months to hear whether or not the bank will say yes to the bid. When this happens, the house languishes in the system, and because of the delay, it ultimately does come back as the foreclosure.

The listing agents for the distressed property should be doing a great deal of homework well in advance of getting the listing into the system.

• Recognizing that the home will indeed qualify as a potential short sale is one of the first steps.
• Getting into contact with the loss mitigation department of the bank at the onset to at least get all of the requisite forms into the owner's hands and fully completed and documented.
• Pricing the home to reflect the tone of the market
• Creating an action plan that gets the home exposure with price reductions done to get the house a viable contract within a relatively brief period on the market
• Then making sure the bank has all of the documentation it needs to either accept or provide a reasonable counter to the offer

If the Listing agent has done their homework properly and communicated consistently with the bank and the potential buyer there is a high likelihood that the deal can be done within 60 days. The house is occupied and maintained throughout the process, and the distressed owner gets a reprieve from a major mark to their credit rating, giving them hope of getting back into a stable lifestyle within a reasonably short period.

Mortgage bond prices rose last week pushing Connecticut mortgage rates slightly lower. Reignited fear of a global economic meltdown sent money into the mortgage bond market in flight to quality buying. The news reports were permeated with worries about European debt payment defaults. Greece and a few other countries were noted as specific concerns. The employment report Friday morning was mixed with unemployment not as bad as expected but a larger than expected drop in payrolls. For the week Connecticut mortgage rates fell by about 1/4 of a discount point.

The record debt issuance continues with billions of dollars worth of notes and bonds set for auction this week. Strong foreign demand will likely help the entire bond market. With the recent "revisions" to employment data the weekly jobless claims data will carry a bit more weight than usual. Retail sales figures will be the headline figure this week.

LOOKING AHEAD

Employment Revision

The employment report is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, data releases each month. Last week's employment report came with more twists than usual. Unemployment came in at 9.7%, a sharp drop from the expected 10% mark. Payrolls fell 20,000, weaker than the expected 15,000 increase. This divergence happens from time to time with the data derived from two completely different surveys. One piece of the report that caused major concern was the annual benchmark update, which showed the economy lost 930,000 more jobs than previously estimated in the 12 months ended March 2009. The revised number was very large and basically indicates 2009's employment situation was worse than most thought.

A few things that called into question the accuracy of the data influenced the report. Some analysts argued the hiring of temporary census workers threw the figures off. The data was received with a lot of uncertainty and resulted in some wild market swings immediately after the release. The initial reaction sent bond prices lower and Connecticut mortgage rates higher. However, the bond market rebounded a bit after digesting the data for an hour or so. This was a prime example of the volatility that often occurs with major data releases.

For more news and information about purchasing or refinancing visit www.ToMortgageServices.com to receive the latest Connecticut mortgage rate information. First time homebuyers can find the lates information about down payment assistance at www.ChfaMortgageLoan.com .

East Mountain Waterbury, CT Real Estate - Market Update February 2010

Here’s a look at what’s been happening in Waterbury's East Mountain real estate market :

There are 15 homes for sale in the East Mountain neighborhood of Waterbury, CT ; of those, five were listed in the last month. The average size of the homes for sale has remained the same in comparison to similar neighborhoods relative to the prices being asked for them. Here's a breakdown of the prices in the East Mountain-Waterbury, CT neighborhood:  

These are the newly listed homes for sale on the market in the East Mountain neighborhood in January:

     You can search for homes for sale in East Mountain or the surrounding neighborhoods by visiting William's Places!

No homes sold in the East Mountain area of Waterbury, CT during January.

Prior East Mountain Waterbury, CT Real Estate - Market Updates can be accessed by clicking on the link.

The East Mountain neighborhood is the only one in Waterbury so far that has its own website, so to get a look at what's happening in the East Mountain neighborhood of Waterbury, CT , stop by http://www.eastmountainct.com/ .

I think I've written about utilization, the relationship between the balances and credit limits on credit cards expressed as a percentage, for as long as I've owned a computer. But this topic has legs as everlasting as the Gobstopper which shares the adjective. So, for the first time in 2010 and what has to be the 100th time overall, here's how utilization is calculated.

First off, utilization 101...Mark has a credit card with a $1,000 credit limit. That is, his credit reports show a $1,000 credit limit. His current balance as reported on his credit reports is $500. The utilization of that card is 50% because the balance ($500) divided by the credit limit ($1,000) equals .50 or 50%. Now we can get started.

It's important to note that the figures I use for my next few examples HAVE to be reported on your credit reports to make these math problems accurate. That's the bottom line. If it's not on our credit report then all bets are off.

Line Item Utilization - This is the same calculation as described above for Mark but done for every single open credit card or credit card with a balance. So if you have 10 open credit cards, and open in this examples means it's not closed, then you'll have 10 different line item measurements. This is important because the number of highly utilized credit cards on your credit report is a consideration in most credit and insurance risk models.

Aggregate Utilization - This is the same calculation as described above for Mark with one huge difference. For this calculation we are going to combine all of the open credit cards on a credit report to do the math. For example, if I have two credit cards and each has a $5,000 balance and a $10,000 credit limit then I have $10,000 in aggregate balances and $20,000 in aggregate credit limits. Divide $10,000 by $20,000 and you again get .50 or 50%. This measurement is important because the higher utilization the percentage the more risky you are to lenders and insurance companies and the less attractive their terms will be.

High Balance in Lieu of Credit Limits - In some cases your credit cards will not have a credit limit reported. (Note: I'm not talking about charge cards. I'm talking about revolving credit cards that are not reporting a credit limit). In those cases most credit scoring models will look for the historical highest balance, which is typically reported by the credit bureaus, and use that figure in lieu of the missing credit limit. So, if I have a credit card with a $10,000 credit limit but it's not being reported then the credit score will look for my highest balance figure. If it finds, for example, that your highest historical balance was $7,500 then that's the figure it will use in lieu of the missing $10,000. So, with my same $5,000 balance and a $7,500 "pseudo limit" I appear to be 67% utilized on that card instead of the true 50%. This is a line item measurement and an aggregate measurement, meaning it is the same regardless of which is being calculated. This practice of withholding credit limits got the credit bureaus sued in a class action case several years ago because Capital One was not reporting credit limits. The case was dismissed because, in my opinion, the court simply couldn't grasp the details of the problem and the breadth of its impact. Shortly after the lawsuit was filed Capital One began reporting credit limits for the first time in their existence. So, some good did come out of the case.

Missing High Balance and Missing Credit Limit - Now this is a tricky one. In some examples a credit card account will be missing the credit limit and the highest balance. Most credit scoring systems will simply ignore the account for the above referenced utilization calculations because, well, you have no limit to include in the math. This can help the consumer's scores and it can also hurt the consumer's scores. For example, if you have a very high balance on that particular credit card but no limit or high credit then that balance can't increase your aggregate utilization because it's ignored for that math. It can hurt your score in the example where you have a very low balance relative to the credit limit, which isn't reported because you don't get any value of the large difference between the balance and the limit, which is called open-to-buy.

Shadow Limits - A shadow limit isn't a credit card that's been left under a leafy tree. Instead it's the unpublished maximum preset spending limit that all credit cards have, even charge cards that are marketed as not having a preset spending limit. That would suggest that you could use your charge card to buy a $100,000 Mercedes, if the dealership took plastic for such a purchase. And while some very wealthy individuals might be given that amount of shopping power, it's atypical. The shadow limit is not reported to the credit bureaus so the high balance is the next best figure to use when calculating utilization. And if it's a charge card the newer FICO scores will not count it in utilization at all. There are, however, revolving credit cards that are also marketed as not having a preset spending limit and, thus, a shadow limit.

The moral of this story is simple; you'd like to do business with credit card issuers who do report the credit limit to all three credit bureaus. It give you the ability to strategically use that card so that you never exceed some self applied utilization percentage. For example, if you know your credit card has a credit limit of $10,000 (and it's being reported to the credit bureaus) and you never want to exceed 30% utilization on that card then you know you can never allow more than $3,000 to be reported to the credit bureaus as a balance.

☺

Matt

Toll Free: 888-NCFIXER (623-4937)
Toll Free Fax: 888-FAX-4020 (329-4020)
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330 Roberts Street 4th Floor
East Hartford, CT 06108

credit repair company

65 Bentwood Rd, U-3 Waterbury Ct $105,000

A true 3 bedroom condo set up with multi levels; oversized kitchen with large eat-in area and sliders to private patio and rear yard
large formal living room
large master bedroom with plenty of closet space
2 spacious bedrooms for the family
finished lower level family room with laundry hook ups and storage closet

Total Rooms: 6
Bedrooms: 3
Full Baths: 1
1/2 Baths: 1
Sq. Ft.: 1276 *MOL
Built: 1976
MLS: W1055161