Julie Jalone

While congressional leaders and the Bush administration work preparing a massive bailout of the US Financial system including a plan to allow banks to sell bad loans to a Resolution Trust like company, mortgage rates have dropped in Sacramento. The decline from 5.93 percent for a 30-year fixed to 5.78 percent for the week ending September 18 marks a seven month low.

As bank stocks are going up and their senior executives are anxiously waiting to sell their mistakes, I mean bad loans to the government. Some of these same bankers have instituted a policy of denying short sale applications that do not include the seller/borrower signing a note for some portion of the short sale. Based on our extensive experience with short sales this would, in the past, have created a situation where the seller will refuse to sign the note and the bank would take a larger loss. With the ability to pass these loans to the government it means lenders may be taking much harder line with short sales and increasing the burden on taxpayers.

Where else in the world can you make a mess and get rewarded for it?

I have a suggestion for candidate "change" and candidate "reform." When one of you gets to Washington, let's have a policy that says if a mid-level IRS agent can't understand what a company is doing or how a particular derivative is an asset it should be illegal. Another reform or change should be if a company gets big enough that their failure will impact the economy it should be fined and immediately broken into smaller companies.

At least it is Friday, rates are low, and buyers are out looking at homes.

Check it out! We have officially opened an office in Plumas Lake with Stephanie McLaughlin to better serve clients in Sutter, Yuba and Colusa counties. Stephanie has now been with us for a few months and is ready to take the next step in building her business and expanding the MagnumOne Realty brand in these counties. We are continuing to provide individual customized services to buyer and seller ranging from those looking to buy their first home all the way to working with sellers who are trying to avoid foreclosure. We are pretty excited about this new development and if any of you know anyone thinking about buying or selling in our Northern serving area please let them know about Stephanie and our new office. Here is the MagnumOne Press Release that was sent out today.

Other News: We have our second guest article from Louise Buford of Partners Mortgage who is a certified loan specialist in FHA, CalPERS, CalFHA, VA and 203k FHA programs. With so much interest in FHA loans I asked her to write about what the FHA is and why you should consider this type of loan. I hope to have this published tomorrow on our news page.

There are many industry professionals and local agents clamoring about a recovery of our troubled Sacramento real estate market but I am feeling cautious because I have been dealing with so many shorts sales and foreclosures. It is nice to hear about agents being busy and see some houses move so check out why I am not smiling in my weekly column, "No Smiles Yet" over at Roseville & Rocklin Today

The news and commentary from our National Association of Realtors has not always been something to be proud of. More often than not they have, in my opinion, been guilty of delivering propaganda than telling readers the truth. That may be a bit harsh, but clearly they can find a way to put a positive "spin" about some very negative trends in our National real estate market.

I naturally read their news releases and carry the requisite salt so after reading a story this morning, "Existing-Home Sales Rise in February," I did some quick looking at our Sacramento market to see if there was any correlation with what the NAR was saying about the National market., Take a look at my column, "Something is Happening" over at Rocklin & Roseville Today and see what I found out.

The wonderful weather we have been enjoying the past few weeks appears to have coaxed some buyers out of the darkness. There has clearly been an increase in activity. We have seen our listing getting more showings in a week than we were seeing in January and February. One of our MagnumOne agents recently submitted an offer on a house for her clients and received a counter offer stating the home was in a multiple offer situation and to submit their "highest and best" offer. According to the seller's agent the offer that was accepted was $13,000 above asking price.

While this may be wonderful news for sellers and does indicate the market is not dead, it will not be the norm even if we have more good weather. The number of homes on the market remains too high for the current level of demand. According to HousingTracker we have 11.5 percent more homes on the market in the Sacramento area than we had a year ago and although inventory appears to be growing at a slower rate than a year ago it will increase as we move into spring and summer. It is going to continue to be a difficult market for sellers even if a few homes hit the jackpot with multiple over asking price offers.