Joseph Metzler MMS UMB

It is the dream of everyone to own their own home. Many potential home buyers have the income and credit to qualify for a mortgage. However, many lack the one essential ingredient to make homeownership a reality; the up-front money needed for down payment and closing costs.

If you want to buy a home in area code 55106 (East Side of St Paul, Minnesota - Ramsey County), we have access to a special program that will GIVE YOU YOUR DOWN PAYMENT. This down payment and closing cost assistance program is a bona fide gift to homebuyers. There is no obligation to the homebuyer to ever pay it back as long as they live in the home 7-years.

PLUS, you still qualify for up to $8,000 in first-time homebuyer tax credits if they buy BEFORE 12/1/2009.

Call (651) 552-3681 right now to get started.

WHITE HOUSE WIDENING MORTGAGE REFINANCE RELIEF PROGRAM

The Obama administration has made changes recently to the current homeowner bailout program available to homeowners who are underwater on their home mortgage loans in an effort to stem the foreclosure problem.

The program is designed to allow homeowners to refinance to today's lower interest rates when under normal and traditional underwriting guidelines, they would not be able to do so.

The current program would allow strapped borrowers with mortgages up to 105% of their homes value as long as they were not behind on their mortgages. The changes just made allow borrowers to now have up to 125% loan-to-value and still be able to refiance.

BUT HOLD ON. While this sounds great on the surface, and while there has been a lot of consumer interest, the program has not come even close to expectations, helping significantly fewer people than Washington anticipated. It is because of these failures that they have expanded the loan-to-value limits.

This programs failures comes on the heals of two previously highly announced homeowner bailout programs called FHASecure and Hope For Homeowners, which both failed miserably in helping consumers.

Why do they fail? A huge issue on the current program has been that so many people owe more than 105% of the current value of their home. So this change should help qualify more people.

With this and the other programs, there is no lender mandate forcing lenders to participate. Many lenders understand giving people 100% (or higher) loans were part of the original problem, and simply refuse to offer the loans.

Underlying guidelines, shall we say "the small print" is also preventing many people from taking advantage of these programs.

In the end, while this announcement should help many more people, I also see this program being labeled a failure.

For more information on the "Making Homes Affordable Program", simply follow this link:

http://joemetzler.com/making_home_affordable_program.htm

Are you an investor looking to take advantage of today's housing market?

Real estate investing is not a major venture to undertake for the average person, but it can be dangerous without the proper tools, if its success you looking for.

The best of tools which would go along way in assuring your success in real estate investing, other than financial capital is information. The adage,' knowledge is power' holds a lot of truth when it comes to knowing when, what and how to invest in real estate. Having and using the right information will keep you even when the property markets are experiencing tough times. You can even beat the recession and achieve your wildest dreams.

With that said, in recent days, a new wrinkle has come into the market that is catching investors and the Realtors they rely on for information off guard (heck, even many loan officers). MANY INVESTORS BUY PROPERTY with CASH. Shortly thereafter, and usually after repairing the home, they look to get a standard loan to replace the money they spend on down payment and repair costs

75% LOAN-TO-VALUE on INVESTMENT PROPERTY is now pretty much the rule of the land when using standard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac financing TO TAKE CASH OUT as lenders everywhere continue to tighten, rather that loosen underwriting guidlines.

Thats right, CASH OUT is 75% loan-to-value on investment property.

So, while investment properties can be a great deal, having the correct information in the pre-purchase stages is very important.

So what about purchasing an investment property? 20% down is still king when buying.

Dramatic drop in number of licensed mortgage lenders in Minnesota

In 2007, the State of Minnesota tightened requirements for mortgage lenders in an effort to weed out some of the smaller and more likely to be fly-by-night operations. One of the big requirements forced mortgage companies to maintain a large "net worth" requirement, or a large surety bond.

These efforts, along with the general state of the mortgage business has dramatically reduced the number of licensed lenders from over 4,100 in early 2007, to fewer than 1,100 in May 2009.

Hidden in those numbers is the fact that while the number of licenses are down, the number of individuals working in the industry is a bit harder to guage.

Many companies previously required their individual Loan Officers to carry their own license. New Minnesota rules only allow companies to be licensed, not individuals. Many of these people still work in the industy, but simply folded their individual license under the corporate umbrella, or closed their own small company to merge with larger ones.

In related news, the State Commerce Department recently cited 92 mortgage originators for a variety of infractions, but most were for failing to maintain the above noted net worth requirements. Of the 92 cited, just 7 of the companies or individuals kept their licenses.

FHA ANNOUNCES CONSUMERS CAN USE THE $8000 TAX CREDIT FOR DOWN PAYMENT

Consumers across the country are now being told they can take advantage of a Federal Housing Administration program to allow qualified home buyers to apply the $8,000 tax credit when purchasing a home.

FHA has said it will now permit its lenders to provide a short-term bridge loan that will let qualified home buyers use the tax credit to either make a larger down payment above the FHA required 3.5 percent, cover closing costs, or buy down their interest rate.

BUT WAIT: Don't get too excited, as nothing from Washington is this easy!

FIRST: if you read the actual Mortgagee letter from HUD, it says "AFTER you contribute your normal and required 3.50% down payment, you can use the $8,000 for a BIGGER down payment." WOW... What a joke Washington! This will have little effect for most buyers.

SECOND: You CAN use the money for closing costs - but most people already just "roll it in", so this option is of little significant help

THIRD: We still need to see how the lenders and banks respond and roll this out to actual Main Street home buyers. We also have to see how the ‘bridge loan' companies respond to this and how they will implement this.

Who is going to lend this short-term money, where is it coming from, how much are they going to charge, how to do you get approved? These and more questions all need to get answered before anyone gets too excited about this news.

We also suspect that the $8000 "loan" minus any fees to get this early from the bridge company won't come cheap!

I think this is a good idea, but clearly Washington has misses the mark (AGAIN), and this deal stinks. We only need the recent examples of FHASecure and Hope For Homeowners to see that what sounds good in Washington doesn't usually play out so good for Main Street.

So while this is good news, it is NOT the homerun that some of us were hoping for - at least not yet.