Walker’s Wholesale Houses

Homebuyer Tax Credit Forms and Rules Now in Place.

Investors who retail their property can use the marketing of this $8000 first time home buyer credit.

First time buyers who purchase a home in 2009 can claim up to an $8k credit off their taxes for filing year 2008 (if house is bought before april 15) or 2009 filing year.

The credit is available to homebuyers who purchase a home before December 1 of this year.  In an effort to make the effects of the credit felt quickly in the economy, homebuyers can claim the credit either on their 2009 tax return or immediately on the 2008 return due in April.

The tax credit represents 10 percent of the purchase price of a home up to a maximum of $8,000 or $4,000 for married taxpayers filing separate returns.   The $7,500 credit that was authorized under earlier legislation last year was actually a 15 year loan; the new tax credit does not have to be repaid by the homeowner under ordinary circumstances.

The credit does have to be repaid if the homeowner sells the home in less than 36 months or if the home ceases to be his principal residence during that time.

And finally [week of February 8, 2009] The PMI Group of San Francisco announce it won’t insure mortgages originated by mortgage brokers!

If that’s not punative…I don’t know what is. This could be the last straw for mortgage brokers. How is a mortgage broker supposed to make a living only doing loans that don’t require mortgage insurance?

via Mortgage Brokers Get The Final Dagger In The Heart.

There are several other good articles here about the fact that mortgage brokers as an industry are getting cut out

• Mortgage Brokers Getting All Time Low Of Origination Market Share
• Are Mortgage Brokers An Endangered Species?

Beginning April 1, 2009, it’ll be tougher to qualify for a loan without having to pay increased fees.

Sure, they changed the rules to back to investors being able to get 10 loans, but the qualifications are ridiculously strict.

What do you think are the implications for your retail buyers?

Under Fannie’s (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie’s (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.) new guidelines, even applicants who assumed their FICO credit scores would get them favorable rates will be charged more unless they come up with down payments of 30 percent or more.

For example, a buyer with a 699 FICO score who can bring a sizable down payment of about 25 percent to the table will now get hit with a 1.5 percent “delivery” fee at closing under the new guidelines.

A buyer with a FICO score between 700 and 720 will pay an extra three-quarters of a point. Even someone with a 739 FICO — once considered a platinum guarantee of the best rates available — will get dinged with a quarter-point add-on.

via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac to hike fees | Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The rules go on to share that condos will require 25% or receive a .75% penalty fee, no matter how high their score is.  Duplexes that are owner occupied on one side, and rented on the other, will get a 1% point charged.

Cash out refis will be charged up to 3 points (3%).

Of course, realtors are mad.

Real estate investors who are remaking homes available to first time home buyers are finding that it’s not the availability of buyers that is the problem.  It’s Fannie and Freddie making it darn near impossible to get a qualified buyer.

So what?

This suggests that a flood of lease options might be your exit strategy — buyers who cannot get funded now, but when the credit markets stablize, they might.

What do you think?

As Richmond area is experiencing layoffs and downsizing, some of you may be thinking about getting your feet wet in Real Estate.

To get started, the trick is to simply find the real deals.

Let me tell you the quickest way you could start making money in real estate right away. It’s the quickest way to make money now.

Find Houses for Me

Visit www.bringhousestome.com and sign up for the free training course that I offer you.

Go around and start looking for empty houses.

That training course will help you get started in your career in real estate.

If you are aggressive and get out and look for properties today, you could be making a few hundred dollars a week by next week.

These techniques work but they require work.

Interestingly enough you could do a lot of this work from a bicycle if you had no car (but maybe not in Detroit during the winter).

None of these techniques require cash or credit and will get you started in real estate investing right away.

Visit www.bringhousestome.com and sign up for the free training course that I offer you.

Source: https://www.efanniemae.com/sf/guides/ssg/annltrs/pdf/2008/0816.pdf

From the August 2008 requirements from fannie mae.

Bankruptcy

Updating the requirements for bankruptcy actions to apply from the discharge or dismissal date, whichever is applicable, and requiring a longer elapsed time period for Chapter 13 bankruptcies that were dismissed.

For all bankruptcy actions, the elapsed time period to reestablish credit will now be measured from the bankruptcy discharge or dismissal date.

For all bankruptcy cases, other than Chapter 13 cases, the time period to reestablish credit remains at 4 years.

For Chapter 13 cases, a distinction is being made between Chapter 13 bankruptcies that were discharged and those that were dismissed.

The updated policy recognizes the fact that borrowers have reestablished credit through the successful completion of a Chapter 13 plan and subsequent discharge by requiring only a 2-year time period to elapse.

A borrower who was unable to complete the Chapter 13 plan and received a dismissal, however, will be held to a 4-year time period for reestablishing credit.

More than one bankruptcy

Establishing a new policy for borrowers who have more than one bankruptcy filing in the past 7-year time period.

A 5-year elapsed time period is now required to reestablish credit from the most recent discharge or dismissal date for borrowers who have more than one bankruptcy filing in the past 7 years.

The presence of multiple bankruptcies in the borrower’s credit history is evidence of significant derogatory credit and increases the likelihood of future default. The greater the number of such incidences and the more recently they occurred, the higher the credit risk.

Pre foreclosures / short sales

Establishing a new policy for preforeclosure sales.

A preforeclosure sale involves the sale of the property by the borrower to a third party for less than the amount owed to satisfy the delinquent mortgage, as agreed to by the lender, investor, and mortgage insurer.

Due to the increased incidence of preforeclosure sales, Fannie Mae is establishing a 2-year elapsed time period for reestablishing credit following completion of the action.

See the source document: https://www.efanniemae.com/sf/guides/ssg/annltrs/pdf/2008/0816.pdf for full chart.

Virginia foreclosures in January fell 30 percent from December, but were 82 percent higher a year earlier, according to monthly data released this morning by RealtyTrac.

While good news, the month-to-month decline is likely attributable to a foreclosure moratorium by some lenders.

One in every 610 households in Virginia, or a total 5,366, received a foreclosure filing in January. Filings include notices of default, auction and foreclosure sales.

…

Virginia had the 15th highest rate.

According to a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis of court records, there were 2,452 foreclosures in central Virginia in 2008, up 100.8 percent from 2007.

via Va. foreclosure rate reveals uncertainty | Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Gone are the days when people would qualify for houses without much problem.

If you are looking to buy houses that you can fix and resell, avoid these:

• Condos
• Townhomes
• Jumbo mortgages (high end)
• Multi-family.

Money is not easily available for these, unless there is owner financing involved.  When you consider what loans are being funded these days, these types of properties are just not getting the funds.  There may be buyers, but lenders are not giving out money.

The challenge to finding buyers is the supply of money.  There are lots of houses pending which tells me that buyers are out there.

So who is your buyer?

Take these steps:

• What is the median household income for your buying area?
• Divide that number by 12 to get a monthly median.
• Take that number and multiply by .29 to get the max principal and interest payment that would be allowed.
• use that number to find out what is the max loan is that would be funded.

What you’ll see is the average median house that the average buyer can get.  What you’ll find is that first time buyers are your primary audience.  Trade up homes are not moving because they are not getting funded.

Thus, who is your target buyer?

Date: July 6, 2008

Here is FHA’s Flipping policy

FHA requires that: a) only owners of record may sell properties that will be financed using FHA-insured mortgages; b) any resale of a property may not occur 90 or fewer days from the last sale to be eligible for FHA financing; and c) that for resales that occur between 91 and 180 days where the new sales price exceeds the previous sales price by 100 percent or more, FHA will require additional documentation validating the property’s value. FHA also has flexibility to examine and require additional evidence of appraised value when properties are re-sold within 12 months.

The following sales are exempt from the above mentioned policy

* Sales by HUD of its Real Estate Owned

* Sales by other United States Government agencies of single family properties pursuant to programs operated by these agencies.

* Sales of properties by nonprofits approved to purchase HUD-owned single-family properties at a discount with resale restrictions.

* Sales of properties that are acquired by the sellers by inheritance.

* Sales of properties purchased by employers or relocation agencies in connection with relocations of employees.

* Sales of properties by state and federally charted financial institutions and Government Sponsored Enterprises.

* Sales of properties by local and state government agencies.

* Upon FHA’s announcement of eligibility in a notice (i.e., ML), sales of properties located in areas designated by the President as federal disaster areas, will be exempt from the restrictions of the property-flipping rule. The notice will specify how long the exception will be in effect and the specific disaster area affected.

We hope you find this information helpful!

via Real Estate Blog – FHA title seasoning lifted for bank owned homes as of July!.

Here is good news: the investor limit is changing from 4 houses to 10 but Fannie Mae has set the requirements so high that only the cream of the crop will get funded:

Under the new rules, investors will be able to own a total of five to ten financed properties “if they meet … (Fannie’s) eligibility and underwriting standards,” according to a bulletin the company just sent out to lenders.

Loan- to-value ratios on Fannie Mae-financed investor purchases will now go as high as 75 percent for single unit acquisitions and as high as 70 percent for projects with two to four units, provided the applicant has a minimum FICO credit score of 720.

Borrowers will also have to pass a series of other tests including the following:

First, they cannot have filed for bankruptcy or been foreclosed upon at any time during the past seven years, and they’ve got to have a spotless record on their other mortgages — no late payments of 30 days or more — during the previous 12 months.

Second, they’ve got to fully document rental income for any new acquisition, along with their revenues on all other investment properties, backed with two years worth of federal income tax returns.

Third, applicants owning no more than four units will need to show six months of bank reserves to support the new investment purchase, plus two months of reserves for every other investment property they own. Borrowers who own five to ten properties will need to show that they’ve got six months of reserves on hand for every property.

There’s no question here that Fannie is looking to deal ONLY with the most financially stable multi-unit investors — to skim the cream off the top of the investor market, and reject everybody else who can’t come up with the heavy reserves.

Source: Realty Times

Here is a little more technical information.

February 9

Source: allregs.com

Fannie Mae is updating the policy that pertains to multiple mortgages to the same borrower. Fannie Mae’s current policy limits the number of one- to four-unit financed properties in which the borrower may have an individual or joint ownership interest to four financed properties when the mortgage being delivered to Fannie Mae is secured by an investment property or second home. The limitation on the number of mortgages currently being financed applies to the total number of properties financed, not just the number of mortgages sold to Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae is modifying this policy to allow investor and second home borrowers to own five to ten financed properties if they meet certain eligibility and underwriting and delivery requirements as outlined in this Announcement. Unless otherwise stated, these requirements apply to all mortgage loans whether underwritten manually or through Desktop Underwriter^® (DU^®).

Eligibility Requirements

Eligibility Requirements: Five to Ten Financed Properties
Transaction Type	Number of Units	Maximum LTV/CLTV/HCLTV	Minimum Credit Score
Second Home or Investment Property
Purchase	1 Unit	75/75/75%	720
Limited Cash-Out Refinance	1 Unit	70/70/70%	720
Investment Property
Purchase and Limited Cash-Out Refinance	2-4 Unit	70/70/70%	720

Reserve Requirements:

Reserve Requirements for Second Homes, Investment Properties, and Multiple Financed Properties

Fannie Mae is implementing new reserve requirements that apply to all second home transactions and to investor and second home borrowers that own or have an interest in multiple financed properties. The amount of required reserves varies depending on whether the subject property is a second home or investment property, and on the number of other financed properties the borrower currently owns. The reserve requirements are as follows:

Underwriting and Delivery Requirements