CreditCrunch Back-to-Basics Lending: Lenders Say No Mas to Mortgages with Zero-down Payment

CreditCrunch Back-to-Basics Lending: Lenders Say No Mas to Mortgages with Zero-down Payment

First-time buyers are in it for a rude awakening. They will be required to put down up to 3 % down on their mortgage deal. The percentage may be different if it has to do with a jumbo loan of more than $417,000. It is the time to go back to the basics of lending championed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the mid-1980s. Lenders are taking measures to eliminate zero down-payments these days. It is a clear sign of the credit crunch this country is going through. Lenders are not willing to take risks any longer. Most buyers or consumers will have to have a credit score of 700 to even consider negotiating. Remember that the score of 850 is considered optimal. If borrowers are in the 300 credit score, they do not even need to show up these days. Lenders will examine the borrowers' credit history which usually has some inaccuracies. Borrowers should be ready to fix, dispute and correcting any errors found in the reports issued by the credit bureaus. Only after doing all of that, will borrowers have a chance to see their scores boosted and secure better loans. For some time to come, jumbo loans or mortgages of more than $417,000 will be out of the question for many borrowers.

As long as the credit squeeze continues, lenders will continue to minimize their loss. Due to foreclosures and the depreciation in home values, many homeowners who used to pay their bills are finding themselves in a tight impasse. They figure it is easier to just walk out of their loans.

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What You Can Do to Avoid Foreclosures: Foreclosures Prevention Tools and Other Ways to Get out of Financial Funk

Questions on Foreclosures Answered Here:

What You Can Do to Avoid Foreclosures: Foreclosures Prevention Tools and Other Ways to Get out of Financial Funk

President Bush recently announced that the Federal Housing Administration will begin a program to allow homeowners who have good credit but can not afford their mortgages to refinance to FHA-insured mortgages. In the meantime, there are a few things you can do to avoid foreclosure on your property. Any homeowners should start taking matters in their own hands. Way before foreclosure is lurking around, they need to start consulting with their lawyers or credit counselors. The easiest thing they can do is to contact their mortgage lender. Who else knows better than the mortgage borrowers themselves? They need to call the loan servicer before they start falling behind. It will be pretty hard to catch up once payments are late.

Here are a few ways to avoid foreclosure: Refinancing may be considered if you have enough equity in the home. Even if you do not have equity, try it any way. The process may be more difficult though. You can persuade the lender to modify the terms of the loan. You can sell the house of file for bankruptcy protection as in filing Chapter 13. There is no easy way out. No easy option for sure. Homeowners who are facing foreclosure should never ignore letter from lenders. They must try to update their phone records in case the lenders want to contact them. Borrowers or homeowners should remember that the banks or lenders or investors do not want to own your own. They do not want to declare foreclosure on your property because of all the costs and time involved. All you have to do is to make a good gesture. They need to know that you are not going to run away and that they can keep your words.

Homeowners can look for some resources such as the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, which has aligned itself iwth Citigroup and Bank of Ameirca to pledge $1 billion for people at risk of losing their homes. They can contact the department of housing and Urban development, Freddie Mac's guide to avoiding foreclosures, NeighborWorks America's Center for Foreclosure Solutions and the Federal Trade Commission's fact sheet "Mortgage Payments Sending You Reeling? Here's what to do."

Lenders can also make arrangements for a forbearance or repayment plan. A forbearance is a suspension or reduction of monthly payments until the borrower regains financial footing. With a repayment plan, the missed payments are spread out over time. The borrower has to pay them in addition to the regular mortgage. Borrowers can also look at "short sale" which is an arrangement in which the lender allows the sale of the property for less than is owed. This process may take some time too. Not too many lenders are willing to do this. Patience will pay off in the end. Cash-strapped borrowers may think about a "deed in lieu of foreclosure." That means that the lender is given ownership rights without the shame of a foreclosure.

The Salvaterras Bought New Home in Hancock Park

Fast Food Nation Producer and Nickelodeon Executive, Chris Salvaterra, Sold Home in L.A.'s Venice section

Chris Salvaterra and his wife, writer, Marjorie, sold their refurbished, contemporary Venice-based home to director Robert Schwentke and his wife Jen Howard. They sold the home for which has five bedrooms, three bathrooms and sits on 2,600 square feet for $1.6 million.

The Salvaterras bought a new dig in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles.

Style Maven Cojo Got New Dig in the Hills

Cojo or Steven Cojocaru, style maven and fashion critic by excellence, has been ready for a change of cribs. He wants to go the Hollywood Hills to rub shoulders with his peers. He is buying a contemporary house with city views and a pool for about $4 million.

The home has five bedrooms and four bathrooms in what amounts to 4,000 square feet. The Midcentury Modern has been remodeled. Cojo used to appear on NBC's "Today" show for about four years. He was serving as People Magazine's West Coast style editor. He then became a correspondent on "Entertainment Tonight" in 2003 and the "ET" spinoof series "The Insider" in 2004. What is Cojo doing these days? Well, you may find him picking the latest decorations for his new crib.

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Actress Catherine Bell Bought New Home

Actress Catherine Bell and her husband, actor Adam Beeson put their home in nearby Calabasas on the market for $3.25 million. The two have owned the one-story, nearly 6,000-square-foot villa for about two years. The couple is anticipating their move to South Carolina where the Lifetime series is filmed. Actress Catherine Bell co-starred for nine seasons on "JAG." She is now a star on "Army Wives." Bell, 39 and Beeson, 38, bought the Calabasas home when it was being built. The home is located in a gated community. It sits on about one acre, has a screening room, five bedrooms, six bathrooms and superb mountain views. Who else is selling and buying new homes?

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Paris Hilton has a new address in Hollywood Hills

First it was sister Nikki. Then it was Paris who bought a home after getting out of jail. Now the Simple Life superstar and Vegas highlighter bought a new home in the Hills. She may not have liked her home too much. She listed it for $ 4.2 million and purchased a new home in more private area. "After she returned to her home in the busy Sunset Strip area of the Hollywood Hills, she listed it for $4.25 million and purchased a home on a street less traveled for $5.9 million. The asking price was $6.25 million. Hilton bought in the Beverly Hills Post Office area and, as she desired, in a gated community."

Hilton's new home was built in 1991 and has five bedrooms and six bathrooms plus separate guest quarters and an office in 7,400 square feet.


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Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance's Home is For Sale: Get to Know The Home

Are you ready to buy this home for $6 million? It is worth every penny. Find out why the couple is selling. They have twins through a surrogate. So they have more needs.

The compound they are selling has a 5,000-square-foot main house, built in 1940, with five bedrooms and six bathrooms. It has such features as a hair salon, a gourmet kitchen, an elegant foyer, a master-bedroom suite and parklike grounds. The couple added a detached 2,500-square-foot building that has an office, gym and guest quarters.

Who is Angela Bassett?

Bassett, whose breakthrough role was playing Tina Turner, starred opposite Laurence Fishburne in the movie "Akeelah and the Bee" (2006). She also appeared opposite Whoopi Goldberg in "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" (1998).

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Homebuilders Offer Mortgage only to Push It Down The Throats of Unsuspecting Buyers who Can Not Afford It

The reckoning time has arrived. Homebuilders have created a monster that wants to swallow their business. It has also created a major headache for many ordinary folks.

Many observers are now saying that it was written the boom would come to an end. It was just a matter of time. In addition to banks and conventional lenders, homebuilders entered the prosperous field of mortgage to make money. The result are half-completed, half-empty houses and subdivisions all over California and the Central Valley.

In addition to spitting out subdivisions, many of which now stand half-empty, builders jumped into the mortgage business to a degree they never had. Wall Street provided the same encouragement it offered other lenders. Even as the housing supply began to exceed demand last year, builders kept sales brisk by pushing adjustable-rate, interest-only, and other risky loans. In some cases they attracted clientele who couldn't afford conventional mortgages. In others, builders allegedly violated federal lending standards to get customers to sign on the dotted line. KB Home (KBH ) paid a record $3.2 million settlement in July, 2005, to resolve allegations by the Housing & Urban Development Dept. that the builder's mortgage unit overstated borrowers' income, among other practices, to obtain loan approvals. KB, which denied wrongdoing, sold its loan business before settling.

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California, Central Valley's Hot Home Bargains

No Health benefits, No Severance Package, Nothing: American Home Mortgage Investment Corporation Closed Its Door

The rumors turned to founded news. They also turned to fears for many of American Home Mortgage employees who received their last check on this fateful day. No benefits, no severance package. Nothing. Yet, they have mortgage to pay too. There is no way they could see this coming. Workers were cleaning their cubes and offices. Many observers attributed the company’s undoing to the weakening of the real estate market and of the secondary mortgage market, the commerce in financial instruments built from bundled mortgage obligations, which was American Home Mortgage’s specialty.

Now many homeowners who have their mortgage through this company have to find a new one. American Home Mortgage bailed out or checked out.

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Central Valley Malls Overrun by Teens, Tweens Are Taking Measures: River Park Blinks First, Stared Down by Teens

River Park officials have been putting the fire on teens, tweens and those under 18 years of age for wanting to hang out at the new shopping center in Fresno. Kids who are found without parents will be asked to leave the premises. Such was the goal. Then under 18s started organizing themselves and asking for signatures. Now River Park Officials balk down. They want to postpone their clamming down and hope to end the Summer season. The message was clear to the teens who could not be there after 6 pm. It appears that River Park shopping center did not want them there anymore. There were many who said that the teens were not spending money at the shops. They only shop at Jamba Juice. By congregating there, they chase away families who could spend more.

The teens said they are hanging out at skateboard which is next to the pizza shop. After all, they claim to have made the new shopping center hip. Now they are thinking about going to Sierra Vista mall which has a new theater, Manchester Mall which has lots of parking and Fashion Fair which has another skateboard. They may even go to Fulton Mall. That is farfetched.

All over the US, mall operators have to decide about how to deal with teens who outnumber adults, specially unsupervised teens who roam all over their premises. River Park is reconsidering or giving their ideas more time. Maybe it was just a warning.

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Tours of Great Architecture and Elegant Homes in Fresno's Old Fig Garden

An old Fig Garden home tour allowed me to know more about some great homes that I have seen in the area bounded by Shields, Shaw, Blackstone and Fruit avenues. I have come to find out through the presentation by Archivist and history professor Kevn Enns-Rempel and long-time real estate agent Paula Conner, that this is one of Fresno's most unique communities. On this home tour, there were five houses in Old Fig that were constructed between 1920 and 1948. The homes included the 711 E. Ashlan Ave. built for Sen. Morris B. Harris; a 1937 house on Wilson Avenue constructed by Gareth Gillis of Sterling Laundry; a 1933 colonial Revival on Van Ness Boulevard that has original windows and an H floor plan. It was built for businessman Leon Levy and his wife, Elizabeth Levy.

Archivist and history professor Kevin Enns-Rempel's presentation and the homes tour made me realize that the story of Old Fig Garden is very important to Fresno City's development. It is also the story of a visionary, a giant, a very important man named J.C. Forkner. He was a one-time lawyer from Kansas who turned to real estate development. Fresno will see many other people who try to follow in his footsteps. He knew what he was doing. He had the experience to back it up. He started developing property in Kansas where he began settling people on foreclosed farms after the panic of 1893. Then, he moved to Los Angeles in 1900 and continued to make land deals in the Central Valley, specially Bakersfield. He started pouring over information in the Fresno Historical Society. He became convinced that Fresno would become the largest city in the San Joaquing Valley. So he started buying 12,000 acres of hardpan and hog wallow north of downtown where he spent $8 million developing home sites. He impacted development in Fresno on a major scale. He had built 135 miles of lateral ditches and twenty-five miles of canals to carry water to his property that later became Old Fig Garden.

J.C. Forkner did something else. He bought 46 Fordson tractors to level the land. Henry Ford was so impressed by this purchase that he decided to drive to Fresno in his Model T to check out the work. Forkner's workers used 660,000 pounds of dynamite to blast holes through the hardpan so that 600,000 fig trees could be planted. Eventually, he had the world's largest fig orchard. His field workers also planted 60,000 deodar cedars, oleander and eucalyptus along the nime-mile stretch of Van Ness Boulevard and all the way to the San Joaquin River. Mr. Forkner found some resistance and criticism from the Fresno Chamber of Commerce which condemned the project as worthless. He was accused of being a "swindler." All he did was to convince buyers to buy 10 to 40 acres of land to build homes and grow figs for profit. That was a good offer. Fig Garden took decades to build. All the homes had different styles. Here are a few styles you may run into: Period revival, bungalows, adobe and ranch can be found in Old Fig Garden. Many of the homes have libraries, sitting rooms, basements, leaded windows and other features common in those days.

In his presentation, Mr. Enns-Rempel highlighted the role of the sprawling single-story ranch-style house. It played a significant role in the development of the neighborhood. The ranch-style house was oriented toward the backyard instead of the front. This style took shape in the '30s and quickly became the style of choice of developers in post World War II.

Golden Boy, Oscar De La Hoya, Sold Big Bear Lake Home. Any Buyers?

Oscar De La Hoya has just sold his Big Bear Lake property for $2.1 million. Tito Ortiz, a mixed martial arts champ, the Huntington Beach bad boy, bought it. People En Espanol named Tito Ortiz one of the 50 Most Beautiful Hispanic celebrities. Oscar De La Hoya listed the home for $2.5 million. It sits on an acre. It was his retreat. The champion was not using the home much because he lives and trains in Puerto Rico. Oscar designed the one-bedroom, 3,900-square-foot main house and three-bedroom, 3,200-square-foot guest quarters in Big Bear. He bought the land in the 1990s. He did something else. He converted his four-car garage in Big Bear into a gym that was also equipped with a steam room.

The gated property has a putting green and stream with a footbridge. The main house has an indoor spa and waterfall.