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Alternatives to Putting 20% Down on a Home | Katonah Real Estate

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It’s a mantra often repeated in the real estate industry: If you want to buy a house, you need a 20 percent down payment. But with the average house in the U.S. costing $311,400 as of December 2013, according to the Census Bureau, all one has to do is the math to get a coronary. Raising a 20 percent down payment isn’t an easy thing to do.

Fortunately, you don’t have to. “It’s a myth that all homebuyers must have a 20 percent down payment to buy a home,” says Nancy Herrera-Siples, a Riverside, Calif., branch manager at Primary Residential Mortgage.

“Putting less than 20 percent is OK with most banks,” agrees Christopher Pepe, president of Pepe Real Estate in Brooklyn, N.Y. So why do you constantly hear that you need to put 20 percent down? Because if you don’t, it usually means you’ll have to shell out money for either private mortgage insurance or government insurance, which is usually financed by the Federal Housing Administration. Mortgage insurance protects the lender in case you can’t make your payments and the house is foreclosed on. But PMI payments don’t last forever. When your loan-to-value ratio is 80 percent, you can ask the lender if you can stop paying PMI; at 78 percent, the lender is required to cancel it.

Still, PMI can easily cost a couple hundred dollars a month, assuming your house is valued in the neighborhood of $200,000. Pepe says the average he sees is $700 a month just for PMI. But keep in mind that he’s based in New York City, which boasts one of the highest costs of living in the country.

So if you really want a house and you’re looking for alternatives to putting 20 percent down, here’s what you need to know.

Figure out financing before looking for a house. There are numerous programs that will help you buy a home without 20 percent down, says Dan Smith, president of Private Mortgage Solutions, a mortgage bank in Atlanta.

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/alternatives-putting-20-down-home-124500838.html

Londoners priced out of real estate market blame foreigners | Katonah Real Estate

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Protesters shouting “No more homes for millionaires!” outside London City Hall this week want real estate developers to stop pandering to wealthy foreign buyers and start building more housing that locals can afford.

Sparking the protest was a plan by Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. to build up to 3,500 new homes not far from London’s Canary Wharf financial district. Mayor Boris Johnson has approved the project.“These are the kind of homes that local people will never be able to afford,” said Cheryl Coyne, a 63-year-old semiretired schoolteacher.

“There are thousands of people in the borough who need homes, and instead they’re building flats for multimillionaires.”Average London house prices increased 18 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the most since 2003, to a record 362,699 pounds ($604,000), the Nationwide Building Society said.

Much of that increase stems from wealthy non-British investors seeking assets that would hold their value. Builders use advance sales, often to buyers from Asia, to help finance new projects. Foreign-born buyers made 69 percent of central London new-home purchases in the two years through June 2013, with 28 percent living outside the U.K., broker Knight Frank LLP said in October.

When the Malaysian owners of the Battersea Power Station project, on the south bank of the River Thames, sold the first 866 homes in just three days in January, more than half went to foreign buyers.

 

 

 

Source: Bloomberg – See more at: http://www.inman.com/wire/londoners-priced-out-of-real-estate-market-blame-foreigners/?utm_source=20140404&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinesam#sthash.F8Or8wU6.dpuf

Charges in connection with mortgage fraud | Katonah Real Estate

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Government officials charged Poppi Metaxas, former president and CEO of Gateway Bank, in Oakland, Calif., with bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy and perjury.

Christy Romero, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, George Venizelos, assistant director-in-charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office and David Montoya, inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General announced that an indictment was unsealed Wednesday.

In 2009, SIGTARP said that Metaxas fraudulently caused Gateway to execute a sham “round trip” transaction in which the bank self-funded a down payment to make it appear that Gateway had sold toxic, non-performing mortgage loans.

According to the indictment, in February and March 2009, Metaxas allegedly engaged in a scheme to defraud Gateway in connection with Gateway’s sale of non-performing mortgage loans to three entities in exchange for $15 million.

“Metaxas allegedly orchestrated a fraudulent scheme to give the appearance that the bank was shoring up its finances by selling problem loans to outside investors,” Romero said.

“Metaxas purportedly hid from the bank’s board and regulator the fact that she, with the help of others, made a sham loan to those investors to fund in secret the 25% ‘down payment’ of $3.64 million, a loan that was later written off.  Crimes related to TARP will be investigated and prosecuted by SIGTARP and our law enforcement partners,” Romero added.

 

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29546-former-ceo-allegedly-faked-toxic-mortgages-to-get-tarp-bailout

Fixed Mortgage Rates Move Up | Katonah Real Estate

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Freddie Mac today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing average fixed mortgage rates up a bit from last week, applying additional pressure for those local markets that are already feeling an affordability pinch.

News Facts

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.40 percent with an average 0.6 point for the week ending March 27, 2014, up from last week when it averaged 4.32 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.57 percent.
  • 15-year FRM this week averaged 3.42 percent with an average 0.6 point, up from last week when it averaged 3.32 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 2.76 percent.
  • 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 3.10 percent this week with an average 0.5 point, up from last week when it averaged 3.02 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 2.68 percent.
  • 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.44 percent this week with an average 0.4 point, down from last week when it averaged 2.49 percent. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 2.62 percent.

Average commitment rates should be reported along with average fees and points to reflect the total upfront cost of obtaining the mortgage. Visit the following links for the Regional and National Mortgage Rate Details and Definitions. Borrowers may still pay closing costs which are not included in the survey.

Quotes Attributed to Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac.

“Mortgage rates rose following the uptick on the 10-year Treasury note after comments by the Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen indicated a possible increase in interest rates as soon as early 2015. Also, the S&P/Case-Shiller® 20-city composite house price index rose 13.2 percent over the 12-months ending in January 2014.”

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Today Freddie Mac is making home possible for one in four home borrowers and is one of the largest sources of financing for multifamily housing.

 

 

 

Is This Housing Indicator Flashing a Warning Signal? | Katonah NY Real Estate

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Mortgage applications continued their downward spiral as interest rates climb higher and doubts remain about the strength of the housing market. In the latest update from the Mortgage Bankers Association, for the week ended March 21, applications for home loans fell 3.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the index decreased 3 percent.

There has been a steady slide in mortgage applications over the past nine months as the housing market returns to a more sustainable pace. As the chart above shows, applications are near their worst level in years. The Refinance Index plunged 8 percent from the previous week. The Purchase Index managed to increase 3 percent, but on an unadjusted basis, the index was still 17 percent below year-ago levels.

Overall, the refinance share of mortgage activity accounted for 54 percent of total applications, the lowest share since April 2010 and down from 57 percent a week earlier. In fact, the refinance share of mortgage activity has now dropped for seven consecutive weeks. Conventional and government refinance applications led the contraction.

 

 

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/personal-finance/is-this-housing-indicator-flashing-a-warning-signal.html/?ref=YF

Exotic Indonesian villa is first major Bitcoin real estate purchase | Katonah Real Estate

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HousingWire has been on the forefront of covering Bitcoin in relation to real estate.

The March issue of our print magazine includes a story on the first real estate and real estate financial firms in North America to accept Bitcoin for everything from broker fees to actual investment.

The watershed moment for real estate may have come in early February, when the nascent startup RealtyShares in San Francisco announced it would be the first, as far as anyone can know, real estate investment firm to accept Bitcoin for its crowdfunding real estate investment platform.

Now comes word from Southeast Asia that the first major Bitcoin real estate transaction – valued at more than $500,000 – has closed. The property? A fully managed villa at the deLMango Villa Estate in Bali, Indonesia.

Notably, this may be the largest reported Bitcoin transaction yet. Moreover, it’s not the only high-priced property being shopped among Bitcoin users. The website that facilitated the transaction is currently listing a Paris property with a view of the Eiffel Tower listed for $6.3 million, among other items.

According to CoinDesk:

BitPremier founder and CEO Alan Silbert indicates that the 3,000-square-foot villa sold for more than $500,000, though the exact price paid by the buyer was not revealed.

Silbert, brother of SecondMarket CEO and BitPremier investor Barry Silbert, indicated that the sale is “by far the largest” completed to date via the marketplace, which was launched last May.

As for the house sale, Silbert indicated that due to Indonesia’s unique laws regarding the ownership of real estate by foreigners, the buyer is technically purchasing a long-term lease.

 

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/29386-exotic-indonesian-villa-is-first-major-bitcoin-real-estate-purchase

 

Katonah’s Caramoor Will Be Honored By ArtsWestchester | Katonah NY Real Estate

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The Caramoor Center for Music and Art of Katonah will be honored by ArtsWestchester at its Arts Awards luncheon on Friday, April 4 at the Westchester Marriott.

Caramoor Center will receive the Innovator Award for In the Garden of Sonic Delights, a large-scale outdoor sound art exhibition that runs from June through November 2014 at five sites in addition to Caramoor: Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (Peekskill), Jacob Burns Film Center (Pleasantville), Lyndhurst (Tarrytown), the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College (Purchase), and Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture (Pocantico Hills).

The project has been in development for more than five years and features 15 new site specific works by nationally-recognized artists including Laurie Anderson, Bruce Odland and Bob Bieleck.

The complete list of winners is on the ArtsWestchester website.

The awards luncheon will at the Westchester Marriott on April 4. A reception begins at 11 a.m. followed by luncheon at noon. Tickets, sponsorships and luncheon journal ads may be reserved by calling (914) 428-4220 x326 or emailing afabrizio@artswestchester.org

 

 

http://bedford.dailyvoice.com/news/katonahs-caramoor-will-be-honored-artswestchester

Saving for a House: It’s More Than a Down Payment | Katonah Real Estate

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It’s easy to get caught up in credit scores when considering a home purchase. But as lenders continue to loosen requirements, the need to have money in the bank doesn’t get any less acute.

Getting prescriptive about how much you need in savings to satisfy a mortgage lender is tough business. The answer can depend on a host of factors, from the type of mortgage and size of the loan to the property itself and more.

You’ll most likely need a solid chunk of change upfront to cover a down payment and closing costs. Lenders might also want to see a stockpile of “reserves,” which often translates to a certain number of months’ worth of mortgage payments.

The bottom line is that it’s tough to talk specifics about your bottom line. That’s why it’s important to get a solid understanding of your mortgage options and seek clear guidance from lenders.

Credit scores are critical, but so are income and assets when you’re applying for a home loan. Here are some of the important savings you’ll need to accumulate first.

Down Payment Needs

Down payments are inescapable for the vast majority of non-cash homebuyers. Outside of state or local programs, only government-backed VA and USDA rural development home loans allow qualified borrowers to purchase with no money down.

Conventional and FHA loans typically require minimum down payments of 5% and 3.5%, respectively. On a $200,000 mortgage, that’s $10,000 for conventional and $7,000 down for FHA. But buyers often put even more skin in the game.

Conventional borrowers last month had an average loan-to-value ratio of 80%, according to mortgage software firm Ellie Mae. For FHA loans, it was 95%. That means buyers are putting down an average of 20% for conventional loans and 5% for FHA loans.

Existing homeowners often have an advantage because they’re able to put the proceeds of a home sale toward a new purchase. It can take first-time buyers years to scrape together enough money for a down payment.

That’s partly why home sales among first-time buyers hit their lowest point last month since the National Association of Realtors began tracking the figure in October 2008.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/kind-savings-mortgage-110023166.html