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ActiveRain adopts subscription model Premium Content

By Matt Carter, Monday, February 16, 2009.

One week after reaching a confidential settlement in a lawsuit against Move Inc., ActiveRain today announced it will begin charging new members $29 a month to make full use of the company's blogging platform.

While basic ActiveRain accounts will still be available for free to new members, those accounts will allow them only to network with other real estate professionals.  more...

Mortgage payoff surprise

By Benny Kass, Monday, February 16, 2009.

DEAR BENNY: In a recent column, you listed what should be done when a mortgage is paid in full. My mortgage was paid in full in August 2008. I have all the paperwork and have done everything you suggested except for the original promissory note and deed of trust. I called my mortgage company yesterday and asked to have the original promissory note returned to me marked "paid and canceled," and their response was that they had sent me everything I needed.  more...

Whole new ballgame for refis

By Dian Hymer, Monday, February 16, 2009.

Mortgage interest rates dropped to an average rate of 5.04 percent, not including fees, during the week ending Dec. 19, 2008, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). This caused a pickup in the mortgage refinance activity resulting in a 62.6 percent increase in the MBA Refinance Index from the previous week.

How many of these applications result in successful refinances remains to be seen. Lenders' qualifying criteria have tightened. The lowest interest rates are reserved for homeowners who have sufficient equity in their homes and who have high credit scores -- usually above 720. Lenders are also stricter on the borrower's overall debt-to-income ratio, but this varies from lender to lender.  more...

Gen X, Gen Y buyers rule market Premium Content

By Bernice Ross, Monday, February 16, 2009.
Flickr photo by <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/oskay/2673683232/" target=blank>oskay</a>.

The NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers for 2008 reveals some important secrets Realtors can't afford to ignore. Here's the inside scoop.

1. Gen X and Gen Y Rule the Buyer Market
If you're working with buyers, you can no longer ignore the fact that 60 percent of today's buyers were born after 1964 (i.e. are members of Gen X and Gen Y). In fact, 54 percent of first-time buyers are in the 25-to-34 age group. For Gen X and Gen Y, the primary motivations for buying ...  more...

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Blog the news

By Matt Carter, Monday, February 16, 2009.

A post Phoenix-based broker-owner Jay Thompson wrote for his blog, "The Phoenix Real Estate Guy" is turning up on page one of Google search results for "home buyers tax credit" -- higher than the IRS, Realtor.or and mainstream news, he Tweets.  more...

Saving banks without breaking the bank

By Jack Guttentag, Monday, February 16, 2009.

While plans for saving the financial system are being formed, modified and dissolved by the day, the common thread through every plan seems to be to assist financial firms holding depreciated assets, most of which are mortgage-related assets. The cost is now unofficially estimated at $2 trillion or more. In contrast, aid to distressed borrowers is a second priority, with costs estimated at $50-100 billion.

There are two things about this approach that scare me. The first is that the cost of assisting financial firms in trouble is completely open-ended. The ultimate cost will depend on future declines in the value of their assets. If home prices continue to decline, and at this point there is no end in sight, asset values will continue to decline and $2 trillion may not be enough.  more...

Lawmakers turn attention to mortgage fraud Premium Content

By Matt Carter, Monday, February 16, 2009.

As the government ramps up to spend trillions of dollars to revive the economy, loopholes in federal law and a shortage of FBI agents assigned to investigate white-collar crime could lead to a big payday for perpetrators of mortgage fraud and other schemes.

That's the view of lawmakers who want to extend federal fraud laws to private mortgage companies that aren't regulated at the federal level, and provide $155 million a year to the U.S. Justice Department to triple the number of active mortgage-fraud task forces and help the FBI rebuild its white-collar investigation program.  more...