Ed's Blog

Two great pieces of news came out this week.

1) Conforming Jumbo loans are now available on 2 unit properties. Depending on the median home prices in your local market, you could be eligible for up to $934,200 at a great rate (this is up from the $533,850 for conventional conforming 2 unit loans). Awesome!

2) Owning and renting have now become comparable in cost in many hard hit areas of California like Vallejo, Fairfield, and Sacramento. This has brought out lots of first time home buyers and investors who can do the math and see what deals are available when this phenomenon occurs in California. This is further indication that we may be at or near the bottom of the current downturn in some markets. (Even some newspapers are starting to get this.)

And in a bit of personal good news, I am continuing on as a statewide Vice President for the California Association of Mortgage Brokers (CAMB). This year my focus will be on finance as well as some PR (I’ll be training a new PR chair). Stand by for more news on what we’ve been doing to help homeowners who are struggling and to help legislators so we can get some stability back into the lending market.

Last week, the National Association of REALTORS® released new (and once again positive news!) Pending home sales rose 6.3% in April of this year, bringing the number of homes which are under contract for purchase to the best levels since October of 2007.

Although prices are still down quite a bit, and these numbers are down since the same period in 2007, there is no denying that this is a positive indication that things are slowly turning around in the housing market.

Other positive news from the NAR’s report includes a revision of an earlier prediction that home sales would drop by 4.7% this year. NAR is now predicting a decline of only 4.5%.

Although a revision of .2% may sound like small potatoes, consider that NAR’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun had this to say:

“Bargain hunters have entered the market en masse, especially in areas that have experienced double-digit price declines, but it's unclear if they are investors or owner-occupants."

Naturally, there are those who will say that we should still be concerned about our housing market, and I’m certainly not disputing that it’s far from perfect. But it’s important that we recognize the positive steps that we’re making.

Don’t forget to contact the team here at Smith Craine if you’re interested in becoming one of these “bargain hunters” who are capitalizing on the reduced home prices. We’ll gladly point you in the right direction of some potentially incredible bargains! Call us at 415-406-2330.