Chance Gates' Blog

RISMEDIA, July 16, 2010—The screaming and cursing you hear in unit 404 isn’t coming from Mr. Armbrister’s television—Armbrister has just learned that another potential sale of his condominium unit fell through due to the buyer’s inability to obtain financing. In this case, the buyer wanted to purchase Armbrister’s condo unit with an FHA loan—Armbrister’s homeowners association, however, had neglected to obtain FHA approval.

FHA loans, which are mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration, accounted for a mere 1.7% of new mortgages as recently as 2006. Today, almost half of all new mortgages are FHA—yet there are still many misconceptions associated with their use and their benefits.

Due to the elimination of ‘spot approval’ in February 2010, an entire condominium development must now apply to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and be granted FHA approval before someone can purchase or refinance a unit using an FHA loan. Before its elimination, spot approval allowed an FHA buyer or refinancer to conduct a transaction in a specific condominium unit located in an unapproved complex.

Management companies and homeowners associations constantly ask why their condominium developments should seek FHA approval. A recent survey of more than 12,000 home buyers conducted by the Home Buying Institute indicated that the vast majority of respondents (87%) planned to use an FHA loan for their purchase. Given the prevalence of FHA loans in today’s housing market, the simple answer is that unit sellers in an association without FHA approval are severely limiting the pool of potential buyers. Thanks to the law of supply and demand, fewer possible buyers mean units will often sit on the market for longer periods and sell for lower prices. Even non-sellers are affected as lower sales prices for neighboring units often result in lower appraised values for all units.

Why have we seen such a surge in FHA borrowing? First, the general unwillingness of today’s lenders to extend credit and an almost complete withdrawal of private capital from the home mortgage sector forced HUD and FHA to take action. They ultimately crafted policies to increase FHA availability in order to help stabilize the housing market. FHA loans encourage lenders to lend, assuring them that they will be paid back by the federal government in case of default.

Second, as many residential real estate agents know all too well, the sudden and inevitable collapse of the high-risk subprime mortgage industry left a tremendous void in the marketplace for those buyers that did not have the 20% downpayment typically required when obtaining a conventional loan. This void is nicely filled by FHA loans, which require as low as a 3.5% down payment.

Finally, the significant increase in the maximum FHA loan limits from $362,790 to $793,750, means that an FHA loan is now relevant and appropriate for a much greater percentage of home purchases and refinances than ever before.

In addition to the benefits discussed above, there are other features inherent to FHA loans that help explain their newfound popularity. Credit requirements are less stringent than is the case with conventional loans. Also, FHA loans are fully assumable, meaning that a seller with a current FHA loan can offer the financing and terms to a buyer during resale. Assumability will be a great benefit to a future seller when interest rates turn higher.

Despite FHA’s easier down payment and credit qualifying guidelines, associations should not fear that FHA loans are risky and real estate agents should feel comfortable suggesting them as an option to their clients. “Full documentation” requirements ensure borrowers are fully vetted for their ability to afford the property in question. With the required income and asset reporting demanded by FHA, foreclosure rates have been historically lower than for those with any other type of loan—a fact that should give homeowners associations peace of mind.

Associations and management companies should further investigate and consider all of the benefits that FHA loans provide. Real estate agents should be prepared to help their clients navigate the process, as it will only help increase sales in a tricky market.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

By Debra Karplus
8 July 2010

Imagine that you’re a loan officer at the local bank. Two customers, Mr. Rich and Mr. Buck, come in to borrow money. You check Mr. Rich’s history; he has an excellent credit score, 800. Mr. Buck’s score is an embarrassingly low 300. To whom should you lend money? Mr. Buck’s low credit score indicates that he might not be able to repay the loan. Buck doesn’t stop here; goodbye, Mr. Buck.

What is a credit score?

When you were in school, your grade point average (GPA) indicated how well you performed in your classes. Your SAT and ACT scores measured overall achievement in language and math. Colleges used these indicators to decide if they wanted to admit you to their freshman class.

Your credit score works in a similar way as school tests, except that it’s a measure of your credit risk. Like college entrance exams, a credit score is derived from a standardized formula. Late payments on bills, having no credit references, and unfavorable credit card use will mar your credit history and lower your credit score.

Your credit report indicates how likely you are to pay your bills. It’s used anytime you’re seeking a mortgage, car loan, or credit card and also, for determining credit limit, which is the maximum amount of money you can borrow. Your credit score can even determine the premium you’ll pay for car insurance. Your credit report determines not only whether you will be given credit, but also, what interest rate you will be eligible for. A higher credit score gives you a lower interest rate when you’re borrowing money.

Who determines your credit score?

Credit scores range from 300 to 850. Most people’s score is 600 to 800. A credit score of over 720 is considered to be a good score and will generally get you the best interest rate.

There are three companies that provide credit scores, Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. They are corporations that make their money, not directly from you, but from companies such as banks, that loan money to people. Each of the three allows you, the consumer, to receive a free credit report annually. But, it’s not done automatically; if you want to know your credit score, you’ll need to get on the website of one of these three companies and specifically request your score. Each calculates your score a bit differently. You can learn about these companies on their websites.

Equifax has been around for about one hundred years and is located in Atlanta, Georgia. They are a Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 company publicly traded corporation; symbol EFX, on the New York Stock Exchange. Equifax serves fifteen countries in North America, Latin America and Europe.

TransUnion, a global company, located in Chicago, serves twenty-five countries on five continents, for the past thirty years. They provide credit services and information management. They are a limited liability corporation (LLC); therefore they are not a publicly traded company.

Experian serves sixty-five countries and has 15,500 employees. Their stock trades on the London Stock Exchange, but formerly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol EXPN.

How can you improve your credit score?

It’s prudent to check your credit score yearly with one of the three credit reporting companies. When you receive your report you want to first, review it carefully and see if there are any errors or flaws. For example, if the report shows an old unpaid balance on your Target credit card, you’ll want to contact Target, and get that corrected. The other way to raise your credit score is to make sure you pay down any credit card debt that you have.

You should not close any unused accounts. This may go against your better judgment. But, closing credit card accounts, especially more than one at the same time, could be a red flag that you might be a credit risk.

Why does your credit score matter?

Your credit history is your credit reputation. It is maintained by a credit bureau. So how can you have a credit history if you’ve never had a credit card or borrowed any money? And, how do you establish a good credit history? The main way is to open a checking or savings account and to manage it well, such as avoid overdrawing the account. Second, pay your bills on time, and third, use your credit card carefully. These may seem obvious, but many people must be clueless, because they have a low credit score.

Borrowing money is a smart way to establish a credit history and have a favorable credit score, as long as you are responsible about using credit, whether from a lending institution or a credit card. When you are ready to finance your first car or get a mortgage for a house, you will be very pleased with yourself if you have a high credit score.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

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All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

While borrowers with “super prime” credit scores accounted for just 5 percent of the mortgage delinquencies, about 28 percent of their defaults were calculated and strategic.

This relatively small actual number is nevertheless causing the credit industry to look at new ways to evaluate walk-away risk even among the very creditworthy.

Credit bureau Experian reports that borrowers in California, Florida, and other hard-hit states are more likely to walk away than people living in states with more stable markets. Also, residents of states where lenders have no recourse are more likely to toss in the towel.

People with small amounts of negative equity also are more likely to stay and pay.

Source: Washington Post (07/03/2010)

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

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• Credit scores drop to new lows in US (americablog.com)

By David Sarno

RISMEDIA, July 8, 2010–(MCT)–Security researchers Nick DePetrillo and Don Bailey have discovered a seven-digit numerical code that can unlock all kinds of secrets about you.

It’s your phone number.

Using relatively simple techniques, this duo can use your cell phone number to figure out your name, where you live and work, where you travel and when you sleep. They could even listen to your voice messages and personal phone calls — if they wanted to.

“It’s really interesting to watch a phone number turn into a person’s life,” DePetrillo said.

“Everyone’s taught to keep their Social Security number a secret,” Bailey said. “But the phone number seems just as dangerous, if not more so.”

The world has come a long distance from old-style telephones, which were little more than a speaker, a bell and a microphone connected to a wire.

But as smart phones become more powerful and widely used, they also become busy hubs for data, packed with a user’s digital Rolodex, e-mails and credit card details. Most phones are also fitted with a global positioning device that beams its location far and wide.

Taken together, this trove of personal information is valuable to both legitimate commercial companies and unwelcome intruders.

In the last several years, tens of millions of consumers have turned in their older-model cell phones in exchange for high-tech, computer-like handsets such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone, Google Inc.’s Android phones and Research in Motion Ltd.’s line of BlackBerry devices.

Used by about 21 percent of mobile phone customers, smart phones are quickly gaining ground on the previous generation of simpler flip phones, and by 2011 they are likely to become the standard for most consumers, according to Nielsen Co.

DePetrillo and Bailey are part of a busy community of security researchers — some of whom are known as “white hat” hackers — investigating and exposing the many security holes that have yet to be plugged by smart-phone makers and their wireless carriers.

And though many of those companies take a dim view when researchers and hacker groups publicize their vulnerabilities, it’s the public that can benefit when those problems are uncovered.

DePetrillo and Bailey were surprised at how easily they could use widely available information and existing techniques to assemble a detailed dossier on a cell-phone user. (They stress that their demonstrations are for educational purposes and that they work better on some cell networks than others.)

Once they have a phone number — yours, for instance — they can easily determine your name by taking advantage of a vulnerability in the Caller ID system. Using special software, they can “spoof” a call — that is, make a call that appears to the phone company as though it’s coming from your number. They can then call themselves using your number and watch as their Caller ID device lights up with your name.

Attackers could theoretically do this with thousands of numbers to create their own personal mobile phone book.

But it doesn’t stop there: Once DePetrillo and Bailey have figured out that your name is the one associated with your number, they can query the cellular network to see where your phone is at that moment. After enough time, this bit of digital spycraft will yield a fairly clear picture of where you go and when.

“We can do a lot of cool things that we really shouldn’t be able to as civilians,” DePetrillo said. “It’s like running your own private intelligence company.”

Representatives from AT&T and T-Mobile referred questions about the issue to the CTIA, a wireless industry association, which said U.S. wireless carriers are vigilant about protecting subscriber privacy, and questioned whether DePetrillo and Bailey’s tracking techniques were legal.

The vulnerabilities in the networks that track phones and connect calls are mirrored by security weaknesses in the phones themselves, one of which is the software they run.

All of the major smart-phone makers have created online markets where users can download any of tens of thousands of small programs — called apps. On the iPhone, there’s the App Store; for Google Android, there’s the Android Marketplace; and for BlackBerry, there’s the App World.

Those stores have varying levels of policing. Apple certifies the security of every app it approves for its store — there are now 250,000 of them — but acknowledges that some malicious apps can occasionally sneak through. RIM and Google largely leave users to protect themselves from the bad guys.

Tyler Shields, a computer security researcher who specializes in mobile phones, likes to show off a nasty little application he wrote called TXSBBSPY.

The “TXS” part is his initials. “BB” is for BlackBerry. And the “SPY” is for the way his program can turn your device into a mobile surveillance station, with you as the target. Once installed on your BlackBerry, Shields’ app would let him read your text messages, listen to your voicemails and even turn on your phone’s mic while it’s in your pocket.

Though Shields’ app is intended to be a case study on BlackBerry security, he said an attacker could easily hide similar features in an app masquerading as something else, like a program to do online banking. If a user unwittingly downloaded the phony banking app, his or her device could quickly become compromised.

Because smart phones are only a few years old, Shields said, the art of smart-phone defense is still catching up to where the PC has been for years.

“We’re still in the late ’90s when it comes to security on mobile devices,” Shields said. “It’s akin to the older days before people knew to put antivirus software or firewalls on their computers.”

For their part, RIM and Google say they have built some precautions into their phones to help users determine whether an app is legitimate. BlackBerry phones offer a set of controls that allow users to prevent apps from accessing some of the device’s functions — such as its messaging and telephony features.

Similarly, before a user loads an app from Google’s Android store, the device will display a list of the data to which it has access. If a tic-tac-toe game is asking to access your text messages, that could be a warning sign.

Google, RIM and Apple all say they remove offending apps from their stores when they become aware of violations. Still, they say, it’s up to users to be vigilant when downloading apps — and to judge whether they’re coming from a trusted software maker.

Charles Miller, the principal security analyst at Independent Security Evaluators in Baltimore, stressed that common sense is often the best defense against malicious attacks.

“For 10 years, people have been told all of these things you should do to protect your computer: Don’t click on links in e-mails and only go to sites you trust,” he said. “People tend to forget those when you’re on your phone.”

(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

By Stephanie Andre

RISMEDIA, July 9, 2010–The dog days of summer are here, alive and well. Getting out in the garden and keeping your lawn green are very important but so is conserving water. Remember – it’s the summer; it’s going to rain. From checking the kitchen faucet to watching your laundry loads, there’s plenty we can all do to save water.

Here are some tips from Pennsylvania American Water on how you can conserve water and reduce the environmental impact of water consumption both indoors and outside the home:

1. Water your lawn only when it needs it. An easy test to tell if your lawn needs water is to simply walk across the grass. If you leave footprints, it’s time to water. (An added benefit of watering less often is that fewer, deep-soaking waterings encourage deep root growth and stronger turf.)

2. Water in the early morning. As much as 30 percent of water can be lost to evaporation by watering during midday.

3. Set your lawn mower one notch higher to make your lawn more drought-tolerant.

4. Use drip irrigation hoses to water plants, and water in the early morning or evening.

5. Use a broom instead of a hose to clean your sidewalk, driveway, or patio.

6. Forego the hose and wash your car with a bucket and sponge instead. According to EPA WaterSense, a hose left running can waste as much as six gallons per minute while a bucket and sponge uses only a few gallons to do the job.

7. Keep a bottle of cold tap water in the refrigerator. You’ll avoid the cost and environmental impact of bottled water and you’ll have cold water available in the summer without running the faucet.

8. Run dishwashers and clothes washers only when they are full. If you have a water-saver cycle, use it.

9. Adjust the water level of your clothes washer, so that it matches your load size.

10. Regularly check your toilet, faucets and pipes for leaks and have them fixed promptly. An easy test for toilet leaks from EPA WaterSense: Place a drop of food coloring in the tank. If the color tints the water in the bowl without flushing, there’s a leak. Check your water meter before and after a two-hour period when no water is being used. If the meter changes at all, you probably have a leak.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

Image via Wikipedia

By Kristy Eppley Rupon

RISMEDIA, July 9, 2010–(MCT)–Keeping it cool. Some tips for keeping your air conditioning running smoothly during the ultra-hot months and what to do if it breaks down from Deborah Evans, owner of Evans Heating & Cooling in Elgin, S.C.:

• Change the air filter once a month. Don’t use the ultra-thick, expensive filters because they will restrict air flow and cause the unit to work harder.
• Have the unit maintained twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall
• If the unit ices over from a coolant leak or being clogged with debris, turn off the thermostat and use a water hose to defrost it faster. Once it is defrosted, you can turn it back on for a cool blast while you wait for a repairman.
• If the heating and air company has an unacceptably long waiting list, shop around for someone who can fix it faster or ask for a loaner window unit to stay cool while you wait.

Remember that the unit might be doing all it can. Most units will drop the temperature inside only 20 degrees from what it is outside.

(c) 2010, The State (Columbia, S.C.).
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

By Claudia Buck

RISMEDIA, July 7, 2010–(MCT)–Like carrying unwanted pounds, many college graduates pack on a hefty load of student loan debt during their four years.

And in a tough job market with no guarantees of steady income after college, it can be daunting for graduates to shed those extra dollars.

The median amount of cumulative loan debt among U.S. college undergraduates was nearly $20,000 in 2007-08, according to the most recent College Board data.

At the University of California-Davis, the number of students graduating with student loans is “trending up” each year, said Katy Maloney, interim director of financial aid.

Of 5,700 graduates in 2008-09, more than half — 52 percent — had student loans, both government and private. The average UCD student loan amount at graduation was $19,403, Maloney said, “and I know it will be higher next year.”

Not everyone owes, of course. Nationally, about 34 percent of 2007-08 bachelor’s degree graduates had no student loan debt, according to “Who Borrows Most?,” a national survey released in April by the nonprofit College Board.

And there are borrowing extremes, as well. Among the 2,985 UC-Davis undergraduates with student loans in June 2009, seven had racked up loan amounts of more than $100,000 each. (Most were out-of-state students who pay higher fees.)

“How much debt is too much is completely relative to the student,” noted Patricia Steele, an education consultant who co-authored the College Board study. “If you have no job, $2,000 of debt is too much. And for some students, $40,000 is not too much if they have family assistance or are gainfully employed in high-paying professions.”

Before graduation, most college students have a sit-down exit interview with their financial aid office to discuss repayment terms and options.

Generally, if you have a federal loan (not a private loan through a bank or other lender), you have a six-month grace period before you’re obligated to start payments. The repayment period can be anywhere from 10 to 30 years, depending on income, debt amount and other circumstances.

You should also check in with the National Student Loan Data System (www.nslds.ed.gov), which lists details on your federal loans. If you’ve accumulated multiple loans over many semesters, it’s a good place to get a handle on exactly what you owe and to whom.

“It should be your first financial pit stop” after graduation, said Reyna Gobel, a financial writer and author of “Graduation Debt: How to Manage Student Loans and Live Your Life.”

“While the economy is tough,” she noted, “graduates can take a deep breath because there are more repayment options than ever before.”

Standard repayment plans for student loans are 10 years. You should also consider a consolidation loan, which lets you combine multiple loans into one. For details, go to: www.studentaid.ed.gov.

Create an online chart or a file folder of all your loans. Keep track of all correspondence and phone calls with your loan providers. Take notes whenever you talk to lenders about payments or terms. If you change your address, phone or e-mail, don’t forget to inform your lender.

To find a monthly amount that suits your budget, try a repayment calculator, such as the one at www.collegeboard.com. For instance, if you’ve got a $10,000 subsidized federal student loan and have a job making $30,000 a year, the CollegeBoard calculator estimates you can pay $109 a month, assuming a 10-year repayment period of 120 monthly installments, with an annual interest rate of 5.6 percent. That’s about 4 percent of a $2,500 monthly paycheck.

Typically, it’s recommended that you pay no more than 10 percent to 15 percent of monthly income toward student loans.

And if you can pay a little extra each month or pay down the interest while waiting for your six-month repayment plan to start, so much the better.

“Don’t kill your budget to do it. It doesn’t have to be $100 or $200 a month … even $5 extra per month could save months off your total repayment time,” said Gobel, whose book charts how even small amounts — say $20 a month — can reduce the overall repayment time on a 25-year, $50,000 consolidated loan at 4 percent by almost three years.

Also, for many graduates, depending on income, interest on student loans is tax-deductible.

If you’re having trouble making payments, contact your lender immediately. Ask about changing your payment due date or repayment options, such as deferment or forbearance.

A temporary deferment can be granted, for instance, if you’re in graduate school, in a medical/dental residency or serving in the military. Certain economic hardships also qualify.

Forbearance lets you suspend payments up to one year, primarily for economic reasons, such as job loss or medical problems.

But keep in mind: Postponing payments will add to your overall debt. Under forbearance, for instance, your accumulated interest is added to your existing loan balance. Don’t use these options unless you really need them, say financial advisers.

The worst thing you can do with student loan payments is ignore them.

If you miss a payment — even one — you could get hit with late-payment penalties. And if you skip paying for extended periods, you could fall into default, which could damage your credit history and make it more difficult to get a credit card, finance a car or buy a house. A Stafford loan, for instance, goes into default if you don’t make payments for nine months.

Gobel, who racked up $63,000 in student loan debt years ago earning a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees, learned the hard way. She had a mix of 16 different loans after finishing college. But several years ago when consolidating them for a lower interest rate, she overlooked one and it went into default.

She’s now on track to get her interest rate cut in half — from 4 percent to 2 percent — after 36 months of on-time payments. That alone will shave about eight years off her overall 30-year repayment period, saving “thousands,” the Dallas-based author estimates.

Her hard-earned wisdom: “Don’t punish yourself. Learn how to manage your student loan debt. Think of it as one more thing, like an electric bill.”

STUDENT LOAN CHANGES
A number of changes to federal student loans went into effect July 1 for new and current borrowers. Among them:

—All federal loans are now direct from the U.S. Department of Education, rather than through federally subsidized lenders. (Private loans from banks and other lenders are still available.)

—Income Based Repayment (IBR) plans that launched last summer have been adjusted so that married couples with student loans will no longer pay higher rates than two single student borrowers. IBR is designed for those whose income is higher. Adjustments also have been made to accommodate those whose loan debt has increased since leaving school, often due to deferred payments.

—Interest rates on new subsidized Stafford undergraduate loans will drop from 5.6 percent to 4.5 percent. Existing Stafford loans with variable interest rates will also get a small rate drop.

—Pell grants, which are needs-based, have gone up $200, to $5,500, potentially reducing the need to borrow.

Source: Institute for College Access & Success

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

Audiences like to see the bad guys get their comeuppance.

I don’t look like someone who leans on a mantelpiece with a cocktail in my hand, you know.

I felt along with her – not the physical pain, of course, but all her mental anguish. You can’t be detached. She needed to have someone who understood what was happening in her mind.

I guess I look like a rock quarry that someone has dynamited.

I look like the kind of guy who has a bottle of beer in my hand.

Maybe I’m too masculine. Casting directors cast in their own, or an idealized image. Maybe I don’t look like anybody’s ideal.

We found that specialists did not know as much as we thought. So, you think maybe there are other answers. There are not but if you belief something will help you it probably will: it will help, not cure.
Charles Bronson

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

After a close brush with a deadline that could have impacted tens of thousands of home buyers, the U.S. Congress last night passed an extension of the Home buyer Tax Credit closing deadline.

The extension is included in the Home Buyer Assistance and Improvement Act (H.R. 5623) and will prevent as many as 180,000 home buyers from losing their eligibility for the tax credit through no fault of their own. These households had home purchase contracts pending as of April 30 and had until June 30 to close on their purchases to claim the federal tax credit. Under the legislation that passed last night, these households now have until September 30 to close.

The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® supported extension of that closing deadline because buyers are experiencing delays in getting their financing closed. The delays are the result of the large number of transactions that are short sales, which can take a long time to close, and the rush of transactions lenders are processing from buyers submitting contracts before the April 30 contract deadline.

The legislation, which now goes to President Obama for signature, is designed to create a seamless extension of the closing deadline; there will be no gap between June 30 and the date the President signs the bill into law.

NAR worked closely with congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle in supporting lawmakers’ passage of the legislation, which the association says will help provide additional stability to real estate markets across the nation.

Separately, the U.S. Senate also last night passed the National Flood Insurance Program Extension Act of 2010 (H.R. 5569), which extends the National Flood Insurance Program until September 30. This will allow home purchases in the 100-year floodplain to move forward. The House passed the bill last week.

When signed into law by the President, the bill, which will apply retroactively, will cover the lapse period from June 1 to the date of enactment of the extension. Without flood insurance, households buying homes in the 100-year floodplain cannot obtain mortgage financing.

More information on both pieces of legislation is at REALTOR.org.

Source: NAR

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  You can email me @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

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