The first step in the homebuying process is to find out what you can afford to pay for a house, condo or co-op. This will depend on the amount of cash you have available for a down payment, your credit, income, assets and overall financial situation.
Mortgage qualification is easier for buyers who work as employees whose income can be easily verified. Self-employed individuals or buyers with income from investments may find the qualification process more difficult.

A wrinkle in the financing end of the homebuying process is that it’s not as easy to get a preapproval letter from your mortgage broker or loan agent as it used to be. As of Jan. 1, 2010, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) began requiring lenders and mortgages brokers to issue a binding Good Faith Estimate (GFE) within three days of receiving a loan application.

Before then, buyers shopped around for a mortgage. When they saw a house they wanted to buy, they asked their loan agent or broker to provide a preapproval letter to accompany their purchase offer. The loan person would run a credit check and verify the buyers’ income and assets without, in many cases, taking a formal loan application. On the basis of this information, a preapproval letter was written.

Read the full article here

Additionally; this article fits in well with the Orange County Market Update Video that we shoot weekly, and it’s our tip of the week. Check out our Anaheim Hills Market Update here…

There were 1.7 million homes either owned by the bank or in some stage of foreclosure at the end of the third quarter of 2010, according to a recent report by Standard & Poor’s. It would take 44 months, at the current rate of sales, to sell them off — a 25% increase from the beginning of 2010. (S&P does not count home loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.)

This so-called “shadow inventory” may depress home values and delay the housing market recovery.

“The problem is you have all these properties coming down the pipeline that are nearly certain to hit the market. That’s going to be a negative for the supply-demand equation,” said Diane Westerback, Managing Director for S&P and an author of the report.

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While foreclosures climbed 2% nationally, California saw a 14% drop. But California’s high unemployment rate and resetting loans mean the fall in foreclosure activity could be brief.

Fewer Californians grappled with foreclosure last year, bucking a national trend and giving homeowners fresh hope that the state’s housing market could be on the mend.

Trash litters the front yard of a bank-owned home in Phoenix. Arizona was among the states hardest hit by the housing meltdown. (Joshua Lott, Reuters / January 13, 2011)

Fewer Californians grappled with foreclosure last year, bucking a national trend and giving homeowners fresh hope that the state’s housing market could be on the mend.

The 14% drop in foreclosure activity contrasted with a 2% rise nationally, according to data tracking firm RealtyTrac. Analysts noted that California’s housing market was among the first to falter and may now be among the first to recover. Home prices here hit bottom in April 2009, and have gradually risen since then.

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If you follow my blog at all… I have a few questions for you. How can anyone know what media forum is correct? Did you see my post yesterday about 1 million homes foreclosed in 2011? While this article is more geographically specific, I would question how accurate is this data, and is it really an issue or a concern to me?

Rather than have uncertainty in the future market, ask yourself, how long am I going to live in my next home? How comfortable am I with my current job, with my current mortgage or rent payment? We have no control over the market; however we as consumers have full control over our individual plans, thoughts and actions.

Sales of existing homes jumped in December, marking the fifth month of gains in the past six months, based on an industry report released Thursday.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Sales of existing homes jumped in December, marking the fifth month of gains in the past six months, based on an industry report released Thursday.

Previously-owned home sales climbed 12.3% in December to an annual rate of 5.28 million, from 4.70 million in November, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Read the full story here

Great information; however this is not local. Experience shows that the Orange County market has one of the quietest Decembers in years past. January is off to an amazing start and it’s expected that the unit’s sold this month will be close to record highs. What does this mean to you? If you are an entry level buyer in Orange County, be prepared. Be Pre-Approved and be in a position to make a decision when the time comes. If you have specific questions about what you will need to do, simply send me a quick email and I’m happy to help you any way that I’m able.

Real Estate: Finally a good investment?
The housing market still looks pretty bleak: There were a record 1 million foreclosures last year, home prices are still falling in many regions, and the number of “underwater” properties is at a record high.

And things don’t look much better in other areas of real estate. The number of construction jobs continues to decline, even as other parts of the economy have added jobs. And mortgage rates have moved higher as long-term Treasury yields have backed up during the past few months.

Basically, the real estate market remains a mess.

Real estate encompasses a wide range of markets – homes, apartments, hospitals, office buildings, strip malls, dormitories and other properties. But for our purposes, let’s focus on residential real estate, or homes. Here are four reasons to think residential real estate might represent a bargain – with one big caveat.

MAKING SENSE OF THE STORY FOR CONSUMERS

• Everyone hates homes – When the housing market is in the doldrums, people tend to avoid thinking about the value of their home. Sellers complain they’re not getting offers and buyers bemoan the strict lending requirements. However, prospective buyers should be contrarian and take advantage of a down housing market.

• Smart people are buying real estate – A prominent hedge-fund manager said in a speech last fall: “If you don’t own a home, buy one. If you own a home, buy another one, and if you own two homes, buy a third and lend your relatives the money to buy a home.” He believes that interest rates and home prices will rise this year, so real estate bargains won’t last much longer.

• Real estate performs well during inflation – Convention says Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, commodities, and real estate do well in an inflationary environment. Real estate performed well during the period in the 1970s, when persistent inflation and high unemployment occurred.

• Demand may be coming back – Job creation and getting people employed are the two major factors in the housing rebound. There’s much debate about when the job market will recovery. Optimists say the recovery will happen this year, while pessimists say it won’t happen for several years.

Read the full story… click here.

Computerized Models Are Assailed as Inaccurate; There Goes the Credit Line – By M.P. MCQUEEN

Home appraisals, which were blamed for being too generous during the housing boom, are now being criticized by some homeowners for being too stingy, preventing them from refinancing or borrowing against their houses.

The criticism is being leveled at computerized real-estate appraisals, which depend on models that use prices from home sales and other data to determine the value of a house. Because of the volatility in the housing market, they are underestimating prices, some homeowners, real-estate agents and fee appraisers say.

Gary Cohen, of West Los Angeles, Calif., says Citibank suspended his $510,000 home-equity line of credit based on a drop in his home's estimated value after performing a computerized appraisal.

Lenders use computerized appraisals primarily for home-equity loans, preapprovals for mortgage refinancing, loan modifications and mortgage originations of less than $250,000. Automated appraisals are cheaper and faster than in-person appraisals. They run as little as $20, whereas appraisals done by people can cost hundreds of dollars.

The computerized models are used as a check on in-person appraisals, which often were too generous during the housing boom, according to federal banking regulators and state attorneys general. The regulators said banks often held sway over appraisers, encouraging them to value homes at certain prices in exchange for future business. In the wake of the housing bust, regulators imposed tough new rules, prohibiting banks from picking individual appraisers for individual properties.

“The selling point was that [computerized appraisals] were faster and not prone to bank pressure,” says Steven Kane, a Colorado commercial and residential appraiser who is the author of two books on how to apply automated valuation models.

Computerized appraisals calculate a home’s value by using an index derived from historical repeat-sales data, or sales records of homes with similar property characteristics, such as square footage and the number of bedrooms and baths. In-person appraisals don’t incorporate as much transactional data as a computer model.

Gary Cohen, an advertising-sales manager in West Los Angeles, Calif., says Citibank suspended his $510,000 home-equity line of credit based on a drop in his home’s estimated value.

A computer model used by the bank showed his home had dropped to just over $1 million in 2009 from the $1.65 million it was appraised at four years earlier.

So, Mr. Cohen, 65 years old, paid $750 for an in-person appraisal from a firm designated by the bank. It estimated his home was valued at $1.3 million, but Citibank still wouldn’t reinstate his credit line.

“The discrepancy is so great that you have to know whatever method they are using is not accurate,” Mr. Cohen says.

Mr. Cohen sued Citibank, a unit of Citigroup Inc., over the appraisal. In court documents, Citibank said that even if his home is worth the higher figure, the bank has a legal right to suspend the credit line.

Gary Cohen's home in Century City, Calif.

“Citibank continues to believe the suit has no merit and intends to defend its position vigorously,” said a spokesman.

Borrowers also have sued J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and other big lenders, claiming that banks are misusing automated valuation models in order to cut home-equity lines of credit. J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo declined to comment.

Automated valuation models were pioneered by Yale economist Robert Shiller, who developed the first systems in the early 1990s. While arguing that these appraisals are more objective than human appraisers, Mr. Shiller and others say that in some situations the models may be providing unrealistically low values, prompting lenders to reject loan applications or lend less money on particular properties.

Some models weigh past sales of a particular property over time against a historical home-price index, and they are running into problems with properties that have been bought only once. That is the situation in places such as Nevada and Southern California, where new subdivisions sprouted during the housing boom but many homes never sold or entered foreclosure before ever being sold in a nondistressed transaction.

“The main difficulty is that I need two or more sales prices for a property, and if I’m not able to find it, it doesn’t fit into the sample used to calculate the index,” says David Stiff, chief economist at Fiserv, one of the largest providers of automated appraisals using this methodology.

Prof. Shiller concedes there can be problems with these appraisals if a too-short period of historical data is programmed into models.

“In a slow market, it might suggest that prices are going to be falling for a while,” he says.

Other computerized models break down the particular characteristics of a property—number of bedrooms and bathrooms—as well as sales of comparable homes, to arrive at a value estimate. They often are hampered by a lack of accurate or comprehensive data in county and municipal records. Improvements, for example, are recorded by building permits, so if homeowners don’t file permits, the records won’t be accurate.

These models can “change a lot, depending on which variables you include or exclude, so there can be a bias,” says Prof. Shiller.

Bottom line… I believe that the lender is really not obligated to lend money on the property regardless of the value, and the fact that the borrower provided a second appraisal… if the borrower desires, they can go to another lender and get a cash out refinance. Your thoughts???

Bank of America said earlier last month that it was ending its hiatus on foreclosure sales, and promised to get its act together after a series of sloppy home seizures prompted the bank to back off and re-examine its process.

“We have identified areas of our process that can be improved and while we make these improvements, it’s important that we move ahead with efforts to reduce the number of abandoned properties across the country,” said Barbara Desoer, president of Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) Home Loans, in a statement. “The properties can drag home values in neighborhoods and slow the eventual recovery of the housing market.”

The bank said it plans to proceed with 16,000 foreclosures this month, though it will observe a “holiday suspension” of sales and evictions from Dec. 20 to Jan. 2. Freddie Mac (FMCC) and Fannie Mae (FNMA) have announced a similar holiday freeze.

The Bank of America action ends the “voluntary freeze” that the bank initiated in October, after a series of messy real estate mistakes. They included the foreclosure of a house that was owned outright by someone who had paid cash, without any mortgage at all, as reported by the Sun Sentinel of Florida.

In another case, the bank shut off the utilities of a Pittsburgh homeowner and seized her pet parrot, despite the fact that she was current on her payments.

“We continue to be committed to ensuring that no property is taken to foreclosure sale until our Bank of America customer is given an opportunity to be evaluated for a modification or, if ineligible for a modification, a short sale or deed in lieu solution,” said Desoer. “Foreclosure is the option of last resort.”

The bank reiterated that “more than 86% of the bank’s home loans are current on their mortgage,” which means that less than 14% of home owners are not current.

The bank also reiterated that “at the point of foreclosure sale, one-third (of the) properties it services are vacant.”

This post comes from a recent experience with a negotiator on a listing that I have had for about the past 70 days… The listing has had great activity, the property has tons of upgrades, and we have reduced the price on multiple occasions, yet still… no offers. The negotiator, time after time has made dramatic price adjustments, offered incentives to the buyer, and to the selling agent! What does he know about the market that the typical seller might not?

The reason that I’m sharing this with you is to better help you… in today’s market the savvy home-seller will need to take all aspects of the market into consideration, make quick decisions and maybe even go so far as offer incentives in order to secure the highest price possible in the least amount of time.

You may be asking yourself… but if I offer incentives, how will that yield me the highest price? Doesn’t that affect my bottom line? Well of course it does… however experience shows that the longer you wait to sell your home the less likely you are to achieve anywhere near your desired sales price or an inflated sales price. This has proven to be true, over and over again. In fact, most real estate marketing companies will show you a timeline graph that addresses this issue right up front when they provide you with a comprehensive analysis.

Right now, you are probably thinking or saying to yourself, yes but my home has this feature, and my home is located here and quite a few other comments and thoughts may be running rampant. Please gather them. Go ahead… I’ll wait.

Now, I will say this in the nicest, most authentic, loving way possible… The market doesn’t care if you are the nicest home, if your home has the best upgrades, the best location, or a specific amenity that you love that your neighbors don’t have… these are just items that enhance a homes ability to sell in a down or compromised market.

So again, I ask what does this mean to you?

In order to be in the game today, in our current market, you home will have to show well, be priced well, and you have to be in a position to make decisions based on facts and not on emotions.

You absolutely must align yourself with a skilled consultant, a focused negotiator and a person like me that has the ability to organize all the details of the transaction and see things from multiple perspectives. Then and only then, will you reach your desired outcome, your goals and the light at the end of your tunnel. If you are looking for a consultation or would like to discuss this further, simply leave a comment or give me a call. I will look forward to hearing from you.

If you are already on the market, I sincerely wish you well with your home sale!

By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY

Steve and Tamara Gewecke are fighting to keep their home from foreclosure by challenging the bank to prove it has standing to foreclose.

In 2009, the Geweckes filed a lawsuit to block their foreclosure. At the heart of their case is this question: Who owns their mortgage?

They allege the investor trust that claims to doesn’t because there’s no proper record of the mortgage’s transfer to the trust.
Their complaint also alleges that the mortgage didn’t get to the trust until 18 months after the trust closed to new loans.

Their argument is one that more borrowers are making as they fight foreclosures in courts nationwide. Their attorneys allege that companies used shoddy practices at the height of the subprime lending boom when reselling mortgage loans in rapid-fire fashion, leaving questions now about mortgage ownership as foreclosures mount.

While homeowners are unlikely to keep homes if they haven't paid their debts, their challenges are delaying foreclosures and giving them more leverage to win loan modifications, legal experts say. Their arguments are also getting more attention after revelations this fall that companies produced thousands of potentially fraudulent foreclosure documents. The Department of Justice and others are investigating.

“There has been a sea change,” says Katherine Porter, a bankruptcy expert at the University of Iowa. “Judges are more willing to listen to homeowners … to establish if the bank has done something wrong. In the past, it was always, ‘The bank is right.’ ”

New York State Supreme Court Justice F. Dana Winslow testified at a congressional hearing this month that he’s seen so many problems with foreclosure cases that he no longer assumes the company attempting to foreclose is the right one. Instead, he calls them the “presumptive mortgagee in foreclosure.”

Winslow said he’s often seen cases in which lawyers pushing for foreclosure failed to produce the mortgage note — which proves ownership of the debt — or produced the wrong note. Companies failed to establish the legal chain of title proving their right to foreclose and submitted “questionable” affidavits attesting to ownership of notes and mortgages, the lien on the property, he said.

Homeowners’ attorneys also allege that companies created documents if they didn’t have the ones they needed, including lost-note affidavits signed by low-level employees who never read the affidavits yet attested to their accuracy. It was “cheaper to make the documents up than … to dig them up,” says Linda Tirelli, New York consumer bankruptcy attorney.

Florida attorney James Kowalski, in recent written testimony to congressional lawmakers, cited a case in which two companies are trying to foreclose on the same house. Both claim to own the note.

Financial firms have said that any mistakes were minimal and can be remedied. In October, several firms, including Bank of America and GMAC Mortgage, temporarily halted some foreclosure sales to check procedures.

The industry also has defended the practice of bundling mortgages into securities for sale to investors. “There will be instances where mistakes were made … but the broad process is sound,” says Tom Deutsch, executive director of the industry’s American Securitization Forum.

If companies can produce documents to prove standing to foreclose, some foreclosures may simply be delayed, legal experts say. But it’s not clear that the issues are minor, said the Congressional Oversight Panel in a report last month. In a worst-case scenario, the report said that banks “may be unable to prove that they own” mortgages, clouding property titles for millions of homes and causing substantial financial harm to banks.

The issues are technical but “pose a potential systemic risk to the U.S. economy,” Georgetown University law professor Adam Levitin said at a recent congressional hearing. If mortgages were not properly transferred, “Then mortgage-backed securities would in fact not be backed by any mortgages whatsoever,” Levitin said.

A tangled paperwork trail

In the past, lenders rarely struggled to prove they had standing to foreclose. Local banks made mortgage loans, kept the documents and took payments.

But in the past decade, trillions of dollars of mortgage loans were packaged and sold to investors. Starting a day or two after homeowners signed closing papers, loans were sold and re-sold en route to investor trusts. To speed and reduce the cost of the process, lenders created Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, to track mortgage ownership and sometimes serve as mortgagee of record for the actual note owner. Some homeowners have challenged MERS’ authority to foreclose on the note owner’s behalf.

At issue now is whether mortgage loans were properly transferred and whether those transfers were properly documented.

Homeowner attorneys, such as the non-profit law firm representing the Geweckes, say that didn’t always occur. Financial firms say it did. The trustee in the Gewecke case, US Bank, argues that Minnesota law does not require an assignment — a public record showing a transfer — of the mortgage at every step of its path into a trust. It also says that the note was put into the trust on time and so the mortgage was too. US Bank says it can prove that it owns the Geweckes’ mortgage because it has the original note, the trust mentions the Gewecke loan and US Bank has an assignment that shows the mortgage was transferred from the Geweckes’ original lender to US Bank. A hearing in Minnesota U.S. District Court is set for Jan. 10.

Deutsch also says that the typical contract governing trusts doesn’t require that all prior owners or holders of mortgage notes appear on documents to show chain of ownership as notes pass from lenders or others to trusts. Levitin says they typically do. The law on such matters is “uncertain,” says Christopher Peterson, law professor at the University of Utah. He predicts years of litigation.

Judge rules against BofA

The homeowners’ cause scored a win last month when U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Judith Wizmur dismissed Bank of America’s claim to enforce a New Jersey mortgage originated by Countrywide Home Loans in 2006.

Wizmur said that Countrywide, which Bank of America bought in 2008, never properly endorsed and transferred the mortgage note to the Bank of New York, the trustee of an investor trust. As such, there was no evidence that Bank of New York owned the note, leaving it unenforceable. A Bank of America employee also testified that Countrywide routinely failed to transfer original notes.

In her order, Judge Wizmur noted a “bizarre twist” in which Countrywide said the note had been “misplaced, lost or destroyed” but then said it had been found. Attorneys couldn’t “explain the inconsistencies,” Wizmur wrote.

Bank of America counters that it was Countrywide’s policy to deliver notes as trust rules require and that the employee who testified “was mistaken,” says spokesman Jerry Dubrowski. Bank of America will not appeal because it doesn’t think the ruling will have broad implications, he adds.

The homeowner’s attorney, Bruce Levitt, says the ruling means that his client no longer owes the $211,000 that Bank of America said was owed.

Moody’s Investors Service, in a Dec. 6 report, said Countrywide probably did deliver mortgage notes. But it also said that when companies failed to do that, they “may not be able to foreclose” and that, given the New Jersey case, Bank of America may face more such challenges.

Other judges have also required more proof of right to foreclose. This month, a Florida judge dismissed a foreclosure case and said it could be refiled but needed to lay out the chain of who owned and held the mortgage loan from the start. In Ohio, a judge this month also ruled in a homeowner’s favor in a foreclosure when he said, among other things, that there was no evidence that an allonge — a paper signed by the mortgage note’s previous owner transferring ownership — was affixed to the note as it should have been. That left the note’s ownership unclear.

The United States Trustee Program, which guards against bankruptcy court fraud for the Department of Justice, has also launched an “enhanced review of documents” in cases where banks seek to foreclose or collect payments, says U.S. Trustee spokeswoman Jane Limprecht.

The impact is being felt. Last month, the Justice Department’s trustee for bankruptcy cases in northern Georgia filed papers in at least two cases saying that banks hadn’t proved that they could enforce notes or deeds for the debtors’ homes. The increased oversight by the trustees is meaningful, says bankruptcy attorney Howard Rothbloom. “The federal government has come in and said that lenders have to have their paperwork in order,” he says.

Few foreclosures challenged

More than 90% of homeowners don’t fight their foreclosures, lawyers say. Even if they do, the vast majority are unlikely to keep homes, because they haven’t paid their debts, attorneys say. “The only way to avoid foreclosure … is to pay off the loan,” says Shari Olefson, a real estate attorney who often represents banks. If needed, companies will find notes, re-do sloppy paperwork and prove standing, she says. Bank of America and Wells Fargo say they can retrieve notes, when needed, and have good processes.

While banks made mistakes, the “probability is high that we’ll figure out who owns the mortgage,” says Richard Bove, banking analyst for Rochdale Securities.

Still, attorneys say companies may be more apt to modify loans if foreclosure records aren’t in tip-top shape. Modifications “become more available when there is greater risk to the lender,” says Judge Winslow in an interview. Rarely, if ever, will homeowners walk away with free homes even if there are title issues that take time to resolve, Winslow adds. Homeowners “owe someone.”

The Geweckes want a loan modification so they can stay in their home of 16 years. Their current loan has an adjustable 9.25% interest rate. They owe more on the house than it’s worth.

They’re not looking for a “free ride,” says Steven, 40, who works in marketing. Neither do they want to pay off one firm and then face a future claim by another.

They also hope their case will send a message to mortgage companies that they must obey rules, too.

“I understand that if you don’t make your payments, you’ll lose your home,” says Tamara Gewecke, 41. “But make sure you do it right. Make sure you’ve got your paperwork done.”

Their ability to sell or refinance their units could be hampered if their condo projects missed a key deadline for recertification. Tens of thousands of condominium unit owners around the country may not know it, but their ability to sell or refinance could be jeopardized by a rolling series of federal government deadlines.

On Wednesday, an estimated 2,200 condominium projects missed an eligibility deadline involving sales or refinancings using Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages. The deadline was originally set by FHA for recertification or approval of these projects, but at the last minute the agency agreed to extend eligibility for most of them — 23,000 projects — into next year, with a series of rolling expiration dates. A group of 2,200 condo projects around the country received extensions only until the end of this month.

What this means, say lenders and condo experts, is that unsuspecting unit owners nationwide could suddenly be cut off from an increasingly important source of mortgage money. In some markets where FHA accounts for 75% or more of first-time home purchases, condo sellers could be severely handicapped. In parts of the country with heavy concentrations of condos, such as California, Florida, New England, Washington, D.C., and the urban Midwest, the effects could even depress sales prices.

“This is a travesty” unfolding, said Jon Eberhardt, president of Condo Approvals LLC, a national consulting firm based in Torrance. “You’ve got thousands of people out there with no idea” that FHA financing could evaporate for them in the near future.

“This is going to be a big problem,” said Steve Stamets, a loan officer with Union Mortgage Group in Rockville, Md., with numerous condo clients. “I expect you will have frantic sellers pushing management companies” to get their condo buildings approved.

The eligibility issue dates to November 2009, when the FHA published new rules on the types of condo projects acceptable for mortgages on unit sales and refinancings. The rules were the outgrowth of a review that found the FHA — essentially a government-owned insurance company — had approved thousands of projects over the previous two decades but possessed inadequate current information on their underlying homeowners associations’ budgets, legal documents, insurance coverage, renter-to-owner ratios, delinquencies on condo fee payments, the amount of commercial space and a variety of other characteristics that could affect a project’s financial stability.

The 2009 guidance spelled out toughened standards in these areas and set up timetables for taking fresh looks at projects before sanctioning additional unit financings. Condo projects that had been approved by the FHA before October 2008, the guidance said, would have to submit the information required for renewed approval by Dec. 7, 2010, or lose eligibility for FHA financing.

FHA officials issued bulletins and notices during the last year to lenders, condo management companies and consulting firms warning them about the approaching deadline. Ultimately, however, according to FHA officials, roughly 25,000 projects nationwide missed the cutoff. Officials said they had no estimate on the number of individual units affected, but clearly it’s a sizable multiple of 25,000. For example, Eberhardt said, the average condo project in California contains 85 units.

Rather than abruptly eliminate financing for such a large and important segment of the country’s housing market, FHA relented and announced the revised schedule of expirations.

Though the precise expiration schedules were not immediately available, FHA officials said they planned to notify condo associations, management companies and lenders on the specifics shortly.

What can owners do? Tops on the list, according to FHA officials, is to get in touch with the leaders of your homeowners association. Ask them to do what’s necessary to get the project through the approval hoops. Large mortgage lenders can also get the ball rolling if they want to finance a unit in the project.

Costs for a recertification or approval can run from just under $1,000 to more than $3,000. Time for approvals may be a much more significant factor, however. Eberhardt says his firm can assemble documents and create a package for the FHA in about five days, but the process can extend for an additional 45 days to more than 60 days if the FHA staff is overwhelmed with applications. That just might happen in the coming weeks as unit owners begin learning about their financing cutoff deadlines.

Meanwhile, your sale or refinancing could be put on hold.

kenharney@earthlink.net
Distributed by Washington Post Writers Group.- Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times