Archive for November, 2009

Mortgage Loans are taking longer to fund

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Customer satisfaction with lenders declines

Overall satisfaction among mortgage customers declined 18 index points to 739 in 2009 from 757 in 2008, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Primary Mortgage Origination Satisfaction StudySM.

The average time required to approve and close a loan increased to nearly 47 days in 2009, compared with approximately 30 days in 2008, primarily due to increased scrutiny of loan applications and higher origination volumes driven by increases in refinancing, according to the study.

Information from the California Real Estate Newsline

Posted via email from Kathy McGraws’ posterous

Posted in Mortgage Loans and Grants, News | No Comments »

Meeting online REALTOR friends from all over the US

Thursday, November 12th, 2009


REALTORS from all over the United States at a conference in San Diego.  Ann Cummings is a Broker in New Hampshire, and has been a great resource over the past few years in Portsmouth, NH.

Posted via email from Kathy McGraws’ posterous

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

1st Time Homebuyer Tax Credit, will it pass the House?

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Talk has gone back and forth about extending the current tax credit for 1st time home buyers, but nothing is concrete at this point.  The bill to extend the credit has to pass both the Senate and the House, before going to the President to sign.

The tax credits would be available to home buyers who sign sales agreements by the end of April 2010. In order to receive the tax credit (according to Senate’s current version of the  legislation) home buyers would have to close (Settlement or close Escrow) by the end of June 2010.  This bill also would include current owners who have owned and lived in their home for a least 5 of the past 8 years.

Now DON’T get all excited yet…..apparently the Senate passed their version, but that doesn’t mean anything!  Remember it still has to pass the House, and be signed by the President.

The Senate tacked this homebuyer extension on with 2 other bills, one for extending unemployment benefits, and one for a tax credit for struggling businesses.  The House could vote on this as early as today!

Update: Thurs Nov.5th- the House just voted 403 to 12 to extend the home buyer tax credit,  President Obama is expected to sign this bill, then it will extend the tax credit as outlined above.

President Obama signed the extension!

Posted in CA Real Estate Info, News | 2 Comments »