February
2007 41
29
201 AREAS INCLUDE: Lodi –
20901-20905
March
2007 57
24
156
Galt – 10632
& 10638
April
2007 51
31 168 Stockton – 20701-20708,
20801-20806
May
2007 38
26 144
June
2007 33
17 152
July
2007 51
23 157
August
2007 32
20 162
September
2007 33
22 114
October
2007 32
25 193
November
2007 36
18 197
December
2007 37
17 208
January
2008 36
29 289
February
2008 52
42 438
March
2008 85
52 602
April
2008 95
53 657
May 2008
By EMILY GREEN May 25, 2008
If you're a first-time home buyer or a buyer
with a tarnished credit rating, check out the Federal Housing
Administration's home mortgage program.
The FHA insures mortgages issued by private
lenders. A few years ago, in the days of no-money-down loans,
borrowers often avoided FHA loans because they require a minimum
down payment of 3% of the purchase price.
But with most lenders now demanding a 15% to
20% down payment -- an impossibly high expense for most
first-time buyers -- FHA loans have become far more attractive.
Further, it's possible to qualify for an FHA
loan despite a poor credit rating linked to previous late loan
payments, home foreclosure or even a bankruptcy filing. While
the FHA requires all borrowers to meet minimum standards of
financial reliability, it aims to help home buyers whom private
lenders avoid.
FHA mortgages do carry added charges for the
FHA's insurance. Currently, borrowers pay an upfront fee of 1.5%
of the mortgage amount plus an annual fee of 0.5%. As of July
14, those charges will increase for many borrowers, to as much
as 2.25% upfront and 0.55% a year.
Rates on FHA loans can vary from lender to
lender and there are dollar limits. For the maximum FHA loan
amount in your geographic area, go to
www.hud.gov and look for "FHA Mortgage Limits" in the
right-hand column.
May 02, 2008 6:00 AM
Foreclosure Mess Yet to Run Course
Market can't stabilize until these homes are cleared out
The real estate market news continues to
be bad. Except for the news that's good.
RealtyTrac, the Irvine-based company that
markets foreclosure data nationwide, said this week that the
Stockton metropolitan area - basically San Joaquin County -
continues as the nation's No. 1 busiest foreclosure market.
In the first three months of the year,
7,560 foreclosure filings occurred. RealtyTrac counts every
piece of paper that goes through the system, default notices
(the first thing homeowners receive when they fall behind on
their mortgage payments), auction sale notices (the legal ads
that have appeared by the thousands in this newspaper) and bank
repossessions (when the lenders finally take the property).
The 7,560 number was nearly a threefold
increase from the first quarter of 2007.
RealtyTrac's county numbers are
paralleled by a report from La Jolla-based DataQuick Information
Systems that put the actual number of home repossessions in the
first quarter at 2,500. That's a fivefold increase from the
first quarter of 2007.
Clearly this foreclosure mess has yet to
run its course. That should surprise no one who paid attention
in the first half of this decade and saw, for example, the
median home price in Stockton jump from about $100,000 in 2000
to about $400,000 in late 2005. At the same time, more and more
of the sales pressure from speculators and Bay Area transplants
that fueled the run-up in prices was being financed by
interest-only and adjustable-rate mortgages. In other words, too
many people were speculating in homes here or buying homes they
could not afford.
The good news is that home sales, which
have increased each month this year, continue to climb. Granted,
most of the sales are of foreclosure properties, but until those
homes are sold, there is no real hope of the market stabilizing.
It will take time. How much is unclear
since we cannot yet tell how many more homes will fall into
foreclosure