Ufinance.net

Sales of existing homes posted a tiny increase in October but the median home price fell by a record amount. Analysts forecast more price declines in coming months as the once-booming housing market undergoes a painful correction.
The National Association of Realtors announced on Tuesday that existing home sales were up 0.5 percent. This market the first increase in existing home sales after seven straight bad months. However, the median home price was $221,000 which is 3.5% under what it was in October 2005 (this is the biggest drop ever).
However, the median price for a home sold dropped to $221,000 in October, a decline of 3.5 percent from a year ago. That was the biggest year-over-year price decline on record.
Many buyers are waiting for the bottom of the market and many predict that it will continue to get worse before it gets consistently better. Many others believe that this housing decline could be the impetus for a recession for the U.S. economy.

Wednesday the Fed released minutes from the FOMC meeting detailing that housing activity would continue to pull down on economic growth for the next 3+ quarters,. Investors are trying to determine how much of an effect this fact will have on the U.S. economy as a whole and consumer spending since the start of holiday shopping is just around the corner. The U.S. Commerce Department revealed that Housing Starts were down 14.6% in October to 1.49 mln units. This was more than exopected and was the lowest level since July 2000. Building Permits did no better and went down 6.3% to its lowest level since December 1997.

The Fed is trying to produce a soft landing for the housing market so some of these numbers are expected, but somewhat more alarming than hoped.

Fixed-Rate Mortgage
You can determine exactly how much you’re going to pay each month for the next 30 years. As you earn more money over the years the payments become a lower percentage of your debt. However, you will pay more for this peace of mind compared to an ARM.
Adjustable-Rate Mortgage
The rates are lower than a fixed rate mortgage so you can afford more, but this caqn work against you as it has for thousands of Americans that are seeing their monthly payments go up 50% because of rate hikes.
While the ARMs are sexier they can really cause some serious worry because of the volatility. I would not recommend getting an ARM loan except a few instances and those are rare.

Wednesday of this week I was getting very nervous about us securing a mortgage loan on time to keep in line with our contractional agreement. It literally got done that last day possible about 45 minutes before the end of the business day. The appraisal was the main issue because the sellers’ real estate agent screwed up–the first appraiser that came to appraise the house was turned away because they said we already had an appraisal. This is true, but we changed mortgage lenders and they had to do their own appraisal.

Things have calmed down a lot the last couple days. We have all the information in order to wire the down payment money to an escrow account at the title company. We plan on doing it a couple days before the closing so there are no surprises.

This week we settled with the sellers on the repairs that need to be done. They are giving us a credit to get the electric panel and circuit breakers fixed.

We have agreed on a closing time and place and are in the process of setting the final walk-through time. Now we have one week to go before we own our first house.

Here are some more websites to raise your level of real estate knowledge.

1. Trulia.com Nationwide listing of homes on the market. Gives you school information, crime rates and city information.
2. Propertyshark.com Foreclosure home listings, tax maps, zoning data, and demographics. Covers only selected states right now.
3. HomePages.com Gives you the low down on the area including restaurants, parks, schools and governemtn offices.