http://batonrougefhaappraisers.com/ - Baton Rouge Real Estate: What’s The Housing Market Direction For MLS Area  52 - Zip Code 70808?

Zip Code 70808 Market Direction: Up or Down?    I recently completed a home appraisal in 70808 and made this discovery below.   Search Parameters were $125,000 to $1,000,000.

Solds In 70808 from 9/09/07 to 9/09/08 reveal: 
Average Sales Price: $282,805
Average Sold Price Per Sq. Ft.: $126.82/sf
Median Sold Price: $247,899
Low Sales Price: $125,000
High Sales Price: $985,000
# of Sales: 281
Average # of Days On Market: 63 Days On Market

 
Solds In 70808 from 9/09/06 to 9/09/07 reveal:  
Average Sales Price: $281,445
Average Sold Price Per Sq. Ft.: $127.04/sf
Median Sold Price: $244,900
Low Sales Price: $125,000
High Sales Price: $960,000
Average # of Days On Market: 50 Days On Market
# of Sales: 320  

Therefore, based on the median sale price barometer (the barometer used by the NAR National Association of Realtors) within 70808, the market direction appears to be increasing just slightly.   The average sales price has increased by +$1,360 and average sold price per sq. ft. -$0.22/sf.   So, overall, the 70808 housing market appears to be stable in home prices.

Author’s Bio:

Bill Cobb, CREA, is Greater Baton Rouge’s favorite and most reputable home appraiser frequently called upon by banks, homeowners, and savvy real estate investors to assess property values.  A home appraiser with 16 years experience, Bill Cobb brings a wealth of knowledge to the table as a home appraiser.

Bill’s company, Accurate Valuations Home Appraisal Group, serves Greater Baton Rouge (East Baotn Rouge Parish, West Baton Rouge Parish, Western Livingston Parish and Northern Ascension Parish).

Contact Bill Cobb and Accurate Valuations Home Appraisal Group for your next home appraisal:

Office: 225-293-1500

Fax: 1-866-663-6065

fastvalue2@cox.net

http://www.batonrougehomeappraisals.com  ]]> http://batonrougefhaappraisers.com/fha-appraisers-baton-rouge/baton-rouge-real-estate-housing-market-direction-for-mls-area-52-zip-code-70808/ http://batonrougefhaappraisers.com/ - FHA Appraisers East Baton Rouge - FHA Training: 5 Myths About FHA Mortgages

FHA mortgages are excellent tools which can be used to help many first time home buyers with no credit or past credit problems enter into the housing market. The “subprime” mortgage crisis going on now has resulted in a buyer’s market and prices on homes for sale are lower while seller concessions are higher than they have been in years. Yet, most of the 100% financing conventional and subprime loan programs which were available to potential homeowners are long gone now. FHA is the only mortgage program available for quite a few prospective buyers to use to buy a home. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners who bought homes financed with subprime mortgages over the past few years now face huge interest rate adjustments of up to 5 percent or more. Spend 5 minutes watching a business news channel these days and it is easy to understand why these people believe they have no other mortgage options left.

Here are 5 myths about FHA loans that prevent many from trying.

1. FHA loans take longer to get approved.

In today’s mortgage world where automated underwriting and paperless processing dominate, FHA loans don’t take any longer than conventional loans to close if you are being helped by a loan officer who understands how to process FHA loans.

2. FHA loans require a lot of extra paperwork.

The documentation required for an FHA loan is nearly the same as the paperwork required for a conventional loan. FHA only asks for a few more documents than a conventional loan, and the extra documents that FHA does require take very little extra time and exist to protect you during the process.

3. FHA loans cost more than conventional loans.

FHA loan interest rates are set based upon the same market factors conventional loan interest rates are based on. As a matter of fact, even when the FHA mortgage insurance premiums added to your payment are factored in, FHA loans are often less expensive than conventional mortgages for first time borrowers and borrowers with past or even present credit problems.

4. FHA required mortgage insurance is too expensive.

Even conventional mortgages higher than 80% of the value of the property being financed require mortgage insurance which will pay off a portion of the loan should the borrower default. Before the invention of mortgage insurance programs, all lenders required 20 percent down payments to obtain a mortgage. FHA’s mortgage insurance program requires a small upfront mortgage insurance payment which is automatically added to your loan, and a small yearly mortgage insurance premium which is divided up and added to your monthly payments. This is often less expensive than new conventional mortgage insurance rates which can require almost 3% per year in mortgage insurance to be added to the the typical borrower with lower credit scores! As of July 14, 2008 this mortgage insurance costs less if your credit is better.

5. FHA loans have very restrictive guidelines.

In fact, the exact opposite is true in many respects. Although FHA loans have lower maximum loan amounts than conventional mortgages, they don’t have the income restrictions placed on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac community lending products. Getting an FHA loan with limited or no credit history, or credit problems is much easier than obtaining a conventional mortgage. FHA allows for manual underwriting. This means that if the automated underwriting system does not approve your loan, an underwriter can actually look at your file and determine if common sense dictates that you would be able to afford the mortgage. The underwriter can approve your loan even if the automated system turned it down. Manual underwriting is common for FHA loans and very rare for conventional loans. In addition, if interest rates later go down, FHA loans allow for a streamlined, no requalifying refinance process.

About the Author:
FHA training and an expert understanding of FHA guidelines is necessary to prevent being left behind in the mortgage market today. Mortgage brokers will make more money and truly help more borrowers by mastering FHA.

ORDER BATON ROUGE FHA HOME APPRAISALS HERE

Source: Anthony Blackburn, FHA Appraisal Reviewer

From Bill Cobb: I found this to be a very good reminder / refresher article on FHA Appraising.   Enjoy!

After reviewing a batch of about 25 reverse mortgage appraisals made for HUD, post-funding, I found that not a single one complied with all of HUD’s requirements and guidelines, based on their Appendix D: Valuation Protocol. In order to help appraisers check their own work, and avoid these errors, I made the following a list, for publication by Real Estate Valuation Magazine.

The most common errors and omissions I found were as follows:

1) Failure to Include patios, porches, garages, breezeways and other offsets on the sketch.

2) Failure to state “covered” or “uncovered” to indicate a roof or no roof on a porch structure (such as over a patio).

3) Failure to include a street scene photo which shows a portion of the subject site.

4) Failure to enter a legal description of the property.

5) Failure to state that the use of the appraisal is to support FHA’s decision to provide mortgage insurance on the real property that is the subject of the appraisal.

6) Failure to include in “intended users” both the lender/client and FHA.

7) Failure to clearly define the boundaries - north, south, east and west - of the subject’s neighborhood. Providing a description of neighborhood boundaries by physical features such as streets, rail lines, other man-made barriers or well defined natural barriers (i.e. rivers, lakes, etc.) is required to detail the make up of the neighborhood and enhance understanding of its composition.

Failure to adequately and accurately describe current market conditions in the subject’s neighborhood.

9) Failure to list all the dimensions of the site, beginning with the frontage. If the shape of the site is irregular, all of the boundary dimensions must be reported. (e.g., 85′ X 150′ X 195′ X 250′).

10) Failure to describe the view from the property (”None” is not an acceptable response!).

11) Failure to include the correct zoning information, based on local zoning maps and statutes.

12) Failure to correctly report the number of comparable sales in the past 12 months and include active listings on page 2.

13) Failure to correctly calculate time adjustments from the contract date of the sale, and report both the contract and closing dates when time adjustments are made.

14) Failure to enter the name of the subdivision or PUD in the location field in the sales comparison approach.

15) Failure to describe the view from the site on the sales comparison approach (e.g., similar homes, commercial area, water view, scenic view, etc.). Such terms as “Average” or “Good” are only acceptable as modifiers: “Residential/Average”, “Water view/Good”.

16) Failure to enter the actual age of the subject in the “age” field of the sales comparison approach. The effective age may be considered and described in the Comments section (for example, if there has been substantial upgrading and renovation of an older structure) but not on this line, which is reserved for actual age only.

17) Failure to accurately report the subject’s condition as “Fair” when it is indeed “Fair”. Like a teacher’s reluctance to give a C grade to an average student, due to universal grade inflation, appraisers are falling into the broker puffing trap of overrating properties. Fair is a lower rating than Average, which in turn is below Good.

18) Failure to analyze and report the analysis of the subject’s prior sales. This is an essential aspect of appraising for FHA in the current market, and is required to help HUD and other agencies spot “flipping” of substandard properties which have been cosmetically enhanced without genuine structural repair.

19) Failure to research prior sales or transfers of comparable sales. (See #18 - same reason.)

If you are guilty of these errors yourself and want to clean up your act, it pays to re-read the HUD Valuation Protocol, a PDF download available from REV. Just click here: HUD Valuation Protocol 4150.2 Appendix D (Note: This is a big file; it may take several minutes to download.)

A real estate appraiser since 1986, Anthony Blackburn began his career as a staff appraiser with First National Mortgage of San Jose. He later worked for Diablo Appraisal in San Ramon and joined Apple Appraisal in Martinez, CA in 1991. In 1996, he became a partner in the firm. Mr. Blackburn founded Apple Appraisal’s review department and managed it directly for several years. Mr. Blackburn has taught appraisal review for the CA Association of Real Estate Appraisers, and served on numerous industry boards of directors. He was State Board President in 1998. Mr. Blackburn continues to be very involved in the local lending community and speaks regularly to affiliated industry groups. He writes for various media outlets. Mr. Blackburn is married, with two children. He enjoys making award winning wine, playing competitive league soccer, and riding his motorcycle. He may be reached at Apple Appraisal Inc., ph: (925) 313-5900 • http://www.appleappraisalinc.com/ • email: ablackburn@goapple.com

Source: Carl Pruitt

If you are thinking about buying a home, but you have had credit problems, recent changes in the FHA loan guidelines may solve your problem. FHA loans have been around a long time, but the guidelines have changed so much in the several years that your real estate agent and the home seller you are trying to work with probably won’t recognize the program.

“FHA” is short for Federal Housing Administration. The Federal Housing Administration is a part of the huge Housing and Urban Development or “HUD” bureaucracy. You have probably seen HUD homes advertised for sale. HUD homes are foreclosures which were insured by the FHA mortgage program.

The FHA program was started in 1934 under the National Housing Act with the stated purpose of opening up credit and home ownership opportunities for potential home owner’s who may have had credit problems, have a limited credit history, or lower income than allowed on conventional mortgages

FHA achieves this goal by issuing an insurance policy that guarantees payoff of the loan if the borrower defaults. This guarantee allows the lender to assume more risk and therefore approve loans for borrowers who would not be approved under conventional mortgage programs.

The FHA mortgage insurance guidelines were set up around the requirements of the first time home buyer, however the program is available to any borrower with no other outstanding FHA loan guarantee. FHA is not available on non-owner occupied investment properties.

Many experienced real estate brokers and home sellers have heard horror stories about FHA’s excessive red tape and are therefore reluctant to recommend that buyers use an FHA loan. At one time, FHA regulations were much restrictive and resulted in higher fees for home sellers. Processing times on FHA loans often delayed the sale of the property while fighting with underwriters over silly bureaucratic issues. However, today these issues are almost completely resolved.

If you have an agent or seller who is reluctant to accept an offer involving FHA financing, here are some of the benefits you can give them:

1. Low down payment requirements. The required down payment is typically 3% or less of the sales price. This down payment can come entirely from gift funds from a family member or a non-profit foundation.

2. Seller-paid contributions for closing costs and prepaid expenses are allowed up to 6% of the purchase price. This means that a buyer can negotiate terms which will result in having to bring absolutely no money to the closing!

3. With an FHA loan, the home buyer is not required to have any financial reserves. Someone with absolutely no money in checking or savings is still eligible for financing.

4. FHA has reformed the appraisal guidelines to get rid of the need for minor repairs that must be completed prior to closing. HUD now allows as-is appraisals. Expensive termite, well and septic inspections are no longer automatically required before closing. Such requirements were the type problems that often delayed closings and angered home sellers in the past.

5. No minimum credit score. There is an automated underwriting system called FHA Total Scorecard. If this system approves your loan, there are no further requirements to explain bad credit, pay off collections accounts or meet a set debt to income ratio.

6. If the automated underwriting system does not approve your loan, the loan may be underwritten manually and the underwriter is given discretion to use common sense in the decision to approve the loan. The underwriter often does not have this discretion on conventional loans where they are not allowed to override the automated decision.

8. Never any prepayment penalties. Many loans borrowers with credit problems have been getting including significant penalties if the loan is paid off within the first 3-5 years. Such prepayment penalties inhibit refinancing for a lower rate or to lower debt payments. FHA loans have no such prepayment penalties. FHA loans even allow for “streamlined refinancing” As long as a borrower has made mortgage payments on time, there is no requirement to produce all of the qualifying documentation again in order to refinance.

FHA insured mortgages greatly benefit both buyers and home sellers. There would be many fewer potential buyers for the seller’s home without FHA. This program allows borrowers with past credit difficulties and no cash out of pockett to be given the same low fixed mortgage rates as the best perfect credit borrowers.

About the Author - Carl Pruitt:

Source: Baton Rouge Business Report

Statewide foreclosure filings dropped by 17.4% in June from the year before, as one out of every 3,134 Louisiana households received at least one filing. In contrast, the national rate jumped by 53% over the year, according to RealtyTrac, with one out of every 501 households receiving a foreclosure filing. Louisiana continued to rank low on the list of filings by state, coming in with the 43rd highest foreclosure rate in the country during June. Nevada once again had the worst rate in the country, with one out of every 122 households receiving a foreclosure notice in June.

Baton Rouge Real Estate Appraisers