Bad Credit? No FHA Loans for You

Mortgage loans from the Federal Housing Administration will be discontinued for clients who have unsettled their credit history starting July 1 of this year. This new regulation from the agency will be a safety measure against people who might be unable to pay their loans due to several debts like from credit cards, health related bills, car loans and other liabilities.

This policy will force clients who have not paid their dues of $1,000 or above to clear out their current liabilities first, which is very crucial. The company was supposed to adopt the policy starting April 1 but the date was moved.

However, clients who have been proven to be victims of identity theft or scams will be exempted from the new rule. Those who suffered financial crisis due to emergencies, accidents, joblessness and divorce may be given a loan provided they issue a waiver to the FHA.

This policy may decrease the number or qualified clients to a loan, however it is an action that the agency must take in order to prevent the further collapse of the housing business.

Though this new regulation will be beneficial for the housing businesses, it will not be so beneficial for about 35% of clients who are suffering from financial crisis. This is based on a 2011 study that reported 1 out of 7 citizens are struggling to pay their bills on time, furthermore about 27% of student aids given by financial intermediaries are not paid past the 30 day dude.

Even if financial and economic crisis hit, you should not be taken aback nor be demoralized. You should not allow debt to further ruin your life, take measures to improve your financial standing.

These are the ways you can do that:

Attend the credit seminars given by the Consumer Credit Counseling Services. This will show that you are making the effort to rehabilitate and alleviate your credit status.

Pay off your current balances and update your records. Paying debts will not be enough. It is important to monitor your credit history, in case errors have been committed.

Keep caution, more and more individuals are taking advantage of people who plan to rehabilitate their credit. There are some agencies or people who offer to fix your credit score for you in exchange of a very high amount of money, but these deals often end up as scams and the credit remains unchanged.

Always remember that there is no shortcut to success. Recovering from bad credit requires hard work and perseverance. Train yourself to be financially wise; learn how to plan and follow that plan in order to succeed.

Habitat for Humanity Provides Home for Families

Standing in front of his newly built home is Jesse Rasimas. He is so thankful for the organization which helped him and his family to acquire a new single-storey house.

Jesse and his wife, Angela, and two children, Kara and Jaiden started moving on Sunday into their new home at 112 Madison St. The home has a total area of 1,100 square feet. It is the 18th home which Wyoming Valley for Humanity constructed. Wyoming Valley for Humanity is a nonprofit organization and it will start to construct its 19th home starting Monday.

Their transfer to the new home kicked off with a cake, a basket full of cleaning supplies and a book for home decorating. Prayer and dedication was done by Rev. Will Haperman. Malcolm Williams, president of the Habitat Board of Directors gave the house key to the Rasimases.

The house has three bedrooms, an off-street parking, living/dining room which is very spacious. Whirpool donated the stove and refrigerator in the new home. Kara’s bedroom is painted in purple and the room next to it is her brother’s bedroom.

Karen Evans Kaufer, the Executive director of Habitat said she was so impressed with the cooperation of the volunteers and the Rasimases.

Jesse shared how he got the home. He said that he saw in a newspaper that Habitat for Humanity is building a home and it is looking for a family fit for it. He applied for it and with the help of Tracey Williams of Habitat he went through the process. The family invested 400 hours in the program in order to build the house. They were at the site every Saturday for several months for the house construction.

Jesse said that the labor for his new home costing $55,000 was through the efforts of volunteers. Materials were purchased at a discount. The term of payment is 20 years with no interest. The monthly payment is only $35 more than his payment when he was renting.

The main purpose of the program of Habitat for Humanity is to help people who could not make a house mortgage because of bad credit.

According to Kaufer, Habitat is preparing to construct another house next to Rasimases and it is looking for a qualified family for the next house. She said that they are building a house one at a time.

How to Get Back Up Even After You’re Cleaned Out

Getting a loan is not as easy as ABC in today’s world. Lynn Richardson, expert in addressing financial problems, and the writer of the book Yes, You’re Approved: The Real Deal About Getting a Mortgage and Buying a Homeshares some secrets in getting the money you need.

You may think that bad credit, being bankrupt will hinder you from buying properties. You think these circumstances will make it impossible for you to rebuild your life and save enough money to start anew, with a clean slate. Well, according to the GlobalGrind coach, there are plenty of ways to get back on your feet. The thing you need to put in mind is that you need to have the right information. Here are some ways you can get a loan even after you are cleaned out.

Be honest.Write a letter about your situation, clarify every detail and do not lie about your current position. Explain clearly to the company or individual you are trying to borrow from how you got to the point of being bankrupt. If ever you lost your job, or you had an incident in the family, or you became incapable. After you state the reason why you lost your money, the next thing you should do is to relate the lessons you have learned from the experience. Finally, end the letter with what measures you plan to take in the future to make sure that the same thing will not happen again.

Do not procrastinate. Put in mind that you should never let your bills get any higher. Pay your liabilities on time. You should show the company that you will not be a problem, and that you will be a responsible money borrower. The delays will taint your records and this will not be very good for the company. If you receive mailed bills, tend to it immediately, do not wait for the due date to mind it. The earlier you pay it off and get rid of the bill; you are one step closer to your mortgage.

Do not start a credit card collection. One or two is enough. The lesser cards you have, the more you can control and monitor your spending. You should also take track of the due dates of each credit card and pay more than the minimal amount every month if possible. You should always remember to pay before the deadline because once you pay too late, you suffer from interest rates. And not only high interest rates, but your credit score will be affected too.

Housing Survey: Americans from Various Demographic Groups Dream of Homeownership

According to Fannie Mae, majority of Americans are still hoping that in the near future they can live in their own homes. The National Housing Survey’s latest quarterly report shows that many Americans from different demographic groups still believes that homeownership is better than renting it. They are optimistic that the economic growth will create more jobs, lower interest rates and stabilize house prizes thus enabling them to purchase a house in the future.

The main factors that motivate renters to own a house is the quality and safety of local schools. For most African-Americans and Hispanics homeownership symbolizes success. But they have observed that what makes it difficult to obtain a mortgage are poor credit, complicated process involved, and economic crisis. Another observation that they have is that African-Americans and Hispanics could not get mortgage easily regardless of their income level.

Other factors that play important role in getting a house mortgage are educational level, income stability and credit history. Groups with higher educational levels are more likely to obtain a mortgage compared to those who completed lower levels.

Many Americans are saying that due to lack of home loan information, they lose confidence in owning a home in the future. Because of this negative behavior, the homeownership rate has decreased over the last several years. In addition, the belief that safety is the primary reason why many are longing to have their own homes has dropped to 63% in the last three months of 2011. On the contrary, those with educational attainment and more than sufficient income believe that buying a house is a good and safe investment.

The National Housing Survey, in the last quarter of 2011, conducted interviews among 3,000 Americans. The interview was focused on the Americans attitudes between owning and renting a home, belief on owning a home as a safe investment, financial capacity to purchase a home, assessment on the U.S. support on housing programs and on the overall outlook on the economy. The survey was done by Penn Schoen Berland and Fannie Mae’s combined effort.

Commercial Mortgages Slowing Down

According to reports last week by Mortgage Bankers Association, despite the credit crisis and recession, loans from commercial real estate have held up better compared to loans from banks and thrifts.

In the previous year, banks and thrifts charged off 0.8% of commercial mortgages and 0.7% of multifamily mortgages as bad debt.

The charge-off rate was almost one-half of the rates for all loans and leases held by banks and thrifts, which is 1.5%.

According to Jamie Woodwell, vice president of the commercial real estate research, for the banking sector or economy as a whole, commercial mortgages have showed to be neither ‘the next shoe to drop’ nor a ‘ticking time bomb’.

At the last part of 2011, commercial loans and multifamily loans by banks and thrifts had a delinquency rate of 3.5%, which is a decrease from the highest rate in quarter three of 2010 of 4.4%. On the other hand, residential mortgages had a delinquency rate of 7.7% in the last part of 2011.

As said by Jim Chynoweth, managing director of CBRE’s Albuquerque, vacancy rates were kept from elevating by the lack of new construction and it came to the extent that there were sudden rises in commercial mortgage default. Moreover, this was said to be the worst of commercial and multifamily mortgage defaults.

Other main investor groups in commercial and multifamily real estate had the following delinquency rates:

From 0.3% in the first half of 2010, only 0.2% of loans by insurance firms were two months or more late on payments.

From 9% in quarter two of 2011, only 8.6% of loans maintained in commercial mortgage-backed securities were a month or more delayed on payments.

From 0.4% in quarter one of 2011, only 0.2% of multifamily loans by Freddie Mac were two months or more late on payments.

From 0.8% in the first half of 2010, only 0.6% of multifamily loans held by Fannie Mae were two months or more delayed on payments.