June 23, 2011, 4:39 am
The affordability quotient for buyers is extraordinary at this time. In fact, it is difficult to find a good reason why qualified buyers should wait any longer. Money is available for buyers with a good credit history, home prices have fallen over the past four years and in June 2011, mortgage rates remain at historic lows. Still with all of this, some qualified buyers still seem to be waiting for a “better time” to buy.
The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® affordability index measures whether a typical family with median family income could qualify for a mortgage loan on a typical home (median priced existing single family home) given the prevailing mortgage interest rates. A value of 100 indicates that a typical family has exactly enough income to qualify. As t
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June 23, 2011, 2:41 am
At a news conference on Capitol Hill this week, the original sponsors of the Qualified Residential Mortgage provision in the Dodd-Frank Act – Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) – joined Reps. John Campbell (R-Calif.) and Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) to urge regulators to reconsider unnecessarily high downpayment requirements under the proposed QRM rule.
“As the leading advocate for homeownership, the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) firmly believes Congress intended to create a broad QRM exemption – strong evidence shows that responsible lending standards and ensuring a borrower’s ability to repay have the greatest impact on reducing lender risk, and not high downpayments,” said NAR President Ron Phipps.
NAR has forged the broad-based Coalition for Sensible Housing Policy, which includes 44 organizations focused on drawing attention to the proposed regulation’s onerous 20 percent downpayment requirement. The coalition Continue reading post…
June 22, 2011, 3:33 pm
AisleBuyer LLC, Zmags and Apperian land in Innovation District CB Richard Ellis/New England announced that five leases totaling 51,056 square feet have been facilitated at 281 and 321 Summer St. in Boston. Both buildings were purchased by Normandy in 2007 Normandy Real Estate Partners. The property at 281 Summer St., a seven-story 173,241 square foot office building, adds Space with a Soul to its tenant roster. The non-profit mission accelerator occupies 14,592 square feet. The four other deals were inked at 321 Summer St., an eight-story 93,964 square foot building. AisleBuyer LLC, the creator of mobile self-checkout software, occupies 10,813 square feet on the eighth floor; Zmags, an online publishing platform provider, is moving into 10,635 square feet on the third floor; Apperian, a mobile application management technology company, moved into 8,903 square feet on the first floor; and architecture firm isgenuity LLC will take 6,113 square feet on the fourth floor.
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June 22, 2011, 1:28 am
Fewer people bought new homes last month, the latest sign that the struggling housing market won’t rebound this year.
The Commerce Department says new-home sales fell 2.1 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 319,000 homes. That’s far below the 700,000 homes per year that economists say must be sold to sustain a healthy housing market.
The median sales price rose 2.6 percent from April to $222,600. That’s more than 30 percent higher than the median sales of price of older, re-sale homes.
Separately, the Labor Department said the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits rose by the most in a month, signaling growing weakness in the job market. Applications rose by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 429,000 last week.
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June 21, 2011, 4:22 pm
As a teenager I worked at Mc Donald’s in Glendale. I started smoking on my break in lieu of eating and my addiction started. Several times I tried to quit but typically never was able to stop smoking for even a day. I once quit for two years and then had just the one cigarette with a friend and started up again.
My husband George sells industrial sewing machines to the garment industry and earns lots of airline miles. Nearly four years ago, a friend and I decided to visit a girlfriend who lives in Rome. We had the luxury of flying Virgin Atlantic upper class by buying an economy ticket and upgrading with American Express miles.
I “decided” that during my vacation I would (again) try Chantix; I would continue to smoke in Italy but that when I left I would quit. Obviously t Continue reading post…