Just don’t get rid of the lunch boxes
First thought upon reading this article: Annie’s Cafe may join hotel
Developer Charlie Biederman plans to incorporate the beloved Annie’s Cafe restaurant into a hotel he intends to build at Colorado Boulevard and East Eighth Avenue.
Just don’t get rid of the lunch boxes!
If you’ve never been to Annie’s Cafe give it a go. They have the BEST breakfast in Denver when it comes to price, ambiance, and service.
Buying a Denver Home online
If you know what Redfin is all about, this article, Buying or selling a home? Forget the traditional realtor may intrigue you:
The Internet is increasingly taking on the duties once performed by real estate agents. And while no one - yet - is suggesting that it’s a good idea to buy a house over the Internet sight unseen, a new business model is emerging that takes advantage of the convenience of Internet shopping.
80% of all home searches start on the internet. So it’s no surprise that companies are using the internet to transform the way they buy and sell real estate.
More on online home buying:
Buyers and sellers can save thousands on sales commissions and through rebates using online real estate agencies, such as Real-a-Save:
FOR A BUYER
- Home sales price: $300,000
- Traditional 2.8% buyer’s agent commission: $8,400
- 66% Rebate Real-a-Save clients would receive: $5,400
FOR A SELLER
- Home sales price: $300,000
- Typical 3.2% sales commission: $9,600
- Real-a-Save’s standard sales commission: $2,500
- Savings: $7,100.
It’s really too soon to tell whether or not online real estate brokerages will be around or just another passing fad. If you talk to most people they love the idea but would prefer to stick to using a real estate agent no matter how much they despise agents. Why do people despise agents? Same reason people despise the government - a lot of upfront promises, not much after that. The internet won’t solve that problem.
Colorado and Prepayment Fees
From the Rocky Mountain News:
With foreclosures at record levels, a Colorado regulator has tackled prepayment penalties that can trap borrowers in costly mortgages.
The measure, which took effect Friday and was announced Monday, prohibits fees that extend past the dates loans are adjusted to higher interest rates.
Read the full story: Prepayment fees limited
The world according to Google
Here’s what people truly care about according to Google:
- iphone
- webkinz
- tmz
- transformers
- youtube
- club penguin
- myspace
- heroes
- anna nicole smith
I’m shocked that “Charla or Mirna” didn’t make the list.
At the end of the day, the only color that matters is….
Do The Math : Exactly How Much Money Will Your Credit Score Cost You On Your Next Mortgage is a brilliant article.
Denver’s relationship with Fannie and Freddie on the rocks
Denver’s relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hits the rocks:
The chief executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Tuesday warned that their ailing mortgage-finance companies will suffer further in 2008 because of a weakening housing market and rising home-loan defaults.
Read the full article: Freddie and Fannie: More woes in 2008
Metro Denver’s designation as a “declining market” could delay any recovery in the area’s long-suffering residential real-estate market, local housing experts said Tuesday.
Read the full article: Fannie label on Denver ominous
What does this all mean: Putting 5% down is the norm to get a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loan. They do have several high risk 100% loans but these loans have higher rates with higher levels of mortgage insurance.
FHA only requires 3% down.
Some companies will have 100% down programs it just remains to be seen who.
Double Dealing
Last night during the Sunday Night Football between Indy and Baltimore I managed to steal a glance or two at the Sunday Paper. This article entitled The art of the double deal. The first two paragraphs seemed rather interesting:
To real estate investors, a good day is when they can buy a piece of property or sell it. A better day is when they can do both.
Buying and selling the same home before sunset yields a quick profit to the fortunate investor who can work both transactions. It is the stuff of “get rich in real estate” schemes advertised in infomercials.
While the rest of the story is rather mundane.
Gates Project or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Urban Redevelopments
I have never been a big fan of the new Denver urban redevelopments: Lowry and Stapleton. When I first moved to Denver, Lowry was an aging military base and Stapleton was an airport. Things changed when friends of mine moved into these urban redevelopments. They’re vibrant neighborhoods. They’re near the airport, city, zoo, museums, restaurants, and more importantly for my friends they’re family friendly.
Enter the Gates Project:
From fan belts to greenbelts - at long last the urban revival of the former Gates Rubber plant is taking shape.
Read the full story: Long-awaited Gates project gathers steam
It’s going to be a while before the Gates Project will be complete. I’ve learned to embrace these urban redevelopments and I’m looking forward to having another Linens and Things, Office Depot, Chili’s, et. al. fill our landscape. Who knows they may even add a Chipotle or a Qdoba or both.
These rates are freezing
Five-Year Mortgage Rate Freeze Looms
Wednesday December 5, 8:42 pm ET
By Martin Crutsinger and Alan Zibel, Associated Press Writers
Bush Mortgage Plan Will Freeze Certain Subprime Interest Rates for 5 Years WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration has hammered out an agreement to freeze interest rates for certain subprime mortgages for five years to combat a soaring tide of foreclosures, congressional aides said Wednesday.
The aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not yet been released, said the five-year moratorium represented a compromise between desires by banking regulators for a longer time frame of up to seven years and mortgage industry arguments that the freeze should last only one or two years.
Another person familiar with the matter said the rate-freeze plan would apply to borrowers with loans made at the start of 2005 through July 30 of this year with rates that are scheduled to rise between Jan. 1, 2008, and July 31, 2010.
The administration said President Bush will speak on the agreement at the White House on Thursday and the Treasury Department announced that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson would hold a joint news conference Thursday afternoon with mortgage industry officials.
Treasury also announced there would be a technical briefing to explain more of the proposal’s details.
Paulson, who has been leading the effort to craft a plan, said on Monday that the program would only be available for owner-occupied homes — to ensure the break is not given to real estate speculators.
The plan emerged from talks between Paulson and other banking regulators and banks, mortgage investors and consumer groups trying to address an avalanche of foreclosures feared as an estimated 2 million subprime mortgages reset from lower introductory rates to higher rates.
In many cases, the higher rates will boost monthly payments by as much as 30 percent, making it very difficult for many people to keep current with their loans.
The plan is aimed at homeowners who are making payments on time at lower introductory mortgage rates but cannot afford a higher adjusted rate.
Through October, there were about 1.8 million foreclosure filings nationwide, compared with about 1.3 million in all of 2006, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. With home loan defaults still rising, the trend is expected to worsen next year.
The plan represents an about-face for Paulson, who until recently had insisted the mortgage crisis could be handled on a case-by-case basis. However, he and other administration officials became convinced the tide of foreclosures threatened by the mortgage resets represented such a severe threat that a more sweeping approach was needed. They opted for a proposal that was along the lines of a plan put forward in October by Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Paulson and other federal regulators began holding talks with some of the country’s biggest mortgage lenders, mortgage service companies, investors who hold mortgage-backed securities and nonprofit groups that provide counseling for at-risk homeowners.
Under the typical subprime loan — those offered to borrowers with spotty credit histories — the rates for the first two years were at levels around 7 percent to 8 percent. But after two years, those rates were scheduled to reset to levels around 9 percent to 11 percent.
For a typical $1,200 monthly mortgage payment, the reset could add another $350 to the monthly payment, greatly raising the risks of loan defaults by homeowners struggling with the current payment.
The wave of mortgage foreclosures threatened to make the most severe slump in housing even worse by dumping more foreclosed properties onto an already glutted market, further depressing home prices and shaking consumer confidence.
The deepening housing slump has already roiled financial markets, starting in August, as investors grew increasingly concerned about billions of dollars of losses being suffered by banks, hedge funds and other investors.
The administration plan is designed to deal with the crisis by letting subprime borrowers who are living in their homes and are current on their payments to avoid a costly reset for five years. The hope is that by that time the housing downturn will have stabilized, clearing out the glut of unsold homes and halting the steep slide in prices that is hitting many parts of the country.
With sales and prices once again rising, the expectation is that homeowners will be able to renegotiate their current adjustable rate mortgages into a more affordable fixed-rate plan.
The housing crisis has become an issue in the presidential race with Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards putting forward their own proposals this week that would go further than the administration.
Clinton said her own proposal that would impose a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures and freeze the rates for five years or until they had been converted to fixed-rate loans was a better approach that would help more people.
“Although the administration is finally giving the foreclosure crisis the attention it deserves, it seems that President Bush is going to give struggling homeowners far less than they need,” she said in a statement.
Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com, called the administration plan a good first step, but said the government eventually will have to go further given the problem’s size and the threat to the economy.
“This is the most serious housing downturn we have seen in the post World War II period,” Zandi said. “It is a threat to the broader economy. The risks of a recession are very high.”
Associated Press reporters Deb Reichmann and Nedra Pickler contributed to this report.
Rates are really low again
I’ve had severa mortgagel inquiries lately so it probably had something to do with this
National mortgage rates fell sharply last week, with rates on 30-year mortgages dropping to the lowest level in more than two years.
As of today 30 year rates are pretty low:
- One point will get you 5.5%
- Want no points, you’ll get 5.75%
- Want zero points, you’ll get 6.5%
Of course to qualify for these mortgage rates you’ll need superb credit, decent income, an 80% loan balance to property value ratio, and decent assets.