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WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve signaled Wednesday that a full economic recovery could take nearly three more years, and it went further than ever to assure consumers and businesses that they will be able to borrow cheaply well into the future.
The central bank said it would probably not increase its benchmark interest rate until late 2014 at the earliest — a year and a half later than it had previously said.
The new timetable showed the Fed is concerned that the recovery remains stubbornly slow. But it also thinks inflation will stay tame enough for rates to remain at record lows without igniting price increases.
Chairman Ben Bernanke cautioned that late 2014 is merely its “best guess.” The Fed can shift that plan if the economic picture changes. But he cast doubt on whether that would be necessary.
“Unless there is a substantial strengthening of the economy in the near term, it’s a pretty good guess we will be keeping rates low for some time,” he said.
The Fed has kept its key rate at a record low near zero for about three years. Its new time frame suggests the rate will stay there for roughly an additional three years.
The bank’s tepid outlook also suggests it’s prepared to do more to help the economy. One possibility is a third bond-buying program that would seek to further drive down rates on mortgages and other loans to embolden consumers and businesses to borrow and spend more.
Information obtained from the Calif. Asso. of Realtors with permission.
Article printed in the Mercury News and A.P.  Jan. 25,  2012.
Related articles

Interest Rates will Stay Low, Low, Low (marvicirealtygroup.wordpress.com)

Great reasons to buy a home around the holidays
You might be wondering if buying a home during the holidays is a wise idea. Here are some good reasons to consider buying your home during the holiday months.
Here are five good reasons:
1.  December and early January are usually slower for sales and  sellers are motivated since they might not have sold the property in earlier months.
2. Rates are the lowest they have been in years and many options
are available, especially for buyers willing to put down 20% or more as a down
payment.
3.  There is  less competition to deal with which means less stress for you during the holidays.
4. Tax advantages: you may be eligible for deductions on points and mortgage interest if you close by the end of the year. Consult your tax advisor. deduction.
5. Lower prices & lower rates.
You should decide if this is a good time for you to buy.  Keep in mind, homes that did not sell over the summer are also available are great deals.  Furthermore, pricing might rise again after the New Year, so it might be a good time to find a bargain.
Good luck with your home search.

Mortgage rates have been hitting historic lows for five weeks in a row. But
that doesn’t mean you should refinance your mortgage just yet.

The average rate for 30-year-fixed-rate mortgages fell to 3.94% for the week
ended Oct. 6, according to mortgage-finance giant Freddie Mac—the lowest on
record. Rates on 15-year loans, meanwhile, have fallen to a record low of 3.28%.

While mortgage rates vary by region even among the nation’s biggest lenders,
they are down throughout the country for borrowers with excellent credit.
Citigroup, the third-largest U.S. bank by assets, is pitching a 4.193% rate on
30-year-fixed loans and a 3.806% rate for 15-year-fixed mortgages. EverBank
Financial of Jacksonville, Fla., is offering Cincinnati-area residents a 3.89%
rate on 30-year fixed-rate loans.

Steve Walsh, who heads mortgage lender Scout Mortgage in Scottsdale, Ariz.,
says he has seen a surge in interest among borrowers looking to take advantage
of low rates. “There’s a feeling that rates are basically at the lowest they can
get,” he says. But are they?
No one can predict the future, of course, but policy makers seem intent on
pushing rates down even further.
The Federal Reserve, for example, is trying to move rates lower by buying
more mortgage-backed securities. And Obama administration officials are talking
to lenders about ways to reinvigorate the Home Affordable Refinance Program, a
government initiative to help borrowers refinance even if they have little or no
equity left in their homes.

Real Estate at SmartMoney

Mortgage Calculator
Should You Refinance?
How Much Can You Afford

The goal for both: to get rates low enough so that more people will find it
beneficial to refinance. If people start doing it en masse, it could help the
economy.
“In the short term, rates could fall,” says Brad Hunter, chief economist for
Houston-based Metrostudy, a housing-market research firm. “In the longer term,
rates will rise as the economy starts to strengthen.”
If that were to play out, then refinancing now, with rates still around 4%,
could be a mistake. That’s because the chances are good that if you own a home,
and have significant equity in that home and good credit, you already have
refinanced in the past few years. Because refinancing involves costs—typically
2% of the mortgage value—it often doesn’t pay to refinance every time rates tick
down, tempting though it is.
“Don’t become a refinance junkie,” says Greg McBride, a senior financial
analyst at Bankrate.com, a consumer-information site. “You pay for it later in
the form of closing costs.”
So how far do rates need to fall before it makes sense for you to refinance?
Economists at the University of Chicago have tried to answer the question.
The ideal refinance rate must factor in closing costs, marginal tax rates,
the number of years left on the mortgage and other factors, the economists say.
Homeowners often make decisions based on faulty assumptions about rates, says
David Laibson, an economics professor at Harvard University and one of the
Chicago study’s authors. “Mortgage rates follow what we call a random walk, and don’t bounce back from
lows like most people assume,” he says.
In other words, what goes down could keep going down—even if it goes up for a
little while first. If you catch the first big dip, you can miss later ones that
offer even better opportunities.
The economists produced an online calculator, at zwicke.nber.org/refinance/, that distills their theory into a
tool that calculates how far interest rates need to fall for homeowners to
derive value from refinancing—the “optimal” refinance rate.
For example, their formula suggests that a homeowner with a $400,000 mortgage
with 25 years left on a 30-year-fixed rate mortgage at 4.75% shouldn’t refinance
until rates fall to below 3.51%, assuming 2% closing costs.
The risk of waiting for a lower rate, of course, is that it will never come.
If you are unwilling to take the gamble, your best bet is to negotiate hard on
fees.
The conventional wisdom is that it doesn’t make sense to refinance unless you
can shave at least a point off your interest rate. That’s because you don’t want
your “break-even” point—when your savings exceed your refinancing costs—to be
longer than two years or so.
But if you can persuade your lender to waive the fees, or most of them, you
might need only a half-point of savings to make a deal worthwhile, says
Bankrate.com’s Mr. McBride.
Last week, Michael Allison refinanced his $417,000 mortgage on a
three-bedroom California Ranch-style house in Santa Barbara, Calif. The
41-year-old fitness-center owner says he will save $200 a month by switching
from a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 4.87% to one at 4.25%.
“It’s an absolutely great deal and didn’t cost me anything,” Mr. Allison
says. His lender, Provident Savings Bank in Pleasanton, Calif., covered the
closing costs after his real-estate agent made some calls to the firm.
With a little negotiation, homeowners can persuade lenders to cover their
fees. “It’s not a free lunch,” Mr. McBride says, because borrowers get slightly
higher rates in exchange—but it is a good way to minimize your upfront
costs.
Another option that’s growing in popularity: refinancing a home at a shorter
term—say, 20 or 15 years. If you can find a rate that keeps your monthly payment
about the same as you were paying on your old 30-year loan, the decision is a
no-brainer, says Mr. Walsh of Scout Mortgage.
Lloyd Qualls, a 57-year-old accountant in Mesa, Ariz., decided to do just
that. Last month he ditched his 30-year fixed-rate loan at 4.875% for a 15-year
fixed-rate loan at 3.375%. While that boosted his payments by $89 a month, it
will shorten his payment period by 13 years and save him $104,233 on interest
over the life of the loan.

Last year, more than two million people were turned down for home loans, according to federal data, often because the applicants didn’t meet certain lender requirements or because their applications were incomplete or otherwise problematic. With lenders’ underwriting criteria becoming more strict in recent years, it’s important buyers know the most common triggers for mortgage-loan rejection. 

Insufficient income: Lenders want to be sure borrowers can afford to make the mortgage payments. Lenders typically look for at least a two-year track record of income, which could hurt those who have changed jobs recently.
Cloudy financial picture: Generally, total debt payments, including the mortgage, cannot exceed 45 to 50 percent of a borrower’s adjusted gross monthly income. Overtime and bonuses are included only if the borrower has worked for the same employer at least two years, and has a history of receiving them.
Poor credit: Lenders typically reject applicants with FICO scores below 620.
Low appraisal: One of the predominant reasons buyers are turned down for home loans is because the appraisal on the property is too low.
Property problems: Sometimes issues turn up within a house, like a major repair or safety issue that needs to be addressed, before an application can be approved.
Information mix-ups: Approximately 12 percent of new mortgage applications were denied because of unverifiable information or incomplete credit applications, according to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.

Related articles

How to Boost Your Odds of Getting Approved for a Mortgage (dailyfinance.com)
First-time buyers hit by lenders’ caution (guardian.co.uk)
How to Know if You Qualify for a House Loan (thinkup.waldenu.edu)

I just wanted to send a small shout out to people buying short sales….
The short sale process has been refined by the banks in the last two years. That being said they will still take at least 8 weeks for you to get the written approval from the bank so you can move ahead with the purchase. I have recently had a realtor tell me that for his short sales he requires the buyer to have an addendum that locks them into the purchase for at least 90 days, and if they do not want to they can “go pound sand” well, I am not sure that is the way to go but I do think the buyers need to be aware that it takes approx 8 weeks to get an approval from the bank when you are using the equator system ( website set up for B of A, and now wells fargo and a few others) When you are going the call and wait route it could be a bit longer. When the buyer makes an offer, the listing agent will take the best and highest offer to upload to the bank. When they do they must mark the listing pending subject to lender approval. The agent will then begin the task of getting the offer accepted by the bank and it investors. When the buyer backs out after 6 or 7 seven weeks (for no reason) or because they continued to search for a home and found one they like better, the listing agent has worked to close the sale for nothing and has to go back to the MLS get a new offer and start over! So, buyers do not make an offer on a short sale property unless you are commited to buying the property and are willing to see the short sale process through. You waste everyones time, including your own.

The number of residential properties with mortgages that were in negative equity at the end of the third quarter declined compared to the end of the second quarter, CoreLogic reports. The Q3 Negative Equity Report finds that 10.8 million, or 22.5 percent, of all mortgaged residential properties were in negative equity at the end of the third quarter, compared to 11.0 million, or 23 percent, at the end of the second quarter.
The number of borrowers who are underwater on their mortgages has declined by more than 500,000 to date in 2010, but an additional 2.4 million borrowers were near negative equity (within 5 percent) in the third quarter. Negative equity and near-negative equity mortgages accounted for 27.5 percent of all mortgaged residential properties at the end of the third quarter.
Negative equity was most prevalent in five states: Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Michigan and California.
 
 
from CRS “member connect” on-line newsletter
 

I have just received a new tool from my MLS provider Bay East and it allows me to invite friends, clients and future clients to listingbook which allows you to search for homes with a platform that is updated every 30 to 60 mins. Realtors pay a yearly fee to be able to access the MLS (covers Alameda and Contra Costa counties) and now I can invite you for free. So what that means for you is you can search for homes like a pro, and not have to worry that the home is already pending or sold. Feel free to contact me if you are interested and I will send you an invitation.

1. INFLATE YOUR TIRES.   Under inflated tires can lower gas mileage by 0.4% for every pound of drop in pressure of all four tires.  So keep ‘em pumped!!  Difficulty: l
2. GET RID OF THE LEAD FOOT.  According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), quick acceleration and heavy braking reduce fuel economy by as much as 33% on the highway and 5%around town.  Give the lead foot a rest to improve your fuel efficiency and your passengers ride.  Difficulty: l
3. STOP IDLING.  Although most of us grew up needing to let the car “warm up” any car built after 1990 doesn’t need the warm-up, so go ahead and get a move on.   Difficulty: l
4.GIVE YOUR CAR A BREAK.   You may n0t be able to retire your car completely, but try to opt for public transportation, carpooling, walking or biking when you can, and you’ll save both money and carbon emissions.  For each gallon of gas you save, you keep 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the environment and nearly $5.00 in your wallet!  Difficulty: l
5. BE REASONABLE WITH THE THERMOSTAT.  You don’t have to be uncomfortable in your home to save energy or reduce emissions, but try to keep it as warm as you can stand it in the summer, and turn it down to 68 or below in the winter.  Difficulty: l
6, CAULKING AND STORM PANELS.  Double-paned wondows are are good fix but, a least expensive way to improve insulation, is to seal and leaks or gaps around doors and windows with caulking and weather stripping.  You can then add a storm panel to your single-pane window to increase energy efficiency for less money than double paned windows.  Difficulty: ll
7.SWAP YOUR A/C FOR A CEILING FAN.  Ceiling fans are remarkably effective in cooling and use far less energy (or chemicals!) than air conditioning.  If you still need a A/C, consider running it on low and using ceiling fans to circulate the cool air.   Difficulty ll
8. PLANT TREES.  On top of soaking up carbon dioxide, trees that surround your home can provide shading in the summertime, keeping your house cool and requiring less energy-intensive air conditioning.  Difficulty: ll
9.  GET YOUR DUCTS IN A ROW.  In addition to increasing your electricity bills and and your carbon foot print, faulty duct work can cause serious, life-threatening carbon monoxide problems in the home.  Check your ducts for air leaks.  First, look for sections that should be joined but have separated, and then look for obvious holes.  If you use tape,  to seal your ducts, use mastic, butyl tape, foil tape,or other heat-approved tapes (look for tape with the Underwriters Laboratories logo.)  Be sure a well-sealed vapor barrier exists on the outside of the insulation on cooling ducts to prevent moisture buildup.  Difficulty: lll
10. GO FOR DOUBLE-PANED WINDOWS.  According to the DOE, the typical family spends $1,300 a year on home energy bills.  If your windows are letting air in or out, some of that money is being wasted, as is the energy its paying for.  Double-paned windows are up to 40% more energy-efficient than standard windows, and could shave 10% to 25% off youe heating or cooling bill, on top of saving five tons of carbon dioxide emissions per household per year.  Difficulty: lll
DIFFICULTY SCALE:                                                  
l= No Pain, but Lots of Gain.
ll= Commitment and Consciousness Required Daily.
lll= You Will Soon Reap the Financial Rewards of your Herculean Efforts.
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK!