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Tighter lending standards by banks are disqualifying potential home buyers and preventing them from buying homes, at least according to analysts who point to that reason behind the second-quarter home ownership rate falling to its lowest level since 1998. The home ownership rate stood at 65.9 percent in June, its lowest in 13 years, the U.S. Census Bureau reports. “Tight underwriting standards and the lack of a down payment are keeping a big chunk of buyers out of the market and other people are being displaced by foreclosures,” Wayne Yamano, […]

The housing market may be getting a little tighter in a couple of months. The bureaucrats working on enacting some of the provisions of the Dodd-Frank reforms have interpreted the loosely written laws to require homes that qualify for the best interest rates to have a minimum of a 20 percent down payment. That sound you just heard is agents across the country gulping in panic. The homes that have a 20 percent down payment will get the best interest rates, those buyers that do not have 20 percent to […]

Property owners take more active roles. With metro Atlanta home values plunging by about one-third in five years, some owners are finding ways to add value to their neighborhoods. Larry Carter took the prerogative to turn around the downtown Atlanta community he bought into by getting neighbors to help clean up dilapidated properties and help real estate agents with open houses so values would not keep dropping. Warren Jolly, a developer as the CEO of the Providence Group, had a similar idea for his newer Sterling of Dunwoody condo neighborhood, […]

WHEN Lina Shuster takes portraits of clients for her photography business, she often uses the beach as a backdrop. Luckily for her, that means going just a few blocks from home. Not many New Yorkers can lay claim to that pleasure. But it is one advantage of living in Midland Beach, a small and quiet neighborhood on the eastern shore of Staten Island. More than anything else, Ms. Shuster says, it is location that gives the place its appeal. “We are in walking distance to the beach and public transportation,” […]

The two-story house in Pacific Palisades is a contemporary take on traditional Nantucket design. It sits just a short hop from the Pacific Ocean but it was a coastline some 3,000 miles away that inspired this airy beach-style house in Pacific Palisades. Trimmed in white and clad in bluish-gray shingles, the gabled two-story home is a contemporary take on traditional Nantucket design, with an open floor plan, generous use of glass to maximize natural light, numerous windows to catch ocean breezes and all the latest in electronic gadgetry. The home […]

Realty brokers say a recent uptick in contract cancellations is surprising and worrisome. Financing issues are among the causes, and economic worries and low-ball appraisals are also busting up deals. Are home buyers walking away in droves from the contracts they’ve signed? Or are they essentially fouling out of the game, unable to close deals because of financing and credit issues? Whatever the answer, this much appears to be certain: Exceptionally large numbers of signed real estate contracts fell apart last month, failing to close escrow. According to the National […]

Buying, selling, insuring your property Ask a real estate pro: Who gets any money left over after a foreclosure? Board-certified real estate attorney Gary M. Singer answers housing questions in this space each Friday. To ask him a question about short sales, mortgages, refinancing, homeowner’s associations or any other residential real estate topic, click here. Q: My friend is facing foreclosure, but she has a good amount of equity in her home. If she does get foreclosed on, and there is money left over, does she get it? – Dean […]

The 2010 US Census data are showing some major transformations in the demographics of cities across the country. Chiefly, that unmarried and same-sex couples raising children are moving into neighborhoods once the exclusive redoubts of the nuclear family. In Indiana state, New York City and one Seattle neighborhood, Census data recorded an upsurge in unmarried and/or same-sex couples at 33 percent up 27 % and 55 % respectively. Incredibly, the staunchly conservative South is becoming a popular place for same-sex couples to raise children. By some estimates, nearly one-third of […]

Many LGBT real estate buyers and gays and lesbians borrowing a mortgage to finance or refinance a home want to know the difference between a prequalified and a preapproved loan. On the surface they sound quite similar, but in practice they have significant differences that relate to the level of commitment a lender is making to the LGBT borrower.   The big difference is that prequalification has to do with the process a lender goes through to find out if a gay real estate buyer is eligible for a mortgage. […]

Homeowners facing foreclosure may be opting to downsize quite dramatically. Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, a Calfornia-based tiny house builder, has seen a recent uptick in the number of people interested in purchasing or constructing these miniature homes on trailer platforms, the New Yorker reported. Tiny houses are typically between 100 and 130 square feet, roughly the size of a covered wagon, the New Yorker said, and there are between several hundred and 1000 of them in the Unites States. In the past year alone, Jay Shafer, the owner of Tumbleweed, […]