Atlanta Home Buyers – FHA Update

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Atlanta Home Buyers – FHA Update

Atlanta home buyers have plenty of reasons to buy a great house today. There’s certainly plenty to choose from, prices (for the most part) are great and interest rates remain low (although trending upward).

Oh, and we can’t forget about the ability to qualify for $8,000 for first-time homebuyers or $6,500 for repeat homebuyers.

One more wrinkle has thrown in recently. Last week, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) announced that they would be taking steps to reduce their risk in lending to home buyers.

Announced FHA Policy Changes:

1. Mortgage insurance premium (MIP) will be increased to build up capital reserves and bring back private lending. As private mortgage insurance (PMI) on conventional loans have increased, more buyers have used FHA loans as they were more affordable. The MIP will now be raised to 2.25% and the will request legislative authority to increase the maximum annual MIP that the FHA can charge.

2. Update the combination of FICO scores and down payments for new borrowers. New borrowers will now be required to have a minimum FICO score of 580 to qualify for FHA’s 3.5% down payment program. New borrowers with less than a 580 FICO score will be required to put down at least 10%. This allows the FHA to better balance its risk and continue to provide access for those borrowers who have historically performed well.

3. Reduce allowable seller concessions from 6% to 3%. The current level exposes the FHA to excess risk by creating incentives to inflate appraised value. This change will bring FHA into conformity with industry standards on seller concessions.

4. Increase enforcement on FHA lenders.  FHA has always been a good financing option if you less downpayment in hand and if your credit score was a bit lower than what some banks liked. Over the last few years, FHA has written almost 30% of the loans (up from 3% back in 2006) and has suffered from rising delinquencies.

The agency will now use these new measures to build its reserves and keep FHA-insured financing alive and well for homeowners. HUD Secretary wants borrowers to “have more skin in the game” as a way to reduce future defaults.

These measures are expected to take effect later this Spring and Summer. So in addition to the $8,000 tax credit, great prices, a good supply of homes to choose from and low interest rates, you can now add stricter and more expensive FHA financing looming as reasons to not delay your Atlanta home search.

If you would like some professional guidance for you Atlanta home search, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Keller Williams Named Most Recognizable Brand of 2009

Exciting news for the Atlanta real estate market. The 2010 Swanepoel TRENDS Report details the Top 20 largest real estate brands based on agent count as of December 2009.

In addition, RealSure, the publishers of the Swanepoel TRENDS Report and the Swanepoel SOCIAL MEDIA Report launched a nationwide online survey on December 3rd to determine the “Most Recognizable Franchise Brand in Real Estate.”

According to this survey, the Top 10 real estate franchises, most recognized by the real estate industry as quality national brands are:

1. Keller Williams Realty
2. Coldwell Banker Real Estate
3. RE/MAX International
4. Century 21 Real Estate
5. Prudential Real Estate
6. Sotheby’s International Realty
7. EXIT Realty
8. ERA Real Estate
9. Weichert Real Estate Affiliates
10. Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate

The brands that made it to the Top 5 were to be expected and are also the five largest real estate franchises in the country. The Top 5 also comfortably attracted more votes than the second five on the list, strongly pointing to the industry’s own internal belief that these are the top five brands that agents would like to work for.

Keller Williams Realty’s surprising #1 ranking was most likely due to the strong, above average online and social media presence of their agents and the fact that during 2009 KW surpassed RE/MAX in agent count according to a widely published REAL Trends survey. Click here to read the article in it’s entirety.

Contact us today to learn about the benefits of working with Keller Williams Realty for all of your Atlanta real estate needs.

Atlanta Top City to Retire in 2009

Forbes magazine recently did a study to determine the best cities to retire in 2009. To form the list, Forbes looked at the country’s 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas and applied seven metrics. The Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta metropolitan area came in at #1. Atlanta is the financial and industrial center of the South and is home to more and more international businesses, such as Delta, Home Depot and Coca-Cola.

1 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA

2 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX

3 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL

4 Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX

5 St. Louis, MO-IL

5 Austin-Round Rock, TX

7 Las Vegas-Paradise, NV

8 Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ

9 Kansas City, MO-KS

10 San Antonio, TX

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