More about Tax Credit fomebuyers

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You heard it right: the program that's paying first time homebuyers AND those who purchase their replacement home, is set to expire in less than 3 weeks. Here are some facts about it:

• Credit amount up to $8,000
• For any home purchase where a sales contract is signed by April 30, 2010 and closes by June 30, 2010
• Available on single-family detached homes, townhomes and condominiums
• The tax credit does not need to be repaid unless the home is sold within the first three years after purchase

This program will NOT be extended anymore so if you think of buying a home, you need to start acting now. Please contact us!

The power of positive thinking

There is silver lining everywhere – even in the gloomy job report released today. US economy lost 598,000 jobs in January. Still Wall Street opened higher. Here is one of the news headlines: Stocks open higher as worse-than-expected jobs report raises hopes that stimulus will pass quickly. So the unemployment rate has to go up to 7.6% for Congress to approve a 900 billion spending plan that could create just a limited number of new jobs?

In the meantime home foreclosures in Arlington Heights are on the rise again. Check back soon for more details.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Bail Out?

With rumors about possible Fannie-Freddie meltdown running wild, it is good to have some perspective. Certainly, if any of those mortgage giants looses liquidity, the impact on the housing market would be huge. Doomsday scenarios predict that getting a home loan or refinancing existing mortgage without Fannie or Freddie buying them back, would become virtually impossible. This is because private lenders would have very limited options to re-invest their mortgages. Fannie May and Freddie Mac used to be the most trusted names on the secondary mortgage market. They are either buying or guaranteeing hundreds of thousands of individual mortgages repackaged as "mortgage-backed securities".

Almost all experts agree that U.S. Government will never allow that. No economy in the World can afford to freeze its mortgage lending industry. The most likely scenario is that we are going to have another "bail out" similar to what happened to Wall Street investment bank - Baer Stearns few months ago. How such bail out would affect activities on the real estate market? Most likely, the impact to borrowers would be minimal with both institutions saved by tax-payers' money and continuing to do the business as before. There could be additional government oversight put in place or some rules of making business changed, but in general, U.S. housing market should not suffer if indeed Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are to be saved by current Bush administration. This is certainly good news given the fact that in some areas each month brings higher home sales figures. For example, in Arlington Heights IL real estate market, the existing single family home sales rose 45% in June 2008 if compared with the previous month. You can observe the trend at www.homes-arlingtonheights.com and also see other homes for sale in Arlington Heights IL