22 January, 2010 (06:50) | Community Issues, Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Sellers, Neighborhood Info, special financing | By: Aaron Dickinson - Edina Realty
Minnesota Home Ownership Center does a great job of helping struggling homeowners determine and exercise their options. Their blog post yesterday introduced me to a short article from Public Citizen that explains a large part of our problems in negotiating loan mods and short sales.
Tags: 2nd mortgages, loan modification, short sales
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20 January, 2010 (08:57) | Community Issues, Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Buyers, Market Stats, Opinion, Personal Experiences, investors, special financing | By: Aaron Dickinson - Edina Realty
In the last 12 months I’ve had a few situations where my client’s offer on a foreclosure was rejected in favor of a cash offer. In my office, I know of many others that have experienced the same thing.
With the data provided by RMLS that I used yesterday to comment about FHA transactions, I am also able [...]
Tags: cash offers, first time buyers, foreclosures, investors
Comments: 9
19 January, 2010 (08:10) | Community Issues, Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, Mortgage Rates, Opinion | By: Aaron Dickinson - Edina Realty
The housing market continues to change and one of the largest changes in 2009 was the resurgence of FHA financing. As lenders have tighted up financing requirements and increased down payments from 0% a few years ago to predominantly 10% today, FHA’s more forgiving standards and lower 3.5% down payment requirement have made it a very [...]
Tags: cash purchases, conventional, fha financing, investors
Comments: 4
13 January, 2010 (23:38) | Community Issues, Opinion, Personal Experiences | By: Aaron Dickinson - Edina Realty
Google just put up some new satellite imagery of Haiti that can be viewed as a layer in Google Earth. I just spent the last 1/2 hour taking a look and here are some of my thoughts:
Most roads look passable
Many people are in the streets and lots of debris around
Some buildings total losses, another right [...]
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13 January, 2010 (08:01) | Community Issues, Foreclosures and Short Sales, MLS Compliment & Criticism, Market Stats, Opinion, Personal Experiences | By: Aaron Dickinson - Edina Realty
The 3 local REALTOR associations released 2009 housing statistics and I started going through them and my eyes were drawn to the number of closed sales in 2009 - 45,200.
Since most sales have a Buyer’s Agent and a Seller’s Agent, we’re looking at a total of approximately 90,000 trasaction “sides.”
The Twin Cities associations have approximately [...]
Tags: commissions, realtor income
Comments: 1
11 January, 2010 (08:56) | Community Issues, Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, Market Stats, New Construction, Opinion, Personal Experiences, city grants | By: Aaron Dickinson - Edina Realty
The housing boom brought us a slew of new community developments including condos, townhomes and retail/condo buildings. While financing on townhomes is still doable, financing options for condo & mixed-use buildings is becoming very difficult. The developments with the hardest time getting financing are the ones that have had the highest rates of foreclosure.
So many condos built from 2005-2008 in [...]
Comments: 1
3 January, 2010 (08:45) | Community Issues, Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Sellers, Landscaping, Opinion, Personal Experiences, Useless Ramblings | By: Aaron Dickinson - Edina Realty
Dear Owners & Listing Agents of vacant relocation properties, short sales and foreclosures:
Today I showed one house that was completely unshoveled and a 2nd that was partially shoveled but very icy. In both cases I and my clients almost fell a couple times each. This is not a good way to get people to buy your [...]
Tags: foreclosures, unshoveled driveways
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