When Your Computer is Hospitalized

My trusty home desktop is being brought back to life (I hope) by Woody Satta, my Guru. The virus is not as contagious as the flu...and besides, I've had my flu shot this year... but is potentially more deadly. Quicken and Turbo tax are only on my home computer, and much of my work is done at home, also. I go upstairs to my home office, and stare at the unattached wires on the desk as if the missing computer will magically reappear. Email and the Internet are available on my Droid Smart phone, but I am still at the Coldwell Banker office playing "catch-up" every day. Can you send a get well soon card to a desktop computer?

Happy Real Estate News

We heard an upbeat message at SILVAR’s Annual General Membership Meeting on Monday.
National Association of REALTORS® Chief Economist, Dr. Lawrence Yun, told our local association members, "The worst in sales is clearly over."
He said that in the San Francisco –San Jose area, the bottom has already occurred and prices are beginning to firm up. He stressed what we already knew: All real estate is local, and the Silicon Valley region is fortunate because so many people want to live here and demand for housing is high.
California’s housing market recovery started even before the home buyer tax credit, according to the national economist, and the tax credits boosted sales even more.
“California’s housing market correction was short, sharp and fast,” Yun said.
Yun’s message: Those with strong credit who can buy, should buy, while mortgage interest rates are still at a 50-year low. Things could change very quickly, especially if inflation creeps in.
“I don’t expect rates to remain low. They may increase next year,” he said. “If you’re willing to stay well within a budget and are comfortable with it, at a 4.4 mortgage interest rate, you’re protected under inflation.”
He hopes with the foreclosure moratorium banks will understand negotiating short sales would be a better option than foreclosures.
Yun said the federal tax credits did what they were supposed to do. The market must now be allowed to stand on its own. The key test will be this winter.
“If this winter’s sales match up with other winter home sales, I would say that would be a very positive sign,” Yun said. “Let’s give it time.”

Learning Something New

There's always some new information out there for me and my readers. With so many houses standing vacant in this market, either deliberately for staging, or because the sellers have moved on...not to mention the large numbers that have been added by the foreclosure market...insurance has become a big question.
I just found out that there is a special homeowners' policy available for vacant or unoccupied properties.
Many standard policies have a "vacancy clause" that is triggered if the home owner is gone for an extended period of time. This makes sense, when you consider that empty houses are more likely to have break-ins and that there's a higher risk that small problems, such as leaky pipes, could go unnoticed.
Although the extra policy may cost more initially, it could save the home owner lots more down the road.

The Jumbo Loans are Extended

Most economic news is focused on unemployment statistics, or on the Bush era tax cuts and whether they will be extended, modified, or allowed to expire. But those of us who watch the housing market were also concerned with so-called 'Jumbo' loan limits that were also about to expire. With sales already slowing down, our local
real estate market would have been heavily impacted if the maximum size of government backed loans were allowed to revert back to about $625,000 from the current limit of nearly $730,000.
Keeping the current conforming rates through the end of 2011 will allow more than 60,000 borrowers to qualify...most of them in expensive areas such as ours. Buyers who do manage to secure these loans will pay a slight premium in interest, currently about .8 percentage points, but buyers and sellers need all the help that they can get, and we are happy to see this bill pass.