We bought a house in October that we plan on being in for a looooooooong time. If you can swing it, it seems like a good time to buy as buyers definitely have leverage. Either way, the best thing you can possibly do is buy a crappy house in a great neighborhood.

-Brian

 

Why does everyone think its a good idea to buy on the way down? Little hint, declining prices does not mean its a buyers market. It means that prices are adjusting back to the mean. Its a buyers market when it goes below the historical average, which happens in all boom and bust cycles.

Ive asked this before but why buy now if you can get it cheaper later? Not just a little cheaper, but hundreds of thousands of dollars cheaper.

 

It is a good idea to buy. You won't get houses hundereds of thousand cheaper, unless the country is literally collapsing rapidly.

There won't be more than a 5-7% drop from where it's at. Now is a great time..............................

however we need to realize the feds just bought up large ca bank and some others.......

so hopefully they will selling their houses for cheap.......so maybe there will be spectacular deals.........not they won't be abudant.

My question for you guys is this, I know there are some first time buyer dp/and loan programs. Can you point me in the right direction to get this thing going/see whats realisitic?

 

It depends on the location you are looking at. Your loan officer (a well experienced one) should know all those programs in the areas you are looking at.

Leo

 

Thats my point, how do I found a well experienced honest loan officer?

 

It is. http://ml-implode.com/

There is some serious denial out there. Wait until there is a large bank failure (WAMU), **** is really going to hit the fan then.

 

If you're still interested in looking for a home...I can get you prequalified and help you shop around for a good program...believe me, there's still a lot of good available packages out there. Nothing wrong with IO (Interest only), imo. If it doesn't work out for you at least you tried..nothing wrong in finding out what you can qualify for.

*As for downpayment, 100% financing is long gone and the minimum that banks will accept now is 3%...

pm or call me, 415.699.1797

 

It's going to drop more when interest rates climb, which is coming sooner rather than later with the current inflation. Most of the people in the Bay are borrowing up to their eye-brows to buy a house, which means high interest rate is going to hurt us more than anywhere else.

Some will say there are a lot of rich people, Google, dual-income tech couples pulling in $200k+ who can still buy houses. Yeah, they are buying in Palo Alto, Cupertino, Saratoga etc where the entry is $1M+. If you are looking at that level, good for you and I don't know why you need advice on housing from a car board.

 

Just start talking to different loan officers. Don't necessary have to provide documentations, but just provide numbers. You have every right to interview your loan officer before you commit.

Do as much homework as possible. Know how the loan process works and get your terminologies down. I've interviewed 5 loan officers and went with 3 (yeah I've refinanced a few). 2 were so clueless, I could do the numbers off the top of my head way faster than them. 1 was okay, about the same level of knowledge as me, good rate, but working as part-time. 1 was VERY clueless as well, but extremely good rate (credit union). Then 1 was pretty good and was actually able to give some good suggestions and was there at the signing. However, business is business, I still had to watch my own a**. I am in the San Jose area, if that's what you are looking for, I can provide you the contact informations to those (really just 2 of them) loan officers. LMK!

Leo

 

oh, and I have bunch of links I saved when I was doing my research... PM me your email and i'll send you the links...

 

If you don't own a house yet, realistically, there's not a better time to buy one except yesterday! As for interest rates rising? They rise and fall through the years but do you see people stop from buying or selling? Bottomline, if you can afford the payment, get yourself a property where you can see yourself living in for the next 10-15 yrs and stay on a 30 year fixed program. History shows that the real estate market is cyclical and no matter what happens, if you lose property value or interest rate go sky high...as long as you're on a 30 year fixed program and you can afford the payment then you have nothing to lose.

Same story if you're thinking of investing in real estate...again, if you can afford it (long term), you'll NEVER lose.

 

PM LoanPro!