Lower Your Payments at Park Square Homes

Park Square homes builds new construction properties in the Central Florida from townhomes to single family homes. To help buyers reduce their monthly mortgage payment, the are offering no HOA fees for one year, if you purchase by March 31, 2010.

Limited Food Venues at Lake Nona

Lake Nona the fastest growing area of Orlando, located south east about 10 minute from Orlando International Airport growing due to corporate growth.  This "Medical City" was expected housing for 34,000 residents by 2020, is seeing slower growth in the restaurants and retail market than expected.  Lake Nona will have expansive outdoor mall like the Waterford Lakes Shopping.  For those considering to buy in this area, would be good investment even though the areas conveniences are not fully in place yet.

Orange County Foreclosure Auctions Online

Orange County Foreclosures Auctions is handle in a room with a small group of bidders, but the foreclosure process starts in the judicial system and has 32,065 pending cases.  To move this back log along, Orange County will be implementing online auction.  Palm Beach and Miami-Dade have online auctions.  Palm Beach went from 20-30 bidders present, to 900 online bidders.  Orange County anticipates this will help facilitate sales. In addition, the Bankers Association is proposing to move to non-judical foreclosure process like 37 other states.  This mean the process will be handled outside the court system and will increase process speeds to 3 month to 12 months to complete, as compared to several years.  HOA are in favor of this as owners stay in homes for years without paying any HOA fees, this means faster sales and HOA fee collection.  In addition, these abandoned, non-maintained homes will be less of an eyesore, if filing process is quicker.  For full article, please click here.

Orlando Highest Vacancy Rate

Its hard to believe that Orlando had the highest vacancy rate out of 75 metropolitan cities in 3rd quarter 2009 according to a recent article in the Orlando Sentinel.  This includes vacant houses, condos, and apartments.  As result rental rates have declined 5 to 6% in the last year.  Downtown Orlando and areas close to major employers are doing better than other areas.  Despite the large vacany rates, Orlando housing prices are now more affordable to buyers who are thinking of no longer renting.

Condo Financing Come Back

When a buyer wants to buy a condo and is financing that condo, its like finding a needle in haystack after narrowing down the buyers parameters.  This is because all lenders regardless of downpayments do not want to lend on condos unless the condo community meets all the strict Fannie Mae guidelines.  With condo communities running into financial challenges after owners stop paying their HOA fees has caused problems for financing approvals, and resulting declining values.

Florida one of the hardest hit condo markets in the nation, because of this Fannie Mae has lauched a new program to "loosen the reins" on their financing requirements.  However, there is a task team that is reviewing condo communities on a case-by-case basis rendering them a "special approval" only for the State of Florida.  This is being done in effort to resurge the condo market.  Even though condo market was hardest hit in Orlando, Miami seems to be the primary market.  In fact, you can go onto efanniemae.com to review approved communities, and I am not seeing many new communities that did not already exist to the Orlando list.

Once this takes off and puts more condo communities in the market where buyers can get financing, condo sales and values will start to rise in these communities.  If you are a cash investor, its important you do not wait to buy as volume of inexpensive properties will be lower as the market opens up.

This is a positive steps to bringing an affordable housing option again to primary home owners.  However, until a buyer gets under contract and community gets under review for financing, a buyer may not know upfront whether community will pass for their financing approval.  This article can be read here at Orlando Sentinel.

Home Prices Stabilize

ONLY 2 MONTH LEFT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF FREE MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT.  Yes, you maybe eligible for the home buyer tax credit. This credit is getting buyers into the market place, and helping to stablize home prices.

Buyers who have a contract in place to purchase a primary residence by April 30, 2010, have until June 30, 2010, to finalize the transaction to qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time buyers and $6,500 for repeat buyers.

Yun, NAR Economist, projects the extended and expanded tax credit will encourage 2.4 million households to take the credit in 2010.

“While new-home sales will remain low due to a lack of construction, existing-home sales are projected to rise to around 5.6 million in 2010,” Yun says. Last year there were 5.16 million existing-home sales.

He added that one of the greatest benefits of rising sales will be firming home prices.

“For several months now we’ve been seeing stabilization in all of the home price measures as inventory is pulled down,” Yun says. “As a result, the housing wealth for many middle class families has begun to stabilize.”

To get started on finding the best home for your budget, contact Buyers Broker of Florida.

New Buyer Incentives for Fannie Mae Bank Owned Properties

FNMA released a limited time incentive on Home Path properties to encourage the purchase of REO properties. FNMA is offering this new incentive between January 28, 2010 and April 30, 2010.

During the offer and negotiation of an REO property, buyers will be offered an incentive of up to 3.5% of the final sales price to be used towards one of the following:

• Closing costs
• The purchase of new Whirlpool appliances by Fannie Mae
• A mix of closing costs and appliances, at the buyer's discretion, up to the maximum 3.5%

To be eligible for the incentive,
• offer must be accepted on or after January 28, 2010,
• property sale must fund before May 1, 2010, and
• buyer must be an owner-occupant

To speak with a Home Path Mortgage Broker Contact:  JSchiffrin@ephmc.com

If you are in the market to find Home Path eligible properties, please contact Buyers Broker of Florida.

Orlando Real Estate December Market Statistics

Orlando Regional Realtor Association has published the market statistics for December 2009.  Read more about how the median price of homes is inching up at Orlando Regional Realtor Association
Website

• Average Mortgage Rate:  5.03%
• Inventory:  15,549
• New Listings:  3,485
• New Contracts:  2,984
• Under Contract:  8,163
• Back on Market:  875
• Expired:  1,419
• Withdrawn:  916
• Sales Closed:  2,194
• Average Days on Market:  91 Days

For more historical months, please click here.