Melbourne Florida Homes for Sale

Buying a home may seem a daunting task, but a little preparation will ease the way. Check out these 10 common pitfalls of first-time homebuyers before starting your search.

The declining home values that are plaguing homeowners are just one of the factors creating an opportunity for prospective homebuyers.

Standard & Poor’s latest Case-Shiller index, which tracks home prices across 20 major U.S. cities, reported that values dropped 19% in January from a year earlier.

Those depressed values, combined with near-record-low mortgage rates and government incentives (an $8,000 first-time home buyers’ tax credit included in the stimulus bill), are luring more first-time home buyers into the market. Indeed, a recent Real Estate survey found that more than three-quarters (78%) of potential first-time home buyers say now is a good time to buy.

If you agree, be aware that buying a home comes with plenty of potential missteps. Here are 10 all-too-common mistakes first-timers make.

1. Not knowing how much house you can afford.
Many novice homebuyers spend a lot of time researching homes — comparing kitchen layouts and backyard square footage — but very little time researching their financing options. One of the first things buyers should do is talk to a qualified lender and get preapproved for a mortgage, says Claire Clark, senior vice president of business development at Prudential California Realty. Without first figuring out how much house you can afford, you risk falling in love with one you can’t.

2. Assuming foreclosures are great deals.
Just because the previous owner owed $450,000 on a house before the bank took it over doesn’t mean it’s worth that much now. Values have slipped significantly, says Jay Michael, partner at Estate Property Group, a Chicago real-estate brokerage, so you may not be getting the bargain you think with a foreclosure. Also, most homes owned by lenders or banks have been sitting vacant for months and may have been vandalized. That could require extensive renovation or repair. Weigh the costs of fixing up the property against the savings you’ll likely reap by buying a lower-priced foreclosed home.

3. Letting your true feelings show.
No matter how much you’ve fallen in love with a house, don’t let the seller’s agent in on it. Otherwise, they will gain the upper hand in negotiations.

4. Failing to find a good buyer’s agent.
Landing a mortgage is tough these days. So buyers should rely heavily on knowledgeable agents to help them get their finances in order, says Michael. After all, buyer’s agents have a fiduciary responsibility to the buyer exclusively — and should be looking out for their best interests. Start and end your search here. I am a buyer’s agent that has been placing people in homes that fit their needs. Interview me and other candidates about our experience; ask if they’ve worked with first-time buyers before and what kind of service you’ll get from them.

5. Underestimating the costs of owning a home.
Whether it’s a rusty pipe or a leaky roof, things go wrong and need to be fixed. Many homebuyers don’t anticipate the additional costs for repair and maintenance, or for an increase in utility costs, says Erin Baehr, CFP and president of Baehr Family Financial. Consider the age of your new home and how well it’s been treated by the previous owners in your budget. Be prepared to set aside a small percentage (1% at most) of the home’s purchase price annually for repairs and upkeep.

6. Failing to budget for property taxes.
Property taxes — and the likelihood that they’ll climb over the course of your time in the house — should be factored into any home-buying budget, says Baehr. To get an idea of how much you’ll be paying, call the local assessor’s office or talk to people in the neighborhood.

7. Assuming your first offer will get accepted.
As home prices get even more affordable, competition is bound to heat up. “You can’t assume you’ll walk in there, make the offer and get it,” says Clark. Try not to get discouraged if you lose out on the first — or second — house you make an offer on.

8. Skipping the inspection.
Before signing anything, hire a professional inspector, says Justin Lopatin, a mortgage planner with American Street Mortgage Company. The seller isn’t likely to tell you there’s mold in the basement or the walls are poorly insulated. Lopatin advises buyers to find and hire their own inspector — independently of the realtor — to ensure there’s no conflict of interest.

9. Doing too much too fast.
Some buyers want to make the house their own right away, says Baehr. They overextend themselves on credit to do so, and assume the improvement will pay for itself by increasing the home’s value. But that’s not always the case — especially in today’s market. Instead, buyers need to exhibit patience and make changes over time.

10. Failing to include a contingency clause in the contract.
A mortgage financing contingency clause protects you if, say, you lose your job and the loan falls through or the appraisal price comes in over the purchase price. Should one of these events occur, the buyer gets back the money he used to secure the property. Without the clause, he can lose that money and still be obligated to buy the house, says Lopatin.

Looking to buy a house? Make sure you know what will truly hurt and help your case with lenders — and don’t fall for the misinformation mortgage lenders can spread.

By Liz Pulliam Weston

There’s a lot of misinformation being propagated about what does and doesn’t hurt your credit score, and much of it is coming from sources who should know better: mortgage lenders.

Now, let me say first that I’ve worked with several excellent lenders who really knew their stuff and kept up to date, not only on loan trends but on the information that’s available about credit scoring. That’s important, because the FICO credit score, in its various permutations, is used in three-quarters of all mortgage lending.

But what I heard from several lenders responding to my recent column, “8 big mortgage mistakes and how to avoid them,” was the kind of bad advice that can cost you money and keep you from getting the best loans.

So if your mortgage broker gives you any of the following advice, take a tip from me: Find a new broker.

Closing accounts can help your credit score
No, no, no. For the umpteenth time: Closing accounts can never help your credit score, and may hurt it.

Every time I write this, I get more e-mail from people who say their mortgage lenders told them exactly the opposite. It’s true that having too many open accounts can hurt your score. But once you’ve opened the accounts, you’ve done the damage. You can’t repair it by shutting the account, and you may actually make things worse.

The credit score looks at the difference between your available credit and what you’re using. Shut down accounts, and your total available credit shrinks, making your balances loom larger, which typically hurts your score.

The score also tracks the length of your credit history. Shutting older accounts can also make your credit history look younger than it actually is, which can hurt your score.

Of course, credit scores aren’t the only thing lenders look at when making decisions. They typically consider other factors, such as your income, assets, employment history and credit limits. Mortgage lenders in particular might look at your total available credit and ask you to close a few accounts as a condition for getting a loan.

But if your goal is to improve your credit score, you generally shouldn’t close accounts in advance of such a request. Instead, pay down your credit card debt. That’s something that actually can improve your score.

Checking your FICO score can hurt your credit
Unfortunately, I heard this one from a mortgage broker who is otherwise pretty smart. He was confused about which type of inquiries hurt your score and which don’t.

Applying for new credit is generally what hurts your score. Ordering a copy of your own credit report or credit score doesn’t count. Those mass inquiries made by credit card lenders, who are trying to decide whether to send you an offer for a pre-approved card, also aren’t going to hurt you, either — unless you actually take them up on their offers.

If you want to minimize the damage from credit inquiries, make sure that when you shop for a mortgage you do so in a fairly short period of time. The FICO score treats multiple inquiries in a 45-day period as just one inquiry and ignores all inquiries made within 30 days prior to the day the score is computed.

For most people, one inquiry will generally knock no more than 5 points off a score (and scores typically run from 300 to 850, so that’s not a big percentage).

Credit counseling will hurt your score as much as a bankruptcy
The current FICO formula ignores any reference to credit counseling that may be in your file. That’s been true for the last three years, after researchers at Fair, Isaac, the company that created the FICO scoring system, noticed that people getting credit counseling didn’t default on their debts any more often than anyone else.

Your ability to get a loan could still be hurt by credit counseling, however. Your current lenders may report you as late, because you’re not paying what you originally owed or because your credit counselor isn’t sending your payments in on time. Late payments do hurt your credit score.

Lenders consider other factors besides credit scores in making their decisions, as well. The factors they look at can vary widely. Most want to know your income, for example. Some want to know how much savings you have or whether you’re a homeowner. Some will find credit counseling disturbing, while others see it as a good sign.

The mortgage lenders who don’t like credit counseling generally treat its enrollees the same as if they had filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Chapter 13 is the kind of bankruptcy that requires a repayment plan and is looked at somewhat more favorably than Chapter 7, which allows you to erase many of your debts. You might still be able to qualify for a loan from one of these lenders, although your interest rates will almost certainly be higher than if you had perfect credit.

If you plan to get a mortgage soon, and you’re not already behind on your debts, it’s probably smart to steer clear of credit counseling. If you’re already in trouble, however, a good credit counseling agency might be able to help you get back on track.

Your FICO isn’t the only score you need to check
This came from lenders who thought the FICO score is offered by only one of the three credit bureaus: Equifax.

In reality, all three of the bureaus offer FICO credit scores using the formula developed by Fair, Isaac, but they each give the scores a different name. At Equifax, the FICO is known as the Beacon credit score. At TransUnion, it’s called Empirica. At Experian, it goes by the unwieldy title of “Experian/Fair, Isaac Risk Model.”

Complicating matters further is that you’ll probably have three different scores from the three different bureaus, largely because the bureaus don’t all share the same data. One bureau may list more accounts for you than another, for example, and the differences (in types of accounts, payment histories, credit limits and balances) will be reflected in the score that bureau computes for you.

Because of those differences, it does make sense to pull and examine your credit reports from all three bureaus before you apply for a big loan like a mortgage. Many mortgage lenders take the middle score from the three bureaus when making their decisions, so fixing errors in all three reports before you shop for a loan is smart.

You can get two of your FICO scores from myFico.com. Experian no longer has an agreement with myFico.com to deliver monitored reports. You would have to get that report separately from Experian.

But the ways you improve your credit score are the same in any case: Correct errors. Pay your bills on time. Pay down your debt. And apply for credit sparingly.

April 3 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is delivering what he promised five months ago, record- low mortgage rates and a refinancing boom that’s putting cash in consumers’ pockets.

Fixed 30-year mortgage rates fell to a record low for the second consecutive week last week, hitting 4.78 percent, Freddie Mac said yesterday in a statement. The rates are the lowest in records dating to 1971, and come after Bernanke told Congress in November that helping the most creditworthy borrowers was essential to reviving the economy.

Mortgage applications in the U.S. rose for the fourth straight week last week as a decline in borrowing costs spurred homeowners to refinance, while purchases of new houses unexpectedly rose in February. The Fed’s effort to bring down fixed rates may give consumers as much as $25 billion, said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com.

“It certainly gives further fuel to consumer spending,” said Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “It puts more money into circulation.”

The extra cash may help boost first-quarter consumer spending by 1 percent to 1.5 percent, said Barton Biggs, managing partner at New York-based hedge fund Traxis Partners LLC. Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

Creditworthy Borrowers

Bernanke signaled the Fed’s effort to bring down fixed mortgage rates in Nov. 18 testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Financial Services.

“It is imperative that all banking organizations and their regulators work together to ensure that the needs of creditworthy borrowers are met,” he said.

One week later, the Fed said it would buy up to $500 billion in home-loan securities, causing the biggest one-day drop in mortgage rates in at least seven years, according to Bankrate.com. On March 18, the central bank almost tripled the size of the program to up to $1.25 trillion in purchases during 2009. The intent is to lower rates and make real estate financing easier to get, the Fed said.

The plan to buy mortgage bonds this year is succeeding where $11.6 trillion of government lending, spending, and guarantees so far have failed.

‘Successful Effort’

“This has been the most successful effort, at least so far in this crisis, to shore up the economy,” said Zandi.

Bernanke’s mortgage purchase program may help curb a recession that is in its second year and being driven by the highest jobless rate in a quarter century and shrinking household wealth.

“If you throw enough money at one credit market, you will bring down the price,” said Gerald O’Driscoll, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former vice president of the Dallas Federal Reserve. “They are targeting the mortgage market in an attempt to speed the process of establishing a floor in the price of housing.”

Homeowners who refinance with a half-point drop in fixed rates may save $150 a month on a $300,000 mortgage, said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Securities Inc. in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a former Fed economist.

Home Prices

Cheaper financing may also help spark a turnaround in the housing market. Sales of previously owned homes rose 5.1 percent to 4.72 million at an annualized pace in February from the prior month as low mortgage rates spurred demand, the National Association of Realtors said. The NAR’s affordability index rose to a record in January, helped by lower home values and mortgage rates. The median U.S. home price in February was $165,400, the NAR said in a March 23 report, down 28 percent from its 2006 high.

Bernanke cited lower mortgage rates in testimony in February as evidence that Fed policies were working, noting that rates had fallen “nearly 1 percentage point” since the program was announced.

On April 1, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Sandra Pianalto said the Fed’s program was resulting in “encouraging signs” for the economy. Besides falling rates, “we are also beginning to see a resurgence in refinancing activity in the residential mortgage markets, spurred on by these lower rates,” she said.

The bankers’ group boosted its forecast for 2009 home-loan originations by $800 billion to $2.78 trillion last month as a wave of refinancing and low interest rates spur homeowners to seek out new loans. Refinancing will increase to $1.96 trillion in 2009 and purchase originations will total $821 billion, the group said.

The London interbank offered rate, or Libor, for three- month dollar loans dropped to 1.17 percent yesterday, down from 1.43 percent at the start of the year, showing banks have become more willing to lend.

TED Spread

The so-called TED spread, the gap between what banks and the Treasury pay to borrow money for three months, shrank to 96 basis points from 1.35 percentage points on Dec. 31. It touched a yearly low of 91 basis points on Feb. 2. The gauge reached a high of 4.64 percentage points in October, up from 1.35 percentage points on Sept. 12, the last trading day before Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy.

U.S. home prices fell 6.3 percent in January from a year ago, the smallest decline in five months, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington.

“We have seen evidence that home sales are bottoming,” said Jim O’Sullivan, senior economist with UBS Securities LLC, in Stamford, Connecticut. “This should be positive.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Kathleen M. Howley in Boston at kmhowley@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 3, 2009 00:01 EDT

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