National Closing Center

Archive for the ‘Home ownership’ Category

In much of the English speaking world, affordability is often conflated with cheapness and lack of economic competitiveness. Real estate developers, and the press that covers them, instead revel in driving prices to the stratosphere, identifying out of reach values with some definition of economic good, writes Joel Kotkin in the 7th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey.

But what might prove a benefit to individual owners or speculators may not be so wonderful for most families or the broader society. Over the past decade, even after the housing
bubble implosion, the ratio of housing prices to incomes has shown a steady increase. This process has been most evident in markets such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Boston but also occurred, particularly during the bubble, in traditional growth regions such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and across Florida. All in all, real estate in the United States looks quite affordable, compared to markets in other English speaking countries.

This phenomena, as the authors of the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey make clear, also extends outside the United States. Places such as greater London, Vancouver, Toronto all experience high ratios of housing cost to income. But perhaps most remarkable has been the shift in Australia, once the exemplar of modestly priced, high quality middle class housing, to now the most unaffordable housing market in the English speaking world.

You can download the entire report here.

National Closing Center was mostly business-to-business type of company. We used to provide short sale processing platform and negotiations services to real estate agents and brokers at no cost. Ultimately, homeowners were the ones who benefited from our services, but we used to work with them indirectly, through real estate agents. Now this is about to change.

NCC will continue to work with agents and provide them with top-notch short sale processing services. This is our primary focus. However, on top of this, we are beginning to work directly with distressed home owners, offering them the power of our network, experience and expertise of our members. Needless to say, all our services will remain free of charge for homeowners, as well as Realtors.

Just last week we have launched a targeted website www.chicagoforeclosuresquad.com with the intention to reach home owners who might be considering a short sale in Chicago and its suburbs, from Downers Grove to Highland Park, from Homewood to Berwyn and Cicero, from Wheaton to Orland Park and beyond. In addition, we have made our own website more homeowner friendly buy adding a page dedicated to homeowners: http://www.processingshortsale.com/homeowners/Both the website and the web page have plenty of information on short sales, why is it important to avoid foreclosure, how to rebuild your credit, etc.

This is also a great opportunity for real estate agents and a serious incentive to join our network. With every new homeowner looking to execute a short sale we will need a listing agent and a buyer with the buying agent. Rest assured we will turn to our members FIRST.

As always, we’re grateful for your support! Please check NCC out, refer us to your fellow agents and homeowners that could use our network for a fresh start.

According to a report written by FBR Capital Marketers, government is abandoning what has been considered an epitome of American dream, an idea that everyone (or almost everyone) is entitled at some point to own a single family house.

Congress wants Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and whatever ends up replacing them to invest more in financing apartment building construction and sales, says FBR Capital Markets’ financial policy group, in a report to clients Monday.

The government’s withdrawal from the dream of home ownership for almost everyone may be bad news for mass-market homebuilders and families trying to buy a first house.

It’s good news for apartment investors such as Morgan Properties, investor Mitchell Morgan’s King of Prussia-based company, the biggest private rental landlord in New Jersey. They’ll be able to build new and buy existing units cheaper, confirms Paul J. Miller Jr., a former Philadelphia Federal Reserve examiner and coauthor of the report.

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