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Applications for California’s down payment assistance program for first-time homebuyers are now open. The state-funded program, called Dream For All, will be giving out $250 million to assist thousands of first-time homebuyers this year. Buyers can receive up to $150,000 towards their purchase.

Buying a home has become increasingly out of reach for Americans, who are grappling with a double whammy of high interest rates and surging home values. In his State of the Union address on Thursday, President Joe Biden proposed a new tax credit that would provide $10,000 to first-time home buyers. Biden is also proposing a separate $10,000 tax credit for current homeowners who sell their "starter home" in order to jump into a bigger house. That could help melt a real estate market in which homeowners who locked in low mortgage rates during the pandemic and are hesitant to...

A new Biden administration rule that is set to go into effect will force homeowners with good credit to pay more on their mortgages in order to subsidize loans to high-risk borrowers.According to a new, insane Biden Admin rule, people with good credit will be assessed higher mortgage rates to subsidize riskier loans to people with lower credit. Homeowners will now be punished for being responsible.Biden's attack on success in the name of "equity" continues.

A Biden administration rule is set to take effect that will force good-credit home buyers to pay more for their mortgages to subsidize loans to higher-risk borrowers.Experts believe that borrowers with a credit score of about 680 would pay around $40 more per month on a $400,000 mortgage under rules from the Federal Housing Finance Agency that go into effect May 1, costs that will help subsidize people with lower credit ratings also looking for a mortgage, according to a Washington Times report Tuesday."The changes do not make sense. Penalizing borrowers with larger down payments and credit scores will not...

Mortgage rates moved higher again last week, pushing buyers back to the sidelines just as the spring housing market is supposed to be heating up. Mortgage applications to purchase a home dropped 6% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. Volume was 44% lower than the same week one year ago, and is now sitting at a 28-year low. This as the average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($726,200 or less) increased to 6.71% from 6.62%, with points rising to 0.77 from 0.75 (including the...

The housing environment is so unaffordable that certain banks lost money for each mortgage they financed last year — the first time that's ever happened, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. In 2022, independent mortgage banks and mortgage subsidiaries of chartered banks banks lost an average $301 for every mortgage they financed, the MBA said in a recent report. That represents a 113% decrease from last year's average income of $2,339 per mortgage, and is the first time that banks posted negative profits for financing home loans since the MBA began recording profits in 2008. That's largely due to the...

A new federal Biden rule will force homebuyers with good credit scores to pay higher mortgage rates and fees so they can subsidize people with riskier credit ratings who want to buy a home. It’s wealth redistribution and will be a disaster since risky homebuyers usually default. The feds will also temporarily ignore lenders’ debt-to-income ratio. It determines if homebuyers can afford to pay their mortgages each month. The fees are allegedly minimal for now, but you know how that goes. The fee changes will go into effect May 1 as part of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s push for...

A Biden administration rule is set to take effect that will force good-credit home buyers to pay more for their mortgages to subsidize loans to higher-risk borrowers. Experts believe that borrowers with a credit score of about 680 would pay around $40 more per month on a $400,000 mortgage under rules from the Federal Housing Finance Agency that go into effect May 1, costs that will help subsidize people with lower credit ratings also looking for a mortgage, according to a Washington Times report Tuesday. "The changes do not make sense. Penalizing borrowers with larger down payments and credit scores...

Just when you think the Biden administration can’t possibly have any more awful ideas, his team rolls out a plan to punish Americans with high credit scores to subsidize high-risk homebuyers. On Wednesday, The Washington Times reported that starting May 1, Americans purchasing a new home or refinancing their existing mortgage can expect to pay higher mortgage rates and monthly fees if they have a higher credit score. Americans with lower credit scores and smaller down payments will be given better rates. In other words, Biden is essentially stealing from the rich to give to the needy by adjusting the...

Homebuyers with good credit scores will soon encounter a costly surprise: a new federal rule forcing them to pay higher mortgage rates and fees to subsidize people with riskier credit ratings who are also in the market to buy houses. Lenders and real estate agents say the changes will frustrate homebuyers with high credit scores and homeowners seeking to refinance because the rule punishes them for their relatively strong financial positions. “The changes do not make sense. Penalizing borrowers with larger down payments and credit scores will not go over well,” Ian Wright, a senior loan officer at Bay Equity...

Despite a recent softening in the US housing market, a combination of rising borrowing costs and still-high prices have put prospective first-time homebuyers in a serious bind.How times have changed...For the first time since records began, first-time homebuyers made up the smallest share of sales last year at 26%. And as we noted on Thursday, a surge in mortgage rates above 7% have sent homebuyer applications to a 28-year-low across all age groups.Now, as the spring homebuying season approaches, tight inventory and uncomfortably high interest rates mean that the American dream can only be achieved by those with high-paying jobs,...

Editorial Note: The content of this article is based on the author’s opinions and recommendations alone. It may not have been reviewed, commissioned or otherwise endorsed by any of our network partners. Though many Generation Zers — those born between 1997 and 2012 — are children or young teens, some older members are attending college, starting careers and buying homes for the first time.But where are Gen Zers looking to buy? To answer, LendingTree analyzed mortgage offers given to adult Gen Z users of the LendingTree platform across the nation’s 50 largest metros from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31,...

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee wants to help you buy your first home. So much so, in fact, that the city is now willing to lend certain first-time home buyers up to $200,000 toward the down payment on their first house or condominium in San Francisco. That’s real money, but in a city where the median sales price was $925,000 in February, is $200,000 enough to make a difference to low-income and middle-class residents being priced out of the city by the tech boom? […] The new limit, which goes into effect this month, will allow some home buyers to...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- More than 1,200 prison inmates, including 241 serving life sentences, defrauded the government of $9.1 million in tax credits reserved for first-time homebuyers, according to a Treasury Department report released Wednesday. Treasury's inspector general also found that thousands of people filed multiple claims or made claims outside the allotted time period. In all, more than $28 million was improperly doled out. The Internal Revenue Service program at issue is meant to stimulate the housing market by giving tax credits of as much as $8,000 to qualifying first-time home buyers. "Additional controls are necessary to address erroneous...

HOUSTON — The effects of Hurricane Ike and simultaneous economic downturn affecting Houston’s real estate market in November 2008 continue to distort year-over-year comparisons which reflect yet another month of double-digit increases. However, longer-term analysis aimed at gleaning a more realistic view of market conditions shows November 2009 real estate activity to be comparable to that seen at the cusp of the recession, in the fall of 2007. November marked the third straight month in which property sales volume and pricing recorded gains. According to the latest monthly data compiled by the Houston Association of REALTORS® (HAR), November volume of...

Will the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit be extended, or possibly even expanded? Maybe… Or maybe not. It’s politics after all. Currently there are FIVE bills flitting about Washington, D.C. that would, assuming they are signed into law, either extend or expand the currently existing $8,000 homebuyer tax credit due to end on December 1, 2009. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) introduced Senate Bill S1230 – the Home Buyer Tax Credit Act of 2009 – on June 10. Senator Isakson created the original $15,000 homebuyer tax credit that morphed into the current $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit that became law when the...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas real estate agent looking to add more bang to her business is offering clients in law enforcement a free Glock pistol if they buy a home from her. Julie Upton, a Houston-area real estate agent, spurned traditional buyer incentives like free gasoline cards or home improvement store gift certificates. Instead, she placed an advertisement offering a pistol with the purchase of any home worth at least $150,000 in the city police department's monthly publication, "Badge & Gun." The free guns are only for those in law enforcement, said Upton, who is married to a police...

A little over a year ago, buyers couldn't wait to sign contracts to purchase homes. Now, many can't wait to get out of them. With real-estate prices falling around the country and even pro-industry trade groups predicting further declines over the next year, buyers are backing away from deals in droves. At a semiannual housing forecast conference last week in Washington, D.C., economists reported that contract-cancellation rates for big builders were running around 40% -- about twice as high as last year's levels. Anecdotally, real-estate professionals say they are seeing a similar dynamic in existing-home sales.

SACRAMENTO (AP) - In a state where half the houses for sale cost almost $500,000 and low income means a $95,000 salary in Marin County, the state's affordable housing bank is throwing a new life raft to residents struggling to buy their first homes. That's a fixed-rate, 35-year loan - an alternative to the mortgage industry's conventional 30-year loan - offering buyers interest-only payments the first five years. Though more costly in the long run, it's aimed at those who can't initially afford a full payment, and fear waiting until the state's housing market rises still higher, state housing officials...

A UC Irvine grad hopes to put the dream of owning a home more within reach by cutting property taxes. Freshman Assemblywoman Audra Strickland proposes to give first-time homebuyers a 14-fold increase in the homeowners exemption. Other government officials say the idea may be too complicated and too costly to pass into law. Strickland, 30, who graduated from UC Irvine in 1996 with a political science degree, acknowledges that her bill still needs tinkering. But she believes the problems can be ironed out. "With the prices of houses skyrocketing, this was a way ... more people can own a home,"...