FHA Raises Minimum Down Payment Requirement for First Time Home Buyers

As part of a a $300 billion expansion of Federal Housing Administration loan guarantee programs, Congress decided to raise the minimum down payment requirement for FHA loans and kill seller funded down payment assistance programs. Previously a home buyer needed at least a 3% down payment to purchase a home using an FHA insured loan. Under the new bill, home buyers will have to come up with 3.5%. Clearly not the kind of help that first time home buyers were expecting, these new changes are sure to take at least 30% of first time home buyers out of the market. Most local boards of Realtors already have more mls listings than can be sold anytime soon, so these changes are sure to make it even more difficult to sell a home.

The seller funded down payment assistance is set to end on October 1st so if you are a first time home buyer who can't purchase a home without the aid, you'll want to get busy as you have less than 60 days left.

Seller Concessions Help First Time Home Buyers

According to the NAR, National Association of Realtors, 45% of first time home buyers opt for a mortgage with the lowest cash required. When negotiating the price of a home Realtors can ask for a price reduction and/or seller concessions (seller paid closing costs). Most lenders allow up to 3% seller paid closing costs which is generally enough to cover everything. So you and your real estate agent will determine the price you want to pay for the home and add 3% to that number. For instance if the price you want to offer is $200,000, you would add $6,000 or 3% to that number as your offer, making your offer $206,000, and ask the seller to pay 3% in closing costs. Your loan amount and monthly payment would be slightly higher, $36.16 more per month at a 30 year fixed rate of 6.25%, but this will save you from having to come in with $6,000 out-of-pocket, which for many first time home buyers is the difference between being able to buy a home or not.

If you are looking for homes any where in the US and would like free access to all the MLS listings in your area, visit www.mlsmaps.com.

For more information regarding Minnesota FHA loans and Minnesota down payment assistance programs, visit www.firsthomeguide.com

Minnesota Foreclosure Mini-Tours

A spontaneous video tour of some fine foreclosed homes
in Minneapolis area

If you are interested in buying a fabulous foreclosure, and would like to get in on one of our area tours, please contact me. We are planning several "Foreclosure Power Tours" through our Minnesota Exit Realty affiliates. We will target specific areas of the Twin Cities, and will be accompanied by experts in the real estate industry who can guide you through the houses, and answer your questions about finding and financing foreclosures in Minnesota. It will be fun....and it's FREE.

3BR Townhouse In Plymouth Is a Real Deal

Our Newest TownHome Listing For Sale In Plymouth Is A Steal! Call Chris at 612-310-1092 to set up a private showing.

MLS Listings added to First Home Guide

First Time Home Buyers can now access MLS listings in most major metropolitan areas through First Home Guide. This recent addition to our first time home buyer web site provides our first time home buyer visitors with access to over 2 million homes for sale. First Home Guide has partnered with MLS Maps for most of the MLS listings, but we are also letting agents who have posted their property listings on First Home Guide add a link from each of their property listings to their MLS search page.

Stay tuned as First Home Guide is adding new real estate agents and their listings everyday.

Dallas Real Estate added to First Home Guide

First Home Guide is proud to announce the addition of Dallas Real estate to our home search area. In addition to the featured property listings, Dallas first time home buyers can also access the entire MLS and access information on over 50,000 Dallas homes for sale in the Dallas Fort Worth metropolitan area.

Dallas home buyers can also view our online first time home buyers seminar 24hours a day

Minnesota MLS Listings Maps Improve

To find the newest Minnesota MLS listings, simply type in your search term (ie minneapolis mls, or condos minneapolis).
Click on the search results to get started in your search for Minnesota MLS Listings

Happy Home Hunting!

Chris

User-Friendly Minnesota MLS Listings Search Map Available

Virtually All Minneapolis Real Estate Listings

Save time and effort searching for properties online using the following tools:

SearchSaverSM allows you to:

* Save your searches and receive email notifications whenever new listings match
* Choose email notifications for only new listings or for new and updated listings
* Save as many searches as you like

Favorites allows you to:

* Save listings to your Favorites folder with one click
* Email your Favorites to your Realtor, a co-buyer, or a friend
* Save as many Favorites as you like

Check out http://www.AllMinneapolisRealEstate.com

First Time Home Buyers Get Free Access to Home Listings

First time home buyers can now access over 2 million homes for sale at www.firsthomeguide.com. First Home Guide has linked home buyers with real estate agents who display their local MLS listings on web sites in over 150 major metropolitan areas and cities. This is free to first time home buyers and gives them access to thousands of homes for sale in their local markets.

First home Guide will be adding an online First Time Home Buyer Seminar in late January in response to all the inquiries from first time home buyers around the country. Home buyers will be able to access the seminar anytime from anywhere and pause it and return whenever time permits. This is a general first home buyer seminar and First Home Guide will be adding more specific seminars in the near future on topics like FHA Loans, buying foreclosures, credit repair and more.

If you have an idea for a first time home buyer topic that you would like us to cover, please email us at info@firsthomeguide.com or visit us at www.firsthomeguide.com.

Home Shoppers Disappointed by Most Realtor Web Sites

Imagine doing a Google search for real estate in your city and clicking on the first listing that comes up in Google’s search results because we think it will be relevant, only to find a bunch of regurgitated facts and figures about buying and selling a home and 3 “featured listings”. Well that’s what many home shoppers are finding on the internet today. Thousands of Realtors have web sites that simply do not deliver what savvy internet home buyers are searching for, inventory!!.

The worst part is that many of these Realtor web sites are optimized so that they come up on the first page of the search engines, only to disappoint the web visitor who has come to know and trust the search engines for weeding out the useless web sites.

The good news is that there are some Realtor sites that offer their visitors exactly what they are looking for, most of the homes for sale in their local area. It is called the MLS or Multiple Listing Service and it’s the very same system that Realtors have been using to buy and sell our homes for many years. Surprisingly, while roughly 600,000 plus real estate agents have web sites, very few of those actually offer their visitors access to the “holy grail” and as a result, are disappointing visitors who found them with searches like; “Denver real estate”, Orlando real estate, etc.

The best way for consumers to cut through the waste of Realtor web sites and quickly find sites that show thousands of homes for sale in their area is to search using terms like “Miami mls listings”, “Dallas mls listings”, or “Memphis mls search” etc. When you use the more specific term “mls” in your search phrase, only sites that have the term mls somewhere on the page will come up and most of these will offer you access to the biggest database of homes for sale in your area.

An even quicker way to find these useful local real estate web sites is to visit www.mlsmaps.com. MLS Maps has created a national MLS directory which gives you direct access to the MLS listings in 230 cities in the US as well as school information and links to every city and county web site.

For further explanation on how the MLS can help you search for real estate, read;

How to search for homes when you don’t want to be bothered by a real estate agent, and

How to find a home in exactly the neighborhood where you want to live