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FIRST TIME EVER! Books About HUD Homes for consumers and real estate agents. Two complete and authoritative resources in layman's terms about HUD Homes For Sale - explaining the process from start to finish, one step at a time. A newly published agent guide shows REALTORS how they can build a solid niche in the government homes market.
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Everything You Need To Know About Buying HUD Homes
 REALTOR/Blogger Frances Flynn Thorsen's new eBook HUD Homes for Sale -- A Complete Buyer's Guide is a comprehensive road map of the foreclosure market for HUD Homes.
HUD Homes for Sale -- A Complete Buyer's Guide contains over 100 pages in an easy-to-follow manual designed to help owner occupants and real estate investors develop winning strategies to bid on HUD properties successfully.
"I am a 23-year real estate veteran with many years of experience selling HUD homes. I've been involved with FHA 203(k) rehabilitation financing and held buyers' hands on numerous occasions after they placed successful bids on HUD Homes. My new eBook has lots of tips you won't find anywhere else!" she claims.
The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) is the single largest source of foreclosure properties in the country. Foreclosure web sites flourish and new books hit the shelves monthly with tips about how to buy foreclosures. This is the FIRST book to cover the HUD Homes for Sale market exclusively. Frances Flynn Thorsen's HUD Homes For Sale A Complete Buyer's Guide eBook.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to CARE through the CARE MORE Giving Circle Challenge. |
Posted: 7:40 AM, May. 29, 2006 |
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re: Everything You Need To Know About Buying HUD Homes
Fran,
First of all, congratulations to you on your new book!
I received this email below.
I would pleased to read your new book and provide you feedback!
Just send it to me!
Best Wishes,
Jim Zirbes
Past President-Arizona Real Estate Educators Asssociation
recruiter/trainer
branch manager
www.DiamondGMACRealEstate.com/JZirbes
Phoenix, Arizona
480-497-9889
=====================================================
My good friend, Fran Thorsen, has just released an eBook on Buying HUD Homes. I have told her you are cool educators so......
She would be happy to send you a complimentary review copy if you are interested and be willing to submit your comments back to her. http://hudhomesforsale.realtownblogs.com/
Frances Flynn Thorsen's HUD Homes for Sale -- A Complete Buyer's Guide, contains over 100 pages in an easy-to-follow manual designed to help owner occupants and real estate investors develop winning strategies to bid on HUD properties successfully.
Hugs & Smiles,
Joeann Fossland ePRO,GRI, PMN, Master Certified Coach |
Posted by Anonymous at 3:13 PM, Jun. 12, 2006 |
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re: Everything You Need To Know About Buying HUD Homes
Frances Flynn Thorsen's new eBook HUD Homes for Sale -- A Complete Buyer's Guide....fails to identify the negative aspects of purchasing a HUD Home especially for First Time Homebuyers.
Although HUD/FHA will finance repair escrows for needed repair issues, HUD/FHA put FHA Borrowers (especially First time homebuyers) at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to the bid process as follows:
1. Those bidders that will require FHA financing must use (as required by HUD/FHA) the HUD appraisal that was done for the subject property. This appraisal limits FHA maximum financing calculations to this appraised value. If the FHA bidder offers a bid that is greater than the HUD List Price (which is also the "HUD Appraised Value") the buyer must make up that difference out of their own funds dollar-for-dollar.
The major problem with this is that Realtors who work the HUD foreclosure circuit know how to out-bid FHA borrower/buyers by recommending other than FHA Financing (typically those lovely 100% loan programs) so that the buyer is no longer required to finance based on the HUD appraisal, but can have another appraisal done by other than an FHA appraiser. This keeps the non-FHA borrower/buyer from having to come out of pocket when bidding above the HUD appraised value!
The irony is that HUD's mission is to promote "affordable" housing through the use of their FHA loans, but in the case of HUD Foreclosures ...the FHA borrower/buyer (which would be almost all first time homebuyers) is actually severely, affordably handicapped if they elect to use FHA financing.
Worse yet, those buyers that use other than FHA financing typically make offers in excess of the HUD Appraised Valuation causing affordability to disappear like trees in a South American rain forest!
2. First time homebuyers have down payment assistance programs & special below-market interest rate financing available to them on a Nationwide basis. Most are never told this by their self proclaimed "Real Estate Professionals" (lenders & realtors). The result is the first time homebuyer is unable to maximize his/her affordability through the access and use of these programs.
Further, the majority of these programs require that "Health and Safety" repair issues are to be corrected/repaired prior to closing if the Buyer is to receive Down Payment Assistance funding and their below-market interest rate! Once, again, HUD actually puts another affordability "roadblock" in front of the first time homebuyer because HUD does not allow these repairs to be completed prior to closing and as a result, the first time homebuyer looses potentially thousands of dollars in down payment assistance funding and ends up paying hundreds of dollars a month too much through the duration of their home ownership.
Are HUD foreclosure homes good "deals"????? Not unless the stars are in the right alignment and it is a full moon...for the first time homebuyer. It just does not make sense to give up $10,000 - $50,000 in down payment assistance dollars (this will vary State-to-State) and below-market interest rate financing (203-k, FHA repair financing is much higher rate than even regular FHA financing) to purchase someone else's repair-needy foreclosure home and then have to finance in repair costs.
Unfortunately, it appears that Ms. Frances, has little experience helping real-world homebuyers maximize their affordability when compared with her book-writing talents for making money by offering books that pretend to offer "everything you need to know"!
Chuck Mahoney
President,
NOAH FOUNDATION, INC. (National Opportunities for Affordable Housing)
cmah101753@aol.com |
Posted by Anonymous at 10:29 AM, Aug. 6, 2006 |
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re: Everything You Need To Know About Buying HUD Homes
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Both books about HUD homes are very clear about FHA limitations with respect to bidding:
"Keep in mind an important fact about FHA financing of HUD Homes for Sale: FHA will only finance a maximum loan amount that corresponds to HUD’s asking price. If a buyer is inclined to "bid up" a property and finance that property with FHA financing, he will have to make up the difference between the asking price and the bid amount with additional down payment monies. This can put an FHA buyer at a serious disadvantage in the bidding process. It is advisable under these circumstances to have alternative financing in place to maximize bidding potential."
REALTORS who are educated about the HUD Homes for sale process and learn how to work the HUD Homes circuit successfully understand that there are twists and turns in the process that can make the difference between a sale and a rejected bid. The problem is not with the REALTORS who learn to work the system successfully, the problem is with REALTORS who do not know the ins and outs of the program and are unable to counsel their buyers effectively enough to score a winning bid on a HUD home.
Some years ago HUD used to accept any bid amount on an FHA insurable HUD home, letting a buyer use FHA financing for any winning bid amount. In some areas of the country, properties were being bid at twice the appraised value. Overbidding was rampant and HUD put a brake on that process, limiting the maximum allowable FHA financing to the list price of the HUD home.
I agree that FHA buyers are at a disadvantage in the bidding process for HUD homes. I would like to see HUD’s policy evolve to a more lenient one that would let buyers finance up to 115% of the appraised value of the home. This would keep the brakes on excessive overbidding and keep FHA buyers in the loop in the bidding process.
FHA financing has been a mainstay of mortgage lending in the U.S. for many years. Both books devote two full chapters to FHA financing, including comprehensive information about FHA underwriting guidelines with a special focus on compensating factors that can be weighed to tilt the scales toward an FHA loan approval, and help buyers avoid the pitfalls of subprime lending and the predators who prowl those corridors.
It is unlikely that HUD will change its policy and let buyers complete repairs prior to settlement. There is still a very high fall-through rate of HUD contracts that do not reach the settlement table and it is impractical to invite legal issues surrounding repairs made at a buyer’s expense when a property does not close escrow. I would encourage the Down Payment Assistance providers to rethink their policies and consider making adjustments to those guidelines, perhaps exempting HUD homes from their stringent repair-before-settlement requirements. This would be a feasible alternative with a reasonable cap on the repair amount and a time to complete them.
Buyers are still getting into HUD homes with as little as three percent cash out of pocket. It seems evident that new FHA guidelines will lessen that amount in the near future. Not all buyers are candidates for Down Payment Assistance programs. Down Payment Assistance requirements often preclude a buyer’s approval prospects, (i.e. too much liquid cash after settlement, income limitations, lender choice, seller reluctance to participate the seller "gift" programs).
I have been working with "real world" homebuyers for 22 years. I have sold many HUD homes. I am equally concerned with helping buyers calculate their "Comfort Zone" for monthly spending as I am with maximizing their affordability. To the extent that affordability relates to consumer-friendly loan products, I’m with Mr. Mahoney one hundred percent!
First-time homebuyers have excellent opportunities to reduce their cash-out-of-pocket expenses as well as to maximize their affordability. The book cautions buyers to know the difference between their qualifying number and a monthly payment amount that corresponds with their lifestyle and other monthly obligations and expectations. |
Posted by Frances Flynn Thorsen at 9:42 AM, Aug. 16, 2006 |
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re: Everything You Need To Know About Buying HUD Homes
Truly informative and helpful information for any first-time homebuyer.
But buying a house is not just about having the money to do so, because for several people that is not a reality for most of their lives!
<a href="http://austin-hud-home.info">HUD homes</a> |
Posted by JayS at 3:02 AM, Jan. 2, 2007 |
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re: Everything You Need To Know About Buying HUD Homes
| Excellent article - telling it like it is. My only comments that might full fill the article is that purchasers work with HUD knowledgable real estate agents/lenders with experience. My first test for a lender is explain the 203K program to me. As you can see I have left out the "FHA" identifier intentionally. Works everytime for a quality lender. This is the best program owner/occupants have - of course investors abused this program back in the early 90's and that separated the O/O to investor ratio. My experience with an over inflated HUD market is that appraisers. over appraise the property and they sit on the market. HUD adjusts according to a down market which is why the HUD properties are on the market longer than normal. The dollor for dollor bid over the HUD asking price is the downer to O/O, but sometimes you have to do what you do to get the property. HELOC loans work but the cash is the deciding factor and of course Mr. FICO. HUD Auctions are the best liquidators of inventory and of course that is where the O/O has it over the investors. Those days have gone by from the Washington DC area but looming again in the North Carolina area, actually all over the country. And of course we all know that the bidding process is the most critical part to owning a HUD home! Bulls make money, Bears make money, Pigs stand in line. My comments are in reference to the posted article at 12:42 PM, Aug 16, 2006. Again, excellent article. |
Posted by Anonymous at 2:43 AM, Jun. 22, 2007 |
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RE: Everything You Need To Know About Buying HUD Homes
| An excellent book for those new to the game as well as those who have been around the block a time or two with a HUD home. |
Posted by Bill at 3:11 PM, Jan. 20, 2008 |
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