Because of rising home prices, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have increased their loan limits in 2018.
FHFA Announcement – Loan Limits in 2018
On average home prices have increased 6.9% over the past year.
Veros Real Estate Solutions, an analytics firm, forecasts that prices will continue to increase, specifically 4% over the next year.
But what about home prices in the Bay Area, Paragon Real Estate Group has a fascinating article looking at the “30+ years of San Francisco Bay Area real estate boom and bust cycles”:
The Federal Trade Commission has some good tips on protecting yourself against identity theft.
Whether or not your data was part of the Equifax Data Breach these are all good ideas for protecting yourself, such as:
– Putting a “credit freeze” or “fraud alert”, or “extended fraud altert” on your credit.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faqs
https://www.freeze.equifax.com
https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze/place-credit-freeze
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0275-place-fraud-alert
https://www.alerts.equifax.com/AutoFraud_Online/jsp/fraudAlert.jsp
https://www.transunion.com/fraud-victim-resource/place-fraud-alert
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0279-extended-fraud-alerts-and-credit-freezes
– Monitoring your credit. This can be done through www.annualcreditreport.com or through a paid credit monitoring service. Another idea is to get a Discover credit card, and their monthly bill lets you know your FICO score from one bureau.
For more information and tips see:
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2017/09/equifax-data-breach-what-do
Are you thinking of buying an investment property? We have loan programs for both experienced landlords and those just starting out. We can help you calculate how much money you can borrow, how expensive the property you can afford, and how much rent and/or appreciation would make this a wise investment.
When deciding whether to take the plunge an important consideration is whether to hire a management company to find tenants, collect the rent, deal with any problems, etc or look after the property yourself. If you are leaning towards managing the property yourself, a handy service is the ApplyConnect Platform, they provide a free online rental application and free (for you) rental screening.
Note, Allwin Capital is in no way affiliated with ApplyConnect, this post is purely for your information. Please use due diligence when choosing any financial service.
Instead of asking potential tenants to give you their Social Security number and other sensitive and a check for the cost of running a rental credit report, you have the option of just sending them an email invitation for them to directly purchase their rental screening, and then the report is sent directly to you.
Have you decided to sell your house within the next 7 years?
In that case refinancing now with a 7/1 Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) from a 30 year fixed would mean a lower interest rate for the first 7 years.
A 7/1 ARM, is a mortgage loan amortized over 30 years:
– the first 7 years start with a very low interest rate
– depending on the particular program the rate will then adjust periodically
(for example every 12 months)
– the new adjusted rates will be based in a particular interest index
(for example the “London Interbank Offered Rate” – Libor) + a margin
– the margin is the same for the life of the loan
(for example 3 %)
– most 7/1 ARM programs have caps, a lifetime cap good for the life of the loan,
and periodic caps, which cap how much the intereste rate can change each
rate adjustment
Anyway, if your intention is to sell within 7 years then the lower rates during the first 7 years of the loan, would offset the potential interest rate increases beyond those first 7 years.
Note, there are 1 year, 2 year, 3 year, 5 year, 7 year, and 10 year ARMs.
New Fannie Mae guidelines will potentially help those with high debt. As long as the borrower’s debt to income ratio (DTI) isn’t above 50% and they have other positive factors, they could be approved for an affordable Fannie Mae mortgage.
Allwin Capital 