With the expiration of the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit at the end of April, we will be holding a FREE seminar to go through the Home Buying process. This class will be held twice at the Salt Lake Community College Miller Campus in Sandy on MARCH 23RD and MARCH 30th.

This exciting new class will be held in the Salt Lake Community College Professional Development Building and is being provided at no cost for Salt Lake area residents.

The campus is located at: 9750 South 300 West, Sandy, UT 84070

Here’s what will be covered in the class:

What loan programs are available to first time home buyers and what are their qualifying requirements?

What are the requirements and key dates for qualifying and claiming the $8000 First Time Home Buyer’s Tax Credit?

What are the credit requirements for conventional, FHA, and VA loans? How can I find out what my credit score is?

How do I go about qualifying for a loan?

What should I consider when looking for a new home?

How does the home buying process work. How do I make an offer, deposits, what are the key dates, home inspections, when can I move in?

Please note that SEATING IS LIMITED and because of this REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED!

If you would like further information about the class, please contact Joseph Gordon on 801-577-6304 or Trela Bird on 801-450-3535 or Tracie Peay on 801-891-5678.

If you wish to register then please complete the Salt Lake Area First Time Home Buyers Class Registration Form.

If you are looking to buy a condo, a recent change to FHA loan requirements may just have made your condo purchase more difficult.

In order to get a FHA/VA loan on a condo, the condo development must be FHA approved. If the development has not been approved, it needs to go through a certification process, which checks various criteria such as: must be 50 percent owner occupied, less than 25 percent commercial use, no more than 10% owned by one investor etc. This certification process takes anywhere in the region of 3 weeks to 3 months once the paperwork has been received.

What’s the problem you may ask, surely most the condo developments must have already been approved. Well yes they were, but a recent change means that any development that has not been approved in the last two years will have to reapply for certification. This means that most developments, with maybe the exception of some of the newer ones, will not be able use FHA loans until they have been recertified, which may take some time depending upon the efficiency of the HOA (HOA needs to provide numbers on owner occupancy etc.) and how long it takes the FHA to approve the certification.

This is not just a Salt Lake City Condo Market problem, all condo developments in the U.S. have had their approval status expire.

The only way around this issue is for the buyer to obtain a conventional loan instead of a FHA/VA loan, thus circumventing the approval process. The problem with this is that conventional loans require stricter credit qualifying criteria, and the down payment requirements are greater.

Read this Buying a Condo Just Became More Difficult article on our real estate blog.

Impending changes by the FHA (Federal Housing Authority) and HUD (Housing and Urban Development) could cost you thousands extra if you wait rather than taking the plunge and buy now.

These changes which are due to take effect between the March 31st expiration of the Federal Reserve Board’s mortgage backed securities purchase program (this is one of the main reasons that loan rates have been kept artificially low) and the April 30th Home Buyer Tax Credit deadline, could hit you where it hurts, in your pocket.
The first of these changes impacts the cost of up-front mortgage insurance for FHA guaranteed loans. The current rate of 1.75%, is set to increase to 2.25%. This would mean that a borrower would pay an extra $965 on a $200,000 loan, assuming a down payment of $7,000. The mortgage insurance is usually added to the end loan amount, so the additional cost will be added to your monthly loan payment.

The other change will reduce the amount of seller concessions that can be returned to the buyer from the seller, from 6% to 3% of the purchase price. Seller concessions are generally used by buyers to pay their closing costs, a reduction in the amount that can be claimed, may mean that you the buyer will have to bring more of your own money to the table.

This and other articles are available on our Salt Lake Real Estate blog. If you are interested in purchasing a new home why not try our maps based Salt Lake MLS search.

The Salt Lake high-end housing market recently received a boost, when conforming loan limit went up from $417,000 to $729,750 in Salt Lake County, Tooele County, and Summit County.

This increase means that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can now provide loans up to $729,750, which should result in a much-needed boost to the Utah housing market. High-end homes have recently undergone a slowdown, mainly because lenders shutdown the Jumbo Loan market as part of the sub-prime scare. Lenders have since discovered that Jumbo Loans are not the real problem, and are now starting to relax lending requirements. This coupled with the new lending limits should hopefully put some much-needed life into Salt Lake’s high-end real estate market. Many home buyers will now be able to take out a single loan, without the need to take out a jumbo loan, with their high interest rates and down payment requirements.

In addition to Fanny and Freddie raising their limits, FHA loan limits also went up from $364,000 to $729,750, further opening up finance options to home buyers.

To determine how these changes will affect you, we recommend that you seek the advice of a mortgage professional. Alternately, you can post your question here, and we will get a mortgage professional to reply.