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6 Favorite Home Improvement Apps for the iPad, iPhone, iPod

May 7, 2012

By: Lisa Kaplan Gordon

If you’ve jumped on the Apple “i” bandwagon, you’re never far from iPhone, iPod, and iPad apps that help maintain and improve your home – values near and dear to our hearts.

Here are a few of our favorites:

ColorSnap Sherwin-Williams (free)
Snap a picture of anything and this app tells you which Sherwin-Williams color most closely matches your photo subject. The coral shade in my kitchen curtains, it turns out, is Redbud. I press another button and coordinating colors – Palm Leaf and Cargo Pants – pop up. Browse color families to find ones you love, and then adjust for lightness and saturation.

Home Improvement CALCS ($2.99)
This handy app has more than 115 calculations for every home improvement project imaginable – from determining how much asphalt you’ll need to repave your 10-by-10-ft. driveway (3.75 tons) to how many bags of mulch will cover a 40-by-6-ft. yard, 3 inches deep (30 2-cubic-foot bags).

Ruler 2 (99 cents)
This app is for emergency measuring when no ruler or tape is handy. Ruler 2 includes a pointer you drag along the length of an object smaller (preferably) than your i-gizmo. A digital readout gives you the length. To measure longer objects, you have to swipe and move the iPhone/iPad/iPod, and things get a little complicated, so Ruler 2 works best measuring smaller things, such as screws.

iHandy Carpenter ($1.99)
iHandy is a digital toolkit that turns your Apple device into a plumb bob, surface level, bubble level bar, steel protractor, and ruler. All tools, except the ruler, have digital readouts.

Dream Home ($1.99)
Dream Home contains hundreds of design ideas for your remodeling project: It’s all the fun of shelter magazines for a fraction of the cost and weight. The app presents pages and pages – I mean screens and screens – of photos of high-design rooms in real houses. Photos are sorted by color, style, and popularity. For an extra $1.99, you can add photos of rooms decorated for the seasons. If you feel like sharing, upload pictures of your home improvement project and they’ll become part of the app in 48 hours.

I.D. Wood: Your Pocket Guide to Woods From Around the World ($4.99)
This pricey app provides everything you need to know – and a few things you don’t – about 160 species of wood, from the common (white oak) to the exotic (Australian black bean). The pictures are beautiful and true-to-life, and the tips for working with each species are useful: Did you know beech wood has one of the highest shrinkage rates of all hardwoods? Now you do.

: Real Estate News

Short sales increasing nationwide

March 6, 2012

With 9,145 completed short sales, the Los Angeles area had more short sale transactions than any other metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the second quarter of this year, according to a recent blog post from RealtyTrac.

These short sales came with an average discount of 32 percent and at an average price of $350,237.

Phoenix ranked second in number of short sales for the second quarter with 8,434 short sales, which came with an average discount of 27 percent and an average price of $133,793.

According to the RealtyTrac blog post, the metros with the highest numbers of short sales in the second quarter were:

1. Los Angeles

2. Phoenix

3. Cape Coral – Fort Myers, Florida

4. Oxnard – Thousand Oaks – Ventura, California

5. Reno – Sparks, Nevada

6. San Francisco

7. San Jose

8. Portland

9. Atlanta

10. Milwaukee

: Carlsbad Real Estate, Oceanside Real Estate, Real Estate News, San Diego Real Estate, Short Sale, Statistics, The Economy
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HUD offers services to public in 175 languages

January 21, 2012

HUD recently announced the launch of the HUD Language Line, a telephone language service pilot that will offer live, one-on-one interpretation services in more than 175 languages. Accessible throughout the nation, the language line will help HUD staff to better communicate with Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals and families about HUD housing programs, services, and activities.

The pilot program will run through September 2012. HUD staff across the nation will be able to use the HUD Language Line to provide non-English-speaking individuals and families with information about fair housing, homeownership, lead abatement, housing assistance, and other HUD programs and services. When a person with limited English proficiency contacts the Department, the HUD staff person taking the call will contact the Language Line and speak with a live operator, who will connect the caller and HUD staff person with an interpreter who speaks the caller’s language.

HUD also offers a Limited English Proficiency website to promote equal access to housing programs by providing important HUD documents in 18 different languages. HUD’s expanded LEP website features factsheets, housing brochures and other HUD forms in Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Cambodian, Chinese, Creole, Farsi, French, Hmong, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese, in addition to English.

The site offers brochures on fair housing, model lease agreements, information about HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8), and Resident Rights and Responsibilities. The larger LEP initiative is in response to Executive Order 13166, which requires all federal, local and state agencies that receive federal funding to ensure that people with limited language skills have meaningful access to government programs and services.

: Real Estate News
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FHFA revises HARP to help more borrowers

January 8, 2012

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, along with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,  announced changes to the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) to help more borrowers.

The program will continue to be available to borrowers with loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on or before May 31, 2009, with current loan-to-value (LTV) ratios above 80 percent.

The new program enhancements address several other key aspects of HARP including:

-Eliminating certain risk-based fees for borrowers who refinance into shorter-term mortgages and lowering fees for other borrowers
-Removing the current 125 percent LTV ceiling for fixed-rate mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
-Waiving certain representations and warranties that lenders commit to in making loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
-Eliminating the need for a new property appraisal where there is a reliable AVM (automated valuation model) estimate provided by the Enterprises
-Extending the end date for HARP until Dec. 31, 2013, for loans originally sold to the Enterprises on or before May 31, 2009.

Fannie and Freddie plan to issue guidance with operational details about the HARP changes to mortgage lenders and servicers by Nov. 15. Since industry participation in HARP is not mandatory, implementation schedules will vary as individual lenders, mortgage insurers and other market participants modify their processes.

: Loan Modification, Real Estate News, San Diego Real Estate
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Troubled San Diego homeowners get a lifeline with HARP

November 26, 2011

The government is changing its Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), making it easier for homeowners to refinance their underwater, high-interest mortgages.

Although HARP has helped more than 890,000 homeowners nationwide by reducing their monthly mortgage payments, there are still millions of homeowners who are too far underwater to participate.

Under the new rules, homeowners who owe more than 125 percent of the market value of their homes will be allowed to refinance into new loans.

The program also streamlines the refinancing process for homeowners who are current on their mortgage payments and reduces or removes fees that previously hindered them from refinancing.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also will reduce the fees they charged in the past to enable borrowers to better afford the new loans.  Among the fees that will be reduced or eliminated are those for appraisals, title insurance, and closing costs.

Fees also will be waived for some underwater borrowers who are refinancing into 20-year or shorter-term loans.
HARP is only open to borrowers who are current on their payments for the past six months with no more than one missed payment in the past 12 months.  The loans must have been originally issued before May 31, 2009, and purchased by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

: Loan Modification, Mortgages, Real Estate News, Short Sale
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Maximum FHA Loan Limits Restored To $729,750

November 22, 2011

FHA Loan Limits RestoredAfter a brief return to lower, pre-2009 levels, FHA loan limits have been restored. As signed into law last Friday, maximum FHA loan limits are — once again — as high as $729,750.

The move creates additional mortgage financing possibilities in more than 650 U.S. counties, and promises to increase the FHA’s mortgage market share, which has grown from 6% in 2007 to roughly 30% today.

The change in FHA loan limits also marks the first time that FHA loan limits exceed those of conventional mortgage-backers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Conventional loans remain capped at a maximum of $625,500.

For home buyers in Carlsbad and nationwide, FHA-insured mortgage offer several advantages over comparable conventional loans, the most commonly cited of which is that FHA-insured loans require a down payment of just 3.5 percent.

FHA-insured mortgages carry other advantages, too, however.

First, FHA home loans are not subject to loan-level pricing adjustments (LLPA). This means that, all things equal, buyers and would-be refinancers with credit scores below 740; or, who live in multi-unit homes; or, who have high loan-to-values are not subject to additional loan fees as a conventional mortgage applicant might.

Second, after 6 months of on-time payments, FHA-backed homeowners are eligible for the FHA Streamline Refinance. The FHA Streamline Refinance is among the simplest loan products for which to qualify with no appraisal required. Even if you’re “underwater” on your mortgage, you can still be streamline-eligible.

And, lastly, at least in today’s market, FHA mortgage rates are below those of the conventional market.

The downside of FHA financing, however, is that all FHA mortgages require mortgage insurance and FHA mortgage rates are often higher versus a comparable conventional loan. This means that, although its mortgage rate may be lower, the payment for an FHA home loan may be higher as compared to a Fannie Mae mortgage with similar credit traits.

FHA loans aren’t always optimal, but with higher FHA loan limits, expect the FHA’s market share to increase.

Check your local FHA loan limit at the HUD website.

: Mortgage Guidelines, Real Estate News
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Foreclosure Filings Climbing 4 States Account For Half Of Nationwide Activity

November 15, 2011

Foreclosures per capita October 2011

Foreclosure homes are a hot market throughout California — and supplies are ramping up.

According to foreclosure-tracking firm RealtyTrac, October’s foreclosure filings rose 7 percent to 231,000 filings nationwide.

A “foreclosure filing” is any one of the following foreclosure-related events : A default notice on a home; a scheduled auction for a home; or, a bank repossession of a home. Because of this definition, a single home can account for up to 3 foreclosure filings — one from each category. 

Because of this, we may glean more relevant insight into the foreclosure market by separating RealtyTrac’s foreclosure report into “event types”.

  • Default Notices : Up 10% from September 2011; Down 31% from October 2010.
  • Scheduled Auctions : Up 8% from September 2011; Down 38% from October 2010.
  • Bank Repossessions : Up 4% from September 2011; Down 27% from October 2010.

These breakdowns suggest that, although improved as compared to last year, the foreclosure market is growing. At least, it’s growing in some parts of the country. We can’t forget that — like everything real estate — home foreclosures are a local phenomenon. 

In October, just 4 states accounted for more than half of the country’s foreclosure filings. Those four states — California, Florida, Michigan and Illinois — represent just 26% of the U.S. population.

Even on a per household basis, the figures remain disproportionate :

  • Top 10 Foreclosure States : 1 foreclosure per 341 households, on average
  • Bottom 10 Foreclosure States : 1 foreclosure per 7,434 households, on average

The nationwide foreclosure rate was 1 foreclosure per 563 households.

As a home buyer, Carlsbad foreclosures are worth watching. They account for 18% of home resales nationwide and, in some markets, can be bought at steep discounts versus a comparable “non-distressed” home. That is part of their appeal, in fact.

But just because Carlsbad foreclosure properties can be a “deal”, it doesn’t mean you should rush to buy one. Buying a foreclosure home from a bank is different from buying a non-foreclosed home from a “person”. The contracts and negotiation process are different, and foreclosed homes are marketed in an as-is condition.

“As-is” means “this home may have defects” that the seller in not willing to remedy.

Therefore, if you plan to buy a Carlsbad foreclosure home, talk with a real estate professional first. You can learn a lot about the housing market online, but with respect to writing an offer on a property, you’ll want an experienced Carlsbad real estate agent on your side.

: Carlsbad Real Estate, Housing Analysis, Real Estate News, Statistics
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Banks Resume Tightening Mortgage Guidelines

November 10, 2011

Mortgage guidelines get tougher

As part of its quarterly survey to member banks nationwide, the Federal Reserve asked senior loan officers whether last quarter’s “prime” residential mortgage guidelines have tightened, loosened, or remained as-is.

A “prime” borrower is defined as one with a well-documented, high-performance credit history; with low debt-to-income ratios; and who chooses to finance a home via a traditional fixed-rate or adjustable-rate mortgage product.

After a 2-year easing cycle, the nation’s biggest bank banks report that they’ve reversed course, and are raising the bar on mortgage approvals.

For the period July-September 2010, 88% of responding loan officers admitted to tightening their prime guidelines, or leaving them “basically unchanged”.

If you’ve applied for a San Diego home loan lately, you’ve experienced this first-hand.

High delinquency rates and mortgage defaults since 2007 have caused the banks to rethink what they will lend, and to whom. As a result, today’s mortgage lenders scrutinize assets, incomes, and credit scores to make sure that nothing “slips by”.

For today’s San Diego home buyers and would-be refinancers, the San Diego mortgage approval process can be challenging as compared to how it looked just 18 months ago.

  • Minimum credit scores requirements are higher today
  • Downpayment/equity requirements are larger today
  • Debt-to-Income ratio requirements are more strict today

In other words, although mortgage rates are the lowest that they’ve been in history, fewer applicants can qualify. And, with more of the housing market still in recovery, it’s likely that guidelines will tighten again in 2012.

Therefore, if you’re among the many people wondering if it’s the right time to buy a San Diego home or refinance, consider that, although San Diego mortgage rates may fall, approval standards may not.

The best rate in the world won’t matter if you’re not eligible to lock it.

: Mortgage Guidelines, Mortgage Rates, Mortgages, Real Estate News
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Mortgage Rates Dip Reaching Another Record Low

November 7, 2011

Daily Real Estate News
For the second time in a month, fixed and adjustable-rate mortgage rates set new record lows this week, Freddie Mac reports in its weekly mortgage market survey. The previous record lows were set Aug. 18. Economic uncertainty and employment concerns are continuing to keep rates low, says Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.

Here’s a closer look at rates for the week ending Sept. 8:

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgages:averaged 4.12 this week, down from last week’s 4.22 percent. The 30-year rates’ previous low was 4.15 percent, set on Aug. 18.
  • 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.33 percent this week, down from last week’s 3.39 percent average. Its previous record low was 3.36 percent.
  • 5-year adjustable-rate mortgages:averaged 2.96 percent, holding steady at the same record low it set last week.
  • 1-year ARMs: averaged 2.84 percent this week, down from last week’s 2.89 percent average. Its previous record low was 2.86 percent.

Despite the low rates, mortgage application volume remains low, dropping for the third straight week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported this week. The volume of mortgage applications for purchase remained relatively flat this week at “extremely low levels, close to lows last seen in 1996,” says Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s vice president of Research and Economics. Refinance application volume was also down, dropping more than 35 percent below levels last year at this time.

: Mortgages, Real Estate News

The Most Expensive ZIP Codes In The Country (2011 Edition)

November 4, 2011

Most Expensive ZIP CodesIn the housing market, amenities and location have as much to do with a home’s value as the everyday forces of supply-and-demand. Whereas the latter causes home values to rise and fall over time, the former creates a starting point for said values. 

Where you live — and the features of your home — determine your home’s price range. Naturally, homes in some areas are consistently higher-valued than homes in others.

Using data compiled by real estate market data firm Altos Research, Forbes Magazine presents America’s 10 most expensive ZIP codes. California and the New York Metro area dominate the list.

  1. Alpine, NJ (07620) : $4,550,000
  2. Atherton, CA (94027) : $4,295,000
  3. Sagaponack, NY (11962) : $3.595,000
  4. Hillsborough, CA (94010) : $3,499,000
  5. Beverly Hills, CA (90210) : $3,469,891
  6. New York, NY (10012) : $3,392,574
  7. New York, NY (10013) : $3,317,962
  8. Water Mill, NY (11976) : $3,300,000
  9. Montecito, CA (93108) : $3,099,348
  10. Old Westbury, NY (11568) : $3,095,000

In fact, of the top 50 most expensive ZIP codes, only 6 are located outside of California and New York regions. 3 are Colorado resort towns — Snowmass (81654), Aspen (81611) and Telluride (81435) — one is in Maryland, one is in Florida, and the last is in Washington State.

Chicago-suburb Kenilworth (60043) is the top-ranked Midwest ZIP code. It placed 86th overall.

The Forbes list may be interesting but, to home buyers or sellers , it should not be the final word in home values. Real estate is a local market which means that — even within a given ZIP code — prices can vary based on street and neighborhood.

Look past general data and get specific. Talk to your real estate agent for local market pricing.

: Real Estate News, Statistics
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