Featured Article - September 2010: Favorable Financing on Fannie, Freddie

By Daren Blomquist, Staff Writer

A growing number of delinquencies and foreclosures on government-backed loans - combined with generous incentives for purchasing foreclosed homes owned by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and HUD - means buyers and investors will have plenty of opportunities in the coming months to pick up properties at bargain prices with low down payments and preferred financing.

The two government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) - Fannie and Freddie - are acquiring real estate owned (REO) properties through foreclosure at a significantly faster pace than overall growth in REO activity based on RealtyTrac data from the second quarter.  Fannie Mae took ownership of 68,838 REO properties in the second quarter, an increase of 114 percent from the second quarter of 2009, while Freddie Mac took ownership of 34,662, a 58 percent increase from the previous year.

Overall, REO activity was up 38 percent over the same time period, according to RealtyTrac, and the two GSEs together accounted for 38 percent of the total 269,962 REOs reported by RealtyTrac in the second quarter.  Throw in the 23,435 foreclosed properties acquired by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through Federal Housing Administration-backed loans gone bad, and the three "Fs" accounted for 47 percent of all REO activity in the second quarter.

That's good news for homebuyers and residential real estate investors.

Indeed, both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have acknowledged that these delayed foreclosures will increase in the months ahead. Moreover, Fannie, Freddie and the FHA all reported spiking pre-foreclosure sales, or short sales, over the past year - although the numbers of sales are still relatively low.  FHA reported a 161 percent increase, Fannie a 171 percent increase and Freddie a 179 percent increase.

Favorable Financing

Both the FHA and Fannie Mae have favorable financing for homebuyers and investors.

FHA financing is available on the HUD properties, including programs that benefit borrowers with less- than-ideal credit and require only a 3.5 percent down payment.  In addition, buyers may be able to take advantage of the FHA 203(k) rehab loan program, which allows an owner-occupant borrower to get one loan that covers both the acquisition and rehabilitation of a foreclosed property that is need of repair.

Fannie Mae offers special financing for both buyers and investors for many properties it lists for sale.  The special financing includes down payments as low as 3 percent, no mortgage insurance and no appraisal requirements.

And Fannie Mae and FHA have programs in place to encourage buyers and renters using a local Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), a federally funded initiative that provides grants to state and local governments, as well as non-profit developers, to purchase and rehabilitate foreclosure properties and offer down payment and closing cost assistance to low- to middle-income homebuyers.

Fannie Mae waives the 5 percent earnest money deposit requirement for individual homebuyers using public funds to purchase a Fannie-Mae owned property. Deposits can be as low as $500. In addition, buyers using NSP programs have 15 extra days for closing and the ability to renegotiate their offer after obtaining an NSP-required appraisal.

**More Articles could be found in our "News and Opinion" section at RealtyTrac.com & also be sure to check out our channel on YouTube, where you'll find many more videos, including "How-To's" & Interviews and Specials:

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Origin of Halloween Costumes

Remember as kids having had a great time donning Halloween costumes we either have made or our parents have bought or rented for us? We got together with the rest of the neighborhood kids and went door to door screaming “trick-or-treat!” like there was no tomorrow, leaving our voices hoarse the next day. Well, we have basically experienced it and now we let our kids practice it, but do we really know the origin of wearing Halloween costumes in the first place? Some of us may already know, but for those who don’t, here’s the story.


The origin of the celebration can be traced back to ancient Celts and the feast called Samhain. This was a festival held during the end of the harvest season and at the start of the Celtic New Year.

According to Celtic beliefs, this was the time of year when the spirits of the dead would go to the surface world and try to posses the bodies of the living for the coming year. To prevent there bodies from being possessed, Celts would light bonfires and dress up in all sorts of morbid costumes to try to discourage the spirits of the dead from entering their bodies.

However, the practice of donning costumes in America can only be traced to as recent as the 1900s. It was only in the 1930s that Halloween costumes began to be mass produced. The usual costumes that people rent or make are those of different monsters including but not limited to vampires, ghosts, ghouls, demons, witches, and skeletons.

Even if it is the night that evil is supposed to surface, “good” costumes are also a common choice among children and adults alike. In fact, princess, fairy, and angel costumes often times make it to the top ten of top Halloween costumes.

Also popular are pop culture costumes which mimicked famous personalities, fictional characters, celebrities including Lady Gaga or even Snookie, and even politicians have an equal share in exposure during Halloween. Women, no thanks to commercial advertising, have also found this a good time to wear sexy outfits to show off their bodies and sexual prowess, but that is another story.

Other costumes that seem to have a following include clowns, nurses (including provocatively portrayed), cats, and that lowly Halloween symbol, the pumpkin. Superhero characters are also fast becoming popular costumes no thanks to the comics and movie fever that have hit the silver screen in recent years. The demand for new and modern costumes have made costume makers busy and costume rentals fully booked.

The fact that Halloween costumes have become so diverse has caused the modern tradition to overshadow the earlier tradition that makes wearing costumes during Halloween different from other dressing up for the originating Celtic feast. That is where the concept of dressing up during Halloween has come to mimic the supernatural, the ghoulish being, or basically the scary stuff.

Nevertheless, who are we to keep traditions from adapting to the modern times? Things will always evolve. That’s just how things naturally work. We can’t simply insist on wearing only scary stuff during Halloween as creativity will play a role in this aspect and people will always crave new things.

So not withstanding the darker origins of wearing Halloween costumes, we and our children and their children will continue to celebrate this day for as long as there are goodies to share and creativity to spare.

With that what would you like to be for Halloween? Adults as well as children can wear costumes for this special day, and if you don’t have the creativity to make a costume, you can still be creative as far a dressing up.

Star Costumes has a variety of costumes available to don the character you or you child would like to be. Check them out here to see what you can be.

Featured Article - August 2010: How Wall Street Reform Benefits Foreclosure Buyers

By Peter G. Miller

With the passage of Wall Street reform now a done deal in Washington there are probably few people who did better than real estate investors. Stricter mortgage standards plus less federal emphasis on homeownership means there will be a new and growing demand for rental housing.

'In previous eras, we haven't seen people question whether homeownership was the right decision. It was just assumed that's where you want to go,' Raphael Bostic, a senior official with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told the Washington Post. 'You're not going to hear us say that. What we've seen in the last four years, is that there really is an underside to homeownership.'

The change in government policies impacts the demand for investment real estate because a growing population combined with a smaller percentage of owner-occupants means more demand for rental property.

Mortgages:

The Wall Street reform legislation homogenizes the mortgage marketplace and assures that there will be no shortage of conventional, VA and FHA loans. Lenders are entirely free to offer more exotic financial products, but only if they're willing to set aside reserves, eliminate prepayment penalties and face potent lawsuits from borrowers and mortgage investors enabled by the new standards.

For buyers and investors with proper paperwork and visible finances the new loan requirements will be a low hurdle, however, for many borrowers mortgage applications will suddenly become more difficult. Application reviews will stiffen and lender standards will rise, meaning that many loan applications will be declined. We're already seeing this with the new devotion to higher credit scores.

The tougher financing standards will create two results. First, there will simply be fewer buyers than might otherwise be the case. Second, there will be fewer buyers who can 'stretch' and afford a bigger mortgage for a given income. In the end these two factors will create less pressure to push up home prices.

Rentals & Foreclosures:

Since the end of World War II, we have had a steady need for additional rental units to accommodate a growing population. In 1950 we had a population of 153 million, a figure that will soon top 310 million. Now we have massive numbers of foreclosures adding to demand.

'For 2010, the midyear numbers put us on pace to exceed three million properties with foreclosure filings by the end of the year, and more than one million bank repossessions,' said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. 'The roller coaster pattern of foreclosure activity over the past 12 months demonstrates that while the foreclosure problem is being managed on the surface, a massive number of distressed properties and underwater loans continue to sit just below the surface, threatening the fragile stability of the housing market.'

Marketplace Changes:

Although there's plenty of property demand, that demand is not actionable. Individuals who might once have bought are effectively being shut out of the marketplace by such issues as tougher loan standards, unemployment, reduced wages, credit reports with major black marks and changing federal policies. And while such individuals may not have the financial muscle to buy a home, they often have sufficient income to afford a good rental.

Time & Place:

So is this the time to buy investment real estate, especially short sales and foreclosures? In many markets there's a fusion of discounted acquisition costs, historically-low interest levels, falling vacancy rates and rising rental rates. This doesn't mean specific real estate investments are attractive everywhere or for all buyers, but in areas where such trends exist and seem likely to continue this may well be an unusually good time to consider short sales and foreclosures, two ways to acquire discounted real estate.

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Banks Delay Foreclosures and Pray Property Values Increase

Banks Delay Foreclosures and Pray Property Values Increase

How Does Satellite Radio Work?

Satellite radio is one of the largest innovations in broadcasting since the introduction of FM. A satellite radio signal can be broadcast for more than 35,000 kilometers or 22,000 miles with a clear and high quality sound.

The idea behind satellite radio first appeared in 1992 when the Federal Communications Commission granted a spectrum of the S band (the 2.3 GHz frequency) for Digital Audio Radio Service. This license to broadcast in that band was allocated to Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio in 1997. Today there are three companies that provide satellite radio in the world: Sirius and XM in Northern America and WorldSpace in Asia, Europe and Africa.

Each of these companies offers a different broadcasting system since the radio signal of each is proprietary. This means you will need to purchase different hardware depending on your subscription to one of these companies. However, there are three components common to all satellite radio services: the satellites, the ground repeaters, and the radio receivers. Different satellite radio companies broadcast the radio signal in different ways. For instance, XM satellite radio uses geostationary satellites which have orbits synchronized with the movement of Earth. These satellites are located above the equator.

In order to allow subscribers to receive crystal-clear signal despite obstacles such as buildings, hills or bridges, XM satellite radio service has installed a network of repeater antennas that receive the radio signal from the satellites and retransmit the signal to the subscriber’s receiver. Sirius, on the other hand, uses satellites that have unique elliptical orbits around Earth. These orbits allow satellites to get higher in the sky than geostationary satellites and this prevents loss of signal. This is why Sirius has fewer terrestrial repeaters than XM.

Satellite radio services have digital broadcast centers where a huge amount of music in digital format as well as CD format is stored. Radio programmers have the task of selecting which song has to be played at which time. There are also a lot of studios managed by digital radio companies where artists perform live. All songs and material are transmitted to the satellites in digital format so that the signal contains very high quality sound. The signal is encoded by the satellite and then retransmitted to the repeaters antennas which then transmit the signal to the radio receiver which in turn decodes it and plays the sound. The entire process is very quick and reliable.

In addition, satellite radio would not be possible without digital compression. Digital compression is a technique that uses sophisticated algorithms to compress as much material as possible on the available bandwidth. Once you subscribe to a satellite radio provider you will need the appropriate radio equipment. Traditional radios cannot decode the signal received from satellites so you will need the special equipment.

The popularity of satellite radio has exploded due to much technological advancement that enabled manufacturers to offer the receivers at very attractive prices. The fact that satellite radio is commercial free for many of its channels is also a major selling point.

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How Vanessa Hudgens Started Her Acting Career

How did Vanessa Hudgens get started in her acting career? Born Vanessa Anne Hudgens on December 14, 1988 in Salinas, California, her looks can be attributed to her parents’ backgrounds. Her dad, Greg Hudgens, is an American with a Native American and Irish background while her mother, Gina, a Filipino, grew up in Manila with traces of Filipino, Chinese and Spanish blood.

Career Path

Vanessa was prone to the performing arts since she was a child. At eight years old, she got involved in musical plays. She was in the lead and supporting casts of plays such as "The Wizard of Oz”, "The Music Man”, "Damn Yankees", "Evita", "Carousel", The King and I", and "The Music Man”. Everything happened by chance for little Vanessa. Her first gig was a commercial, but she landed the part purely by accident. She went on the audition because her friend, who was supposed to audition, got sick and asked her to go in her place.

After completing seventh-grade at the Orange County High School of the Arts, Vanessa opted for a home school setup.

In 2003, her film debut was in the feature film "Thirteen", starring Evan Rachel Wood and Holly Hunter. Vanessa also starred in "Thunderbirds", an action-adventure film, but Hudgens hit it big after playing the part of Gabriella in “High School Musical”, a Disney Channel original movie that was first released in 2006. That same year, she released her debut album “V”. In July of 2008, her second album “Identified” was released.

In addition to movies, she also had bit parts in television, including guest spots on TV shows such as “The Brothers Garcia”, “Still Standing”, “Quintuplets”, “Drake and Josh”, and “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody”.

Hudgens continued to play the role of Gabriella Montez in the two equally successful “High School Musical” TV movies, when she played the love interest of real-life boyfriend, Zac Efron. Their roles had given them the “Best Chemistry” award given by the Teen Choice Awards. The first movie also had a hit soundtrack, and it brought the group on a worldwide concert tour. A book series was also made out of it.

With all the success she has garnered, Hudgens became number seven on Forbes magazine’s top earning list of stars under 21. She was 18 years old at the time with an estimated $2 million of earnings. “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” was released on October 24, 2008.

She was also ranked 62nd of the Most Sexiest Woman on FHM, and she was also number 12 on Maxim’s 100 Hot List. She was also part of People magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People.

Life in the Spotlight

Her career was marked with controversy when provocative pictures of Hudgens proliferated on the Internet on September 6, 2007. The photos were passed through emails, mobile phones, and other devices. There were also rumors then that she would be pulled out from the High School Musical franchise because she was no longer fit to be called a model for the youth.

Above all that, however, everything was settled with Hudgens apologizing to fans and her family. After that, all is well again for this young superstar. Just looking back on how Vanessa Hudgens got started in her acting career will inspire young minds about this craft if they are planning on joining the bandwagon.

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Tips on How to Help Your Children Finish Their Homework

Homework is always the point of contention between parents and their children after school. One side just wants to rest after a whole day of schoolwork while the other side wants their children to learn the value of hard work; therefore, that side wants them to complete the work assigned by their teachers when they get home. Homework is a necessary part of the school life and does not need to be something that parents and children will fight about. In fact, parents can even help their children with their homework without really providing the answers to it.

Here are some of the ways that you can do this. They are so obvious that you may already even be doing them with your children.

1. Put Value Into It

Children are logical beings. When you explain how important it is to do their homework, they will learn to place value into it. You can do this by rewarding your children for a job well done. Award them with toys that they like when they get into the Top Ten of their class or give them certain privileges when they make good grades.

Rewards do not need to be something material. They can be in the form of praises and words of encouragement. This is especially true for children who are sensitive or those who get frustrated easily.

You should be careful in giving too much reward because too much tends to make children focus more on the rewards than on the deed itself. That can be a problem because their motivation and their efforts to do things will depend on the reward. If they do not want the reward, they will not do anything, or worse, when there is no reward, children will feel it is not worth the effort. So keep it balanced, and then you can teach your child values in the process.

2. Make It Fun

Studying and doing homework may be serious, but you can make it fun too. You can do this by giving your children a special corner for themselves. Having a spot where they can work will emphasize the importance of studying and doing their homework. It also gives them something to look forward to so that they will be motivated to study.

Another way to make it fun is to inject games into the learning process. Create tests that they can answer as a review for their lessons. Also, create some guessing games or word games for their English and history lessons. You can also perk up the learning process by giving your children colorful and child-friendly reference materials. For instance, if you plan on buying an encyclopedia, don’t buy the heavy ones. Rather, purchase those that are age-appropriate with accompanying pictures.

You can also give your children access to the internet. Here, your children can find virtually anything that can help them with their homework. Of course, when doing this you have to make sure that there is an adult that will guide them.

This will help your children learn the importance of hard work, not only in school but also in their adult lives. Remember, skills begin to develop at an early age.

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