TAMPA BAY, Fla.-OBSNews.com- reports Florida real estate market has been rocked by falling home prices due to crises in subprime mortgage lending, foreclosures, and the meltdowns in credit and home mortgage markets. This perfect storm has caused many real estate agents and real estate investors to quit buying and selling real estate.

Despite the general doom and gloom surrounding real estate in the United States some agents, investors, and buyers are happily buying houses, selling houses, and earning a good living doing so.

One of the keys to success in this market is knowing how to cultivate large numbers of interested home buyers in advance. Roger Salam, CEO of the www.HomelandGroup.com and former #1 speaker and trainer for Tony Robbins, has developed a unique system for creating an unlimited supply of buyers for homes by combining old-fashioned principles of hard work and customer service with the latest tools on the internet such as social networking and Web 2.0 practices.

According to Salam, “Real estate marketing has fundamentally changed, and anybody who wants to cultivate a large rolodex of ready, willing, and able buyers needs specialized training and support systems. At the Homeland Group, we’re so confident in our strategies to help real estate investors and agents attract buyers that we’re offering a 100% money back guarantee on our upcoming training course in Tampa on March 28, 29, and 30.”

Real estate investor Greg Forster of Tampa Bay agreed, “Roger’s boot camp taught me things about selling houses fast that I had never heard before. His teachings are based on fundamentals, common sense, and outstanding customer service. Since using his system I have been able to sell on average four houses every month for the past four months.”

The next home selling bootcamp that the Homeland Group is hosting will be in the Tampa Bay area this weekend. To take advantage of the special limited time offer and to learn how to attend this program for FREE or obtain a scholarship please visit http://www.rogersalam.com/special to register.

Don’t delay as there only 5 of 50 seats still available. For questions call 727-408-3333. www.RogerSalam.com

Stockton, Calif -OBSNews.com- Median home prices in the Central Valley of California have dropped to levels not seen since 2004 according to DataQuick Information Systems. In Stanislaus County median home prices have fallen to just over $250,000. This figure is down more than $100,000 compared to February of 2007 median prices. In San Joaquin County, the drop was even more pronounced with a drop of more than $130,000 to settle at $275,000. Merced saw a drop in median price of $95,000 and average price of $225,000

“The good news is that buyers, especially first-time homebuyers, are excited to buy houses with prices falling so much,” said Patrick McGilvray, J.D., president of Sacramento-based www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com. He continued, “Our network of investors are still saying “We buy houses” and we are helping hundreds of homeowners across the nation buy foreclosure homes, bank owned or REO homes, and short sale homes. We’re helping sellers sell houses fast, we’re helping banks get rid of their inventory of houses, and we’re passing on the savings to consumers who are looking for a great deal on a foreclosure home at below-market prices.”

While underwriting standards for lending on homes has made mortgages more difficult to obtain, especially for so-called subprime borrowers, there is a lot of interest from the federal government and lenders designed to get the housing market moving again. This includes efforts to help counsel homeowners about their refinance options on their homes as well as government-sponsored attempts to help lenders get troubled loans off their books.

The Central Valley of California has been one of the nation’s most hard-hit areas by the foreclosure crisis. While this distinction has resulted in a lot of pain for homeowners, it has also set the stage for incredible buying opportunities that will allow working families the opportunity to buy again.

According to McGilvray there are dozens of homes in good condition as low as $100,000 throughout Stockton, Modesto, and the Sacramento areas. He says that investors and buyers are excited to have the opportunities to work with motivated sellers of single family homes as well as lenders who are much more realistic about selling homes at fair prices considering the market conditions. He predicts that we are on the verge of price stabilization, but that we may have to wait a while before homes start regularly increasing in value. But, for the long-term homeowners or investor this should not be a problem.

One of the keys for buyers, according to McGilvray, is to be pre-qualified for a mortgage before they start searching. “Nothing can be more frustrating for a buyer to see the home of their dreams slip away because they didn’t do their homework and get qualified and have money available to close quickly. We help people qualify for mortgages and find their dream homes every day throughout the country. It’s nice to know we’re a part of the solution to America’s housing troubles,” he added.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif –OBSNews.com- The battered housing market in the United States has gotten some good news from Washington recently.  On Tuesday of this week the Federal Reserve cut key interest rates down to 2.25%.  This rate cut, and predicted further cuts in the future, may help American home buyers and sellers who want to buy or sell a house, but favorable results for mortgage borrowers are not expected overnight.

Following the rate cut, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) announced on Wednesday that it would ease capital requirements on Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE).  By cutting the so-called surplus capital requirement to 20% from 30% the government estimates that this will free up almost $200 billion US for the two companies to purchase more mortgage loans and package them into securities.

The hoped-for outcome of these moves is to give mortgage lenders a way to sell their loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who will then package them into mortgage backed securities to be sold to investors.  Once this has been done, so the theory goes, the lenders will then be able to lend their newly freed up capital to other borrowers such as homeowners and small businesses.  Refinancing out of so-called subprime mortgages or other home loans with unfavorable rates or provisions into new loans with more borrower-friendly terms is also a hoped for outcome.

Foreclosure expert and real estate broker Patrick McGilvray, J.D., president of Sacramento-based www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com, commented “Even though mortgage rates are slightly higher today compared to a month ago the recent actions of the federal government, this week’s news should be good news for homeowners who are looking to sell their houses.  Prospective home buyers, who already have great opportunities to buy houses in foreclosure or those taken back by lenders, should begin to see banks become more willing to lend money as the regulatory changes are taken into account by the market.”

Economists, despite the recent government attempts to spur growth, see some downside risks in the Fed’s actions to the strength of the dollar which has weakened substantially compared to foreign currencies over the past five years.  Foreign investors can get higher interest rates on their money in Europe and other countries around the world than they can in the US.  Despite this, the Federal Reserve in its Tuesday statement indicated that the main impetus for the .75% rate cut was that “the outlook for economic activity has weakened further,” and that financial markets are “under considerable stress.”

SACRAMENTO –OBSNews.com- The American housing market continues to see climbing foreclosure rates on single family homes with California, Florida, and Nevada showing the highest rates.  According to California-based www.RealtyTrac.com 223,651 homeowners in the United States were late on their mortgage payments in February of this year.  This figure represents an almost 60% increase from the same period last year when 139,922 homeowners were late on payments.

Other states that were hardest hit by foreclosures according to RealtyTrac were Texas, Ohio, and Michigan.  In many states across the US real estate investors are no longer buying houses at the auctions that are usually on the steps of the county courthouse at the end of  foreclosure proceedings.  This situation is caused because of falling home equity levels and as a result banks and mortgage lenders are being forced to take back houses themselves.  Lenders are then forced to try to sell these bank-owned properties, or REO (short for real estate owned), on an already crowded market.

“We buy houses and help homeowners by giving them an investor’s opinion as to the current market value of their house,” said Patrick McGilvray, president of www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com.  He continued, “If [homeowners] have some equity left in the house then an investor in our nationwide network may be able to buy their home for a cash purchase.  If not, our team members counsel our customers as to their best available options which may include working with a real estate agent to get their house sold quickly via a traditional listing agreement or a short sale listing agreement,” said

McGilvray said that many properties are still being bought and sold, and the key to selling a home in this market is pricing it well below comparable homes in the same local market.  Other steps to help homeowners avoid foreclosure include well-publicized programs led by government agencies, lenders, and consumer groups that try to modify existing loan provisions and create new repayment plans.

SACRAMENTO, Calif – On Thursday March 6, 2008 the Federal Reserve reported that during the final three quarters of 2007 the amount of equity that Americans had in their homes dropped to below 50%. This is the first time that Americans have owed more on their homes collectively than they have owned since 1945. This statistic shows that American homeowners borrowed large amounts of money against the value of their homes in recent year.. For homeowners who are trying to sell their properties to avoid foreclosure this statistic indicates a difficult market reality.

Mark Zandi, the head economist for Moody’s http://www.Economy.com, said “Consumers are growing more cautious, first, because they are now worth less, and they know it. He added, “Secondly, they can’t borrow against their homes as aggressively as they did.

Economists point to falling home equity and link it to lessened consumer spending in other parts of the economy, especially home improvement and construction spending. When this trend will reverse itself is anybody’s guess, but the consensus among real estate experts is that housing prices will continue to decline until sometime in 2009.

Approximately 10% of American houses, or 8.8 million, are estimated by Economy.com to have ‘negative equity.’ This means that more is owed on a house than the current market value. Governmental fixes to this problem appear to have driven a wedge between Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the Bush administration’s Treasure Secretary Henry Paulson. Bernanke recently came out in favor of urging lenders to write down principal amounts owed by homeowners while Paulson has spoken out against such a practice.

“Falling home equity has definitely caused a lot of people to think twice about trying to sell their house now. Yet, we are still helping hundreds of homeowners a week who want to understand their options when they choose to sell a house,” said foreclosure expert Patrick McGilvray, president of Sacramento, California-based http://www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com

McGilvray added, “We’re helping hundreds of people every month buy and sell houses, and it’s a great time for prospective home buyers who are looking for a bargain on a foreclosure house. For people with a good job and a decent credit rating there are incredible deals out there in great neighborhoods.”

Despite the often gloomy news about US real estate, the National Association of Realtors reported that prices for housing actually rose in more than 70 metro regions, including a handful that reported increases of more than 10%.

Countrywide Financial Corp. voluntarily postponed 103 foreclosure sales scheduled for yesterday in Texas in connection with a private lawsuit that accuses it of trying to foreclose on homeowners who emerged from bankruptcy and were current on their mortgages.

That allegation, which the company denies, is also one of the issues raised by a federal bankruptcy watchdog in suits it filed against the company last week.

The Calabasas, Calif., lender, which has agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. later this year, has been criticized for its handling of cases in bankruptcy proceedings by federal judges as well as lawyers at the U.S. Trustee Program, a division of the Justice Department that monitors the bankruptcy system.

MORE

Read the Florida U.S. Trustee’s lawsuit against Countrywide.

The U.S. Trustee Program last week sued the company in three states for “bad-faith conduct” and “abuse” of the courts. In Florida, the U.S. trustee alleged that Countrywide tried to foreclose on a home after the borrowers had eliminated the company’s mortgage through a bankruptcy proceeding four years earlier.

The Texas lawsuit, a putative class-action suit filed last month by five borrowers in Brownsville, alleges that the country’s No. 1 home lender by volume is foreclosing or attempting to foreclose on borrowers who had been discharged from bankruptcy and were current on their loans, and that Countrywide added hidden fees to debtors’ accounts. The suit seeks to stop the company from doing those alleged acts and asks for damages. The suit claims the company, in part because of flawed computer systems, “does not have policies and procedures in place” to properly account for borrower payments.

“Countrywide denies the allegations in the related complaint,” the company said in a statement.

Katherine Porter, a bankruptcy-law professor at the University of Iowa who published an influential study on problems with claims made by mortgage companies in the bankruptcy system, has said Bank of America needs to help Countrywide rebuild its technology to overcome “structural shortcomings.”

Countrywide in recent months has been hit with sanctions by judges and probed by U.S. Trustee Program lawyers for, among other issues, allegedly failing to appear at court-authorized depositions, charging debtors with unsubstantiated or erroneous fees, and improperly crediting a borrower’s payments made during bankruptcy to prebankruptcy debt, which isn’t allowed.

Real Estate News from The We Buy Houses Team

Foreclosure filings in Wisconsin increased more than 34 percent in February, according to an industry monitor who expects foreclosures to continue to rise throughout much of 2008.

In February, 2,080 homes entered foreclosure. Through the first two months of the year, foreclosures rose nearly 40 percent to 4,523, up from 3,420 for the first two months of last year.

“We expect foreclosures to remain at escalated levels well into 2008, with some experts not predicting a housing market recovery until 2010,” said Robert Jansen.

Milwaukee County leads the state in the number of foreclosure filings, with 525 filed in February and 1,141 over the first two months of the year, up 33 percent and 42 percent, respectively, compared with last year.

Jansen said more homeowners are being forced into foreclosure because of a record number of mortgage defaults nationwide, a mix of adjustable rate mortgage resets, a soft housing market, and the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.

Gerri Willis tells you how to keep your house value up as foreclosures proliferate amid the housing market crisis.

NEW YORK - Foreclosures in your neighborhood affect your home’s value even if you’ve been paying your mortgage on time.

Sometimes foreclosure sales are handled quickly and quietly by the lender. But other times, a foreclosed home might be boarded up and remain abandoned for years. A vacant home can also be an invitation for vandalism or squatters. And of course the foreclosed house can also become a community eyesore as it falls into disrepair.

Just how much value could your home lose? It’s estimated that homeowners living near foreclosed properties will see their property values decrease about $5,000 according to the Center for Responsible Lending. In fact, it’s estimated that for every foreclosure in your neighborhood, your home value decreases about 1%.

Foreclosures damage neighborhood stability. Buyers are skittish about buying in your neighborhood. Plus, foreclosures affect how real estate agents decide to value your home.

And, it’s not just your home that’s affected. The overall economy of your town is hurt by foreclosures. According to a recent report by the US Conference of Mayors, the foreclosure crisis will result in 524,000 fewer jobs and a tax loss of over $6.5 billion in lost tax revenue in ten states. And when cities struggle for money, you’ll likely experience cutbacks in education, hospitals and public services.

Of course, there are some things you can do to protect the value of your home. Just pitching in to take care of the little things can have a significant impact. Join a neighborhood watch program so you’ll be able to spot foreclosed properties that are beginning to decay. Pull some weeds, plant some flowers or mow the lawn. This may help bolster your own property value in the long run.

The last thing you want is an eyesore next door. If the property is becoming a safety hazard, contact the police. And if you’ve heard of people in your area that are having trouble paying their mortgage, or even if you think you’re afraid of going into foreclosure, seek help now.

Contact the Home for Ownership Preservation Foundation at 888-995-hope. The Department of Housing and Urban Development can also set you up with a counselor. Call 800-569-4287 to get assistance in your community.

If there are a number of foreclosures in your area, you don’t want to be spending a lot of money on large home improvement projects. Studies have shown you won’t recoup as much as the cost for remodeling as you may expect.

And make sure you keep up with routine maintenance, like weather proofing your home, cleaning the gutters and repairing worn shingles or peeling paint.

Neighbors are upset after a group of teenagers broke into a vacant and foreclosed home on their block, and threw a rowdy party.

A Bakersfield Police spokesman says he did not have enough information on the incident to comment.

WASHINGTON, - U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Tuesday called for additional actions to reduce preventable mortgage foreclosures, so as to prevent more homeowners from losing their houses.     ”Efforts by both government and private-sector entities to reduce unnecessary foreclosure are helping, but more can, and should, be done,” Bernanke said in a speech to a banking group in Florida. A copy of his speech was released on the Fed’s website.

    Even with some relief efforts under way by industry and government, late payments on home mortgages and foreclosures “likely will continue to rise for a while longer,” said the Fed chief.

    ”This situation calls for a vigorous response,” he added.

    Bernanke said measures to reduce preventable foreclosures “could help not only stressed borrowers but also their communities and, indeed, the broader economy.”

    One of the suggestions he made was for mortgage and other financial companies to reduce the amount of the loan to provide relief to a struggling owner.

    ”Principal reductions that restore some equity for the homeowner may be a relatively more effective means of avoiding delinquency and foreclosure,” Bernanke said.

    But he acknowledged that the idea might be a tough sell to lenders, who he said are reluctant to write down principal.

    Bernanke urged Congress to give the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) the flexibility to offer refinancing products to more borrowers.

    ”I am sure that the FHA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, given the appropriate powers by the Congress, will make every effort to expand their operations and to help improve the functioning of the market for home-purchase mortgages,” he said.

    He also urged the government-sponsored enterprises to take the steps necessary to allow more potential homebuyers access to mortgage credit at reasonable terms.

“I came out to find a deal, a house deal, not my dream home, but an investment,” Stacey Hammond told KOLD.

The housing crisis hit virtually every Chicago neighborhood and suburb last year as foreclosures swept from the city’s Bungalow Belt all the way to the exurbs of Will County.

Foreclosures in Chicago surged almost 50% last year as middle-class and poor areas alike were struck hard. Northwest Side neighborhoods like Albany Park, Logan Square and Portage Park saw their numbers more than double, according to a new report provided to Crain’s ahead of its scheduled release Monday.

Those areas drew newcomers in large numbers in recent years as first-time home buyers sought affordable alternatives to pricier city neighborhoods like Lincoln Square and Lakeview.

Falling home prices and mortgage defaults are among the biggest concerns for the local economy. The survey by the National Training and Information Center, a Chicago-based homeowner advocacy group, is the most detailed look at last year’s local housing fallout and shows that the problem reaches well beyond low-income neighborhoods.

The once fast-growing Will County village of Plainfield saw an almost 30% increase to 509 foreclosures last year. Belmont-Cragin, a middle-class Chicago neighborhood full of one-story brick homes just west of the Kennedy Expressway, had a 77% jump to 339.

ON THE FRONT LINES

The Northwest Side neighborhoods tell the story as well as any: renters looking to buy with easy credit in the form of adjustable-rate mortgages with low initial interest rates, and longtime residents who tapped their homes’ equity for big-ticket expenses.

“These are neighborhoods that have been steady and stable, and people wanted to buy into it,” says Liz Caton, who’s on the front lines in the area’s housing battles as director of counseling for the Northwest Side Housing Center.

Many of the troubled borrowers she’s tried to help are families making less than $60,000 a year. “They really shouldn’t have been able to get into $300,000 mortgages,” she says.

“Whenever everybody’s boats are rising, there’s room for some fraud and abusive lending and taking advantage of people,” says David Rose, research director for NTIC and author of the report. “Now, the housing market’s not doing so well, and suddenly the boats aren’t rising anymore. These things that were easy for the industry to ignore suddenly are in our face.”

Overall, there were 14,250 foreclosures begun in Chicago last year, up 46% from 2006 and more than double the amount in 2005, the study shows. It’s the highest number since NTIC started tracking such data in 1993.

Communities struck hard by foreclosures in 2006 continued to suffer last year. The Austin neighborhood, on the city’s West Side, already with more than its share of bad home loans, had 803 foreclosures last year, up 29% from 2006. The 698 foreclosures in West Englewood, one of the city’s poorest areas, amounted to 223 per square mile of that South Side neighborhood.

The 126 foreclosures in gentrified Lakeview, ordinarily not associated with troubled home loans, amounted to a 94% increase.

MOVING UP, THEN OUT

West suburban Aurora — a suburb so large that it’s now Illinois’ second-largest city — had a whopping 1,154 foreclosures, an almost 50% increase over 2006. Middle-class Oak Park saw a 56% jump to 165.

Condo conversions in Albany Park lured many first-time home buyers who couldn’t afford to live in costlier neighborhoods nearby, says Robert Gecht, CEO of Albany Bank & Trust Co., a local business bank not active in mortgages.

“These are younger, middle-class people,” Mr. Gecht says. “There was this philosophy that everybody should own a home. But the reality is, not everyone can afford to.”

In Aurora, for the first time, the city is considering providing funding directly to non-profit housing agencies to allow them to hire more mortgage counselors, says Bill Wiet, chief of staff to Mayor Tom Weisner.

The city also is prepared to use legal authority to enter empty homes to do maintenance like mowing lawns and fixing things in obvious disrepair. Preserving the cosmetic appearance of neighborhoods can be key to keeping order and discouraging criminals.

“We don’t know when this (foreclosure wave) might end,” Mr. Wiet says. “It’s all about neighborhood stabilization.”