Jun 30, 2009 Make Money Online
It’s tough for buyers to find financing and hard for sellers to find buyers. A solution that can work well for both is renting with an option to buy.
With buyers scarce and financing tight, some home sellers are offering rent-to-buy options to potential buyers. In fact, there’s been enough of a spike in interest that ForSaleByOwner.com added it as a search option on the site, says spokesman Eric Mangan.
These deals, also called rent-to-own and lease-option, usually require buyers to pay extra rents each month plus up-front fees of about 5% of the purchase price. The regular rent then goes in owner’s pocket (presumably to pay the mortgage), but the additional payments are used to buy down the price of the home.
“Lease option agreements, if properly drafted, by and large are an effective way of enabling people to buy who are having trouble arranging financing or coming up with down payments,” said Lawrence Jacobson, a real estate attorney in Los Angeles.
The Advantages
Because the contract is typically written to close in 12 to 36 months, it gives buyers the chance to experience homes and neighborhoods without having to make major commitments.
But the biggest reasons buyers opt for rent-to-buy deals are to build up down payments and to improve their credit profiles so obtaining a mortgage is easier.
For example, if they buy a $200,000 home, paying $5,000 up-front and a rent premium of $400 a month on top of their $1,000 market rent, they’ll have $9,800 saved after one year and $19,400 after three. Read More..
Jun 30, 2009 Make Money Online
S&P/Case-Shiller index down 18.1% year over year, but monthly drop narrows to 0.6% in April.
Home prices continued to tumble in April, falling 18.1% from a year earlier — but the month-over-month change in a closely watched real estate gauge narrowed sharply, indicating that housing markets may be starting to turn.
The 20-city slice of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index recorded a drop of 0.6% from March to April, compared with a 2.2% drop in the prior month. The index has declined every month since July 2006. The 10-city index fell 0.7%.
“The pace of decline in residential real estate slowed in April,” says David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s. “Thirteen of the 20 metro areas also saw improvement in their annual return compared to that of March.”
Not only that but every metro area save one — Charlotte, N.C. — reported improvement in their monthly return compared with March. Read More..
Jun 30, 2009 Make Money Online
 |
| BCS |
Barclays PLC |
Societe Generale upgraded the group to “hold” from “sell,” saying the sale of its fund business to BlackRock, along with other actions in the second quarter, significantly added to its capital position. |
18.35 |
+0.39 / +2.17% |
| BEAV |
BE Aerospace Inc |
The world’s largest maker of aircraft-cabin interiors may have its debt ratings reduced below investment grade by Standard & Poor’s as weak aircraft orders reduce the company’s sales and profit. |
14.18 |
-0.03 / -0.21% |
| LYG |
Lloyds Banking Group PLC |
Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to “buy” from “neutral” and added the bank to its conviction list, saying it’s the least expensive large-cap bank in Europe. |
4.79 |
+0.17 / +3.68% |
| NYT |
New York Times Co |
The publisher may be looking to sell the Worcester Telegram & Gazette together with the Boston Globe and is interested in passing on $59M in pension liabilities to the buyer, The New York Times reported. |
5.56 |
+0.14 / +2.58% |
| PTEC |
Phoenix Technologies Ltd |
The software maker for the personal-computer industry agreed to sell 5.8M common shares at $2.25 each to current and new institutional investors. The deal price is 22% below the three-day volume-weighted average price of the stock. |
2.79 |
-0.40 / -12.54% |
| STT |
State Street Corp |
The banking company said its principal subsidiary, State Street Bank & Trust Co., has received a Wells notice from the SEC, informing the company it may face civil charges for possible violations of securities laws. |
48.50 |
+0.17 / +0.35% |
| TRW |
TRW Automotive Holdings Corp |
The automotive supplier announced Friday that it amended its $2.5B primary credit agreement and was upgraded by J.P. Morgan to “overweight” from “neutral.” |
11.35 |
+2.35 / +26.11% |
Jun 30, 2009 Make Money Online
One major financial organization is said to be suggesting that financial products could be regulated like drugs in order to reduce the chance of future bouts of market instability.
A Reuters report features a proposal from the Bank for International Settlements that would categorize various financial products by how accessible they should be to investors.
For example, the wire service cites four proposed categories which would start with the safest financial products that anybody could invest in. From there, a second tier would be imposed that would require investors to have authorization, comparable to prescription drugs, while a third tier would be open to certain pre-screened investors and institutional investors, while a fourth category of such products would be completely illegal.
Read More..
Latest Entry