The Federal Reserve’s half-point cut on Tuesday could provide support for a slumping housing market. The Fed Funds rate affects a range of consumer loans, including home equity and mortgages. Lower mortgage rates would add to the number of home buyers able to afford to make purchases, increasing demand for properties and buoying home prices. Buyers generally care less about the actual purchase price than they do about the size of their payments. If rates drop, so will monthly debt obligations. But an important class of loans that might benefit from the big cut: the high-ticket home mortgages known as non-conforming or jumbo loans. These loans have no guaranteed secondary market because they exceed the $417,000 cap and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will not buy them.

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Kurt and Vicki Oliver could lose their home to a bank foreclosure. They had great credit, long-term employment and excellent assets and income. But their main problem wasn’t a usual symptom of troubled borrowers: job loss, divorce, personal problems or health reasons. Instead, they say, it was a bad mortgage from a fast-talking broker. They never knew what hit them until it was too late - the process was that confusing. What they thought they were getting was an interest-only, adjustable-rate loan, where only the interest had to be paid for the first five years at 1 percent for the first year and no more than 4 percent during the first five years.

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The increase in August from the month before was about in line with the average over the past two decades. The supply of homes has risen at a more normal pace in recent months after surging in late 2005 and 2006 as home sales plunged. Prices are still falling in much of the country, particularly in Florida and parts of California, Arizona and Nevada where prices rose the fastest during the boom of the first half of this decade. Mortgage lenders have severely tightened their credit standards recently, making it harder for many people to obtain loans and adding to downward pressure on home prices. Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication, said originations of home-mortgage loans in August fell more than 30% from a year earlier, according to a survey of brokers. A rise in foreclosures is also increasing the supply of homes for sale in many areas.

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A festering black lagoon mess stems from not properly prepping the pool for winter. And to clean it means at least a week of multiple chemical treatments and, of course, the delightful task of vacuuming up algae. As summer wanes, weekend afternoons spent lounging by the pool are numbered. But that hint of a chill in the air means that it’s time to give the pool serious attention. Winterizing a swimming pool is a job for any pool owner in cooler climates, but for second-home owners, who are away from their homes for months at a time, extra care should be taken.

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Write the contract, get it ratified, go through the excruciating mortgage application process, get approved, and then at the last minute a hang-up turns the buying process into a nightmare. What’s most frustrating is when it’s your own customer. What happens when a buyer has made some not so wise choices in their home-buying process? A buyer may have just got cold feet, plain and simple. Another sabotaged himself financially by taking a vacation with the money that was supposed to be used for closing. When everything comes together, as in the case of this one short-sale buyer, it’s even more frustrating when that buyer gets cold feet at the last minute. The buying agent had lined up everyone. The seller had priced it right, the short-sale executive had agreed to the terms of the contract, including a home inspection and closing costs.

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Lenders are the latest group to jump on the environmental-marketing bandwagon by pitching mortgage products that offer homebuyers bigger loans or discounts if they are making energy-efficient improvements — or if their new home meets certain efficiency standards. Last month, Citigroup Inc.’s mortgage division launched a program that offers $1,000 off closing costs with its energy-efficient mortgage through the end of the year. Also last month, Bank of America Corp. launched an Energy Credit mortgage, which offers a $1,000 credit toward closing fees for mortgages on new homes that meet efficiency requirements set by the government’s Energy Star program.

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With the nation’s housing market in a slump and the mortgage market in disarray, many home builders are putting up fewer supersize homes and offering smaller floor plans. That seems to be what buyers suddenly want in an era of high prices and tougher financing. Financing has tightened down so much that many people aren’t able to qualify for the larger houses. Throughout the U.S. people can’t afford what they previously did. Floor plans are going to get smaller. After reducing prices on their current inventories of unsold homes, the next step is to start building to a new market. That new market is a lower price point at a smaller size.

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For all real estate speculators, “Making Hard Cash in a Soft Real Estate Market” by Wendy Patton and Justin Ryan may be an informative read. The authors suggest real estate buyers should purchase in “emerging markets” rather than in their hometowns, as most realty investors do and explain how to find the next high-growth emerging markets for real estate. Their theory of market timing sounds good. But the implementation leaves much to be desired because they fail to give actual examples of how they applied their theories and earned big profits.

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$5,850,000

MLS Number: 50913

City: Valle Crucis, NC
Stories: 2
Bedrooms: 4 Baths: 4.5
Area: Boone-Blowing Rock, NC
Year Built: 1990
Plus Five fully furnished 1,400 sq. ft. Rental Cottages. Each built in 1996 on approx. 1/2 acre sites. Current cottage average annual rental income $150,000.

39.4 acres with 360 degree view of Blue Ridge Mountains.

5,200 sq. ft. main house built in 1990 on 1.24 acres.

No restrictions and no zoning offer many other options:

* Family compound
* Corporate retreat
* Religous retreat
* Horse farm / Dude ranch
* Recording studio
* Cottages can be sold separately
* Land can be further subdivided if desired

Contact Elizabeth Carter, 336.973.5594 or Greg Stikeleather, Broker, 704.880.5247 or email eacarter@charter.net

click here for more information