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By Freddy Solis | Agent in Fairfax County, VA

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Braemar Homes and Condos in Bristow VA

Posted Under: General Area in Bristow, Home Buying in Bristow, Home Selling in Bristow | October 3, 2011 9:45 AM | 1,182 views | No comments

Braemar Homes and Condos

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Homes for sale in Bristow VA.
This community located in Prince William county has several homes and condos listed for sale with two and five bedrooms priced from $200,000 to $560,000.

Current listed properties in Braemar:

*12759 Brewland Way Bristow VA 20136 $199,900 3 Bedrooms, 2 Full Baths
-End unit brick, front with garage townhome looks great
*12844 Wishing Well Way Bristow VA 20136 $235,000 3 Bedrooms, 2 Full Baths

-End unit, three levels, with garage townhome
*9905 Score Bay Pl Bristow VA 20136 $529,900 6Bedrooms, 5 Full Baths

-Brick front, two car garage, in excellent condition

Freddy Solis
Realtor
703-943-7844 Direct.
703-955-3528 Fax
http://www.FreddySolis.com

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*Information as provided by www Freddysolis.com
Data deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
For Sale in Bristow (Trulia)

Posted Under: Home Buying in Bristow, Home Selling in Bristow, In My Neighborhood in Bristow | July 26, 2011 11:16 AM | 1,921 views | No comments

BRISTOW VA - HOMES FOR SALE

$314,900

14017 Hawkeye Run Ct, Bristow VA

$495,000

13153 Sapphire Ridge Pl #18A, Bristow VA

$297,000

9295 Alvyn Lake Cir, Bristow VA

$270,000

13410 Catapult Ln, Bristow VA

$498,000

13154 Sapphire Ridge Pl #14, Bristow VA

$275,000

12920 Fetlar Way, Bristow VA

$500,000

9716 Seafield Pl, Bristow VA

Please contact Listing agent about properties above.

Need additional info call me
Freddy Solis
703-943-7844
FHA Latest- Debt-to Income Ratios

Posted Under: Market Conditions in Bristow, Home Buying in Bristow, Financing in Bristow | July 25, 2011 6:14 PM | 2,047 views | 1 comment

FHA News - Debt-to Income Ratios

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FHA May Clamp Down on Debt-to Income Ratios
The Federal Housing Administration is considering tightening borrowers’ debt-to-income ratios, a move that would prevent the most highly leveraged consumers from qualifying to buy a home.

The Federal Housing Administration is considering tightening borrowers’ debt-to-income ratios, a move that would prevent the most highly leveraged consumers from qualifying to buy a home.
The agency has yet to determine what the new minimum and maximum ratios would be and when such changes would go into effect, but the very fact that FHA is contemplating such a move is worrisome to some lenders who say a tightening would exclude more borrowers from the still-fragile housing market and potentially cause home prices to fall further.
From FHA’s perspective, putting a hard cap on debt-to-income ratios would potentially lower its delinquency rate and keep its Mutual Mortgage Insurance fund on sound financial footing.
“It doesn’t do anybody any good if the borrower can’t meet their debt obligations,” Robert Ryan, FHA’s acting commissioner, said in an interview Thursday. “We absolutely have to make sure borrowers are in a position to sustain homeownership.”
For two years now the agency has struggled to tighten guidelines and raise the bar for lenders. But FHA has tried to guard against being adversely selective by tightening its debt ratios.
FHA loans are more or less the only product lenders can offer borrowers who have little money for a down payment (outside of the government’s loan programs for veterans or rural residents).
Though some of the largest banks already have their own DTI caps, some lenders have been willing to give up credit standards to increase loan volume.
FHA is looking at the variables that go into its automated underwriting system Total Scorecard, which considers a variety of factors when automatically approving a loan.
“We’re not sure the model is predicting the outcome,” Ryan said. “We might tighten the DTI ratios up and that would mean instead of an automated approval the lender would do a manual review of those loans to make sure they were comfortable the borrower had more income or savings and there were some extenuating circumstances that would warrant the
approval of that loan even if there was a slightly higher DTI.”
One possible scenario would be for FHA to adopt the debt ratios of its short-refinance program, which was designed to help underwater borrowers refinance into an FHA loan. To qualify, a borrower’s monthly mortgage payment, including a second mortgage, cannot be greater than 31% of his or her pre-tax income and the total DTI ratio cannot exceed 50%.
Lenders say FHA routinely approves borrowers with back-end ratios above 50%.
Currently a borrower with a high FICO score could qualify for an FHA loan even if their total pre-tax income allocated for housing was 46.9% and their total debt load was 56.9%, according to several lenders. The borrower would have to have a high down payment and significant cash reserves.
Conversely, for borrowers with high loan-to-value ratios, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac require a maximum 28% front-end DTI ratio and 36% back-end on loans they purchase. For manually-underwritten loans, Fannie and Freddie allow a maximum of 45%, though that may go up to 50% with strong compensating factors.
“A debt-to-income ratio over 50% leaves little room for error in a borrower’s monthly budget,” said David Zugheri, president of the Houston lender Envoy Mortgage. “Once you take income taxes out, a borrower could be left with only 25% of their gross income to live on, which includes utility bills, cell phone, insurance and food.”
Rob Chomentowski, a senior loan officer at Affinity Financial in San Diego, said high debt loads are a better predictor of risk than high down payments. “People should not have 55% of their income before taxes going to debt,” Chomentowski. “There’s a lot of talk about raising the down payment and there should be more talk about tightening the DTI ratios, which makes the loans more secure.”
But such a change could adversely impact housing prices.
“If FHA does lower the back-end ratio, it would take a lot of borrowers out of the market, which isn’t a bad thing, but that will take home prices down more,” Chomentowski said. Some lenders said they would be unlikely to manually underwrite a loan that was not approved by FHA’s automated system.
John Walsh, president of Total Mortgage Services LLC in Milford, Conn., said tightening debt ratios while pushing for manually-underwritten loans was a “double-edged sword.”
“The ratios are what they are and nobody is going outside those,” Walsh said. “Everybody is gun shy these days. Would I like to put more borrowers in homes? Without a doubt. But I’m not going to jeopardize my relationship with FHA by going outside that box. Send me the guidelines and if it’s an exception by FHA to do a manual underwrite, I don’t want to do that.”
Manual underwriting is expected to become a much bigger issue going forward because so many more borrowers applying for loans today went through a bankruptcy or a foreclosure during the recession.
Borrowers can apply for an FHA loan two years after a bankruptcy or three years after a
foreclosure, but the loans all must be manually underwritten and have a maximum back-end
DTI of 41%.
Debt ratios also are playing a role in the larger debate over proposed risk retention requirements and what constitutes a “safe and sound” mortgage.
The Mortgage Bankers Association’s Chief Executive David Stevens said in an interview Tuesday that FHA is trying to put “reasonable” DTI caps on the overall program.
“A borrower with a 10% downpayment and reserves would probably qualify for higher DTI, but FHA may want to keep the DTI5 lower for young first-time homebuyers moving from a rental to ownership,” said Stevens, the former commissioner of FHA, who left the agency in mid-April.
(Stevens has been pushing for a narrow definition of a “qualified residential mortgage,” without hard limits for down payments, DTI or loan-to-value ratios.)
Maurice Jourdain-Earl, a managing director at ComplianceTech, a lending industry consulting firm, said he is concerned that tightening the range of acceptable DTI5 would impact minority borrowers.
“FHA lowering debt-to-income ratios will have the same effect as QRM. The people who can afford it the least will be adversely impacted,” Jourdain-Earl said.
FHA’s market share has surged to nearly 30% during the downturn from 3% in 2006, largely because it has the loosest guidelines among loans guaranteed by the federal government. Higher volume and share has been accompanied by higher defaults and losses, though there’s been a recent decline in loans that were 90 days overdue or in foreclosure. According to the MBA, 8.04% of FHA loans were seriously delinquent at the end of the first quarter, down from 8.46% in the fourth quarter and 9.1% a year earlier.

Call Freddy to schedule a meeting to find out the best avenue of approach to your real estate needs.
Freddy Solis Realtor® ~ 703-943-7844 ~ www.freddysolis.com

Selling homes in Bristow Va, Gainesville Va.
Subdivisions: Braemar, Victory Lakes, Bristow Village, Pembrooke, Dunbarton, Lanier Farms, and many other locations.
Now is the Best Time for Buyers

Posted Under: Home Buying in Bristow, Financing in Bristow | May 25, 2011 5:38 PM | 1,928 views | No comments
- Let Qualified Home Buyers Breathe Life Into Home Market
  
  President Obama’s poll numbers have recovered nicely thanks to the good news surrounding the demise of Osama bin Laden. But the bin Laden bounce will wear off quickly unless the administration takes some bold steps to restore economic confidence in this country. Creating jobs is certainly an essential part of restoring that stability. But in my view, nothing is more important than creating confidence in the long-term health of the housing market. Read
- 5 Tips for Deciphering Your Home Loan’s Good-faith Estimate
  
  Knowing how to read your good-faith estimate can help you save money on your home loan. Read
- 7 Steps to Take Before You Buy a Home
  
  By doing your homework before you buy, you’ll feel more content about your new home. Read
Visit houselogic.com for more articles like this.

Copyright 2011 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®
Freddy Solis Realtor®
703-943-7844 www.freddysolis.com
Short Sales Guidelines, New Rules

Posted Under: Home Selling in Bristow | April 1, 2010 8:50 PM | 339 views | No comments

Short Sales are Looking Better

New guidelines for new short-sale rules
The new short-sale rules

What sellers can expect from participating lenders starting in April:

The new short-sale rules

Sellers must be unqualified for a loan modification under the Home Affordable Mortgage Program or be unable to afford the modification.

The bank will set an acceptable value of the home upfront, based on an appraisal or broker's price opinion.

Lenders must approve or deny a purchase offer within 10 days of it being submitted.

Once the bank approves a home for short sale, sellers may stop paying all related mortgage payments, and unpaid mortgage debt will be forgiven.

These mortgage payments will not be shown as late on credit reports.

At closing, sellers are entitled to as much as $1,500 from the government to cover relocation expenses.

Have a home you want to sell call my direct line 703-943-7844 to get more details of these new guidelines that become effective 4/5/2010

Freddy Solis
Realestate.com Realtors®
Capital Region
e-mail: homes@freddysolis.com
Cell: 703-943-7844
www.FreddySolis.com
A Sweet Deal for Homebuyers

Posted Under: Home Buying in Bristow | February 16, 2010 5:49 PM | 633 views | No comments

First Time Home BuyersTax Credit Extended

A Sweet Deal for Homebuyers

The ins-and-outs of the Homebuyer Tax Credit

If you are – like many Americans – trying to figure out the best time to make your first home purchase, then you may want to take a closer look at the first-time homebuyer tax credit that has been expanded to current homeowners as well.

CREDIT AMOUNTS
First-time homebuyers: The credit is equivalent to 10 percent of the purchase price of the home up to $8,000.
Current homeowners: The credit is equivalent to 10 percent of the purchase price of the home up to $6,500.

OTHER IMPORTANT NOTES REGARDING THE CREDIT
1. Qualifying for the homebuyer credit As it relates to this credit, a first-time homebuyer is defined as any taxpayer who has not owned a principal (or main) residence for a period of three years prior to the home purchase. Current homebuyers must have used the home being sold as a principal residence for at least five of the previous eight years. The purchase must be of a principal residence.
2. Income limitations First-time buyers: Single filers with modified adjusted gross income of $75,000 or less and married couples with MAGI of $150,000 or less are eligible for the full $8,000 credit. Current homeowners: Single filers with modified adjusted gross income of $125,000 or less and married couples with MAGI of $225,000 or less are eligible for the full $6,500 credit.
3. Purchase window The 2009 homebuyer tax credit is retroactive to January 1, 2009 and covers purchases through April 30th, 2010.
4. Refundable credit The tax credit reduces your final tax liability and you will be refunded whatever portion, if any, of the credit that remains after applying the credit to taxes you owe for that year. For example, let’s say you qualify for the full $8,000 first-time homebuyer credit and your total tax liability (after withholding) is $2,000. Your tax liability will be zero, and you will receive a refund for the remaining $6,000.
5. Purchase limitationsThe tax credit is limited to purchased homes up to $800,000.
6. Claiming the credit Claiming the credit is actually very simple. To take advantage of the first-time homebuyer credit, you’ll need to complete IRS Form 5405 which will help determine the tax credit amount. You’ll then claim that amount on line 69 of your 1040 tax return form. No pre-approval forms or applications are required!

As with most issues related to a home purchase, be sure to consult with your RealEstate.com REALTOR® for additional information or to ensure that you and your prospective purchase qualifies for this homebuyer tax credit.

Freddy Solis
RealEstate.com, REALTORS®
Capital Region
8201 Greensboro Drive, Suite 211
McLean, VA 22102
703-943-7844 Direct
Freddy.Solis@ Realestate.com

REALTOR® -- a registered collective membership mark that identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the National Association of REALTORS® and subscribes to its strict code of ethics.