Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARM)

Should You Choose an ARM For Your Foreclosure Home Purchase?

If you qualify for the particular foreclosure home you wish to purchase with a fixed interest rate, then you should choose the fixed rate mortgage 99% of the time. In this article you will learn why the ARM can be such a bad idea and how you can overcome the anxiety of your decision based upon the facts. Because current interest rates are so low—and have been that way for some time now—making a choice with regard to an adjustable rate mortgage versus a fixed rate mortgage is not difficult.

The recent and continued mortgage crisis can be directly attributed to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and do a great degree the adjustable mortgages that were the flavor of the day in the real estate industry.

“You may be apprehensive about mortgage payments now, but once you get that raise you will be fine” That line of garbage was the kiss of death to many homebuyers in the past several years and will crop up again as “There is a sucker born every day” and an opportunistic snake in the grass ready to take advantage of the uninitiated around every corner.

Some quick and easy rules to follow when buying foreclosures are:

Never use an ARM for qualifying reasons. Never buy more than you can pay with your current income and never eat more than you can lift.

Do not be misled by the erroneous loan programs that abound in the market today. CDA loans and Farmers home loans are among the many other loan programs that simply will not work when purchasing a foreclosure home. In general terms, these loans are not good for much and specifically regarding foreclosure homes they are actually bad. The single reason that these loans are such a bad idea is that they are not compatible with the foreclosure homes, that you are interested in buying.

It is true that CDA promises a lower interest rate, as does the Farmers home loan program. However, because the wait for the funds can be 90 to 120 days, no government agency is willing to wait that long to remove the foreclosure home from their foreclosure home inventory. Additionally, the money is not guaranteed to be there when you are finally ready to purchase your foreclosure home.

HUD Foreclosures

HUD foreclosures and VA Foreclosures are some of the best homes to buy when price is part of the equation. As with most Americans, price is always a concern. If not buying the same house for less, why not buy more house for the same dollar invested? When looking for a good deal it is hard to do better than the VA or HUD foreclosures market. The simple truth is that there are just more VA and HUD homes on the market, as they represent such a large number of mortgages that are generated each year. This translates into more foreclosures just by the magnitude of difference between all others comparing to the two largest.

The two largest also being government owned and operated means that they have less time to wait to make money back on the home. The FHA is especially known for selling HUD homes for less than the average sales price in a given area. FHA foreclosures represent a fraction of HUD but they are still a significant number of homes and both should be considered.

VA (Veterans Administration) and HUD (Housing and Urban Development) have different and unique opportunities for the buyer. Both are often forgiven for the local taxes normally associated with the purchase of a home (this is on a county by county basis). Be sure to ask the local title company or escrow company to look into it for you before closing as this is often missed due to their are not used to dealing with the 2 to 3 percent of the market that VA and HUD foreclosures represent.

Foreclosure Listings Increasing

As the market settled after the mortgage meltdown foreclosure listings also settled and fewer homes were on the market with a placard reading “Bank Foreclosure” in big red lettering. This was a good thing for the entire real estate market. Having an abundance of foreclosures brings the entire market down and it makes it harder for home owners, who would like to move, to get the appropriate price for their home as a similar home down the same street was sold for substantially less and the appraiser is using the foreclosure as a comparable sale.

This is just one of the problems when there are too many foreclosure listings in any area. Another issue is the television set that sits in everyone’s living room harping about the price of homes based on the number of foreclosures and this constant barrage of negative information makes most people sit on the sidelines waiting for the market to either implode completely or to correct itself. Meanwhile while they wait, others are buying foreclosure listings and making great investments.

Whatever the reason, a market can only handle so many foreclosure listings at any given time. The more foreclosures, the lower the market gets and this is a lesson the banks that were foreclosing and selling off realized too late. The market and their investments would have been better off if there had not been a rush to divest themselves of the toxic assets made more toxic by their own actions.