http://www.spokanehomeguy.com/blog Real Estate Commentary and Playful Banter Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:49:04 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The Washington State Housing Finance Commission offers incentives to purchase homes in specific areas in Spokane to promote home ownership.  Qualified applicants recieve lower interest rates, lower down payment requirements (0% with VA) and other great opportunities. As of 8/12/2008 - rates are as low as 6% with minimal down payment ... http://www.spokanehomeguy.com/blog/2008_08_14/washington-residents-financing-help-for-you/ For first time home buyers, the government just sweetened the pot. The message: get out there and buy a house.  The Reward: up to $7,500 in tax credits. This works similar to other tax credits, it's not free cash but it's interest free cash for up to 15 years.  A qualified ... http://www.spokanehomeguy.com/blog/2008_08_12/spokane-first-time-home-buyers-a-new-tool/ Transactions remained steady in July, the only increase was Coeur d'Alene with an increase of 3 transactions to 79 for the month.  Post Falls dropped 6 to 45, and Spokane dropped 18 to 732 (which represents the most steady month-to-month numbers for Spokane this year). The average sale price went up in ... http://www.spokanehomeguy.com/blog/2008_08_11/july-numbers-are-out/ New rules coming down from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke aim to prevent the current mortgage lending crisis from happening again in the future. The rules will require stricter requirements for proving income of borrowers, limiting or eliminating pre-payment penalties. The changes will also require lenders to consider ... http://www.spokanehomeguy.com/blog/2008_07_08/new-legislation-for-lenders/ Interesting article. It appears that more and more cities are seeing banks delay the foreclosure process when the occupant abandons the property.  There can be many reasons but the article speculates that the banks are trying to minimize losses on their books which may catch the eye of regulators.  Others presume ... http://www.spokanehomeguy.com/blog/2008_07_06/banks-delay-foreclosures-taxpayers-pay/ Comparison of 3 markets.  Post Falls, Coeur d'Alene and Spokane. I think you'll be interested in what you see. Download Report. For other Idaho Cities - shoot me a note. http://www.spokanehomeguy.com/blog/2008_07_05/post-falls-coeur-dalene-real-estate-stats-released/ The residential numbers are in... and they look good. June proved successful. The average closed sale price jumped over $6,000 to $219,829.47 the largest jump since March to April. Is this a sign of things to come for the rest of the summer season? Transactions are also up 123 ... http://www.spokanehomeguy.com/blog/2008_07_04/spokane-real-estate-market-statistics-june-2008/ I recently decided to tear down the builder supplied deck that was virtually falling off of my house and erect a much larger composite deck.  I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the handyman around the house, and my skills are better used cleaning up the debris from ... http://www.spokanehomeguy.com/blog/2008_07_02/building-a-deck-spokane-county-makes-it-easier/ Looking at the data from Closed Sales January through May, I'm seeing that prices are holding firm and sellers on average are getting between 97% and 98.5% of their asking price.  Granted, this does not account for any price reductions and time on market, but what it does tell us ... http://www.spokanehomeguy.com/blog/2008_07_01/spokane-real-estate-market-statistics/ Like I do every few weeks, I stuck my little toe into Paragon and pulled some statistics.  This week I pulled the 150-250 price range for residential, site built properties the Spokane County area.  To my surprise - things seemed to be going quite well in this sector. Out of 2,332 ... http://www.spokanehomeguy.com/blog/2008_04_21/hows-the-market/