Fannie Mae announced a program aimed at helping ordinary home buyers compete with investors for foreclosed homes. We are not sure this is a right choice, because across the nation real estate investors have less than 10% foreclosure rate.
Under the program, dubbed First Look, Fannie plans to consider offers only from potential owner-occupants and certain public-housing entities during the first 15 days in which a foreclosed home is on the market.
Fannie and its main rival, Freddie Mac, are government-controlled companies that buy or guarantee home mortgages. They are among the biggest owners of foreclosed homes. As of Sept. 30, Fannie said it had 72,275 single-family foreclosed homes on its books. Freddie had 41,133 as of that date.
Bernie Germani said” many of us real estate investors can move faster on home purchases because we are able to pay cash and don’t have to wait to qualify for a loan and get an appraisal. Investors often turn the homes into rental units or resell them to other buyers for a quick profit. People seeking to take advantage of the drop in housing prices to buy their first homes have been grousing that they often lose bidding wars to investors.”
Fannie said it also would help owner-occupants acquire homes by reducing deposit requirements to as little as $500 and giving them a chance to renegotiate offers after appraisals. Such buyers also are to be allowed as many as 45 days to complete the transaction, up from the usual 30 days.
A Freddie spokesman said the company has similar pilot programs and is helping owner-occupants pay closing costs.
Fannie announced Tuesday that 4.72% of the single-family home loans it owns or guarantees were 90 days or more overdue in September, up from 4.45% in August and 1.72% in September 2008.
Jesus Yinh, and Susan Park, short sale investors in Southern California said ” We are not sure why Fannie would even consider this program. Us investors are the ones who are helping the economy not adding to the foreclosure challenges, but at the same time we welcome the competition of non-investors.”
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