Bay Area Finance: Week 1, September 2009
Today seems like a good day to remind everyone that the deadline for the Federal Housing Tax Credit is now less than three months away. Your home purchase must close by November 30th of this year to qualify. So, if you’re on the fence about purchasing a new home, and you haven’t owned a home in the last three years, now could be a great time for you to buy AND take advantage of a tax credit of 10%, up to $8,000. Indeed, this is just one part of the many-faceted approach to shoring-up the financial system over the past couple of years. While a lot of action was taken to keep many of the alleged “culprits of the meltdown” in place, we can say that there has been, without question, a reformation in the world of real estate finance. In fact, just within the last two weeks we’ve seen for the first time in about two years some news of lenders actually loosening some guidelines on qualifying debt ratios for home loan applications that receive an automated underwriting approval. Frankly, folks, in our business, this is music to our ears. We’ve had such a long stretch where the guidelines for loan underwriting seemed to exclude applicants on unreasonable grounds and where the time-frame for closing could be twice as long as usual with many bumps along the way. So to see the industry actually reach a “cruising altitude” where we can maybe let go of the armrests and unbuckle the seatbelt for a moment or two is more than welcome.
See here for some more info on how we’re shoring up the system.
To contact me about financing your dream-home click here.
Weekend Wanderer’s Events
…finding the treasures in your town and beyond.
Two for This Weekend:
Sausalito Art Festival: On this weekend of avoiding the Bay Bridge (the closure of which begins tonight at 8:00 pm, by the way) here is a GREAT option for which you’ll need no Bay Bridge to attend. My recommendation for East Bay folks is to take BART into the city and take the ferry over to Sausalito. No driving, no parking, no bridge, open-air boat ride, good times! Enjoy the beautiful town of Sausalito and see some world-renowned art displayed for sale. See here for more info.
“Art-Tech” in San Francisco: I can’t say it better than they did in their website: “art.tech is a festival of art, performance, sound, workshops, demos, and lectures featuring cutting-edge artistic experiments created with and related to technology. This vibrant showcase of local, national, and international artists working at and across boundaries celebrates technological experimentation, open source methodologies, collaboration, accessibility, and interactivity.” It’s this weekend. See here for more info.
Help Your Fellow Living Beings:
Client Check-In Caller for Meals on Wheels: This one enables you to exercise your altruistic inner-self by joining the group that delivers meals to homebound seniors and others who can’t leave home to take care of the basic provisions of food and beverages for themselves. But instead of delivering meals, this assignment is to just call the folks up on the phone, have a chat, and see how they’re doing. Seems like a more than worthy mission. Check it out here if you want to help.
Two Weekends from Now:
Five Religions in Conversation in San Francisco: For those of you who find it confounding how so much conflict arises between different religions who all profess so many similar tenets, here is a chance to explore the nuances of five of them all at once. Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism will all be represented, and the discussion is sure to highlight some of the bridges the religious people of the world may probably be grateful to recognize. Looks quite interesting. See here for more info.
Pic of the Week… from my own camera. 
It’s my birthday today, ya’ll. And I’m Big Sur or bust this coming Saturday.