The Sacramento Community Services Planning Council founded the 2-1-1 Sacramento service. This service is free of cost and is available to the residents all days of the week, round the clock! Special services are provided to the disabled. A special feature of this service is that assistance is rendered in many languages. This program is the combined initiative of the Sacramento Commissions for housing, human help, aging agency, courts, security of homeland, employment and emergency services.

The 2-1-1 service database includes over 2,400 registered non profit organizations. The traine... Read more

Roseville Real Estate: One bedroom homes in Roseville/Rocklin corridor have a rent of $820 per month and $813 per month is paid by Section 8 to property management organizations in Sacramento. Roseville/Rocklin’s homes with one bedroom have an average area of 750 sq. ft and there exists about 700 rentals.

Two bedroom rentals in Roseville/Rocklin corridor possess a rent of $1010 per month and property management organizations in Sacramento are being paid $992 per month by Section 8. The average two bedroom rentals possess an area of 1001 sq. ft. There are over eleven hundred (1100) su... Read more

Repo business soars as Sacramento area home sales slump

By Jim Wasserman
jwasserman@sacbee.com

http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2002300.html

At the beginning, Alejandro Maybuena lost the Sacramento house he bought in April 2005 for $350,000. At the end, in early 2009, Kim Gish bought it for $109,000.

Stories like this have happened more than 40,000 times in the Sacramento area. Still, the tale in particular of one house in California’s capital region shows the sweeping change in a real estate industry that once involved mainly a mom-and-po... Read more

Home Front: Lenders’ phones silent as rates rise

By Jim Wasserman
jwasserman@sacbee.com

http://www.sacbee.com/business/story/1940229.html


Mortgage rates, rising quickly from near-historic lows earlier this year, are already having negative consequences in the capital region.

"All of a sudden the phones just stopped ringing," said Michael McGee, president of Rancho Cordova’s Winchester McGee Real Estate & Loans.

"At least right now, the refinance window has somewhat shut," added Brent Wilson, senior loan consultant at Sacrament... Read more

Use of short sales on rise in Sacramento housing market

By Jim Wasserman
jwasserman@sacbee.com

http://www.sacbee.com/business/story/1933643.html


For years real estate agents have steered buyers away from "short sales," labeling them a mind-numbing, difficult experience that could exhaust the patience of the biblical Job.

Now buyers can hardly avoid them.

"When it’s 50 percent of the inventory you don’t have a choice," said Scott Williams, a Roseville-based ReMax broker. Williams specializes in a complex transaction that may be... Read more

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s new rules are raising appraisal costs, critics say

http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/news/la-fi-harney17-2009may17,0,5903005.story

The rules, intended to improve the accuracy of home valuations, push most large lenders to use third-party appraisal management companies.


Reporting from Washington -- How about this scenario the next time you refinance or apply for a mortgage: The real estate appraisal that used to cost you $325 now costs $450, even though the appraiser doing the work is getting only $175 or $200.
Read more

Seniors Real Estate Specialists® are REALTORS® qualified to address the needs of home buyers and sellers age 50+. The SRES® Council awards the SRES® Designation to those members who have successfully completed its education program.

By earning the SRES® designation, your REALTOR® has demonstrated necessary knowledge and expertise to counsel clients age 50-plus through major financial and lifestyle transitions involved in relocating, refinancing, or selling the family home. Your REALTOR® has received special training, gets regular updates, and is prepared to offer the options and infor... Read more

Article from Grayson County Gazette-News
Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit www.savvysenior.org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book.


There’s no shortage of free online resources when it comes to caregivers seeking advice. The question is, which Web sites provide the most practical and comprehensive information and are easy to navigate.

Top Caregiving Sites

With approximately 52 million Americans serving as caregivers today, the need for fast, useful information has never been higher. ... Read more

Obama: Aid 9 million homeowners Wide-ranging $75 billion plan will use government money to subsidize rates and insure servicers against falling home prices.

By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: February 18, 2009: 10:05 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President Obama is
unveiling a $75 billion multi-pronged plan Wednesday that seeks to help up to 9 million borrowers suffering from falling home prices and unaffordable monthly payments. The long-awaited foreclosure fix marks a sharp departure from the Bush administration, which relied mainly on havin... Read more

Not long ago, a GreatWest Real Estate professional lamented, that after being in the business of selling homes to folks for a couple of decades, something was beginning to happen. The agent was noticing more and more of those “kids” they had sold homes to in the early 1980’s were ringing them up and asking, “What’s up with Reverse Mortgages???”

Of course, those “kids” in the early 1980s, are now approaching retirement age!

Until recent years, most real estate professionals wouldn’t have wished a Reverse Mortgage on anyone—they were simply dreadful!
In the past, they were... Read more