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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (185955)	2/23/2009 2:20:07 PM
From: Live2Sail	Respond to of 306849

It's likely the case that if someone is under the 417k limit in the Bay Area, then he's so far underwater on his mortgage that he won't qualify for the 105% limit. Bay Area will see very little help on this one. But, as Lizzie says, the Bay Area isn't as bad as the rest of the country... yet.

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (185955)	2/23/2009 3:14:15 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

the problem with these articles about the "bay area" is they include all the outlying areas, and those areas like Tracy, CA, Mountain House, CA, and San Joachin county are some of the WORST real estate locations decline-wise in the country- vs the more inland areas like SF, Hillsborough, Palo Alto which are some of the best. So in the places that haven't fallen, SF et all (well yes some of these places might have fallen 15% from peak but thats your typical December correction anyway)- these areas will not benefit from anything under 417K. The new fannie/freddie guidelines allow mortgages at 625K as conforming here, which is better, but the problem with the Obama plan is that your CURRENT mortgage must be fannie/freddie to refi, and those were before the new conforming limits took place. The other areas that are outlying like I mention above, Tracy etc, have 417K mortgages, but those are down just like Phoenix, Las Vegas etc and everybody there is under 105%. To top it off, they seem to be applying the more stringent debt to income requirements on these new refis and those are 30% mortgage to income, these people cannot qualify for that (and I take major issue with that provision of the stupid Obama plan because the fact that people are currently paying their underwater, higher interest mortgage makes them DEFACTO qualified for a refi from a debt to income perspective). So, in general this Obama plan is a major dud for around here, and lots of other places too. Its a joke, very disappointing.