The author is the founder of www.EastLiving.com.sg . Having accumulated a wealth of experience in dealing with thousands of private home buyers and sellers, Stuart Chng and his team, has honed their real estate negotiation skills and a thorough understanding of the needs and psychology of home buyers. Sign up for EastLiving’s daily Singapore Property News at http://blog.eastliving.com.sg .
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Real Estate Appraisal â is That the Real One?
Posted by james in Real Estate on November 11th, 2009
The person who performs a real estate appraisal exercise is called the real estate appraiser or property valuation surveyor. The value as determined by real estate appraisal is the fair market value.
The real estate appraisal is done using various methods and the real estate appraisal values the property as different for difference purposes e.g. the real estate appraisal might assign 2 different values to the same property (Improved value and vacant value) and again the same/similar property might be assigned different values in a residential zone and a commercial zone.
However, the value assigned as a result of real estate appraisal might not be the value that a real estate investor would consider when evaluating the property for investment. In fact, a
real estate investor might completely ignore the value that comes out of real estate appraisal process.
A good real estate investor would evaluate the property on the basis of the developments going on in the region. So real estate appraisal as done by a real estate investor would come up with the value that the real estate investor can get out of the property by buying it at a low price and selling it at a much higher price (as in the present).
Similarly, real estate investor could do his own real estate appraisal for the expected value of the property in, say 2 years time or in 5 years time. Again, a real estate investor might conduct his real estate appraisal based on what value he/she can create by investing some amount of money in the property i.e. a real estate investor might decide on buying a dirty/scary kind of property (which no one likes) and get some minor repairs, painting etc done in order to increase the value of the property (the value that the real estate investor would get by selling it in the market).
So, here the meaning of real estate appraisal changes completely (and can be very different from the value that real estate appraiser would come out with if the real estate appraiser conducted a real estate appraisal exercise on the property).
A real estate investor will generally base his investment decision on this real estate appraisal that he does by himself (or gets done through someone). So, can we then term real estate appraisal as a really real âreal estate appraisalâ?
New Home Mortgage Loan Troubles â Did We Not Learn From Past Real Estate Mistakes
Posted by james in Real Estate on September 23rd, 2009
It seems that the decision makers running the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac government refinance programs did not learn anything from the current, and continuing, housing bust. If bad loans got us into the current mess, why do Fannie and Freddie think that more bad loans will get us out? In a recent press release it was announced that the two government-owned agencies will now refinance loans up to 125% of the current homeâs value!
Does this spell trouble for the FHA home loans? All facts from the mortgage industry and government point to the fact that mortgage default rates take a huge spike upwards with high loan to value loans.
I would venture to say that many of the mortgage debtors (in trust deed states) may not realize that by refinancing through this program, they will be going from a non-recourse loan to recourse refinancing, in many cases.
My bet is that actions like this will give a false sense of recovery for awhile, only to have us fall further in the future, much like the stimulus money is currently doing.
In his statement FHFA Director Lockhart said, âThe higher LTV refinancing will allow more homeowners to strengthen their finances.â Do you really believe this? If the government really wanted people to stay in their houses, they would allow them to go into foreclosure and help them find alternative housing. Moving them into a 125% LTV recourse loan is setting them up for disaster and setting taxpayers up to take on the resulting new losses.
Perhaps the government is not being 100% honest in their touting this 125% refinancing program as a way to help people stay in their houses. In reality, it may actually be a way to help banks keep from writing down assets while they earn enough money to increase their capital base.
Some folks like to say that where California goes, so goes the rest of the country. The âtax and spendâ government in California did not yet come up with a comparable plan and have been beat to the punch by the Feds. Californiaâs 26 billion (or more) deficit, the absence of a viable budget, and the need for issuing IOUâs rather than cash payments, is no excuse. Only a few months ago California tossed out $100 million towards a credit to new home buyers for 5% of the purchase price (up to $10,000). Now that the first pot of money is depleted, there are two new bills pending in Sacramento proposing to double or triple the original $100 million.
Bob Schwartz is a Certified Residential Specialist, real estate broker specializing in San Diego real estate. Read more of Bob’s ‘tell it like it is’ real estate opinions & subscribe to his free RSS feed at:San Diego real estate blog Also visit San Diego real estate & San Diego real estate agents