NEW HOUSING RECUE PLAN

Boy, I have been absent from the blog. I have been working day and night. The buyers are coming out like crazy. On the other hand, I have written many offers for several buyers, as we continue to get out bid for homes. What a crazy market. It just depends on where you are in the market.
The new housing rescue plan is out. I don't know how it will affect us here in Arizona. I do know about 82% of the homes selling are FHA. Most of those loans have seller assistance, whether for down payment or for closing costs. The new law outlaws seller assistance towards the down payment after October 1, 2008. This should cause a little spike in sales, but afterward who knows.
If you don't know what a Loan Modification or Loan Workout is, call us, we can help.
480-502-7699
We are also partnered up with an attorney who is offering a FREE consultation to our clients regarding short sales, foreclosure and housing.
Here is what USA today has to say about the new plan.

Who Benefits From Housing Rescue Plan?
By Anna Bahney,
USA Today

Is it a remedy for the worst housing slump the nation has suffered in decades? Or merely a taxpayer-funded bailout that will fail to reverse the plunge in home prices, the surge in foreclosures and the grave threat that overhangs the economy?
The housing act, which won final approval in Congress on Saturday and which President Bush has said he will sign, is historic in its sweep and ambition. It aims to provide relief to homeowners, incentives to buyers, guidance to lenders and oversight to vital government-sponsored entities, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Who, really, will benefit? And for how long? Will the legislation make a real difference for those who most desperately need help?
It depends on whom you ask. The act has plenty of fans. But skepticism abounds, too.
"The bill is not a silver bullet," says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com. "We have to string together several platinum bullets."
Yet Zandi endorses the legislation as among the most important steps that can be done now to prop up the housing market.
On paper, the act holds out help for thousands in need:
--Up to 400,000 homeowners at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure.
--First-time buyers who can't afford full down payments.
--States and cities that will receive money to redevelop abandoned and foreclosed homes.
--People in need of mortgage counseling.
--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee nearly half of the nation's mortgages and which now have a rescue plan.
But is it enough? Even if 400,000 homeowners can avoid foreclosure - a figure that a few critics dispute - some estimates put the number of potential foreclosures from 2007 through 2012 at up to 6 million.
"We're not getting enough for our money," says John Vogel, an adjunct professor at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. "Sure, some number of families - 100,000 or 200,000 - will be helped, and that's not insignificant. But it will not address the problem as fully as we would have liked."
Vogel notes that those in danger of foreclosure won't benefit unless their lenders agree to reduce the balances on their mortgages; for the lenders, it's purely voluntary.
Not since the National Housing Act of 1934 has legislation addressed a class as large as homeowners, without restricting the benefits to veterans, urban dwellers or low-income people. The 1934 law created the Federal Housing Administration and authorized the creation of Fannie Mae.
The question now is whether the current measure, sprawling as it is, will do what it's designed to do and serve those it aims to help. Here's a look at six groups that are intended to benefit.
HOMEOWNERS: $300 billion in FHA loans for refinancing
http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/bbdp/who-benefits-from-housing-rescue-plan/103559