2009 Fresno Real Estate Forecast

The Fresno County Economic Development Corp had a meeting and Joan Eaton of Guarantee Real Estate presented a report and graphs illustrating the current trends of our local market. Very interesting stats, showing the recent improving sales statistics, and outlook for the market in 2009. Go to: www.guarantee.com/edc to listen to the audio report and view the graphs that were presented.

FHA Loans Proving Difficult with Fresno REO listings

The good news is interest rates are low, and FHA has the lowest down payment and easiest qualifying ratios for homebuyers. The bad news, is that most of the inventory of low priced bank owned homes will not qualify for the FHA insured loans, or the sellers don't want to fix their property to the FHA standards. FHA has minimum property standards, and the popular financing is proving e to be less attractive to the banks when your negotiating an offer to purchase. They would rather sell to a buyer with conventional financing or even better yet "all cash". Let's face it "cash is king", and due to stricter property requirements, the sellers will take the path of least resistance. If the banks could invest a little bit in bringing their properties up to specs, I could sell a lot more properties, and for higher sale prices. Most people only have enough money to buy the property and don't have the extra cash to fix up the property after acquisition. Another alternative is an FHA rehab loan called the 203K, but unfortunately their aren't many local lenders that are using this particular loan and are not well versed in the process of this loan.