Modesto Real Estate

A cluster of just-released housing statistics all point the same depressing direction: down. Whether it's home sales, housing construction or resale prices, none of the news is good for the Northern San Joaquin Valley or the nation as a whole.
(BRIAN RAMSAY/bramsay@modbee.com) Meliton Hernandez, 48, of Winters, shovels dirt at a Village I subdivision in Modesto. Construction workers with G&G Construction Company out of Atwater were busy working on subdivision for track homes in the Village I area on Sharon Ave. and Fine Ave. near Freedom Elementary School in east Modesto on Tuesday. The subdivision, Graham Estates, will have over 30 homes. A completion date was not immediately available. VCI Construction planned to build 24 homes in Graham Estates in 2008 but the work was never completed. The Bee recently reported that Village I homeowners may have been wrongly charged millions of dollars in extra property taxes. August 17, 2010. - Modesto Bee - Brian Ramsay
(BRIAN RAMSAY/bramsay@modbee.com) Construction workers with G&G Construction Company out of Atwater were busy working on subdivision for track homes in the Village I area on Sharon Ave. and Fine Ave. near Freedom Elementary School in east Modesto on Tuesday. The subdivision, Graham Estates, will have over 30 homes. A completion date was not immediately available. VCI Construction planned to build 24 homes in Graham Estates in 2008 but the work was never completed. The Bee recently reported that Village I homeowners may have been wrongly charged millions of dollars in extra property taxes. August 17, 2010. - Modesto Bee - Brian Ramsay

The end of a popular government stimulus program drove home sales in July to their lowest levels in more than a decade, fueling fresh concerns about the economic recovery.

Everywhere you look, July was rotten for real estate - that's one thing on which the economists and the statistics agree.

San Joaquin Valley lawmakers and homeowners still feel left out of the Obama administration's billion-dollar bids to ease the nation's foreclosure crisis.
DEBBIE NODA/dnoda@modbee.com Renee Jones has an upside down mortgage on her Atwater home, August 17, 2010. Her 3 bedroom 2 bath home is about 1,100 square feet was built in the 1950's and present market value $70,000 but her mortgage is $227,000. - Modesto Bee - Debbie Noda
DEBBIE NODA/dnoda@modbee.com Renee Jones has an upside down mortgage on her Atwater home, August 17, 2010 has made some needed improvements to her kitchen. - Modesto Bee - Debbie Noda

Would-be home buyers retreated in the heat of July, which saw a sharp drop in the number of properties sold in the Northern San Joaquin Valley and statewide.

The Treasury Department said Friday that the nation's housing market "remains fragile" and reported that far fewer delinquent mortgage borrowers received loan modifications through a federal government program in July than they did in June.

Just as the housing market recovery has stalled, so has the President Barack Obama's main program to ease home foreclosures.

Facing new penalties if they lowball estimates of upfront mortgage costs, lenders and brokers appear to be coming clean about how much borrowers will pay.

When Josh and Amanda Brandt began looking for their first house this year, they wanted what every buyer wants.

With mortgage rates at their lowest in decades, Central Valley mortgage lenders have seen a rush to refinance. For a homeowner, that refinancing could mean hundreds in savings each month and tens of thousands over the life of the loan.
(DEBBIE NODA/dnoda@modbee.com) - Loan consultant Kevin Hawes from Ability Mortgage in Ripon works with a client on a potential refinance of his home, August 17, 2010. - -

WASHINGTON - The call from business for less government has a notable exception: the mortgage market.

WASHINGTON - Growing pessimism over the weak economic recovery pushed mortgage rates to the lowest level in decades for the seventh time in eight weeks.

As foreclosure fights rage in the nation's courts, the battle over Shahida and Ather Ali's house in Diamond Bar, Calif., looks like a classic mismatch.

QUESTION: What's all the talk about inflation these days? Pundits, especially conservatives, are saying that we should worry about inflation because all the stimulus spending will make for a situation where there is too much money chasing too few goods. That's the definition of inflation: too much money and too few goods and services to buy. But how does that fit into the present housing market situation with low demand and an oversupply?

When the air sputtered out of the housing bubble, new home builders struggling to survive went with smaller homes that could appeal to a broader base of buyers.

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - Erin Kennedy-Florez was 10 months into a one-year lease on a home in Richmond, Calif., when she found a notice on her door saying the home was being foreclosed.