GAYLON’S BLOG

june 27, 2008

word out: I HAVE RECENTLY COMPLETED AN FHA PROTOCOL CLASS AND HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE HUD-FHA APPRAISERS ROSTER FOR PERFORMING INSPECTIONS FOR FHA BACKED LOANS. THIS, ALONG WITH MY EXTENSIVE CONSTRUCTION BACKGROUND, QUALIFIES ME TO INSPECT THE MECHANICAL SYSTEMS AND OTHER RELATED CONSTRUCTION ASPECTS  FOUND AT THE SUBJECT HOME AND REPORT WITH PROFESSIONAL CERTAINTY THOSE FINDINGS TO THE LENDER AND FHA.</SPAN>JUNE 10, 2008

Also just read an article from The CSM regarding further government efforts to install legislation on the national level aimed at putting a floor to the declining prices witnessed by all involved in central california: appraisers, home owners, mortgage brokers, realtors and lenders. As with other recently proposed legislation, this aims to help out main street USA (the average joe-homeowner) as opposed to wall street.  Several issues are involves both pro and con to the proposal.  Go to http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080627/cm_csm/ehousing for details.

June 10, 2008

Greetings everyone! Welcome to the new Integrity Home Services (I.H.S.) Website. Here you will find useful information regarding residential real estate appraisal, some other links to related topics and even a chance to win $1,000; courtesy of A-La-Mode, my appraisal software provider that promotes this monthly contest. (Click on the “Win $1,000” button at left). In addition, on this site, you can order an appraisal, pay for it via credit card or find other contact information that can put you in touch directly with the Integrity Home Services office. if you are curious about what happens when an appraiser comes to call (click on the appraisal info button above), and read either the long or short version, depending upon how curious you really are.

This website is offered through X-Sites, another A-la-mode product. It will be continually updated as new information becomes available, services are added or any other related or interesting news item or product comes to my attention.

What is unique about X-sites is that they are not typically custom built for the web site owner by professional web site builders, although they can be. Like most folks who are self-employed, particularly small business owners, I try to keep costs down and end up doing a lot of the work required for this business on my own. In addition to being the main appraiser, office manager, book-keeper and janitor here, I am also the web site builder. So not only are the things I said in paragraph 2 above true, it can also be said that features will be added to the I.H.S. site as I get better at site-building.

As the face of the Real estate market in california continues to change, i will do my best to put out pertinent information that will be of use to the users of this site.  Some of the notable news of recent months include the willingness of lenders to reduce inventory by allowing sales of foreclosed homes at much lower prices than was typically seen before the beginning of 2008. The effect of this has been the continued decline of home values as foreclosed homes selling at greatly reduced prices are making up the majority of homes sales in many market areas.  as an example: this means if you purchased a home a year ago for say ($300,000) figuring it was a good deal because that same home sold in 2005 for $500,000, you may find that the latest clearing of reo inventory may see that $300,000 home bought 6-12 months ago now worth $250,000. Some homes are selling for so low that builders cannot buy vacant land, pay permit fees and improvements, build the homes and compete.  explaining of course, why new home starts are at historic lows.  sales activity has increased over the past 6 months as willing and qualified buyers continue to take advantage of lowered home prices, although it is believed that many are still waiting for the true bottom to appear.  with some homes selling for below cost already, it doesn't seem as if though prices, on average, will continue to fall much further but other worrisome economic news is keeping the demand low, even if activity has increased somewhat.  Appraisers generally report on recent market activity and are not really in the business of making predictions.

for people attempting to refinance, the continued declination of value across most markets makes redoing loans difficult.  Added to this is the tightening of the money supply and tightening of credit criteria that makes finding loans and qualifying for them more difficult as well.  for the industry as a whole and for the long run, I believe this is a good thing. Also under the category of better economic news, some lenders are becoming more cooperative about restructuring existing loans, depending upon the circumstances, of course.  Also, going forward from here, fha insured loans are replacing some of the low down financing that was previously available. to learn more about fha and other programs, visit www.fha.gov or www.hud.gov.

personally, i have been taking alot of continuing education and basic education classes working towards my license upgrade and to continue to stay abreast of all the latest developments and changes that are an ongoing part of the real estate appraisal profession.  included in this education was a 4 day class on statistics and graphing, which allows the appraiser to extract sales data from the mls and other sources and to be able to graph and export the data through spreadsheet software into the reports.  The graphic representation of the data is easier to understand and creates a dynamic picture of market trends that have occurred over the past couple of years and (for lenders) over the past 3-6 months that are very current.

That's it for now, I'll keep in touch~

Gaylon Thompson

CA AL028957

Integrity Home Services