Buyers are becoming more demanding. Rock-bottom prices are just the starting point for them. They will ask for more and demand different things.  Some of the things that you, as a seller may have to do are-

• Repaving the cracked driveway
• New furnace
• Replacing the carpet
• Fill up the home’s heating oil tank (New England)
• Pay the closing costs (California)
• Purchase a home service contract that provides a one year warranty on all of the appliances in the house
• New air conditioning
• Condo association fee for one year
• Two weeks in Hawaii

There is no limit to what a buyer may ask the sellers to do.

Buyers are asking for more concessions and more from the deal. They know that they are in the driver’s seat and some buyers will surely take advantage of it. Buyers are making sure everything is in writing.

During bubble, the actual sales contract which generally contains safeguards for the buyer, was not followed.

But now, he buyers have expanded the contract by adding numbers of clauses. Such clauses now include various facilities and repairing and other matters which are for the benefit of the buyer.

Hope Now is a coalition of mortgage servicers, counselors, and investors who assembled with a mission to fight foreclosures. Even though they helped a huge number of people, still foreclosure is rising in the country. Almost 91,752 families were engulfed in foreclosure and they lost their homes in the month of July. The foreclosure rate in July is an increase of 14% from June. The rate is almost double in comparison to July 2007 (42,043 foreclosure).

Hope Now is trying hard to reach out to borrowers who need help. Hope Now is advertising, promoting its name, organizing foreclosure prevention events, using public announcements and other media help to tell the borrowers that it is available for help. But the borrowers are seems to be not interested. They are reluctant to seek help from Hope Now.

About 80% of the 1.6 million borrowers 60 days past due who were sent letters since November 1, 2007, have not responded to the lenders till now. That communication with the borrower is very crucial.

Hope Now is partnering with community groups to organize large events to help huge number of borrowers meet with the counselors.

Has it helped in any way? The answer is no. Just see the mortgage rates for a $500,000 30 year-fixed loan- 6months ago the mortgage rate was 6.73% and now it is 6.69%. Not much difference. As there is not much difference, so the housing market is still stuck here.

But investors have doubt about the present condition of these two mortgage giants. They are incurring losses and investors think they will have to be bailed out very soon. Fannie and Freddie has a critical role in the mortgage market. They buy loans from banks and then securitize them and sell the securities to investors. Such buying loans help banks with more available money which helps in keeping home buying affordable for the homebuyers.

By raising the mortgages that both these giants can guarantee, government tried to reduce the spread between the interest rates on the mortgages of the amount $417,000, and those between $417,000 and $730,000. But the rates have risen over the period instead of going down. Two factors that have actually nullified the expected results- investors do not want securities from shaking mortgage giants and both the mortgage giants have limited capital which they have spread over a large mortgage market.

During July, homeowners sold more homes than expected. The price fell 7% in July. The price was affected by the increasing supplies and was pushed lower. Inventory is increasing and so the price is decreasing.

According to, the National Association of Realtors, sales by homeowner was found to be 5 million. The same figure was 4.85 million in June. Though the sales were 13.2% lower than July previous year, but this is good in the present scenario.

The price

The median price of homes in July fell to $212,400 from $228,600 a year ago, which was a 7.1% fall. This includes all types of homes - single-family homes, condominiums, town homes, co-ops. The median price for the single-family home fell 7.7% from the last year. The price for a single-family home is $210,900 now.

Increase in sales

Northeast rose   +5.9%
Midwest              + 0.9%
West                    + 9.7%
South- No increase (dropped by a seasonally adjusted 0.5%)

Prices

The prices declined 22 % in the West
In the Northeast prices declined 4.9%
In South there was a decline of 3.5%
Midwest- Exception. Prices rose 1%

Inventory

The inventory in the market rose 3.9% in July. The number of homes available for sale was a record 4.67 million. The increase in the inventory is said to be due to increase in the numbers of condominiums. But the single-family home supply dropped during the same time.

Even after strict standards, the mortgage fraud is still occurring at a higher number.  According to a report by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute (MARI) such fraud cases are increasing.

If you see the numbers, then you will be shocked. In 2008, during the first three months, the number of fraudulent mortgage issued increased a whopping 42 percent from the last year same time.

Loan applications are lowest in the last eight years, real estate professionals are trying hard for clients and the underwriting standards have been tightened. In such situations credit histories of many of the borrowers are not good enough to get them a loan. In such cases the loan officers and brokers are trying to be creative to get their clients past through the mortgage screening.

The most common fraud happening is exaggeration of income and misrepresentation of the job description.

The problems of incorrect debt report and undisclosed debts, judgments and liens helped in such a huge increase in the number of mortgage fraud. Most of the mortgage fraud involves loan officers and brokers tweaking the information, but some of them involve criminal enterprises. Criminal fraud cases and identity theft has been other causes of such gigantic rise in the numbers of frauds.