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Top 10 Tax Breaks,
On The House
The
New Year always turns thoughts to the new tax season
and when it comes to taxes there's no place like
home to find shelter. Your home offers a score of
tax deductions and credits designed to help offset
the cost of housing and to keep the housing market
fueled with new buyers.
Here's a look at the Top 10 Tax Breaks, On The
House.
Mortgage Loan Interest: The Mother
Of All Tax Breaks, because interest payments
comprises a large portion of your mortgage payment
in the early years of the loan's term, mortgage
interest on a maximum of $1 million in
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Battle of the Warring
Housing Price Indexes
We
saw another "battle of the warring housing price
indexes" last month, with the federal government
reporting positive price appreciation in more than
two-thirds of U.S. metropolitan markets -- at the same
time a widely-publicized Wall Street index said home
values were down by a record 4 percent for the year, and
down by 5 percent in the top 20 markets.
How could there be such big differences? And which
index is right?
Here are the facts:
The federal government's house price index is
produced quarterly by an agency called the Office of
Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO). It
measures valuation movements in a massive database of
millions of homes whose loans were financed or
refinanced by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
The data covers nearly 300 major metropolitan
markets and dozens of smaller non-metropolitan areas.
In its latest index, released November 29, OFHEO
reported prices in
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Smoothing The Rough
Road To Refinancing
Lower
interest rates could offer some financial buoyancy for
those looking to refinance before they get in over
their heads.
Home mortgage interest rates have been flat or
falling since early October. The falling average rate
probably won't help those who purchased a home, a year
or two ago, especially if they had a small equity
stake in their home. "The problem is a lot of people
in those products is they don't have any equity in the
house and lenders want equity to refinance," said
Glenda Queensbury, a mortgage adviser in San Jose, CA.
However, there could be a safe harbor available
for others facing a resetting adjustable rate mortgage
(ARM) with the potential for higher rates and
unmanageable mortgage payments.
The key, say the experts, is to examine your
options early.
"Absolutely. When people start feeling the pinch
don't wait until you are delinquent. The more
delinquent you become the more options that will start
going off the table" says William Higgins, chief
lending officer of online bank Ing Direct.
Higgins says it's a good idea to visit your
existing lender first. That's especially true if your
lender doesn't sell loans and has a vested financial
interest...
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From
The Honolulu Advertiser:
More Articles:
Buing Real Estate On Oahu
Many new residents on Oahu and some long time Kama ،aina
have many misconceptions about the home buying process. Oahu and the
entire State of Hawai،i
are a unique market with unique land laws and conditions. So for
all of those buyers who think that prices are going to fall, there will
be plenty of bargains, or who believe any of the other mainland pundits;
let's discuss some facts.
While many mainland markets were hit with
devastating value losses, the median sales prices for existing single
family homes on Oahu rose 2.1% last year. As you can see below -
straight from the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Board of Realtors
(and as I predicted all of last year); sales prices (and therefore the
market values) of property on Oahu were
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WHEN YOU ARE READY TO BUY!
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