Eco Friendly Housing

pHope Now, the consortium of banks, mortgage companies and credit counselors hoping to stem the housing crisis, released its August numbers. New foreclosure starts dropped by more than 25% to 224,000. The number of people who actually lost their homes in foreclosure sales was down 16% to 75,000./p pHope Now says the numbers show its program to workout loans is working. ”Our data suggests a correlation between the drop in foreclosures and the increase in work-out solutions to help at-risk borrowers,” said Faith Schwartz, the group’s executive director./p pLook deeper into the numbers though. Repayment plans that merely give the borrower an opportunity to catch up on past due payments vastly outnumber loan modifications, where borrowers actually see their interest rates or principal reduced. /p pLoan modifications are viewed as a more permanent fix because they reduce the monthly payments. Presently repayment plans outnumber loan mods at Hope Now lenders by nearly three-to-one. And the gap is widening. In July the ratio of payment plans to load mods was closer to two-to-one./p pIf the economy comes back, many of the 3.2 million borrowers with payment plans may get caught up again. If not, they’ll just fall behind again. Hope Now, pay later.br / /pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bw_rss/hotproperty/~4/4tPptgrUD54" height="1" width="1"/

A controversial $3.9 billion federal program aimed at saving neighborhoods blighted by foreclosure is hitting hurdles that could threaten its effectiveness.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rss/money_realestate/~4/Eoz7zjCLGSs" height="1" width="1"/

pWe spend a lot of time here on the HotProperty blog gauging the health of the real estate market and pointing to clues about where it might be heading. /p pBut today, we need your help. Tell us about the nagging questions you have about the housing market (example: How hard it really is to get a loan or what's the best way to go about securing one? What might a housing recovery look like? Is this a good time to buy an investment property?) /p pWe'll collect the best questions and try to answer them in a week or two. No question is too small. But we’ll be looking to answer questions that will be helpful to a large number of readers and, preferably, haven’t been answered in previous stories. /p pSo send questions early and often to a href="mailto:prashant_gopal@businessweek.com"prashant_gopal@businessweek.com/a. We've closed the comments on this post because we'd like you to e-mail us directly. If you'd like your name to be included in the story, please send it to us along with a phone number where we can reach you during the day./p pLook forward to hearing from you. /p pUPDATE: br / Thanks to those who have already sent in questions. One request, try to word your questions in a way that they're relevant to a larger audience. In other words, rather than spelling out your personal housing situation, ask me a broader question. Here's an example of a great question we received: Does the traditional rule of thumb that housing shouldn't cost more than 2.5 times annual income still apply today? /p pKeep the questions coming! /pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bw_rss/hotproperty/~4/_x5iPWXeX0g" height="1" width="1"/

There was another tick-up in home prices in July, a further indication that housing markets may be stabilizing, according to a report issued Tuesday.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rss/money_realestate/~4/7tazb7E9omE" height="1" width="1"/

Your big remodeling plans may be on hold for a while, but that doesn't mean you have to miss out on this buyer's market for home improvements. Just go small.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rss/money_realestate/~4/KfEkGl2hjwE" height="1" width="1"/

Question: I bought a home and qualified for the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit. I'm still a bit confused, though, about the payback rules. Can you explain them? --Jessica G., Houston, Texasimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rss/money_realestate/~4/f67PpoVswcQ" height="1" width="1"/

Home sales are rising. Builders are buying lots. And prices are no longer in free fall. After so much pain, there are signs of life in the housing market.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rss/money_realestate/~4/igWDHVFKh8s" height="1" width="1"/

Existing home sales fell in August, snapping a four-month streak of increases, according to a report released Thursday.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rss/money_realestate/~4/wGoePbTjyE0" height="1" width="1"/

pI heard recently from a reader who said the bank she had a mortgage with wanted her to continue to pay off part of the loan even after she sold her house for less than what she owed—a process known as a short sale./p pBanks have always been able to pursue deficiency judgments against borrowers who didn’t pay everything back, but they didn’t do so aggressively so far in this housing slump. /p pbr / img class=imgRight alt="rick.jpg" src="http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/rick.jpg" width="75" height="100" //p pRick DeBruhl, the consumer affairs reporter at the NBC affiliate in Phoenix, sent us this a href="http://gannett.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/gannett-phoenix-531-pub01-live/current/launch.html?maven_playerId=videopagemaven_referralPlaylistId=ef4eef0858d86e3fbd11155a09017863da0f06c2maven_referralObject=1254062604"report/a he did recently. The homeowner is being asked to pay $75,000 of the $200,000 difference between what he owes the bank and what his house is worth. Rick says he is hearing of more cases like this recently./p pWhat’s interesting too about this case is that the bank, One West, is the entity formerly known as IndyMac. The private equity firms that bought IndyMac from the federal government agreed to continue the homeowner-friendly policies initiated by the FDIC after it took over IndyMac. Now that no longer appears to be the case./p pThanks to Rick DeBruhl for the tip and the clip!/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bw_rss/hotproperty/~4/Bv_yOZU6DKg" height="1" width="1"/