The worry is that, just like the cash for clunkers program, we're attracting all first-time buyers to buy now to buoy the health of the market, but that will reduce the amount of first-time buyers down the road, which could again hurt the market.

Quoted: Thanks in part to an $8,000 tax credit, first-time buyers accounted for a record 47 percent of all home purchases this year, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Quoted: The problems started after mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae decided to take steps earlier this year to limit exposure in what it viewed as a risky lending segment that’s been loaded with foreclosures, Sachenbacher says.
As a result, the two biggest insurers of mortgage loans now require 70% of a condo property’s units to be sold, up from 51% less than a year ago, before it will insure or buy the loan, thereby allowing it to be sold on the secondary market.

Quoted: Existing home sales were up 23.5 percent from a year earlier and sales activity was at the highest pace since February 2007, NAR says.

FHA funding for condos is changing big time - times will be tough for condo buildings in a price range that appeals to first-time buyers using FHA financing

Quoted: The spot approval process will be eliminated for all case numbers on or after Feb. 1, 2010 under the new guidelines. The FHA created the process, allowing consumers to purchase a unit in a non-approved condominium project that has limited FHA involvement.

Quoted: Sold on its square footage -- Quadrant advertisements run during the housing boom presented a family lost in its living room -- the house lacked a heater powerful enough to warm all that space, Sigafoos said. Sections of the home had been left without insulation by crews working for the Weyerhaeuser Co.-owned developer, he claimed, and wet materials used during the house's rushed construction provided a foothold for mold.

Quoted: The national delinquency rate on one-to-four-unit residential properties climbed to 9.64% of all loans at the end of Q309, according to a survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Including the rate of foreclosures, the US serious delinquency rate is at a record 14.4%

Quoted: According to RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure database, 6,495 properties entered some stage of foreclosure in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue region in the third quarter of this year. That translates into a 38 percent increase from a year ago, putting the region 95th out of 203 metro areas that RealtyTrac gauges.

Quoted: Aided by the home buyer tax credit, the outlook for housing and the economy appears headed for a sustainable recovery, the National Association of Realtors said Friday.