Residents of Loudoun County now have a quick and easy way to keep track of the status of development projects for their areas.   A new Web site, www.LocalDecisions.org ,has been developed to give Loudoun County homeowners an easy tool for looking up information about building projects throughout the County. Clicking on a particular property can give users more information such as its status and the project’s identification number.  

Before this, there was no one place that a person could go to find information about what’s happening in their neighborhood or in the county as a whole.

According to Bob Lazaro,spokesman for the Piedmont Environment Council, the site currently includes about 38,000 projects and will be updated quarterly with information purchased from the county.

Information from LoudounTimes.com (JULY 22, 2008)

In an effort to help Loudoun County residents fight foreclosures, the Virginia Foreclosure Prevention Task Force and the Virginia Housing Development Authority has certified Guy Johnson as the county’s newest certified foreclosure prevention counselor.

Information obtained from Leesburg Today ( June 25, 2008)

The following excerpt is from an article written by Lawrence Yun, National Association of Realtors Chief Economist in the Realty Times on July 3, 2008:

Soft Data from REALTOR®® Members

There are a measurable number of potential buyers who have the financial capacity and mortgage qualifications, yet are refusing to jump into the market because of price decline fears. These hesitant buyers far outnumber the people who are unable to secure a mortgage.

The implication is that once there are signs of market stabilization then we may see a rush of buyers returning to the market. The recovery could be robust rather than tame. It also implies that the homebuyer tax-credit being discussed in Congress right now as part of the housing stimulus bill could make a big impact in drawing buyers to the closing tables.

Separately, I have received a lot of feedback from Realtors®® across the country about some unique factors that are not yet being captured in hard, quantifiable statistical data. The common themes are:

(1) Short sales are excruciatingly frustrating because lenders take forever to reply

(2) REO (bank-owned) properties are getting multiple bids and selling above list price

(3) Homes sell without a problem if priced correctly

(4) Many eager buyers cannot buy because they cannot sell their existing home

(5) Buyers of fixer-uppers are not buying because of the high cost of construction

(6) Builders are selling for less than the cost of construction and hurting the existing home market

(7) Low appraisals are leading to fallouts

(8) High gas prices are impacting neighborhoods far out from the city

(9) The media is painting inaccurate picture not related to my local market conditions and scaring away the buyers

(10) Buyers are waiting for the prices to drop further before committing

Most of these factors, as I see it, point to sizable pent-up demand waiting to be released into the marketplace. Particularly intriguing is the prevalence of multiple bids - after prices drop. Once it begins to take place, many buyers will be buying on the way up rather than on the way down. As is always the case, the market bottom will have been realized only after the fact.

Copyright National Association of REALTORS®®, Reprinted with permission. 

 In a effort to retain the quality of neighborhoods with foreclosure properties, Loudoun County has begun to mow the grass and clean up the lawn for abandoned houses and is billing the homeowner for the expenses incurred in doing so.

Abandoned homes with unkept lawns and litter and are a distraction to the neighborhood.  Un-mowed grass is a good breeding ground for ticks and Lyme disease.

Empty homes can also be a breeding ground for mosquitoes.  Unattended swimming pools, bird baths and overflowing gutters are nesting eggs for mosquitoes, the carriers of West Nile Virus.

According to The Washington Post ( July 1, 2008), Fairfax County approved a landmark housing program June 30, 2008 yesterday to buy foreclosed properties for middle-income families, becoming one of the first communities in the country to tackle the nation’s growing mortgage crisis while also addressing the region’s increasing demand for affordable housing.

County leaders said the program, through which Fairfax will purchase some properties outright and help families buy others through subsidized loans, takes advantage of a unique moment when thousands of homes are entering foreclosure and available for purchase at below-market prices. The program will expand the county’s stock of affordable housing and help stabilize areas where clusters of abandoned, unkempt properties in foreclosure threaten the value and vitality of surrounding neighborhoods, county officials said. 

Loudoun County is also considering a program that would allow county employees, including firefighters, teachers and deputies, to get a low-interest loan with which to purchase foreclosed homes in the easternmost portion of the county.

If you get a foreclosure notice on your home, be sure to explore all of your options to avoid the foreclosure. The very first thing you should do is consult with an attorney and also pursue these options:

Negotiate a new payment plan with more affordable loan payments.

Negotiate a smaller mortgage payoff (known as a "short sale") with your lender. With the surplus of foreclosures, many banks may be willing to "forgive" the borrower’s debt with a smaller loan payoff amount and the sale of the property. 

Have the bank show instruments proving that they actually own the loan. Because banks have so many loans, loan papers can become lost and the bank may be unable to show proof of actual ownership of the loan. Use this opportunity to negotiate a new loan with an affordable payment plan.

 RISMEDIA, June 17, 2008-In an effort to stabilize declining home values in certain neighborhoods, the Bush Administration announced a temporary policy that will extend government-backed mortgage insurance and allow for the immediate sale of vacant foreclosed properties.

 For one year, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) will insure foreclosed properties marketed and sold by property disposition firms on behalf of lenders. The properties, which must purchased by owner-occupants, will no longer be subject to the customary 90-day waiting period.

For more information, visit fha.com.

The typical buyer’s offer to purchase a property requires an appraisal value equal or greater than the offering price. The appraisal is ordered by the buyer’s lender, who’s objective should be to protect the investors from buying a loan that is above its market value and the buyer from purchasing a home for more than what it is worth.

Instead of describing local property values in an appraisal as “declining.”, some lenders have pressured appraisers them to change indicate ’stable’ conditions when all the relevant data suggested otherwise. Contrary to the purpose of the appraisal,the seller and loan officer benefit from excesses in property values; the invester and the home buyer lose. Inflated property valuations have contributed to current mortgage-market losses and is a significant contributing factor in many mortgage fraud cases and foreclosures.

But a lower property appraisal can be detrimental to the seller. The deal may fall through, unless the seller is willing to lower the price to the appraised value or the buyer is willing to pay the difference between the property value and the purchase price. If the property valuation is in question, the seller should order its own appraisal and present the results to the buyer’s lender for reconsideration of the property value.

It is important, that for this very reason, the real estate appraiser be reputable, experienced and familiar with the local real estate market and can perform an appraisal which accurately reflects the market value the property.

Loudoun County Public Schools are feeling the pinch from escalating fuel costs. The county has 740 school busses which run on diesel fuel. The escalating price of fuel exceeds what was budgeted for the current fiscal year and for the next, which begins in less than two months. The school system already has supplemented its current fiscal year fuel budget with $780,000 from other utility accounts.

If prices continue to increase, the schools would need to look at finding additional funding or cutting back certain services. This could mean making sure all buses are filled to capacity, transporting two athletic teams on the same bus or limiting field trips to locations closer to home.

The government of Loudoun County also is keeping an eye on fuel costs. The county doesn’t pay all of the taxes that people do on gasoline purchases, so there remains some breathing room before what the county pays on gasoline purchases matches or surpasses what was budgeted for next year.

Source: Leesburg Today

HOA and Condo Associations are feeling the pinch from the economic down turn. Many homeowner and condo associations are running into issues collecting dues from some of its members. The homeowner may no longer be able to afford their monthly dues or are not willing to pay. They just turned in the keys, moved and can’t even be found.

The homeowners association may have to raise the association fees for dues paying residents, lower expenses or cut in services to replace the missing revenue. Some associations have even gone bankrupt.