If you are facing foreclosure in the Philadelphia or Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey tri-state area, you should be sure to avail yourself of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's new Foreclosure Resource Center.

Link:  Philadelphia Fed's Foreclosure Resource Center

A short sale is probably the best way to get into purchasing foreclosures if your still a newbie. Short sales usually involve purchasing a home that is currently undergoing the foreclosure process or that will soon be in foreclosure. Financing can usually be arranged from a financial institution allowing newbies to start out with minimal capital. Though short sales can takes weeks or months to be completed, so some patience may be needed.

It may help restore some confidence in the housing sector and perhaps bring down interest rates allowing for more individuals to purchase homes. But the economy is still weak and lending regulations make become stricter as well, leading to minimal change. We can only wait and see.

We've taken an open policy to allowing members to post foreclosure relief information / advertisements in the forum.  However, we'd like to add a few caveats:

1.  Any post offering foreclosure relief is not a sign of endorsement by HomeMortgageForeclosures.com.

If your currently facing foreclosure please read our official foreclosure avoidance advice here:

How to Avoid Foreclosure

2.  Those of you who've seen these scams before, we're allowing posts of this nature in hopes that we can all call them out.  Let that be a warning to anyone who posts here with the intent of taking advantage of our members - you will be called out here and on our partner's and associates websites.  Think twice before conducting unethical business on our board.

3.  The above said, there are legitimate organizations and options available to those of you facing foreclosure and we want to encourage them to use our forum to reach more homeowners in need of such assistance.  If any members have had a positive experience with any organization that posts here, please share that experience with out other members.

4.  This is not an open invitation to shameless self-promotion and spam.  Each post in this forum will be carefully moderated. 

We'll keep this as a sticky at the top of the forum and add to it as specific cases call for revisions to this policy.

Best Regards,

Elizabeth K.
HomeMortgageForeclosures.com

Not sure if anyone saw this since it broke late today.  It looks like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may be bailed out over the weekend, completely wiping out shareholders.  Not looking good.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Bailout

Ok, ok, its Friday evening - shouldn't I have better things to do?

I thought others might find this useful.  We're currently looking to buy in Austin and the August numbers from the Austin Real Estate blog confirm what we've been seeing.  Inventory up, sales down but prices holding.

If you're into the Austin market, you'll definitely want to bookmark the Austin Real Estate blog.

In our area its really only the higher end houses that have been hit hard.  Once you get over the $300k range, houses are off 20% +.  On the other hand, in the entry level range prices have held relatively flat if not up a bit. 

This is Texas mind you, and our real estate market seems to be a lot more robust than what I'm hearing from the rest of the country.

It seems all parts of the housing sector are effected by the dwonturn in the housing market, including higher end properties.

Do the price of higher end homes continue to drop or the housing slump just effecting lower and middle priced homes?

It seems now prime foreclosures have overtaken subprime ones. I believe this is a sign truly demonstrating how weak our economy has gotten.