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Phil Lukan of Pulte Mortgage offers some positive insights for today's buyers.
Despite all of the news about our nation’s financial systems, we bring you an interview with Phil Lukan, Pulte Mortgage’s local branch manager.
Buyers in today’s marketplace have a lot of concerns when it comes to purchasing a new home (selling their current residence, qualifying for a loan, etc.). As someone intimately familiar with home mortgages, the qualification process and credit markets in general, what’s your perception of the current credit situation and what would you anticipate seeing as improvements in the near- to short-term?
Phil: Certainly the news can be deceiving when looked at superficially. But there are indications that the credit markets may start to ease up, mainly as a result of the federal government’s recent moves to shore up the economy, financial institutions and other measures through the recent bailout packages. The Treasury just recently indicated the $125 billion that is going to 9 major U.S. banks will begin to be deposited early this week. The hope is that the additional funds will allow banks to open their doors to lending again and that will continue to help unfreeze the credit markets.
We’ve heard that many buyers are finding it difficult to qualify now unless they have spectacular credit scores. Is there any truth to this and does Pulte have any plans in place to allow buyers to become prequalified or even special financing programs once they’ve met qualification guidelines?
Phil: Most Qualification guidelines have been significantly tightened and the credit score “bar” has certainly been raised for all buyers. We’ve seen an end to certain types of financing programs, such as reduced documentation programs (Stated Income, No-Doc) and many 100% financing programs. Debt-to-income ratio guidelines are more stringent and downpayment requirements have also tightened, especially in developing markets that still hold a high level of overall credit risk. In Illinois, legislation was passed which now requires lenders to verify the borrower’s ability to make monthly mortgage payments, which means “reduced doc” loan programs are no longer a financing option.
Homes that orbit high is the sky? Not likely in 2031, but plenty of neat-o things are sure to be commonplace.
There’s a great article over at ABCNews.com about Good Morning America’s technology contributor, Beck Worley’s, tour of Popular Science and Sunset magazines’ “House of the Future.”
Designed to feature some possible concepts in the year 2031, the home is full of Jetson-era conveniences and is much more warm and comfortable than you might think of the future being over 20 years from now. Some excerpts:
Music. According to Ms Worley, the home featured music in all of the rooms — but no apparent speakers or stereo equipment. Subtle wall-mounted controls pulled music from a variety of devices — an iPod, CD player, radio or other media source. The idea here is that everything is “seamlessly integrated” — no wires and simple, intuitive controls.
The results are in! After careful review of the graveyards, ghouls and ghosts submitted by homeowners as part of the Pulte Decorating Contest, seven photo entries were selected as winners.
Residents of Pulte Homes of Illinois communities were asked to open the door to their creativity and show off their best fall home fashions for the contest that ran from October 1-15th. Judges decisions were based on originality, theme and overall Halloween appearance. All winners will receive two season passes to Six Flags Great America.
This note was sent in by the Stajura Family of Cedar Ridge in Lockport, Illinois and offers a glimpse into their community.
We have been living in the Cedar Ridge Community in Lockport for three years and we really love the home that you built for us. One tradition that our family loves is to decorate inside and outside our home for Halloween and Christmas. What is really special is that we live on the corner and you can see the lights from the outside decorations as soon as you enter the subdivision. The neighbors are great, and it is a real treat to see the parents bring around the little kids to see the decorations. Thanks again for creating such a great community in Lockport, Illinois.
Here are ten reasons why buying and owning a home now is a good idea.
We found a great PDF over at the Illinois Association of Realtors web site, outlining 10 important facts you should know about the real estate market in Illinois. Without further delay:
1. There is no such thing as a national real estate market. What happens in Las Vegas…well, as far as the housing market there, yes, it tends to be very different than Illinois. Real estate markets are local, so don’t get too concerned about what’s happening outside of where you are selling (and want to buy). Pay attention to local pricing trends, volume movements and changes in inventories, rather than misleading news headlines about national sales trends.
What’s a Twitter?
If you’re like most online consumers these days, it seems like every time you fire up your Explorer, Firefox or Safari web browser, there’s another oddly-named web site staring you in the face. Or, perhaps you’ve heard your kids talking about “tweeting” to their friends, your younger cohorts at the office giggling about a viral posting being passed around online or you’ve read yet another article lamenting the end of the common telephone call.
Twitter, one of a set of tools calls even more cryptically, microblogging, is fast becoming one of the must-have methods of staying in touch and in the loop online. But what exactly is it, why would you want to use it and what are the benefits?
The Shopping Mall
One of our favorite methods of explaining new online technologies and tools to the common man is to use the shopping mall analogy. In a shopping mall, you’re blitzed with messages coming at you from all sides, at all times and in a variety of ways.
Think of being on the Internet as walking through a shopping mall.
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