Fannie Mae and an Extra Day!

Looking to purchase some rental property? If you have money stashed away in a coffee can in the back yard, dig it up and read this article.......

Fannie Mae has put a block of 2,490 REOs up for sale. It’s the first pilot transaction of the federal government’s Real-Estate Owned (REO) Initiative announced in August 2011, which aims to sell homes repossessed by government agencies to private investors for the purpose of turning the properties into rental units.

Read more about the program here


What will you do with your extra day? Unless you live in an area where they don't recognize daylight savings time or leap years, you will have one extra day this year. That day is tomorrow, Feb 29th. If you were lucky enough to have been born on this day, you can celebrate your birthday today, or tomorrow, or March 1st. It's your call!

If it's not your birthday, do something special anyway. It's an extra day and you don't get one every year so make sure it's productive. Remember, what you do tomorrow could impact the rest of your life!! Here's some interesting info on why we need leap years....

A leap year consists of 366 days, as opposed to a common year, which has 365 days.

During Leap Years, we add a Leap Day, an extra – or intercalary – day on February 29. Nearly every 4 years is a Leap Year in our modern Gregorian Calendar.
When is the next Leap Day?
Traditions and Superstitions on Leap Day
Leap Day Trivia
World Events during the Leap Year 2012

Why do we need Leap Years?

Leap Years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun.
It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days – or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds (a tropical year)– to circle once around the Sun.

Note: The illustration is not to scale.

However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29 nearly every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!

How do we calculate Leap Years?

In the Gregorian calendar 3 criteria must be met to be a leap year:

• The year is evenly divisible by 4;
• If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless;
• The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.

This means that 2000 and 2400 are leap years, while 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years.
The year 2000 was somewhat special as it was the first instance when the third criterion was used in most parts of the world since the transition from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar.

Who invented Leap Years?

Julius Caesar introduced Leap Years in the Roman empire over 2000 years ago, but the Julian calendar had only one rule: any year evenly divisible by 4 would be a leap year. This lead to way too many leap years, but didn't get corrected until the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar more than 1500 years later.

• What's a Leap Second?
• Is there a perfect calendar?
• February 30 was a real date

Information from timeanddate.com


www.SteveSellsGwinnett.com Steve Rider, CDPE Realtor with Keller Williams Lanier Partners in Braselton Georgia. Covering Barrow, Jackson, Gwinnett and Hall Counties in Northeast Georgia. If you're looking for real estate in Gwinnett County please contact me at 404 663 7063 or steverider1@gmail.com.

Expanded Refi Program Will Allow Up to 125% LTV

News came out recently about an expanded refi program Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be offering that will help underwater homeowners refinance their homes at up to 125% loan to value. This is great news for a lot of people but it still leaves a lot of people out.

I spoke to Chuck Walden, a loan officer with Prospect Mortgage, about this today and here's his explanation of this program.....

"It is basically expansion of the current Fannie Mae Refi Plus and Freddie Mac Open Access loans that allow homeowners to refi if they don’t have any equity or very little.  The problem is that Fannie and Freddie allow 125% loan to value (LTV) but most lenders only want to risk going up to 95%.  So the program is there, but not available to everyone.  If they do expand it and are easier on appraised values and just focus on credit scores and late payments, it will be awesome.  BUT, will lenders do what Fannie and Freddie are allowing is another story"

This article from CNN Money talks a little more in detail about the program and the qualifications.
If you have more questions about this or any other mortgage or real estate related issue, please contact Chuck Walden at 678 725 8076 or myself at 404 663 7063



http://www.stevesellsgwinnett.com/ Steve Rider, CDPE Realtor with Keller Williams Lanier Partners in Braselton Georgia. Covering Barrow, Jackson, Gwinnett and Hall Counties in Northeast Georgia. If you're looking for real estate in Gwinnett County please contact me at 404 663 7063 or steverider1@gmail.com.