Two articles this week, one at NuWire.com and the other at MortgageNewsDaily.com are talking about rising home prices and fewer homeowners in negative equity (underwater) situations. Over at NuWire, the negative equity rate is said to have dropped under 20% for the first time in years.
The rate of homeowners underwater in their mortgages fell last month to 19.4%. 9.8 million homeowners still remain underwater in their mortgages. However, negative equity has fallen for seven consecutive quarters. Approximately 3.9 million homes exited negative equity situations during this period.

Mortgage Rates Holding Steady
Weaker economic data reported this week helped to offset expected mortgage rate increases. The best 30-year fixed rate is holding at 4.375% at some lenders.

HAMP Mortgages About to Rise
Starting in 2009, HAMP has assisted troubled borrowers in cutting their mortgage interest, many to rates as low as 2%. However, rates in these HAMP mortgages were fixed for only five years. Starting this year, borrowers will begin to see their rates climb by 1% per year to 5.4%. Some 33,000 borrowers are expected to see this beginning this year, and some fear that defaults will begin to appear in this group.

No Bailout This Year for FHA

For the first time in history, we’ve just passed a six year mark for household formations by renters outpacing home buyers. For six years in a row, more rental households have been formed than purchased homes. One estimate is that purchase applications are now the same as they were approximately 20 years ago.
It’s certainly not news that 30% or more of all purchases for several years have been by cash investors. When Blackstone Group jumped into the fray, tens of thousands of homes were purchased for cash and placed into service as rental properties. Other large investment firms have followed suit. Small investors have been big buyers as well.

Sean O'Toole has purchased upward of 150 investment homes at courthouse auctions, or trustee auctions. They aren't for the fainthearted, he says.

"These take a more sophisticated effort (than the larger auctions)," says O'Toole, founder and chief executive of ForeclosureRadar.com, a foreclosure service for real-estate professionals. "They are a different animal. Five guys standing around a courthouse with a million dollars in checks in their pockets -- that can be bizarre and a little intimidating."

The "notice of trustee sale," sometimes called a "sheriff's sale," will be published in a newspaper of record once a week for at least three weeks prior to the sale date. You need to do your homework before attending, O'Toole says.
What's your home worth?

Our last flip went perfect, a 70% LTV and we made a nice annualized return (tip #5). It was in a suburb just outside of a great rental area and before you get to the nicer suburbs. We categorize this as a high end blue collar area (tip #1) which are perfect for flips and/or rentals. REO sales are in the 30s with retail sale ranging from 80-130K which shows a huge discount for REOs (tip #2). The best part is there was only 1 for sale property in the neighborhood compared to 4 sold comps (tip #3) and there was definite pride of ownership with few rentals (tip #4).

5 Tips for Where to Flip: