Juanita Simkins Colorado Springs Real Estate

On 10/9/09, the House of Representatives voted 416 to 0 to pass the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 [1] which extends the current $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit for another 12 months for members of the military, Foreign Service, and intelligence corp who served at least three months of qualified overseas duty in 2009. The ...

Do you know what's under the paint or wallpaper in your home? Thousands of homeowners nationwide who bought new houses constructed with Chinese drywall are now finding insurers are dropping their policies or send notices of non-renewal. Experts say those cancellations will become rampant as insurance companies process hundreds of pending ...

Extending the First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit, due to expire at the end of November, is high on the Democratic Congressional to-do list, legislative aides said. After Wednesday’s meeting with President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) released a statement that the government should ...

Buying a foreclosure or bank owned home often is appealing to buyers trying to stretch their dollars. It’s finding a good one can that can be a challenge.  Many banks don't want to advertise their homes negatively as "bank-owned" because they don't want to scare off potential buyers. In some markets, foreclosure ...

A study of 24 million credit files by national credit bureau Experian and consulting company Oliver Wyman has shown that home owners with high credit scores are 50 percent more likely to deliberately walk away from a mortgage than lower-scoring borrowers. The industry calls these “strategic defaults” and their numbers grew to 588,000 ...

Is the Foreclosure Slowdown Temporary? Legal entanglements and well-intentioned home-owner-assistance efforts have slowed the pace of foreclosures, but eventually many of these distressed homes will hit the market anyway. Some observers say these delays are prolonging the housing crisis and creating a “shadow” inventory that will ...

APR Predators and APR Demystified First, lets demystify Annual Percentage Rate (APR).   APR was designed to allow consumers to use one standardized number to compare the real cost of each lender's interest rate and it works like this.If I lend you, $10,000  and, I charge a $500 Bump-ta-Bump Fee, ...

Media reports continually suggest that housing market trends are downward. Consumers have to contend with various sources of information providing grim details about buying or selling a home in the current economic environment. As a consumer you are left with having to discern what is fact or fiction. Contrary to popular belief, every housing ...

Seven Golden Rules For A Successful Bid On a House First time home buyers are looking at a market that shows no mercy, is highly competitive and does not reflect the conditions of a so-called "depressed real estate market." It is not easy to find a good house at the entry level without having to compete with other buyers, but with ...

The following post is long but filled with tons of info to help you with your home purchase in Colorado Springs. Ok, put those reading glasses on!  The following are some helpful tips that will help you be on the look-out for potential problems in homes that might only become known only AFTER the ...