Hawaii VA Loans

What Happened?

Greece is in financial trouble and that is affecting economies the world over.  The problem is that Greece’s National Debt simply grew too large.  Due to government’s spending, the debt expanded 15% annually, but the economy itself was shrinking about 5% each year.  As a result, the total government debt grew to 115% of the GDP and it is expected to grow to 150% by 2013.  What that means is that the government owes more money than the whole country produces in a year.  Believe it or not, the 115% number isn’t that much higher than many other industrialized countries.  However, Greece has deep systemic problems. It was forced to cut back it’s spending and because it is a consumer based economy that produces almost no exports, there is little for the economy to do but shrink and make it’s debt burden greater.

Why Now?

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The end of an era is fast approaching.  Real Estate professionals and potential homebuyers across the country are scurrying to submit purchase contracts before the swiftly looming April 30^th deadline of the $8,000 First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit.  This tax credit has been wildly successful; the IRS states that over 1.4 million first time homebuyers took advantage of this program as of September 2009.  While those numbers are a bit dated, it does show how successful this piece of legislation was.

So, what does this mean for a good majority of us?  Well, it’s just back to business-as-usual.  Rates are low, housing prices have settled, and the economy is starting to turn around - even without the credit, it’s still a great time to buy.

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In our last post we defined what a short sale is and what it isn’t.  Here we will go through the process in more detail.  I’d like to thank Attilio Leonardi of Team Lally & RE/MAX Kapolei for his insights into the process. He and his team have sold over 80 short sale properties and gladly shared their knowledge.

Of course, nothing is too good to be true, so let’s take a quick look at the potential challenges one could face when attempting to purchase a short sale property.

Potential Challenges

Short sales can be challenging for a number of reasons: [Read More]

We’ve all heard the sad news that foreclosures are increasing here in the Aloha State. Of course that also correlates to a lot of short sales as well. The reality is that this does present a buying opportunity for people who dreamt of owning a home over the past few years but couldn’t afford it. Not only are values lower than they have been in years, but the large number of foreclosures and short sales have banks ready to sell the properties at less than market value. Is this too good to be true? Let’s take a closer look.

What a Short Sale is…

First of all, what is a Short Sale? Is it different than a foreclosure? Or different than a ‘bank sale’, bank owned property or ‘REO’? They are all related, but there are critical differences between each. A short sale is an event where the owner of a property wants to sell his/her house, but owes more on the house than it is currently worth. So, in order to sell the property, the owner must obtain permission from the bank that services the loan on the property (because the sale amount isn’t enough to pay off the loan). [Read More]

We love receiving testemonials from our past clients & here’s one sent to Brenda Carr, one of our VA Loan Specialist who helped Todd & Jenny Martin take advantage of their VA Loan benefits:

We would like to take this opportunity on this day of our successful home purchase to convey our complete satisfaction and sincere appreciation of Brenda Carr of Hawaii VA Loans.

Brenda’s recognition and genuine concern of our desire to not only get into our first home, but to have a complete understanding of the process enabled us to efficiently complete the cycle of being somewhat intimidated and definitely inexperienced homebuyers to becoming completely informed and confident home owners.

Brenda’s experienced, friendly nature and consistent willingness to answer any question, anytime coupled with her timely execution of process requirements made this an extremely rewarding experience for us.

Her demonstrated competence with our successful and frankly relatively simple (thanks to her) transaction leads us to absolutely recommend Brenda to anyone considering getting into a home.

Todd and Jenny Martin

When Jen Weaver first contacted me back in May, 2009 to get pre-approved for a VA Loan, little did we know, it would take roughly 8 months to finally close on a property. Although it took them quite a few tries to finally get an offer accepted, the finally found the place they can call home & are now proud homeowners thanks to the VA Loan program. I’m glad everything worked out for Jen and her husband Jake - two great people!

More on their experience working with Hawaii VA Loans:

My wife and I are first time homebuyers and we never imagined our first home would be in Hawaii! When I knew I was up for orders in Hawaii we started to look around at real estate while still living on the mainland. At first we were a little flustered at the process of owning our first home, but working with Gabe helped reassure us we were doing the right thing. Gabe was very helpful throughout the whole loan process from letting us know what paperwork we needed turned in to notifying us of any deadlines. We had shopped around at other loan companies but the combination of getting the best rate along with Gabe’s personal touch reaffirmed that we only wanted to work with him.

Gabe’s level of customer service was first class. We are grateful to have worked with Gabe and appreciated his patience and availability throughout this whole process. We recommend Gabe to everyone we meet that is looking to get a VA loan. Thank you Gabe for everything we are indebted to you.

Jake & Jen Weaver