http://elliottonrealestate.com Insights on Atlanta Area Real Estate Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:00:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The pressure is increasing on Congress to renew the homebuyer tax credits for a third time. The first $7,500 tax credit was passed in 2008 and required first-time buyers to repay the credit over 15 years. A few months later in 2009, Congress expanded the credit to a maximum of $8,000 ... http://elliottonrealestate.com/tax-credit-be-extended-3-1-10/ The Internal Revenue Service has clarified which documentation taxpayers need to submit to claim the first-time and move-up homebuyer tax credit. While the IRS is still requiring the filing of Form 5405, it is not demanding that all parties’ signatures be on the HUD-1 settlement document in areas where requiring both ... http://elliottonrealestate.com/irs-clarifies-claim-tax-credit-3-1-10/ Choosing the world’s most beautiful cities is a subjective enterprise. To identify urban areas where the architecture and the locale are both stunning, Forbes magazine turned to world-renowned architects. Here are their top choices: •    Paris •    Vancouver, Canada •    Sydney, Australia •    Florence, Italy •    Cape Town, South Africa •    San Francisco •    Chicago •    New York ... http://elliottonrealestate.com/worlds-most-beautiful-cities-2-26-10/ Nearly 5 million houses and condos, of which the mortgages are delinquent, will go through foreclosure over the next few years, a new study by John Burns Real Estate Consulting Inc. concludes. This represents more than half of the 7.7 million households now behind on their mortgage payments. The situation is ... http://elliottonrealestate.com/shadow-inventory-2-26-1/ An increasing number of homes with multi-million dollar price tags are going into foreclosure and that’s driving desperate owners to sell at auction. In 2009, 18,817 properties worth at least $1 million faced foreclosure. That’s up 162 percent from 2008, reported foreclosure marketer RealtyTrac. Prices of $1 million-plus properties are down about ... http://elliottonrealestate.com/luxury-foreclosure-2-26-10/ The federal foreclosure prevention program has helped about 12 percent of borrowers who applied for help since the plans were announced a year ago, the Treasury Department says. About 1 million borrowers initiated the application process, and as of January, about 116,000 home owners--12 percent--had their loans modified. But administration officials ... http://elliottonrealestate.com/foreclosure-prevent-aided-2-25-10/ How affordable or unaffordable is it to buy a home? Well, it depends heavily on the part of the country where the buyer chooses to live. Earning the U.S. median income of $64,000 a year is enough to allow buyers to purchase 70.8 percent of all homes sold in the country ... http://elliottonrealestate.com/top-5-most-affordable-2-24-10/ Affordable housing projects all over the country have been a tough sell the last couple of years. Some of the reasons include hard-to-get mortgages and a dwindling difference in prices between affordable units and market-rate properties with no restrictions on resale. The problem is particularly acute in Far Rockaway, N.Y., where ... http://elliottonrealestate.com/affordable-housing-less-2-23-1/ Home designers and builders speaking at the recent International Builders Show in Las Vegas say that buyers are seeking cost-effective features and rejecting things that don’t have lasting value. “It's all about family togetherness – casual living, entertaining and flexible spaces," says Carol Lavender, president of the Lavender Design Group in ... http://elliottonrealestate.com/10-buyers-features-2-23-10/ The share of homes on the market with price reductions declined to an average of 21 percent as of Feb. 1, according to Trulia.com, which has been tracking the information since April 2009. This is a significant decrease compared to November 2009, when 26 percent of homes had at least one ... http://elliottonrealestate.com/price-reductions-level-2-22-10/