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  1. #1
    Senior Member Brian503a's Avatar
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    Immigrant homebuyers face pitfalls, but can get help

    http://www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/busine ... 6ba13.html

    Immigrant homebuyers face pitfalls, but can get help

    12:02 PM EDT on Monday, June 5, 2006
    By PAMELA YIP / The Dallas Morning News


    For Pritz Oliver Guasa, it was important to become a homeowner when he arrived in America from the Philippines a year ago.

    "As a family man, if you own your home, it's quite a good feeling, because you already have something for your family that you can call your own," said Mr. Guasa, 30, a telecom engineer for Nokia.

    Mr. Guasa is in the process of moving into his new home. He's in the United States on a temporary work visa but has applied for a green card, which would allow him to live permanently in the U.S. and put him on a route to citizenship.

    "I am planning on a long-term stay here," Mr. Guasa said.

    Amid the debate in Congress about how to deal with undocumented immigrants, one thing is clear: As far as the housing market is concerned, the welcome mat is laid out for immigrants such as Mr. Guasa. Government programs are in place to encourage homebuying by minorities, and the housing industry is counting on their demand.

    Even so, recent immigrants face extra challenges when it comes to applying for a mortgage.

    "They understand they have a handicap," said Jude Barcenas, a certified financial planner in Dallas, whose many immigrant and minority clients include Mr. Guasa. "They have not been in this country for long, so their credit score may be low."

    That's what happened to Mr. Guasa when he applied for a mortgage.

    "It was hard for me here, because in the Philippines I can get credit without a credit check," Mr. Guasa said. "They just base it on salary and the company you're with. ... Here, even if your salary is good and you don't have a good score, you still are not able to get any credit."

    His credit union offered him an above-market 7 percent fixed-rate for 30 years, and he would have had to pay more than $8,000 in closing costs.

    Another lender Mr. Barcenas recommended offered Mr. Guasa a better deal — an FHA-insured loan at 6.5 percent for 30 years, and closing costs totaled about $2,500.

    Part of the reason Mr. Guasa wasn't able to establish credit when he arrived in the U.S. is because Nokia paid his rent. He has since begun building up his credit history by taking over his rent payments and paying for his utilities and cable television.

    But many financial institutions are willing to look at immigrants' nontraditional sources of credit, such as immigrants' payment records in their home countries.

    "We forget the fact that in other countries, particularly in Mexico and some of the Asian countries, people are not used to utilizing credit as widely as we Americans do, so when they immigrate here, it takes them decades in order for them to get self-educated on the cultural differences in this country, particularly with regard to the usage of credit," said Anthony Hsieh, president of LendingTree.com.

    Hurdles and threats

    Illegal immigrants face an additional obstacle because they don't have a legitimate Social Security number, he said.

    "Without the proper Social Security number, they can't tap into the value of credit in this country," Mr. Hsieh said.

    Immigrants also are vulnerable to predatory lending, experts said.

    "When you look at Hispanics who are here and speaking English, and then you have new immigrants, the problem triples — predatory lending, just abuse of the whole system," said Beatrice Martinez, national chair of the League of United Latin American Citizens' National Housing Commission in Dallas.

    Characteristics of predatory loans may include excessive or hidden fees, charges for unnecessary products, high interest rates, terms designed to keep borrowers in debt, and refinances that don't provide any net benefit to the borrower.

    Abusive home mortgage lending practices cost homeowners $9.1 billion a year, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit research organization that tracks abusive financial practices.

    Federal efforts

    The Bush administration, which has declared June National Homeownership Month, wants to help more minorities become homeowners.

    "The Bush administration is committed to making sure all Americans have equal access to building financial independence and self-sufficiency through homeownership," said Alphonso Jackson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

    The national homeownership rate is at a near-record high of 68.5 percent, and half of minority families are homeowners, according to HUD.

    The Bush administration wants to create 5.5 million new minority homeowners by 2010.

    HUD's initiatives include:

    • Making $236 million available to more than 400 state and local governments to assist first-time homebuyers in down payments and closing costs.

    • Boosting funding for housing education to help more Americans understand the home-buying process.

    • Encouraging the production of affordable housing by financing the cost of land acquisition, new construction and rehabilitation.

    • Making the Federal Housing Administration more flexible in providing mortgage insurance and other loan services to help underserved and minority homebuyers avoid high-cost loans.

    Mortgages

    FHA doesn't make mortgage loans directly but insures loans made by private lenders to homebuyers. Because FHA protects lenders from losses, it's enabled millions of low- and moderate-income families who would otherwise be locked out of homeownership to qualify for mortgages.

    Almost 80 percent of the mortgages FHA insures go to first-time homebuyers, and more than 35 percent of those first-time homebuyers are minorities.

    Lenders also are courting immigrants and minorities by hiring more bilingual loan officers.

    "They would rather talk to someone who speaks their language," Mr. Barcenas said. "Secondly, they prefer someone who understands their culture."

    With their family-oriented cultures, immigrants "prefer someone who would understand that, so when they start explaining, 'That's why I want a living room that's bigger, and I want a dining room that's big,' nobody laughs at them," Mr. Barcenas said.

    Other than that, "immigrants have the same interest as any other U.S. citizen," he said.

    "They want low interest rates; they want fixed rates," Mr. Barcenas said. "They want to have stability."

    Home design

    The growth of homeownership among immigrants and its increasing potential have led builders to accommodate some unique design requirements.

    An example of that is floor plans that are consistent with "feng shui," the ancient Chinese art of positioning objects in buildings and homes to achieve harmony, comfort and balance.

    "It's almost inevitable that they will become an increasing share of housing demand," said Michael Carliner, an economist at the National Association of Home Builders.

    In fact, immigrants and minorities are the fastest-growing segment of first-time homebuyers, housing experts said.

    "Sixty-percent of new households over the next 20 years will be people of color, either native-born minorities or immigrants," said Nicolas P. Retsinas, director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. "There are lots of families being formed, and a number will become homeowners."

    Some housing experts believe immigrants will prop up the housing market as baby boomers retire and cut back to one house.

    The growth will be most pronounced among younger immigrants, Mr. Carliner said.

    In the U.S., among people 30 to 34 years old, 20 percent are foreign-born, compared with 12 percent of people 50 to 54 years old, he said.

    "We have more immigrants coming who will increase the share among the 30- to 34-year-old age group," Mr. Carliner said.

    Since first-time homebuyers are typically in that younger group, "just the effect of that greater foreign-born share would mean we'd have a larger share of the homebuyers," he said.
    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at http://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  2. #2

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    Unbelievable!

    As usual, I am wearing my pants, but have that pounding feeling (of our Federal Government) behind me!

    Anyone have any lubricant?

    P.S. Predatory lending to illegals is a Godsend! It enables the country to capture illegal wages and unpaid taxes by (re)patriating funds! It's important that all assets of illegals be tracked and indexed---thus confiscation after deportation, and subsequent redistribution, will be maximized!

    All assets confiscated, after deportation of all illegals, will be deposited into a general tangible property fund, and made accessible to the legal, minimum wage, workers and citizens of the United States! Yessirreee!
    Title 8,U.S.C.§1324 prohibits alien smuggling,conspiracy,aiding and
    abetting!

  3. #3
    reform_now's Avatar
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    Our traitorous, sell-out politicians are panting to throw our money at these "poor, handicapped immigrants" any way they can if they can pull off "comprehensive" legislation. In this context, the definition of comprehensive is Screw Americans!

  4. #4
    Senior Member curiouspat's Avatar
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    Illegal immigrants face an additional obstacle because they don't have a legitimate Social Security number, he said.
    Can you stand it? THEY'RE CRIMINALS!

    I HAVE noticed an increase in "mortgage lender' TV ads, which state, Se Habla Espanol, and "No Papers, No Problem". That's from a current ad, here.

    In the meantime, as Americans lose jobs or have their wages diminished, how are AMERICANS supposed to qualify?
    TIME'S UP!
    **********
    Why should <u>only</u> AMERICAN CITIZENS and LEGAL immigrants, have to obey the law?!

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