Mark Wisterman's Paradise & Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog

I recently had cause to discuss an issue with the City of Oroville Housing Department regarding whether or not a particular home located within the city limits of the Lake Oroville real estate market could be approved to be sold to the first time home-buyer that I am representing.

Without getting into the minutia of the issue, the Housing Department originally said that my client would not be able to purchase the home based on the current guidelines that were established within the grant program that is being used to fund the loans for first time home buyers that are purchasing homes within the city limits of the Lake Oroville real estate market.

In my view, the guideline that they were using was one that was very subjective and open to broad interpretation. In discussing this issue with the housing department over a three day period I think I talked to nearly everyone in the department.

I talked to Dawn, Tiffany, Vanessa, and Pat during this time and to be totally honest I thought I was going to get the proverbial government runaround that normally comes in  dealing with “policy.”

Well I was wrong. That’s right….wrong!

Each of these public servants listened to my concerns and my position with an open mind  and in the end understood that the guideline was in fact extremely subjective and worked diligently to do the right thing for my client , as well as for future users of the First Time Home Buyer Loan Program, of which many in the Lake Oroville real estate market have availed themselves.

The postition that these ladies are in cannot always be an enjoyable job. Dealing with REALTORS®, lenders and first time home buyers while trying to keep up with, and communciate, the many changes that occur in the grant programs that make the loan programs possible has got to be quite a challenge.

A big thank you to Pat Clark, the Director of Business Assistance and Housing Development, and the entire staff in the department for their help. It is refreshing to see that common sense and fairness are alive and well in the halls of our city in the Lake Oroville real estate market.

I just added a new widget to this blog site in pursuit of my commitment to give you as much information as I can about the goings on in the Lake Oroville real estate market.

Now that I have finished compiling the sales statistics of the Lake Oroville housing market from the last 4+ years I can provide a more local perpective on the real estate market. 

Each month I will update the Northern California numbers as well as the Lake Oroville numbers. You now not only get to see what our local market is doing but can now compare how we are doing as compared to the rest of the north state. Be aware, though, that the Oroville housing numbers, being on a smaller scale, will show more volatility than the larger scale numbers of the Northern California region.  And, as I have said before, the trend is more important than the raw numbers.

With this added information at your finger tips, I now need YOU to provide ME with some information, and more importantly, your opinion.  Are the housing numbers I provide here helpful to you, or is it too much, or is it maybe not enough? I know this blog cannot be everything to everybody, but,  I want to be sure that what I provide you is what you feel you need to satisfy your hunger for all things real estate. Please leave your comments and let me know what you like as well as what you don’t like about this service. I appreciate your participation.

It seems that my blog posts may be being read even by Congress.

On November 14, 2009 I blogged about the financial state of The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the possibility of an increase in the minimum downpayment requirement from 3.5 percent to 5% in order to obtain an FHA loan to purchase a home in the Lake Oroville real estate market and beyond.

Seems that I am not the only one thinking this way. RealtyTimes.com has an article about this very thing.

CLICK HERE to read the article.