With most lenders requiring borrowers to put down at least 20 percent as a down payment – unless using an FHA or VA loan, or purchasing mortgage insurance – the best holiday gift some people might receive would be help with a down payment on a house.
According to a survey by Trulia, the biggest barrier to buying a home these days is saving for the down payment. The survey, conducted over the summer, found that 51 percent of renters said coming up with money for the down payment was preventing them from buying, while 35 percent identified qualifying for a mortgage as the stumbling block.
Under federal tax law, each individual is permitted to give money or valuables worth up to $13,000 to a single recipient in a calendar year. A married couple could jointly bestow up to $26,000 a year per recipient.
According to one financial planner, there also is the option of lending a relative or close friend the money for the down payment, or the closing costs, then forgiving the loan in a future year. The recipient would have to pay interest on the loan until it was forgiven, at which point it would become a gift.
Another way to help with the down payment is to pay other expenses, such as tuition, thereby freeing up money to make a home purchase. Gifts for educational or medical expenses are not subject to taxes, as long as they are paid directly to the educational or medical institution.
However, prior to giving the money, gift-givers should consider their own financial picture, and they should make sure the recipient is responsible and not behind on other payments that could be subject to debt collection.
The Obama administration announced broad outlines of the revised Home Affordable Refinance Program on Oct. 24. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued guidance last week that filled in most of the details.
HARP 2 greatly reduces or eliminates the risk-based fees Fannie and Freddie charge on many loans and virtually eliminates the chance that lenders will have to pay for losses on loans that go into default if they made underwriting mistakes. It also vastly streamlines the underwriting process.
Although lenders can begin taking applications Dec. 1, it could take several months before the new loans are made. Fannie Mae said it won’t begin buying certain types of refinanced loans until March.
To qualify, the existing loan must have been sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac on or before May 31, 2009. The loan balance must be more than 80 percent of the home’s market value. The loan must be current for the past six months, with no more than one late payment in the past 12 months. Those who previously refinanced through HARP are ineligible.
The new program improves on the existing HARP refi program by letting borrowers refinance into a new fixed-rate loan regardless of how much is owed. The existing program caps the new loan at 125 percent of the home’s market value.
Homeowners also can refinance into a new adjustable rate loan that has a fixed rate for at least the first five years, but in this case the new first mortgage cannot exceed 105 percent of the home’s value.
In most cases, borrowers won’t have to pay for a new appraisal (Fannie or Freddie will use their automated in-house appraisals) or have any particular debt-to-income ratio or credit score.
Borrowers who refinance through their existing loan servicer generally won’t have to document their income or assets or have a particular credit score or debt-to-income ratio. The lender will only have to verify that one borrower on the loan has a job or other source of income, but not the amount of income.
Homeowners who refinance through a new lender will have to meet additional underwriting requirements, but not as many as people who are refinancing through traditional routes.
Borrowers can have a second loan on the house of any amount and still qualify, as long as the holder of the second mortgage resubordinates it to the new loan. Most of the big lenders have agreed to do so, but there is no guarantee they or others will.
If borrowers have mortgage insurance on the existing loan, they must maintain it, but they should be able to transfer that insurance to the new loan at the old premium rate, according to Freddie Mac. The big mortgage insurers have agreed to allow this, but again there is no guarantee all will.
There are still many questions about the program, such as what interest rates banks will charge, whether they will impose additional fees or underwriting requirements beyond what Fannie and Freddie require, and whether investors will be willing to buy securities backed by these new HARP 2 loans.
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Gingerbread House Competition Results and Canned Food Drive Results
A successful canned food drive, more than 100 vendors, and 50 gingerbread houses built made the 27th Annual Country Christmas Faire at the Nevada County Fairgrounds a success.
The 9th Annual Gingerbread House Competition was once again a crowd favorite, with 50 entries received. Of those entries, the Best of Show winner was Kristal Souza of Grass Valley, and the People’s Choice Award went to Mary Abbott of Grass Valley. The Best of Show is chosen by the judges, and the People’s Choice is selected through ballots cast by individuals who attend the Craft Faire.
Gingerbread house People's Choice
First place winners in the individual categories include Willow West (child 5 & under); The Dougherty Family (child – ages 6-8); Mollie Becker (child – ages 9-12); Helen Sands (kits – ages 8 & under); Nora Devlin (teen – ages 13-17); Kristal Souza (adult – 18 -64); Mary Abbott (adult – 65 & over); Hennessy Tween Tigers (group – children 12 & under); Lauren Kraemer (group – family); and The Perilmans and Crew (group – adult 18 & over). A complete list of the winners can be found on the Fairgrounds’ website at www.NevadaCountyFair.com.
With the help of HOPE (Help Other People Eat) in Nevada County, Sunday’s canned food drive collected more than 250 cans of food, as well as cash donations. These donations will be used at the organization’s December food distribution. HOPE in Nevada County is a program established through the Grass Valley Elks, who partner with the Food Bank of Nevada County to feed those in need. HOPE distributes food once a month to anyone in the county in need of food and emergency food every Monday.
The 2012 Country Christmas Faire is planned for Thanksgiving weekend,
November 23 – 25, 2012. For information, visit www.NevadaCountyFair.com or call 273-6217.
The day dawned (it was a 4:30 AM start) without rain and clear skies promised, and it lasted dry all day which I feel was a near miracle, given the amount of rain we have been encountering so far in Costa Rica. We had opted for the longer trip, by boat to La Serena Station (reached only by boat or small plane), although San Pedrillo station was closer to us, because the word was the animal “finds” were much better at La Serena.
So it was an hour and a half, out of the bay and through the open Pacific on a small boat holding 15 people max, to a beach unidentifiable to my eye than any other, but the guides knew. With the tide out, and no dock, we landed in the water and quickly got to a huge area of old lava flow, at least 150 feet of it, before the sand and then the jungle started. At about 9 AM, stowing some stuff on shore we were quickly into the jungle and our first sighting was a Chestnut-mandibled Toucan, beautiful in black and yellow. A while further and we saw a pair of Scarlet Macaws.
Within an hour we had also seen three of the four species of Monkeys in Costa Rica, and had heard the fourth, the Howler Monkey. First was the tiny Squirrel Monkey, then the largest, the Spider Monkey, a whole family, and then a family of the White Faced Capuchin. Then we saw some cute, tiny Leaf Tent Bats, who bite at a leaves by the main rib until both sides fold in, then they attach upside down within the leaf.
By then we were back on the beach and following the tracks of a Baird’s Tapir, which had traveled quite a way up the beach, so we rapidly walked up the beach in the now hot sun, when we found a group of tourists with cameras, there he was… HUGE really, with a funny elephant like nose with a prehensile finger like structure on the end. And boy could he eat, our guide said he ate 80 pounds of leaves a day. He continued to graze, ignoring at least 20 people who got within 3 feet of him for pictures for over 30 minutes.
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Costa Rica Shoreline
Looking up we found a White Nosed Coati, resting, after a feast of what was a nest of turtle eggs laid last night, we could still see the tracks of the poor mama turtle, and the eggshells left over, now being nibbled by Hermit Crabs. By now we had also seen the fourth species of monkeys, the Mantled Howler Monkey, and more toucans and macaws too, as well as the other monkey species. So we moved to the river, where a large American Alligator was resting with his mouth completely open (because he was lying in the sun and was hot).
A noise behind us and it was a small Collared Anteater, who however quickly moved away, our guide said it was unusual to see them. Moving back into the forest, a Three-toed Sloth was resting high in a tree, after more monkeys, we came to about four Collared Peccaries, including a baby about 8 inches long… sort of grey instead of black and so cute. The monkeys were eating and dropping many of the nuts so the peccaries were having a feast.
We came to the ranger station for a rest, seeing another pair of Scarlet Macaws, one of whom had been nursed back to health there and keeps trying to come back to get food (which everyone was forbidden to give them of course). Then a walk back through the jungle with more sightings of the same animals, to arrive at the beach about noon, for the boat trip home. It was an extraordinary 3 hour jungle hike, full of seeing fantastic mammals, birds, and a reptile in a well protected rain forest.
Judy Pinegar is a writer and her articles have appeared in numerous publications.
Oops we lost some days…all three of us are now sick in various states… Ted being the worst now as ours started earlier. All three of us were scheduled for the boat ride to Cano Island to go snorkeling and hiking, but due to the rain no hiking was possible now, so Ted decided he didn’t want to go, then at the last minute John decided to take a day of rest, so I went snorkeling with a nice English couple, David and Rosemary.
David had been in the navy for England, and she followed him to many of his stations, even after they had a family. Then since retiring they have traveled all over. I ended up asking where in the world they had NOT been (and it was very few places), mostly in the Orient in unusual places. Anyway we there were lots of fish and the water pretty clear, I saw tons of little fish, some coral fish, a school of what looked like small sharks to me, some large flat incandescent ones, yellow and black striped too. Sorry for the non professional description but my guide book isn’t very hot on fish.
Cano Island is a national reserve, one part of the 25% of the country that is protected!! There were some wonderful shells, but we weren’t allowed to take them, or the rocks. We stopped for a picnic lunch and a rest on a beach by a ranger station, the only place on the island that boats are allowed to land, and you had to leave before 3:30 PM too. It was a very clean, sandy beach (have I mentioned the one here at Drake Bay is littered with leaves and pretty murky, due to the rivers nearby and the way the tides work) framed by some neat black rocks (sorry no pictures I left it in the cabin with John). It was not raining while we snorkeled, the first sun I had seen (so of course I got sunburned, forgetting about my back while snorkeling)
I spent some time watching the Hermit Crabs, they are so funny, from tiny little spots you almost can’t see to plain shells to some really fancy and colorful shells. The crabs have to continually change their shells as they get bigger, but it sort of seemed that the personality of the crab matched the shell! When they hear or feel (?) that you are nearby they stop and become just shells on the sand, unmoving, but if you wait, or look behind after you walk they soon all come back to life. It is really fun to see.
That afternoon and the next day it rained ALL DAY, and we were glad we had postponed our trip to Corcovado National Park and the jungle walk, instead catching up on our sleep. Next up…our exciting time in the jungle!
Judy Pinegar is a writer and her articles have appeared in numerous publications.
Guess what … it was raining this morning and all last night. We left Dominical about 8:30 AM with plans to get breakfast in Uvita. But we all must have blinked at the wrong moment for soon we were past that town wherever it was and still hungry. So we saw a sign for the Lookout Hotel and Restaurant and ventured up the unpaved road to the top. It was beautiful, and their rooms start at $55… shoud’a stayed there! Breakfast was also excellent a combination of German and Costa Rican food.
Tearing ourselves away from the view, a few minute conversation with the hostess confirmed that driving to Drake Bay on the Oso Peninsula was probably a bad idea. She suggested a boat from Sierpe (only 45 minutes away), down a long river and across the open ocean to Drake Bay was the better plan. She even handed us a very not-to-scale map to guide us. Luckily a gas truck helped us to find the town. Sierpe was a very mellow town on the river and we arrived just in time to catch the 11:30 boat for only $15.00 each!!
The ride was something else, a beautiful river, jungle on all sides, gradually getting huge before we entered the ocean. We stopped for pictures of crocodiles, for a tour through a mangrove forest with a very narrow passage, and in the middle of the ocean the boat suddenly stopped cold in the water. Someone said “Well at least there aren’t any crocodiles here, and the reply was but “Watch out for the sharks though?” Turned out to be a piece of wood caught on the propeller, soon extracted and we were safely on our way.
Arriving at our destination we quickly noticed that there was no dock, so the last few yards were going to be wet. Yes indeed and we were on the beach. Soon however hotel staff arrived to carry our luggage, and we were welcomed to lunch upon arrival. We are staying at Hotel Jinetes de Osa, which I would recommend.
So after spending a few hours on a hammock, listening to the waves crashing 10 feet away and seeing through the typical jungle plants to beautiful birds, flowers and butterflies, I was conscripted to write this piece. Hasta Luego until manana and la Isla de Cano.
Judy Pinegar is a writer and her articles have appeared in numerous publications.
Waking in Dominical, Costa Rica at 6:45, far before our usual time, at first we thought that the rain that had poured down during the night was still with us… but no, it was gone and the weather report said clear, but we knew better than to expect that by now.
So we packed our daypacks and waited on the veranda for our ride to the gates of Cataratas Nauyaca. It was a $50 fee for each person consisting of a full day’s tour, horseback riding, breakfast, horseback riding, hanging at the waterfall(s), horseback riding, lunch and more horseback riding back to the entrance!
But the trail (though awful, rocky and wet for the horses) was beautiful, in the virgin rain forest jungle, crossing a very green river (over a bridge) and through at least three additional streams flowing into the river. Upon arriving at the waterfall, called Santo Cristo Falls, we discovered it was a two level fall, the higher was about 200 feet high with several tributaries into a very rocky basin. You got wet from the mist, just standing there.
Walking a fairly steep trail to the lower falls, which were broader and not so tall, but falling into a swimming pool area, the adventurous (not John and Judy) jumped right in. (I would have if it had been warmer but the temperature was in the low 70’s and the water was a little cooler). The guides set up a rope and inter-tube relay to the far side where the really adventurous climbed the cliff through the spray of the face of the waterfall, and jumped to the left, falling into a pool, reentering the swimming area. By this time it had started to rain, but everyone was so wet from the mist off the waterfall or the swimming that no one seemed to mind.
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Upper Cataratas Nauyaca
Breakfast was good, although simple, fruit and bread; lunch the typical “casado” of Costa Rica: chicken, beans rice, potatoes and salad. At the meal station they had a bunch of monkeys that they fed with bananas in the morning, and also two beautiful scarlet Macaws.
But the horses!! I swear everybody had a good one except me, and she was a devil!! Her name was Tequila and she acted like she had had a few shots! She did not like ANY of the other horses… If one tried to pass her she would bite, or lunge in front of the other horse to prevent overtake. If they even got close from behind she would sort of walk zig-zag in the trail to prevent either from passing us, and when they tried we would be into a race!! The first half of the trip (this being maybe my second time on a horse), I sort of let her go, but that just made her worse, so in the last half I was pulling on the reigns and shouting (in Spanish)!! Luckily we got back in one piece.
Judy Pinegar is a writer and her articles have appeared in numerous publications.
Waking earlier than usual (8 AM), we found another totally new menu for breakfast, this time including French toast which Ted reported as excellent (we didn’t have any). Our ride to the rental car agency (usavecostarica.com – good prices) arrived at 9:30 as promised, and we were taken to the other side of San Juan. The nice people there answered all our questions, set up the GPS and even helped John buy a cell phone or $36 (Others had quoted us over $100 to $300!).
In very short order we were on the road, although Ted scrunched into the backseat of SMALL 4-W Suzuki was a sight to behold! (And it got worse as the day wore on… not sure that was the right way to economize.) Starting out due west we came to the famous bridge over the Tarcoles River. Stopping at a restaurant with a parking lot guard (the site is also famous for car break-ins) on one side of the river, we walked on a very narrow sidewalk toward the far side of the river to see the famous crocodiles of the Tarcoles River. Although some are reputed to be up to 18 feet long, the largest (of about 8) that we saw was probably only about 14 feet long… but quite impressive all the same! It is said that the better way to view the beasts is in a boat with the guide dangling a dead chicken overboard… then you see some real action… but this was good enough for us.
Looking down on a crocodile off the bridge over the Tarcoles River, Costa Rica
Then off we went down the coast, past Jaco (say Hako), to Quepos, where we decided to have some lunch. The restaurant, El Gran Escape (recommended in Frommer’s was wonderful, with 6 kinds of fresh caught fish. John and I both had wonderful mahi-mahi – mine a fish sandwich and his – the catch of the day meal. Fantastic I would recommend it to anyone, and you could tell it would be a “happening” place later in the evening.
A few more Km’s and we were at Dominical, sort of a surfing village, unpaved roads, very close to the beach. We stayed at Cabanas San Clemente, on the beach, which I would only recommend to the bargain hunter willing to go sort of primitive. Unfortunately after a mostly dry day it rained quite heavily from Quepos onward and only stopped as the sun set over the beach. John took beautiful sunset pictures though. The water is not really warm, but much warmer than the Pacific in California… I am sure with some sun tomorrow I will be willing to go in!
Judy Pinegar is a writer and her articles have appeared in numerous publications.
Note most of my pictures are taken with a Samsung G20 camera with built in GPS. The GPS tagging really comes in handy when you get home and wonder where you took that picture. -John
Well I was down with a head cold and John thought that he was right behind… but Ted came up with some medicine to be used pre-cold and we took it. Seems quite nice so far!! Wonderful, totally NEW breakfast again! So after a bit of a sleep-in for me and Breakfast for John and Ted, we agreed to split for the day. Ted needed to go see his attorney, and we were going exploring in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Our first stop was INBio Park, a natural history museum, a living monument to the biological diversity that has made Costa Rica famous. Paved trails lead through re-creations of several distinct ecosystems in Costa Rica. We saw several Iguanas (see picture) and other creatures.
After that we went to the Jade Museum. Jade was the most valuable commodity among the pre- Colombian cultures of Central America, worth even more than gold. The museum holds a huge collection dating from 500 BC to 800 AD. Most are large pendants, primarily of human or animal depictions that were part of presumably massive necklaces.
The museum also had a large collection of pre-Colombian terra-cotta vases, bowls, and figurines. Some of these pieces are surprising in their modern design and advanced techniques. Particularly fascinating are a vase that incorporates real human teeth and a display that shows how jade was imbedded into human teeth for decoration!!
Judy Pinegar is a writer and her articles have appeared in numerous publications
The day began with another full breakfast at Hotel Aranjuez in San Jose, and except for the made to order omelet and the typical rice and beans, every dish was a new item! Wonder how many days they can keep this up?? Today our table was visited by a local squirrel, exciting all us tourists, so of course we took a picture too.
We decided to visit a coffee plantation in the nearby hills of Jan Jose, over 3000 ft altitude. We picked the Doka Estate, out of Alajuela as they offered tours even if it rained. The drive was supposed to be 45 minutes to an hour, but after about an hour we found our taxi driver had never been there either. Luckily I had the phone number and our taxi driver had a cell phone, so we got there 5 minutes after our reservation, and the tour hadn’t left yet. True to the ad, it was a “seed to cup” tour. We learned it takes a full year to grow the seeds into a plant, ready to be transplanted to a bigger container, and another year to grow the plant to be ready to plant in the field.
The plant is more of a shrub than a tree, the top of each one can be reached by the arms of the picker (migrant workers from Nicaragua or Panama), who picks each berry individually, only when they are red, so a plant has to be picked many times, from October until February of each year. They fill a basket, tied around their waist, which when full weighs 25 pounds. A very good picker can pick 30 baskets a day, and gets paid $1.00 per basket!!
After that the berries are taken to a wash bath where they are re-measured, then dumped into a water bath. The good quality beans sink, and are exported, the bad ones float and are sold in Costa Rica!! They are then again processed so the outer red shell comes off leaving from 1 to 3 seeds and again are sorted by size into three categories (biggest is best). After that they are “fermented” for 3 days in a large open vat with some water. It is a natural fermentation, the guide didn’t know what caused it, but I assume it was natural (or wild) yeast, as she said nothing was added. The alcohol and some water is then siphoned off and shipped to another company that makes coffee liquor.
The remaining beans are then dried for 3 days on a concrete pad in the sun and are raked to turn over, every 30 minutes 24/7! After that they spend another day in a gas fired dryer, rotated constantly. They are then stored in bags for 3 months (the berry is still “green”). Then most of the beans are exported in that condition as the gourmet coffee companies (Starbucks gets 60 % of this plantation’s crop), like to do their own secret roasting and blending.
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Entrance to the Doka Plantation
Then we saw a roasting room where three levels (light, medium and dark) or roasting is done. This is a very small plant as the only coffee they roast is that sold in their own tourist shop, and are the very highest quality of beans. The low quality beans are sent to another Costa Rican company to roast for the locals and all export beans are sold green.
Tastes of their 7 blends were then offered (John and Ted imbibed; I just toured the gift shop). An interesting fact was that to make decaffeinated coffee the beans are shipped to Germany, where they were decaffeinated through a water process at NO cost, because the German company sells the Caffeine all over the world for other purposes. Doka Estate only pays to ship them over and back to Costa Rica. But again this is a very small % of the crop. All in all it was a very interesting tour taking about 2 hours whicha I would recommend to any visitor.
