The ever more stringent lending requirements.

If you are buying a home with a loan, please be aware that the lending rules are getting tougher by the minute. One of the things you need to pay attention to is your funds.

If you plan to buy a home in the next two months, please don't move around your money unless you absolutely have to. And if you do move, please take out x from Bank A and deposit the same x to Bank B. Don't take out x, cash out y dollars, and deposit x-y dollars. Or take out x, add z dollars, and deposit x + y bucks. This will make the lender confused, and you will have plenty of explanation to do. If you have to add or subtract money, do it in another transaction.

Typically lenders need 2 months of bank statements, 2 months of pay stubs, and 2 years of work history/tax return. So have all your paperwork lined up before you enter into a contract will greatly improve the chance of a smooth transaction.

Buying a "corporate owned" property?

When you see a property listed as "corporate owned", most likely you are seeing a "flip" -- a property bought by investor(s), they usually do some work to it and resell it for a profit. FHA loans will not allow you to buy such property within 91 days of last closing. If you are buying it with a conventional loan (which traditionally doesn't have restriction on this), you need to double check with your lender if they will approve the sale.

We have heard recently that if the property is a flip, some lenders will not allow the profit to be over 15% if it's sold within 91 days from previous sale date. We are seeing more and more lenders get onto this bandwagon, and some have increase this 3-month period to 6 months.

So both buyers and investors need to be prepared.