SAN FRANCISCO, CA –OBSNews.com- Democrats in congress are hoping to influence regulatory agencies and mortgage lenders and banks who make mortgage loans to actually make meaningful mortgage loan relief programs such as refinancing programs based on current home values even though the President has not yet signed housing rescue legislation.

According to government statistics, up to 400,000 home owners would be able to take advantage of the new legislation passed on Saturday by the US Senate that would ask mortgage lenders to write down principal balance that they are owed to reflect current market conditions. But, many housing industry watchers suspect that far fewer homeowners might end up being helped. According to www.RealtyTrac.com 739,714 homesowners received some sort of delinquency notice related to possible foreclosure in the second quarter of 2008.

The legislation contains provisions that will create a program to be administered by the Federal Housing Administration, part of HUD, and will create insurance for up to $300 billion in refinanced 30-year, fixed rate loans. These mortgage loan cannot for greater than 90% of a home’s current appraised value. For mortgages where the borrower owes more than the home is currently worth on the open market, the lender would have to agree to reduce the principal amount owed to the 90% level. The borrower in such a refinancing program would have to share the value of the loan by half with the FHA if it eventually goes up in value.

The program is slated to start Oct. 1 and end Sept. 30, 2011. Mortgage borrowers will not be permitted to refinance if they purposely missed their loan payments or they pay less than 31% of their income as a loan payment. This is supposedly to ensure that people who actually can afford to make their payments do in fact do so.

Real estate and foreclosure expert Patrick McGilvray, J.D., president of www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com, a business that matches homeowners looking for a we buy houses company with real estate investors and real estate agents specializing in short sales, said of the legislation, “The banks will have to agree to write down loans that they should not have made in the first place, and this has been something they have resisted since the market began to decline in 2005.”

McGilvray added, “millions of American homeowners bought homes between 2003 and 2006 at extremely over-inflated values, and now the real estate market is reflecting that reality.” The Senate approved the legislation 72-13 and the House of Representatives passed it 272-152.

Buying a foreclosure home can provide great opportunities for people who want to buy a house at a great price. One company helps would-be homebuyers navigate the pitfalls of buying a bank owned home or other house that has been affected by foreclosure.

San Francisco, CA July 3, 2008 — Foreclosures and the American real estate market’s price declines have continued to dominate news headlines across the country for well over a year, but one company is bucking the bad news trend. Sacramento, CA-based The Home Buying Center.com (www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com) has been helping connect home sellers who want to sell a house quickly with investors for years, and they have expanded their service offering last year to help consumers find and buy foreclosure homes.

“For the first time homebuyer who waited until now to buy a home the deals are everywhere,” said company president, Patrick McGilvray, J.D., CFP®. “It’s important that prospective buyers understand that buying a foreclosure house can be a great opportunity to buy a house at a cheap price, and they must be aware of some of the possible pitfalls.”

The pitfalls McGilvray mentioned can include buying houses in an ‘as-is’ condition with hidden problems that may not have been visible during a casual inspection such as dry rot or problems with a cracked foundation. Buyers, he cautioned, must do significant homework before signing on the dotted line. Additionally, he said that it is crucial for would-be home buyers to be pre-qualified for a mortgage loan.

“That’s why working with a team like ours can be a real advantage,” McGilvray said. “We provide the consumer access to the nation’s largest network of foreclosure and pre-foreclosure homes via thousands of real estate investors and real estate agents who specialize in bank owned homes. We also have the resources needed to help hopeful house buyers get qualified for a mortgage.”

The company was originally founded as a website devoted to connecting people who wanted to sell a house quickly at a discount to a real estate investor, but, because of requests from customers, they started offering a foreclosure location service for buyers in 2007. McGilvray said that their company has been growing rapidly since their inception and that they had recently taken some venture capital money in exchange for equity from an angel investor.

Despite the downturn in America’s housing market, which McGilvray thinks could still take years to fully recover from, he is optimistic about real estate services and the internet’s ability to connect consumers with exactly what they are looking for quickly and easily. When asked where he thought should consumers turn to first to help them find answers to their real estate questions, he answered with a smile, “Other than The Home Buying Center.com? Why Google, of course.”