As we’re getting ready to say goodbye to 2009, I have just two words … good riddance! Like many Americans, hubby and I took advantage of lower prices to buy a home, but like many Realtors, my income took a dive (a shocking 40 percent off last year.) In general, for real estate, it was a lousy year … but at least eventful. Thanks to all the MoneyWatch readers who sent in your comments and questions — I’m sorry that I couldn’t answer them all! Below, in a trip down memory lane, were the top real estate stories of 2010:

Full story is available on CBS Money Watch

Mortgage loan modification. You need it. You want it. You have to have it. You’re determined to get it. You’re out on the street if you don’t!

And, in case you haven’t figured this out yet on your own, by the time you even start thinking the things mentioned in the paragraph above, a host of people in your community — and even outside — already know that you are in deep housing trouble. The wrong kinds of people. The kinds of people more than willing to reach their hands into your already-empty pocket and try to suck up even the dust left from the last few coins you once carried there.

Full story is available on Wallet Pop

First, from Brett Arends in the WSJ on May 6, 2008: Is Housing Slump at a Bottom?

Wellesley College Prof. Karl E. Case, one of the leading experts on the housing market in the country … suggests we may be at, or near, the bottom of the housing crash.
…
“It is really remarkable how much where we are today looks like the bottom we’ve had in the last three cycles,” Mr. Case says. “Every time we’ve gone below a million starts, the market has cleared at that moment.”
…
“It’s bottom-fishing time, I think,” says Mr. Case. “There’s got to be bargains in Florida, Arizona and Nevada.”

Total starts were at 574 thousand in November after falling to a low of 479 thousand earlier this year – half the number of starts from when Prof. Case called the bottom in 2008.

Full story is available on Calculated Risk

An FHA home, that is a home financed with a Federal Housing Administration-backed loan, can be rented out under defined circumstance. The information below explains what an FAH home loan is, when it is allowable to rent it out, important exceptions and the reason for the restriction.

What Is an FHA Loan?

Among other mandates, the Federal Housing Administration is tasked with fostering home ownership in the United States. A primary way it does this is through a government-guaranteed loan program. These FHA home loans allow individuals to purchase a home with less down and lower interest rates.

Full story is available on Financial Web

Florida resident Miles Brannan had a great idea: raffle off his $3 million waterside condo, give some of the proceeds to charity, and downgrade his home. Everybody wins

All seemed to be going well… until he realized nowhere near enough tickets were sold.

Full story is available on Business Insider

It sounds like a great deal: A house for a dollar. But Saint Paul is having a hard time finding buyers willing to pay as little as a buck to purchase homes in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood.

The historic neighborhood has a lot of things homebuyers would want. It’s close to downtown Saint Paul, it’s close to bus routes and Interstate 94, and it’s filled with unique homes.

But the problem for the city is that so many of the homes are vacant, and many have fallen into foreclosure and disrepair, making the neighborhood a hard sell. ]

Full story is available on kare11.com

The Treasury department has announced that they will stop buying mortgage backed securities as 2009 winds down.  The Feds will continue to purchase mortgage backed securities until March 31, 2010, as pledged earlier this year.  But what happens after March 31st?

Foreign investors have already shied away from purchasing mortgage backed securities for obvious reasons.  There really is no security in this investment anymore.  Few, if any investors actually service the loans, and with the housing industry still very weak, and loan servicers holding almost all the power over the loans, investors are no longer flocking to purchase the loans from the original lenders.  The lenders control modifications, payment forebearance rights, collections pricesses, foreclosure proceedings decisions, etc.

Full story is available on Examiner.com

”Wow! What ever happened to California being the “Golden State”… the land of milk and honey?”

”Real estate in our great state has taken a beating over the last several years as foreclosures hit an all time high,” affirms Scott Partridge of RE/MAX Elite Team in Temecula.

Are we out of the woods?

Full story is available on Web Wire

Bay Area real estate has always demanded patience on the part of buyers. Many spend months scouring listings in hopes of finding “the one.”

Then there is Lidia Pringle. The 58-year-old former reporter for United Press International became something of a legend in local real-estate circles for conducting one of the longest and most tenacious house hunts that brokers here can recall.

Full available on The Wall STreet Journal

The aughts — or whatever you want to call 2000 to 2009 — were in many ways the Decade of Real Estate. First the boom. Then the bust, and all the unpleasantness that came with it.

This decade changed the national perception of homeownership not once but twice. Most of us entered the decade thinking that buying a home was about having a place of our own to live, and probably a good investment besides. Halfway through, many — many, many — Americans saw homeownership as a no-lose speculation, an ATM that never ran out of cash, and why buy just one if you could leverage it for three more? And now here we are at the end of the ’00s, and I’ve lost track of how many people have told me that they no longer see real estate as any sort of investment at all.

Full story is available on The Baltimore Sun