Las Vegas residents can get help to buy a home under a new partnership between the city and Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo is launching a new initiative for about 500 income-eligible people. The Neighborhood LIFT program provides up to 15-thousand dollars in down payment assistance grants.

Full story is available on CBS Local

More than 1 million Americans who have taken out mortgages in the past two years now owe more on their loans than their homes are worth, and Federal Housing Administration loans that require only a tiny down payment are partly to blame.

That figure, provided to Reuters by tracking firm CoreLogic, represents about one out of 10 home loans made during that period.

Full story is available on Chicago Tribune

Members of the Tallahassee Board of Realtors will join their counterparts across the country Saturday and Sunday to present Nationwide Open House Weekend.

The annual event is expected to include more than 100 local homes, townhouses and condominiums that buyers may peruse, says Steven Louchheim, the TBR’s executive director.

Full story is available on Tallahassee.com

A mortgage is the biggest financial burden of home ownership, but it’s not the only one.

The cost of maintenance is often overlooked when buyers plan their real estate purchase, but is a major expense that should be considered in the decision.

A new development is catching home buyers off guard as the spring sales season gets under way: Bidding wars are back.

From California to Florida, many buyers are increasingly competing for the same house. Unlike the bidding wars that typified the go-go years and largely reflected surging sales, today’s are a result of supply shortages.

Full story is available on The Wall Street Journal

I’ve wanted to buy my first home for a while, and when my landlord told me that my rent was going up to $900 a month, I got serious about it.

So I researched the estimated value of the house I rent now ($160,000) on my local property appraiser website. Then I plugged the number into a mortgage calculator. If I owned this house, my total monthly payment would be $817. In other words, I could pay my mortgage, property taxes, and homeowners insurance for $83 less than what I pay in rent each month.

Full story is available on MSN Money

If you’re thinking about buying a home in Las Vegas, you might want to see if you’re eligible for a new program that could eliminate your down payment.

A new privately funded initiative that could help some 500 income-eligible people buy a home within the Las Vegas city limits was announced today by Wells Fargo and Las Vegas city officials.

Full story is available on Las Vegas Sun

Picture a four-bedroom home with brand-new roof, interior paint, carpeting, electrical wiring, dual-pane windows and kitchen counters.

The 1,800-square-foot house sits in an attractive, well-kept Twin Falls neighborhood with little traffic and a city park within easy walking distance.

Think such a place can’t be affordable? It just might be within reach if it’s a foreclosed property such as the one described above, which is selling for $93,000 to a first-time buyer.

Full story is available on LoanSafe.org

What do King County and Snohomish County have in common? They both have Realtors committed to finding new and successful ways to help buyers and sellers.

In 2007, the Snohomish Association of Realtors initiated a countywide Open House. King County took up the banner and eventually Washington State joined in 2009. The interest generated by this resulted in a nationwide event in 2010. The first statewide event saw over 5,000 homes open their doors to the public. This year, the numbers will be bigger and better with hundreds of thousands of Open Houses across the nation and currently in 13 other countries!

Full story is available on Patch

Opportunities abound for those interested in buying single-family homes, condominium or co-op units, and town homes as investments, with people scooping up properties at a discount and turning them into rental properties. Their plan: Collect rental income now, then benefit from price appreciation on the property in the future, given that many housing markets appear to be at least nearing their bottoms, in terms of price. And there’s no real shortage of renters, either, since many people still don’t qualify for mortgage loans, said Steve Berkowitz, chief executive of Realtor.com.

Full story is available on Market Watch