Good news to report: President Obama is expected to sign a resolution passed late yesterday by Congress extending the current limits for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA loans through 2010. The limits were set to expire at the end of this year. This is especially critical for California, where more than 80 percent of all loans are financed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or FHA, and will help maintain the positive signs we are now seeing in California

Rates for 30 year home loans have inched up, hitting 5 percent for the first time in nearly a month.  The average rate in up to 5 percent, up from 4.92 percent.  The record low of the of 4.78 percent hit in the spring.  Rates are still very attractive for many people looking to buy a home.  Last month, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues agreed to slow down the pace of the program of the Feds buying mortgage backed securities, which has been keep interest rates artificially low.  The Fed has now agreed to wrap up the purchases by the end of next March.  It will be interesting to see what that does to the interest rates but I am pressed to say that rates will be heading back up.  

Homeowners in nine East Bay cities who sell or upgrade their properties starting in March must spend hundreds to thousands of dollars replacing their sewer lines under court orders obtained by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.  The orders are an attempt to stop the dumping of as much as 400 million gallons of partially treated sewage into the Bay each year as the result of overflows during rainy weather.  About 50 million gallons of partially treated sewage ended up in the Bay as recently as Oct. 13, when about 4 inches of rain fell on the East Bay.  Most of that was because of broken residential sewer lines that go from  homes to pipes in the street.  One court order, expected to be signed next month by all nine cities, requires the cities to strengthen existing laws or write new ones that require homeowners to fix or replace their lines when a home is sold or upgraded. It also will require those cities to fix their broken sewer collection systems.Â