The American singer-songwriter and actor, Josh Groban has listed his Malibu haven for $6.1 million.

Josh Groban’s Malibu home measures 3,294 square foot. The home is a four-bedroom Tuscan villa-style home. His home is located at Point Dume area of Malibu where it has private beach rights. Enter a double-gated entry and a long drive back to the 1.8-acre estate that includes a separate guest house, recording studio, a salt water pool with a waterfall, lighted tennis court, a poolside cooking area and many private patios. The main house features stone floors with inlaid tiles.

The family room has high beamed ceilings and opens into billiard room with bar and wine cellar. There is a wood-paneled media/living room, a chef’s kitchen with breakfast nook, a dining room with beamed ceilings overlooking downstairs family room, a gym and a master suite with a view deck.

Josh Groban bought this Malibu home in 2005 for $4,125,000. Groban said of the home, “When I first saw this place, my reaction was, ‘It’s like being on an instant vacation — I’ll take it!”

In home staging you must know which part of the house you must pay attention first. The kitchen is a good place to start removing clutter.

You must first get everything off the counters. Even the toaster must be removed. Find a place where you can store everything in the cabinets and drawers. Clean them out. Put everything in a box and put the box inside the storage room.

Home buyers usually open all the cabinets and drawers, most especially in the kitchen. They want to be sure there is enough room for their stuff. If your kitchen cabinets, pantries and drawers look jammed full, it sends a negative message to the buyer and does not promote a positive appeal of a lot of storage spaces. The best way to do that is to have as much “empty space” as possible.

If you have a rarely used crock pot, put it in storage. Do this with every cabinet and drawer. Create open space.

If you have a large amount of foodstuffs crammed into the shelves or pantry, begin using them – especially canned goods. Canned goods are heavy and you don’t want to be lugging them to a new house, anyway – or paying a mover to do so. Let what you have on the shelves determined your menus and use up as much as you can.

Underneath the sink is very significant, too. Make sure that the area underneath the sink is as empty as possible, removing all extra cleaning supplies. You should scrub the area as well and verify if there are any tell-tale signs of water leaks that may cause a homebuyer to hesitate in buying your home.

Bank of America stated that it would trim down mortgage-loan balances in so far as 30% for thousands of troubled borrowers, in what could foretell a wider government effort to encourage banks to offer debt reduction to ease the mortgage crisis.

The plan is one of the boldest moves so far to address the dilemma of millions of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their homes than they are worth. It would make it easier for the Obama administration to move in a similar direction with its present loan-modification program, though senior government officials and many bankers remain very cautious of offering to cut loan balances as the main way of aiding distressed borrowers.

The Obama administration is discussing with banks how to adjust its existing loan-modification program to encourage forgiveness of principal, people familiar with the matter say.

The deed by Bank of America is prominent because it is the largest mortgage provider, collecting loan payments on one of every five home loans in the U.S.

Banks and policy makers have long worried that reducing loan balances for some could spur others to default in hopes of a similar deal. Bank of America said it believed it would limit that risk by requiring borrowers to “earn” the lower balances in stages over five years by keeping up on their new, lowered payments.

Bank of America has come under fire for not doing enough to rework troubled loans.

Modular construction has been around almost since the advent of the covered wagon. The use of modular construction enhanced today’s building practices.

Japanese builders construct homes like kids using building blocks. At first, a new homeowner may only be able to afford a small home with a single bath. As time passes, the homeowner can easily add on to their existing modular structure with new add-on modular units making the home a little more spacious and or bigger.

In the early 60’s, a builder from my home town built modular rooms for hotels and motels. For that era, this builder was considered a visionary. Today, this is a much more common practice. A recent article in one of my trade magazines ran a story about a large hotel resort in Dubai where every bathroom was a constructed modular unit.

This type of building practice saves thousands of dollars in building material cost as well as on-site labor cost.

Modular construction, whether it is entire homes or individual rooms/units, is unique because the actual building takes place in a climate-controlled environment. This reduces and nearly gets rid of the chances of weather delays. It also allows for design flexibility, energy efficiency, speeds in building time and reduced costs to both the contractor and the owner.

A new study reveals that housing has become more affordable for nurses, teachers, police and other workers; however, it suggests homeownership remains out of their reach in many major markets.

The Center for Housing Policy stated that incomes for many of the workers that communities rely on for vital services have not kept pace with the cost of housing. That only means many cannot afford to buy a median-priced home in the cities they work in, even with mortgage interest rates at near historic lows and lower home prices.

The study also found out that workers in many markets cannot afford rent payments for a two-bedroom apartment. The findings are based on an analysis of housing costs in more than 200 markets and wages across more than 60 occupations.

Ownership is still out of reach for workers in many major markets given that many programs initiated by the government.

According to a rate research website, the conventional 30-year fixed mortgages are available at 4.75% for well-qualified consumers that pay a standard .07 to 1 point.

Today’s 15-yr fixed rate is 4.125%, and the 5/1 ARM rate 3.625.

The FHA mortgage rates continue to mirror those of conventional loans. Whereas FHA loans do offer similar rates, the closing cost associated with those rates is significantly higher. The 30-year fixed jumbo loans are available at 5.625% with little better rates (5.5) for borrowers with an extremely low LTV. Mortgage-backed securities prices that drive mortgage rates in the opposite direction have been flat in the month of March.

In just a week until the much anticipated end of government MBS purchasing. The Fed says ideally the end of buying, set for March 31st, will cause only a slight rise in mortgage rates. Below are the current mortgage rates.

Current Mortgage Rates

* 30-yr fixed rate – 4.750%

* 15-yr fixed rate – 4.125%

* 5/1 ARM rate – 3.625%

* FHA 30-yr fixed rate – 4.750%

* FHA 15-yr fixed rate – 4.500%

* FHA 5/1 ARM rate – 3.625%

* VA 30-yr fixed rate – 4.875%

* Jumbo 30-yr fixed rate – 5.625%

* Jumbo Conforming 30-yr fixed rate – 4.875%

Attorney Jeffrey Jacobs put his duplex penthouse co-op on the market for $5.75 Million. Jacobs was Oprah Winfrey’s former agent, manager and adviser.

Jacobs bought the unit in 1999 and has renovated the elegant four-bedroom residence that was designed by architect, David Adler. The building is right on the park and has a skylight and big windows show lake and city views.

The apartment has a grand staircase that alleviates upward to four bedrooms plus a nursery/office. The home has a new kitchen, breakfast room and an adjacent family living room. That Oprah money has done this home well, it is exquisitely designed. The formal dining room with faux columns, a piano and a view of the lake and the curved wood-ceilinged billiard room are particularly delightful.

Bethesda, Maryland - Michael Milan was sentenced to 108 months in prison, pursued by three years of supervised release, for his role in carrying out a multi-million-dollar mortgage fraud scheme. He was also ordered to pay restitution of $3,141,409 and to forfeit $1,061,890 in proceeds he got hold of.

Milan was a consultant to various mortgage brokerage companies and connived with others to defraud mortgage lenders into lending funds for the purchase and refinance of residential properties. Milan caused his associates to prepare false mortgage applications which contained false information about the income and assets of the borrowers. Some of the mortgage applications falsely claimed that the borrowers earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from a company, Collid LLC that Milan controlled. Milan’s connivances submitted fraudulent loan applications for the purchase or refinance of 11 different properties and caused losses of more than $2.5 million but less than $7 million.

Milan is the sixth defendant convicted by the investigation that remains ongoing. Others convicted include a settlement agent, a loan officer who worked with Milan, and Milan’s son, Dustin Milan.

Financially distraught homeowners must consider choices that have both tax and credit implications and not only face the painful personal circumstances.

In recent times, the legal department of the California Association of Realtors® (CAR) issued a memorandum titled “Credit After Foreclosure, Bankruptcy, or Short Sale,” it is a very useful document for those who have questions about how credit is affected by the various ways in which one might lose his or her home.

The memo is basically based on the 2008 update of Fannie Mae guidelines (Fannie Mae Announcement 08-16), so it should be clear that the explanations are not completely general or unqualified.

For instance, it is said that a person is not eligible to obtain a home loan for a certain number of years, which means that Fannie Mae won’t buy a home loan made to that person during that time. Granted, most lenders want to be able to sell their loans to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (whose rules tend to be similar), but there might be portfolio lenders or other institutions that would make such a loan.

With that, it is worthwhile to review the contents of the memo.

Five years after a foreclosure, a consumer may be eligible to obtain a home loan. Of course, certain restrictions may apply. At least a ten percent down payment is required, and a minimum credit score of 680. Also, purchase of a second home or investment property is not permitted.

A consumer may be eligible three years after foreclosure if “extenuating circumstances” had led to the foreclosure.

Four years after giving a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, a consumer may be eligible for a home loan. If there had been extenuating circumstances, that period is shortened to two years. In the case of a short-sale, when the mortgage had been delinquent, a consumer may be eligible for a home loan two years after completion of the short sale.

In the case of bankruptcies, other than Chapter 13, there is a four year period from the discharge or dismissal date of the bankruptcy before the consumer may be eligible to obtain a home loan.