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Buying distressed homes for sale requires research, planning and financial management, so if you are planning to buy a home, this free downloadable PDF document from the Office of Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden is a very helpful PDF that you need to read.

This free document was prepared by Attorney General Wasden for residents and prospective home buyers in Idaho, but a large portion of information in this document apply also to residents and home buyers in other states. So even if you do not live in Idaho, you can download this document, which has just been released this October, and benefit from it.

According to the PDF, before buying a home, you need to examine your credit scores, financial readiness and your loan pre-qualification.

Most lenders use the FICO credit score to evaluate your credit-worthiness. FICO refers to credit rating agency Fair Isaac Corporation. If your FICO credit score is higher than 700, you are considered financially healthy by lenders, but if your credit score is below 600, you are considered a high risk.

Attorney General Wasden advises buyers to delay their plan of buying homes for sale if their credit score is poor because lenders assign higher mortgage rates to high-risk debtors. Besides, banks no longer offer subprime or nontraditional loans.

To calculate if you can afford to buy a house, use mortgage calculators available at fhaoutreach.gov. You should not consider future salary increases because they may never come and you should have 20 percent of the home price ready for down payment. Additionally, you should not be allotting over 30 percent of your monthly income for your monthly home loan payment.

Remember also that closing on a home is very costly. Depending on your agreement with the seller, you may be required to pay various fees that include fees for loan application, appraisal, home inspection, credit report, document processing, prepaid interest, private mortgage insurance, insurance escrow, title closing, title insurance, recording, taxes, flood certification and home association. You can get more information about closing costs at federalreserve.gov.

Under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, when you are buying a house, you are entitled to receive written disclosures from your lender or broker before and during closing and as you pay your mortgage loan through the years. These disclosures will inform you about closing costs, escrow accounts and other activities related to your loan account so you can guard yourself against people victimizing people buying homes for sale.

The list of foreclosures continues to grow in West Georgia due to job losses, particularly in the manufacturing sector, based on information provided by speakers at the Economic Forecast Breakfast meeting held in Carrollton by the University of West Georgia.

They said that one in every 38 homes in Carroll County is bank-repossessed and that one in every 49 homes in Haralson County is in foreclosure. They also said that the number of vacant foreclosed homes has been rising. Additionally, the problem of foreclosure has been spreading into affluent neighborhoods and into homes owned by prime borrowers.

Over the past 12 months, three banks in West Georgia have been closed. Housing starts in Carroll County have dropped by a staggering 82 percent and Haralson County also experienced a drop of almost 71 percent.

According to William Smith, economics professor at UWG, most foreclosures occurred in Carroll County, with the highest concentration of foreclosures in the neighborhoods of Villa Rica and in Temple.

The only positive thing about the long list of foreclosures in West Georgia is that it has pushed down home prices to levels affordable to many families. According to Donald Ratajczak, a business professor at Georgia State University, home values have fallen by 33 percent from their peak levels.

Economists who participated in the meeting also agreed that the improvement in home affordability will contribute to economic recovery, especially if the unemployment rate continues its downward direction despite its still high level.

In Carroll County, 4.5 percent of all jobs or 1,744 jobs were eliminated so far this year, most of which were due to the closure of the Pilgrim’s Pride and Carlisle manufacturing plants. In Haralson, 6.7 percent of all jobs were lost, most of which arose from the closure of the Ball manufacturing operation in Tallapoosa.

The job sectors recovering in Carroll County are social services and health care, mostly because of the opening of the Villa Rica behavioral health center called Willowbrook at Tanner. Some small businesses are also helping create jobs in Haralson and food services are surviving in most parts of West Georgia.

Business professor Ratajczak said that in past recessions, consumer confidence helped in contributing to economic recovery, but this year, consumer confidence levels are still down in West Georgia because of concerns about job losses, frozen wages and the area’s still growing list of foreclosures.