Hispanic home buyers are on the rise. According to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, a 2011 State of Hispanic Homeownership report recently released that youth, birth rates, household formation, rising purchasing power, labor trends, educational achievements and desire for home ownership have been key indicators of the significant rise in the Latino first-time homebuyer market in the U.S.

The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals points to increasing clout of Latinos in the housing market as being of significant benefit to helping accelerate the nation’s economic recovery. In regions, such as Sonoma County, where rents are becoming increasingly more pricey than mortgage payments, real estate professionals anticipate a continuation of current robust sales in entry-level homes in the area.

Census data on housing costs and income reveals that the share of working households paying more than half their income for housing rose substantially for both renters and owners from 2008 to 2010. A Center for Housing Policy report entitled Housing Landscape 2012 concluded that nearly one in four working households in the U.S. spends more than half of total income on housing.

A drop in income levels and increase in rents between 2008 and 2010 elevated this issue, while rents have risen due to increased demand. California was found to be the state with the highest proportion of working households with a severe cost burden (34% in 2010). In fact, three of the top five most burdened metropolitan areas of the country were in California: Long Beach – Santa Ana, with 38% of working households experiencing severe housing cost burden, San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos with 37% of households in distress and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario with 35%.

Does your housing equate to half your income? If so, you represent 25% of Americans currently in the same boat. Historically, paying over 30 % of household income in housing costs was a red flag for a housing crisis.

California Real Estate industry news reports that under the State Attorneys General foreclosure settlement, this May (2012), mortgage servicers are now required to give a decision to a borrower within 30 days of receipt of a competed short sale request package.

Should a servicer take longer than this new 30-day limit on over 10% of requests, the firm will be flagged as a potential violator. If this potential violation is not cured, a servicer may face penalties of up to $1 million and another $5 million in fines for subsequent repeat violations.

Similarly, servicers must now notify borrowers within 30 days if any document is missing from the request package. The monitoring process will be largely internal, with servicers forming groups and conducting quarterly reviews to monitor compliance.

It appears that there has been a shift away from REO sales toward short sales, since last Fall. According to RealtyTrac, short sales have been taking on average, 308 days from the day the borrower entered the foreclosure process.