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Know when to say “NO”!

October 1, 2011 By

*THE MOST SUCCESSFUL SHORT SALE LISTING AGENTS IN THIS MARKET ARE THE ONES THAT KNOW HOW/WHEN TO SAY “NO”*

1. DETERMINE IF THE HOMEOWNER CAN/WANTS TO STAY IN THE HOME.
With the push for lender’s to keep people in their homes, a loan modification is a possibility and your homeowner needs to know about it. Be knowledgeable and be able to explain to them their options. For example, if a homeowner has not made a payment in 12 months, know how to calculate the payment to determine whether or not they can afford the terms of a modification. Review the statement with the homeowner and determine the following:

Add the current mortgage balance + missed payments + penalties
Amortize the balance at 2% over 30 years
Add in the taxes, insurance and/or HOA
Determine if they can afford it and that it is not greater than 34% of their gross income

2. REVIEW ALL THE MORTGAGE STATEMENTS WITH THE HOMEOWNERS

3. PULL A PRELIMINARY TITLE REPORT AND CHECK FOR ALL LIENS

If a client determines the best option for them is a short sale, help them understand the process, discuss the scenarios, explain what may or may not happen with the buyer, with the appraisal, and with the lender/negotiator. The best chance of a successful short sale starts with an educated, understanding and cooperative client.

If they choose not to cooperate, or they just want to stay in their home, help them find comfort in that decision, and educate them on what to expect. You never know if they will change their mind and call you later.

If you or someone you know needs the help of a skilled short sale consultant, like me, feel good knowing that I’m here to help you. Simply give me a call or send me an email…

INSIGHT AND THOUGHT PROVIDED BY SCOTT CHAPLIN, BANK OF AMERICA

Filed Under: how can I get a loan modification, how do I get a loan modification, how do I get financial help, Short Sale Updates, whats happening with my loan modification, who can help me get financing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Home resales fall 9.6% in February and prices are near 9-year low – LA Times Online

March 26, 2011 By

By Jeffry Bartash – LA Times online – March 21, 2011, 2:33 p.m. view the entire article here
The National Assn. of Realtors data reflect a continued slump in the real estate market. One bright spot is that first-time buyers accounted for 34% of home sales last month, up from 29% in January.

Washington —— Sales of previously owned homes dropped 9.6% in February and prices fell to their lowest level since 2002, reflecting a continued slump in the U.S. real estate market.

The National Assn. of Realtors on Monday said home resales dropped to an annual rate of 4.88 million from an upwardly revised 5.4 million in January. The data is seasonally adjusted.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected sales to drop to a rate of 5.1 million.

Sales of new and used homes have been down in the dumps since a housing market bubble burst during the recession. High unemployment, combined with stricter lending standards, have made it harder for Americans to buy homes despite low interest rates.

Filed Under: first time home buyers, Selling your Home, What's New? Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

IRS eases rules on property liens for delinquent taxpayers

March 5, 2011 By

The amount of back taxes a person can owe before facing a possible lien will be doubled to $10,000. Small firms with up to $25,000 in delinquent tax bills will be eligible for two-year payment plans.
Associated Press- February 24, 2011, 2:21 p.m.

The Internal Revenue Service says it’s trying to help people who are struggling to pay delinquent tax bills, so it’s reducing the number of property liens and easing rules for small businesses to enter into installment agreements.

As the economy has soured, the agency has filed an increasing number of liens on property owned by delinquent taxpayers. The IRS filed nearly 1.1 million liens in the fiscal year that ended in September, compared with 426,000 in 2001.

The steps announced Thursday will double the amount of back taxes a person can owe to $10,000 before facing a possible lien. Previously, taxpayers who owed at least $5,000 and ignored numerous IRS notices would get an automatic lien placed on their property.

The change will make it easier for people to have liens withdrawn once tax bills are paid or they start paying under certain installment plans. More taxpayers can settle their tax debt for less than they owe, if they meet certain income and debt requirements.

Small businesses with larger delinquent tax bills will be eligible for 24-month payment plans. Previously, the tax bill had to be less than $10,000; now it’s up to $25,000.

The agency believes the changes “will help people trying to get right with their taxes and we think it strikes the right balance to protect the interests of the government,” said Doug Shulman, the IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said.
Read the original article here

Filed Under: Short Sale Updates, What's New? Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Banks Boost Home-Loan Relief

February 12, 2011 By

Direct Talks With Borrowers Get More Results Than Government’s Mortgage-Modification Program
By ROBBIE WHELAN and ANTHONY KLAN

As the federal government’s flagship mortgage-modification program comes under scrutiny for failing to meet its goal of helping three to four million troubled homeowners, state-level efforts to boost modifications appear to be picking up momentum.

The Treasury reported Monday that the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, had provided permanent help to 521,630 homeowners since the program began in spring 2009.

By comparison, over the same period, banks negotiating directly with borrowers have made about two million permanent loan modifications outside the government’s program. These modifications continued to rise in recent months even as the number of HAMP modifications trailed off.

The U.S. housing market may take five or six more years to recover, TrimTabs Investment Research warned recently. Madeline Schnapp, director of macroeconomic research at TrimTabs, talks to MarketWatch’s Alistair Barr about what that means for the world’s largest economy.

Critics of HAMP say the program has made little impact on the housing market and should be ended. Last week, House Republicans introduced a bill to end the effort, calling it a “colossal failure.” The administration defends the program.

“I think we’ve got to remember that HAMP has achieved over a half-million modifications. These are people that make $50,000 a year, so to sort of write it off and say, ‘Well, it’s a failure,’ I think is not really appropriate,” said Tim Massad, an acting assistant Treasury secretary, in a hearing on Capitol Hill last week.

Read the full article here...

Filed Under: first time home buyers, Short Sale Updates, What's New? Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

5 steps to first-time-buyer happiness

February 5, 2011 By

Finding best home depends on preapproval, agent
By Dian Hymer, Inman News
Posted: 01/27/2011 11:13:51 AM PST
Updated: 01/27/2011 11:43:05 AM PST

The first step in the homebuying process is to find out what you can afford to pay for a house, condo or co-op. This will depend on the amount of cash you have available for a down payment, your credit, income, assets and overall financial situation.
Mortgage qualification is easier for buyers who work as employees whose income can be easily verified. Self-employed individuals or buyers with income from investments may find the qualification process more difficult.

A wrinkle in the financing end of the homebuying process is that it’s not as easy to get a preapproval letter from your mortgage broker or loan agent as it used to be. As of Jan. 1, 2010, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) began requiring lenders and mortgages brokers to issue a binding Good Faith Estimate (GFE) within three days of receiving a loan application.

Before then, buyers shopped around for a mortgage. When they saw a house they wanted to buy, they asked their loan agent or broker to provide a preapproval letter to accompany their purchase offer. The loan person would run a credit check and verify the buyers’ income and assets without, in many cases, taking a formal loan application. On the basis of this information, a preapproval letter was written.

Read the full article here

Additionally; this article fits in well with the Orange County Market Update Video that we shoot weekly, and it’s our tip of the week. Check out our Anaheim Hills Market Update here…

Filed Under: first time home buyers, What's New? Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Shadow inventory threatens housing recovery…

January 31, 2011 By
shadow inventory


NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — There is a growing glut of foreclosed homes threatening to hit the market over the next couple of years, potentially delaying any recovery.

There were 1.7 million homes either owned by the bank or in some stage of foreclosure at the end of the third quarter of 2010, according to a recent report by Standard & Poor’s. It would take 44 months, at the current rate of sales, to sell them off — a 25% increase from the beginning of 2010. (S&P does not count home loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.)

This so-called “shadow inventory” may depress home values and delay the housing market recovery.

“The problem is you have all these properties coming down the pipeline that are nearly certain to hit the market. That’s going to be a negative for the supply-demand equation,” said Diane Westerback, Managing Director for S&P and an author of the report.

Click here for the full article

Filed Under: first time home buyers, Selling your Home, Short Sale Updates Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Treasury’s HAFA Revamp Effective Feb. 1

January 31, 2011 By

This is great news just released by the National Mortgage News – Monday, January 31, 2011

The Treasury Department has revamped its short sale program by easing income restrictions and documentation requirements for homeowners facing foreclosure. The changes are effective Tuesday, Feb. 1.

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Changes made under Treasury’s Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative (HAFA) program make incentive payments more attractive for second lien holders and for borrowers completing a short sale, or deed in lieu transaction.

Travis Olsen, chief operating officer at Loan Resolution Corp., expects the changes will lead to a big jump in HAFA enrollment. “A lot more people are going to qualify for the program,” he said. “Elimination of the debt-to-income requirement along with the relaxed non-owner occupancy rule makes it easier for those who do qualify to get their short sale successfully closed.” LRC is a Scottsdale, Ariz., vendor that specializes in short sales.

Delinquent homeowners entering the program only have to prove that they used the house as their primary residence at some point in the last 12 months. Previously, it was the last 90 days. Home owners can qualify for the HAFA short sale program if they have moved across town and the property is vacant or rented to a non-borrower.

Borrowers are entitled to a $3,000 relocation incentive payment when a short sale or DIL is completed. When a deed in lieu transaction is completed, the servicer can make the incentive payment even if the borrower stays as a renter under the HAFA changes.

Servicers will have the option to pay the borrower a relocation incentive either upon a successful surrender of title or when the borrower vacates or re-purchases the property at a future date, according a TARP Inspector General report.

Treasury has retained a $6,000 cap on paying off second lien holders but removed a separate cap on paying more than 6% of the unpaid principal balance.

Olsen noted that second lien holders generally want 10% of the UPB to extinguish a home equity loan. Previously, the HAFA cap limited the payoff to $3,000 on a $50,000 HEL. Now, the servicer can pay the $5,000 to satisfy a 10% demand.

The original article can be found by clicking here…

Filed Under: Selling your Home, Short Sale Updates, What's New? Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

California home sales hit 7-month high in December

January 30, 2011 By

os Angeles Business from bizjournals – by Elizabeth Kim , the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal
Date: Friday, January 21, 2011, 12:00pm PST

California home sales rose in December to their highest level since May, according to a report Friday from the California Association of Realtors, as the inventory of unsold homes dwindled.

December’s sales were up 5.9 percent from November’s revised figure of 491,590 but were down 6.8 percent from the revised 558,840 of December 2009.

The unsold inventory index for existing, single-family detached homes was 5 months in December, down from 6.2 months in November but up from 3.8 months in December 2009. The index indicates the number of months needed to deplete the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate.

Read more: California home sales hit 7-month high in December | Los Angeles Business from bizjournals – Full Story – Click Here…

Filed Under: Selling your Home, What's New? Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Home seizures by banks decline in state

January 26, 2011 By
Trash litters the front yard of a bank-owned home in Phoenix. Arizona was among the states hardest hit by the housing meltdown. (Joshua Lott, Reuters / January 13, 2011)

Los Angeles Times

While foreclosures climbed 2% nationally, California saw a 14% drop. But California’s high unemployment rate and resetting loans mean the fall in foreclosure activity could be brief.

Fewer Californians grappled with foreclosure last year, bucking a national trend and giving homeowners fresh hope that the state’s housing market could be on the mend.

Trash litters the front yard of a bank-owned home in Phoenix. Arizona was among the states hardest hit by the housing meltdown. (Joshua Lott, Reuters / January 13, 2011)

Fewer Californians grappled with foreclosure last year, bucking a national trend and giving homeowners fresh hope that the state’s housing market could be on the mend.

The 14% drop in foreclosure activity contrasted with a 2% rise nationally, according to data tracking firm RealtyTrac. Analysts noted that California’s housing market was among the first to falter and may now be among the first to recover. Home prices here hit bottom in April 2009, and have gradually risen since then.

Read the full story

If you follow my blog at all… I have a few questions for you. How can anyone know what media forum is correct? Did you see my post yesterday about 1 million homes foreclosed in 2011? While this article is more geographically specific, I would question how accurate is this data, and is it really an issue or a concern to me?

Rather than have uncertainty in the future market, ask yourself, how long am I going to live in my next home? How comfortable am I with my current job, with my current mortgage or rent payment? We have no control over the market; however we as consumers have full control over our individual plans, thoughts and actions.

Filed Under: first time home buyers, Selling your Home, Short Sale Updates, What's New? Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1 million homes repossessed in 2010

January 25, 2011 By
chart_repo.top

CNN Money – recent post:

Foreclosures were at a record high in 2010, and more than 1 million people lost their homes, even as notices started leveling off during the end year.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Foreclosures were at a record high in 2010, and more than 1 million people lost their homes, even as notices started leveling off during the end year.

In total, there were nearly 2.9 million foreclosure notices filed during the year, according to report released Thursday by RealtyTrac. That was a record high, but just 1.7% above 2009.

read the full story

A few key comments in the article address the temporary hold on foreclosures during the 4th quarter of last year, which will lead to increased foreclosure activity 1st and 2nd quarter this year, along with the challenges the banks are experiencing with squatters moving into the vacant properties. Great information!!!

Filed Under: Selling your Home, Short Sale Updates, What's New? Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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