Including, Bank of America gets foreclosed upon and foreclosed upon with zero balance owed!
The housing situation in Rosemount mirrors what's happening in the Twin Cities metropolitan area: fewer houses available because of the number of foreclosures and short sales. The number of homes for sale in the Twin Cities continued dropping at “breakneck levels” last month, according to statistics compiled by the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors (MAAR).
The number of properties available in the metropolitan area last month hit its lowest level since 2004 .
Mortgage Scams in a Weak Housing Market
Fraudsters will always finds ways to scam lenders and homeowners. And in recent years, they've shifted their tactics to profit from the market's downturn.
Today, there's less identity fraud and misrepresentation of income or employment to obtain a mortgage, mainly because of stricter validation criteria, says David Johnson, vice president of fraud and consortium solutions for CoreLogic, a provider of financial, property and consumer information. But other types of fraud are replacing those scams. Here are three :
Professionals Provide Insight on Top Reasons Real Estate Contracts Fall Through
Recently, real estate professionals provided Homes.org, a leading real estate search website, with insight on the top reasons that real estate contracts fall through and how buyers can avoid these issues before they happen. Some of the reasons cited are well-known problems that could happen in any market, however, some issues are due to recent changes in the real estate market that have occurred over the last few years.
Some South Florida homeowners can sell their homes at a better price this year because fewer foreclosed properties are on the market.
"People hear that the market's terrible," said Judy Trudel, an agent for Balistreri Realty in Lighthouse Point . "But there are certain neighborhoods that are doing well."
The values of some homes not in distress are stable , if not rising, real estate agents say.
Bank assisted short sales or the lender approved selling of homes at less than what is owed on a mortgage,
are projected to skyrocket in 2012 as banks and mortgage lenders come to grips with the mess the U.S. housing market has been in for five years.
Your home is underwater and your spouse is out of work. The bank refuses to lower your monthly payments, and you’re terrified by the thought of an eviction notice.
It’s a nightmare, but a growing number of people in your predicament are turning to the short sale to avoid a ruinous foreclosure.
What is a short sale? Say you still owe $300,000 on your mortgage, but with housing prices in the dumps, your home is worth just $200,000. If your lender agrees, you could sell the house for its current value, writing off the remaining $100,000. Even if the lender won’t forgive the entire difference, you can still try to whittle it down.
Short sales have become so hot in recent months that some large banks are encouraging them to take the plunge.
Chase Puts Their Money Where Their Mouth is With Large Short Sale Cash Incentive
Chase Bank sent a homeowner (name withheld) a solicitation letter offering up to $35,000 to do a short sale. Back in August the homeowner called McGeough Lamacchia Realty right away and the home was listed for sale within two weeks.
Once an offer was obtained the staff at McGeough Lamacchia Realty and Dorner Law submitted a short sale package to Chase along with their solicitation letter to remind them that this $35,000 was offered. After five weeks of negotiating Chase not only offered a short sale approval and waived the entire deficiency balance but they agreed to pay this homeowner the entire $35,000.
To turn the page on the mortgage mess, lenders including Bank of America and Wells Fargo are changing their playbook to favor short sales and offering owners money to walk away.
Apparently, an umbrella wasn't enough to cover the reported leaks in Rihanna's home. According to Real Estalker, the Barbados-born singer is ready to get rid of her modern mansion and has officially listed the property as a short sale for $4.5 million.
I recently received an email from a short sale seller in Massachusetts and she had a very good question. In a nutshell, she has her home listed as a short sale and is not receiving any offers. She wanted to know how to proceed. Personally I’m wondering why she is reaching out to me in California. But, her question has an easy answer, and I am happy to respond.
While summer is a great time to buy a home, it’s entirely possible that many people are vacationing and not out looking at homes. But no matter what, she property still needs a buyer–fast . Why? Most short sale sellers are facing foreclosure and if there is no short sale file (complete with offer) at the bank, the bank will very likely foreclose.
Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo are the biggest mortgage servicers in the United States, and its big news for Florida and the nation when all three seem to be reconsidering "short sales" as a viable option to a full-out foreclosure of homes that have gone into default. According to news reports this week, "short sales" are now being viewed by the banks as a faster, cheaper, and cleaner way to resolve a mortgage that is not being paid than the traditional foreclosure process - particularly with all of today's Foreclosure Fraud problems.
In fact, short sales may be the answer to many troubled mortgages. The banks are proactively marketing a short sale alternative to many of their borrowers as well as streamlining their own internal procedures to facilitate short sales.
California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new law July 15 that prevents first and junior mortgage lien holders from pursuing short-sale sellers for money they owe after a short sale.
A short sale is a transaction in which the mortgage lender agrees to accept a price that’s less than the amount owed on the property. The lender typically forgives the rest of the loan and a buyer purchases the property at a discount. With the recent economic downturn, lenders would reserve the right to pursue the seller for any shortfall, or would be silent on the matter, leaving the seller potentially exposed to such a claim.
Another law passed last year required primary mortgage lenders to accept the agreed short-sale payment as full payment for the loan, but it did not apply to second-lien holders. The new law extends the requirement to secondary or junior lenders and ensures that once a lender agrees to accept a short-sale payment on a residential property – one to four units – all lien holders must consider the outstanding balance as paid in full.
The new measure, which went into effect immediately, is designed to help distressed homeowners.
Underwater homeowners who are still suffering from negative equity are looking for ways which they may be able to find debt relief through underwater refinancing options but they may be in a situation where opportunities like short sales are there only avenue of escaping a negative equity situation as a result of seeing the value of their home drastically drop. The popular Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives initiative has allowed homeowners to participate in not only short sales but deed in lieu of foreclosure plans as well, and this route is not something new as numerous men and women have been aware of this particular foreclosure alternative plan when they may be unable to find an option to help them reduce their underwater mortgage payment costs.
Short sales will remain strong for the next several years as foreclosure inventories timelines grow even longer, according to the chief operating officer of Equator, a premier software platform for default servicers.
To short sell or not to short sell, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in distress to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous foreclosure, or take arms against a sea of debtors, and by short-selling, end them?
Hamlet never faced the cold realities of a slumping real estate market, but plenty of local homeowners have pondered some weighty decisions lately.
A drop in home values that began in 2006 has left 181,000 homeowners in San Diego County and 442,000 in Riverside and San Bernardino counties owing more money on their homes than their properties are worth, according to CoreLogic, a data company.
What you will need to qualify in terms of paper work and forms can vary by lender. Here are three key things a homeowner would need to qualify for a short sale, according to the Certified Distressed Property Expert Web site:
• Financial
• Monthly income shortfall: A lender will want to see that you cannot afford, or soon will not be able to afford, your mortgage.
• Insolvency: The lender will want to see that you do not have significant liquid assets
• Most experts agree that it is wise to hire a Realtor who is experienced in short sale transactions and a lawyer, if possible.
• A short sale is less onerous to one's credit than a foreclosure. For instance, Fannie Mae allows people with a short sale on their record to get another mortgage after two years while those with a foreclosure have to wait seven years.
• Once the seller has negotiated a deal with the bank about how much, if any, money to bring to the closing table, the bank usually issues a deficiency waiver that would protect the seller from being sued later on for the balance.
We are closing on a house next week. It's a short sale in a nice neighborhood at a huge discount. All the papers are in order. The deal went smoothly but took eight weeks. The seller's bank wants a copy of the appraisal from my lender that I paid for. The seller's lender is not paying any closing costs or putting anything into the deal. Do I have to send them the report I paid for?
You are not legally obligated to send the seller's lender your appraisal, but then again the seller's lender is not obligated to let the short sale go forward.
If you don't provide the appraisal, the bank may not agree to let you close on the property. If you do provide it and it shows that the value of the property is way above what you've agreed to pay, the lender maybe try to pressure you into paying more money.
Everyone for the most part has heard how long a short sale takes. The length of time can be anywhere from 2-6 months or longer. The banks and government have come a long way on trying to expedite the process, but the shear number of short sale transactions in the country out weighs the amount people who can process them.
Here is how it works. A seller agrees to a buyers offer and they both sign a contract. Before the buyer starts the buying process, the sellers lender must approve the sale.
Why short sales take so long - Fort Lauderdale Real Estate Headlines | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/real-estate-headlines-in-fort-lauderdale/why-short-sales-take-so-long#ixzz1TQ4Ci24V
The San Joaquin Valley housing market has little chance of recovering as long as lenders continue to put up barriers blocking the short sales of homes. The experts who know the process best are real estate agents, and they went public Thursday, complaining about lenders and loan servicers. “Lenders are out of touch with the realities of the market and the consequences to struggling homeowners, and the result is unnecessary foreclosures that only make California’s economic problems worse, hindering a desperately needed recovery,” said Don Faught, treasurer of the California Association of Realtors.
Selling homes in this economic environment is difficult enough without lenders adding to the problem by creating artificial roadblocks.
Under a new state law, any lender who agrees to a short sale—which by definition will yield insufficient funds to cover the outstanding loans on a property—must accept it as payment in full for all loan balances. That is a good thing for upside-down homeowners who need to sell, says the California Association of REALTORS®. In a prepared statement applauding Gov. Jerry Brown for signing SB 458 into law, the association observed that previously a first mortgage holder could accept an agreed-upon short sale payment as full payment for the first mortgage but a junior lien holder could still hound the seller for the full amount owned on the junior lien.
People say that I have a shoe fetish. I’ve even been accused of that fetish by folks who read my articles regularly. Yes, I’m a girl that has trouble avoiding the shoe and handbag areas of the local department stores.
Today I am also going to discuss shoes yet again. As the proverb goes (and there are many variations):
Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Translation: Do not criticize someone until you have actually been in their position, doing things as they are doing them.
Never has this proverb hit home for me more than in the last four years. Over the last few years, I have negotiated hundreds of short sale transactions. I have also read hundreds of blog posts attacking banks and mortgage lenders for being inept, irresponsible, unprofessional, and disorganized.
Losing a job, a cut in job hours and divorce are among the most common hardships homeowners cite when applying for a short sale. Then there are other life events that inadvertently cause a housing hardship, like getting married when the bride and groom each own their own home.
Tim Gilson, a Realtor with Re/Max Vision in Huntington Woods, said he recently worked with a client who bought a condo in Novi several years ago. Then she met the man of her dreams who had a house in Canton, and that’s where they decided to live.
“They had this extra house that was upside down. So they put a tenant in there, but were traveling a lot and couldn’t be the best landlords,” Gilson said. “I suggested they contact their lender.”
When the bottom fell out of the housing market, short sales became commonplace all across the country. These short sales can help both the homeowner who is facing foreclosure and the buyer hoping to find a deal. While the idea sounds good, navigating through a short sale can be tricky.
First, you have to understand what a short sale is. In essence, a short sale is when the homeowner facing foreclosure and the bank or mortgage holder enter into an agreement to accept a lower price for the property than what the homeowner owes. On one hand, the homeowner will make no profit when the property is sold, but on the other hand, the homeowner will not have a foreclosure on his or her record.
One out of every five Americans spends more than s/he earns, according to FINRA, and 38 percent of Americans with home-equity loans are underwater. There have been 9.3 million foreclosure filings since 2007 and 2011 could be another record-breaking year of foreclosures. According to James J. Saccacio , chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, "Data from the Mortgage Bankers Association shows that about 3.7 million properties are in [a] seriously delinquent stage." Clearly, a large number of Americans are in trouble.
Foreclosures . Short Sales. Unemployment. Tight credit. Overbuilding. Those are but some of the reasons housing markets in many parts of the country remain stubbornly depressed, even while activity in other economic sectors has begun to rebound.
New-home building and sales of existing homes historically have been leading economic indicators, pointing the way to robust recovery after a downturn. In the current cycle, however, that hasn't happened, says Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors .
Two of the nation’s largest lenders are quietly offering some delinquent homeowners a deal.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. say they give select borrowers behind on their mortgage payments $10,000 to $20,000 for agreeing to short sales, which means the homes are sold for less than what’s owed on the mortgages.
Most banks figure they’re doing homeowners a favor simply by signing off on short sales and forgiving the amount owed. But in some cases, Chase and Wells Fargo borrowers receive that and cash at the closing.
Lenders routinely hand homeowners a few thousand dollars if they leave the properties in good shape after foreclosure. That’s known as “cash for keys.” Also, homeowners are entitled to $3,000 of government money if they complete short sales through the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative program.
One of the leading home builders says mortgage rates will begin to rise in the next few weeks as the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing program, or QE2 , winds down. And Bob Toll would not be surprised to see rates spike from 4½% now up to 7½% within two years. But the founder of Toll Bros. also says even with home prices down 30% to 50%, and rates at "beyond-belief" levels, housing remains a buyer's market. I spoke with Toll about why his industry has been missing in action in the economic recovery and whether that signals tougher economic times ahead. The following is our talk, edited for clarity and length.
Bank of America Gets Foreclosed Upon!
JavaScript is disabled!
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!
Short sales have been anything but short in duration.
As lenders grapple with the huge volumes of distressed properties and navigate the complex web of loan ownership created by bundling mortgages, transactions have stalled for months.
Real estate professionals and homeowners are frustrated - and the California Association of Realtors has been pushing to speed up the process. The trade group is working with lending institutions such as Fannie Mae to shorten the time brokers and agents must wait for approval on short sales.
Short sales, in which the lender agrees to accept the sale of a home for less than is owed on the property, help lenders and homeowners avoid foreclosures. And such transactions make up a significant portion of the housing market: 19 percent of total home sales in California were short sales in April, according to C.A.R. statistics on existing single-family homes.
Servicers completed 1,666 short sales and deeds-in-lieu (DIL ) of foreclosure under the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA ) program in April. That’s up 73.7 percent from the 959 HAFA transactions completed the month before.
HAFA has been in place since April of 2010. According to Treasury’s latest report , which covers program activity through April of this year, a total of 7,113 short sales and DILs have concluded through HAFA .
Short sales are looking more attractive to many members of the real estate market, including “luxury” homeowners who have given up on trying to wait out the market. Increasingly, luxury homes are going for extremely discounted prices as the owners opt to get out rather than leave their homes on the market until they sell[1]. For example, in expensive areas like Nassau County, New York, alone, 22 houses exceeding $1 million are listed as short sales.
Where do delinquent commercial real estate loans go to die? At one lender, ironically it's a place called SAD: Special Assets Department.
Led by senior vice president Sheryl Lewis, the department's handling of defaults typifies what is happening in banks across America. Thousands of loans from the 2005-2006 real estate boom are now in jeopardy due to the lingering effects of the Great Recession.
In her SAD portfolio, Lewis has handled over 200 troubled loans originated by her bank. She is an executive of BOK Financial, which is headquartered in Tulsa, Okla., with subsidiaries including Bank of Arizona.
TWO copper beeches tower over Rudy and Ann Mittasch’s shingled colonial on a pristine half acre in the gated Legend Yacht and Beach Club enclave of 46 homes here. Set on rolling terrain with 26 acres of communal space, their home has distant views across the Long Island Sound from the city to Connecticut.
Amenities in the private community include a clubhouse decorated à la Ralph Lauren, a dock with boat slips, an outdoor pool, an indoor tennis court and a lake with two fountains.
Short sales, in which a house is sold for less than the value of its mortgage, in expensive areas are increasingly common. In Nassau, 22 houses exceeding $1 million are listed as short sales; in Suffolk the tally is 12. Over all, short-sale inventory hit a record high in April, said Richard Halloran, the managing broker of Coldwell Banker’s Babylon office, who cited 2,430 homes in Suffolk listed as short sales and 1,042 in Nassau. In December 2008, the short-sale inventory in Suffolk was 1,541 homes; in Nassau, 633. With the courts at a standstill and banks not foreclosing on properties, Mr. Halloran said, “the banks are getting better at doing short sales, so more people are doing them.”
Crooked buyers of foreclosed real estate cost banks hundreds of millions of dollars and play havoc with property prices, according to CoreLogic, a California real estate analysis firm.
Tim Grace, a vice president with the firm, helped organize a national conference on mortgage fraud in Atlanta this week. CoreLogic's analysis of more than 7 million loan applications and sales nationally from 2005 to 2010 flagged one in every 24 loans as suspicious, along with one in every 53 short sales [when a homeowner gets a lender to all a sale for less than what is owed on the house]. Fraudsters manipulate information about a home to unnaturally depress the price, then use tricks from using a straw buyer who does not plan to move into the home to more common scams of lying to banks about income or debt to buy foreclosed properties. Then the fraudsters quickly sell the house for its real worth.
Prices for Pocono homes continued to fall in May as sales also tumbled.
A home in Monroe County sold for an average of $147,788 last month — 5 percent less than the same period in 2010.
"We continue to have the distress sales putting downward pressure on sales prices," said Lisa Sanderson, president of the Pocono Mountain Association of Realtors.
In Pike, the average price fell 14 percent last month, to $156,812.
"Short and foreclosure sales just keep on pulling us down. We need to see some stability in the job market so that people can regain some confidence and get off the fence," Sanderson said.
Nationally, home prices fell to the lowest levels since 2002.
Government-sponsored short sales spiked and modifications remained steady in April, but the majority of foreclosure prevention work remains in private programs.
Servicers participating in the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program completed 1,666 short sales and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure in April, a 73% increase from the previous month.
The Treasury Department launched HAFA in April 2010 to provide servicers an incentive to pursue other options to borrowers denied a Home Affordable Modification Program workout. Servicers converted another 29,000 trials into permanent modifications, in line with the monthly average . Since the program launched in March 2009, servicers started nearly 700,000 permanent mods.
Peninsula-area home sales slumped 10 percent in May, compared to May 2010 levels.
The median sales price of $180,000 was also down 10 percent from May 2010, according to Real Estate Information Network Inc.
The 417 homes that sold last month fell short of the 461 sales in May 2010, when there was a rush to qualify for federal home-buying tax credits of up to $7,000.
"We definitely had an artificial boost on offers written because people wanted to get the tax credit," said Perry Pilgrim, principal broker for Abbitt Realty.
I’m a little late getting to this WSJ story about the Corelogic report on negative home equity and what often follows it – a short sale. But, it seemed worthwhile to bring it up here for two reasons, the first being the neat little graphic shown below.
Something has happened - you've gotten sick, or your hours have been cut at work, or you've taken on the increasingly expensive care of an elderly parent. Something totally unexpected and financially overwhelming.
You may be able to keep up with the bills for a few months more, but unless the picture changes dramatically, you might miss a monthly mortgage payment very soon.
What should you do?
Thanks to all the streaming feeds of constant news I'm subjected to, I just clicked on a CNBC story titled, Four Years Later, Housing Market Shows Signs of Life."
But wait, what about this morning's report of an 11 percent jump in sales
Yes, the numbers are going in the right direction, but only after big, albeit partially revised, drops in February. We're working off a bottom here, and we're still bumping around it. My concern, as it has been for years now, is distressed properties. Foreclosures and short sales (where the home is sold for less than the value of the mortgage) are ruling the roost, and that is not good news for home prices, which are still dropping, despite this one month of rising sales. Sales are all well and good, but prices are key in so so many ways.
Short Sales moving along in our office: B of A – under 4 week approval. Key Bank – under 4 week approval. (Not indicative of every situation, but waiting months on end seems to be the exception not the rule).
Anecdotally, I’ve seen similar action recently as well, with short sales being approved much faster and more frequently than was the norm even just six months ago.
I’m curious what everyone else is seeing out there in today’s market. Is it a growing trend that short sales are more successful, quicker, and easier this year, or just some sort of sampling bias?
HACKENSACK, N.J. — Lori Purcell was sick of being a landlady and wanted to unload her two-family house in Garfield, N.J. But she knew it would never sell for the $325,440 she had paid in 2004.
A short sale solved her problem.
Sharon Bell was looking for an affordable two-family house in Rutherford, N.J. A short sale solved her problem, too.
Short sales — in which a lender allows a distressed homeowner to sell for less than the amount owed on the mortgage — have become a large part of the housing landscape, accounting for 13 percent of sales nationally in February.
Last week (April 12) a bill regarding short sales was introduced into the House of Representatives . H.R. 1498, "Prompt Decision for Qualification of Short Sale Act of 2011", was submitted by Representatives Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) and Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) Its purpose is summarized, "To require the lender or servicer of a home mortgage, upon a request by the homeowner for a short sale, to make a prompt decision whether to allow the sale."
Short Sales Pressure Home Prices Home prices fell 6.7 percent in February year over year, according to a new report from CoreLogic.
Spring is here but don't expect any bright basket of goodies for the housing market. I think we will see a double dip, but it won't be made of sugar. There are a few analysts out there still clinging to the irrational notion that that US housing market is not headed for a double dip recession. There are even some housing bulls like Jim Cramer, who say home prices have bottomed. Well, they may as well be on an Easter egg hunt in which all they come up with is rotten eggs. Why do I say this? Housing news is dismal. We are seeing continued high foreclosure rates and poor housing starts. Inspection of the trends in home prices as reported in the January S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices portends otherwise. February was no better with single family home prices in the 10 metropolitan statistical areas used for the index falling for the 8th consecutive month.
Back in 2003, when I first got my real estate license, times were good. The prices of homes were going up, sellers were getting a great return on their investment, buyers were getting homes with 'no money' down and life was wonderful. But as everyone now knows, the housing bubble has burst and we are all left to pick up the pieces.
I’m not going to wax poetic today about short sales as a great opportunity for sellers, listing agents, and buyers. While a short sale is all of those things, there are also many perils and pitfalls to purchasing and selling a short sale—including a few that arise when working with investor buyers.
Just like many investments, a short sale being purchased by an investor buyer is just that—an investment. Because the purchase is an investment , many of the emotional ties commonly associated with the purchase of a property are just not there. There is no stereotypical wife thinking about where she is going to put Great Aunt Esther’s rocking chair, and no young parents concerned with the quality of the local schools. There is simply a buyer (or an investment group) planning and calculating the net result of the transaction.
By now I am sure that some of you have become familiar with the term “short sale." This is a new term in the real estate world that started sporadically being used about 4 years ago. Now the term is widely used and simply put, it is the last phase before a home goes to foreclosure.
Short sale negotiations are tough–even in the easiest of circumstances. It takes around two months to get a short sale approved. And, many times, it takes much longer when buyers back out, paperwork gets lost, dates are not met, etc.
Perhaps the toughest thing for a short sale negotiator to deal with is a buyer who is on the fence. You know the kind– having trouble with qualification, having trouble meeting deadlines, changing terms and conditions once the bank has agreed to the short sale.
Foreclosures and short sales, collectively known as distressed properties, have accounted for anywhere from 35-48% of home sales in the metropolitan Chicago real estate market over the last year, according to RE/MAX. As a result, distressed homes now represent a huge source of potential competition for those who want to sell their home for more traditional reasons.
as foreclosures continue to rise across the nation, homeowners in financial distress need to be vigilant in protecting themselves against con artists and scams, according to Oyezz Real Estate, a leading local firm specializing in “short sales” as alternatives to foreclosure.
Christie James wasn't trying to take advantage of someone else's troubles. But she was able to buy the house of her dreams at a steep discount because the selling couple could no longer afford to live there.
James was attracted by the price, which was thousands below the home's previous market value. Its location near the Hendersonville schools she wanted her kids to attend made the property irresistible.
But first she wanted to know about the couple who lived there. Why were they selling the house for less than they owed?
Denver, CO, February 22, 2011 --( PR.com )-- LST Investment Group LLC, a local real estate investment firm, has just published a new Special Report called, "How To Stop Foreclosure In Its Tracks."
It was once a hub of excess, the playground of America's rich and famous and the chosen retirement destination for scores of millionaire businesspeople. Now the US state of Florida is perhaps the most dramatic example of the effects of America's sub-prime crisis, with homes selling for as much as 70% below their peak value and cash investors walking away with unprecedented bargains.
Read more:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/115368/20110223/bargains-for-cash-buyers-as-florida-prices-sink.htm#ixzz1F0FvUFZk
The residential housing market in the Greater Tehachapi area remains flat as Realtors contend with dropping prices and a “shadow inventory” of bank-owned properties lurking on the sidelines.
Calling the latest data released in its January report “an ominous sign,” Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance reports in this month’s HousingPulse Tracking Survey that a staggering 49.6 percent of home purchase transactions were distressed properties, the highest level in nearly a year.
The share of distressed properties, which includes bank-owned properties (REO) and short sales, was up from 47.2 percent in December, and well above the 44.5 percent share seen back in November.
California broke the bank with an even larger share of distressed purchases, at 66 percent, followed by Florida with 63 percent and it was even worse yet in the combined markets of Arizona and Nevada, where a whopping 72 percent of home sales were distressed properties.
Existing home sales rose by 2.7% in January to 5.4 million, beating consensus expectations for a 1.1% decline. The details of the report were also good. Condo and co-op sales led the way, rising 4.7%, while single-family sales increased by 2.4%.
Foreclosures and short-sales accounted for 37% of total sales in January, up slightly from 36% in December.
Regionally, home sales declined in the Northeast (-4.6%) after a strong 16.1% gain in December. The West continued to lead the nation with a gain of 6.9% in January, followed by the South at 2.9%.
.art_main_pic { width: 250px; float: left; clear: left; }
Equi-Trax Asset Solutions LP has released a survey of the difficulties real estate agents face completing short sales. “According to the survey, 71.9 percent of respondents reported that a short sale can take four to nine months to complete, and they think that is simply too long,” said Guy Taylor, chief executive officer at Equi-Trax. “They would like to see the time period reduced so that deals go through faster and are less costly.”
When a mortgage becomes unaffordable, avoiding foreclosure becomes a primary goal. It is a unique situation that adjusts priorities and changes perspectives. For the millions of homeowners unable to make their mortgage payments today, there are alternatives to foreclosure that can lead to an entirely different, more positive financial outcome.
One of the leading solutions to foreclosure today is a short sale. In a short sale, the lender agrees to accept the sale amount, even if it is less than what is owed on the mortgage. In this report, you'll see how the consequences of foreclosure compare to those of a short sale. As a CDPE-designated agent, I have been extensively trained in the alternatives to foreclosure and can help you make an informed decision.
Home prices are hitting new depths in most major U.S. cities and are expected to fall further over the next six months.
In a majority of metro areas tracked by Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller, prices have fallen to their lowest points since the housing bubble burst.
High unemployment, stricter lending rules and fears that prices will continue to fall are among the reasons why few people are buying homes. A rising number of foreclosures are also weighing down prices. And as more people get stuck in depreciating homes, housing could slow the economy.
In the past, the average real estate agent didn’t spend too much time scrutinizing the estimated closing statements. Usually, that task would be left to escrow officers, title officers or lawyers. With short sales being the new normal, scrutiny of these statements in the early stages of a short sale transaction is vital.
Why? Well . . . the banks request the settlement
In the mid 90′s there was a lot of talk about a popular book called “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”, and it was the topic of many talk shows and conversations. Today, we’re talking about MARS again bit in a different context. Regardless of what planet you’re from, when it comes to negotiating short sales, referring your seller to a negotiator, or utilizing a negotiator for your short sale investment , you better be sure you are MARS compliant.
After living in their home 17 years, a Lancaster County couple faced the unthinkable:
The prospect of losing that house because they fell behind on their mortgage payments. The financial nightmare started when the wife lost her job in the medical field.
But instead of awaiting foreclosure, the couple decided to list their Warwick Township residence for "short sale" — a transaction in which the seller's mortgage lender agrees to accept a payoff of less than the balance due on the loan.
It's called a short sale because the property sells "short" of what's owed on the mortgage. And real estate professionals say short sales can be less damaging to a borrower's credit rating than foreclosure.
Brett Ellis, a real estate agent in Fort Myers, Fla. , was thrilled when he got an offer for a property in Bell Tower Park in May 2008.
"It was a gorgeous property on the corner lot," Ellis told the Huffington Post. The owner, who had lost his job, wanted to sell the apartment for a loss rather than go into foreclosure, a strategy known as a short sale.
The offer was for $350,000, and Ellis, who is a certified distressed property expert trained in executing such sales, knew it was as good an offer as he was going to get in this market. He immediately sent the paperwork into the bank.
He waited for four months. The bank finally told him it wouldn't take anything less than $400,000 -- a price Ellis was sure he could never get. In September, the buyer's agent called to say, "You know what, we gotta move on, we gotta buy something else."
JavaScript is disabled!
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!
Homeowners struggling to pay their mortgage bills do have one option: They can try to complete a short sale. A short sale occurs when mortgage lenders or banks allow homeowners to sell their homes for less than what they owe on their mortgage loans. Lenders take a loss in short sales, but they agree to them when they calculate that the money they lose will be less than the dollars they’ll be out of when they have to take a home in foreclosure and try to sell it. In today’s struggling housing market, selling a home through the foreclosure process is likely to net banks a terrible price and a big loss. In these cases short sales are a win/win. Problem is, fewer banks today are agreeing to short sales. And that’s leading a growing number of homeowners to turn to
bad credit repair services.
Credit Loan:
Bad Credit Repair Need on the Rise as Short Sales Struggle http://www.creditloan.com/blog/2010/12/15/bad-credit-repair-need-on-the-rise-as-short-sales-struggle/#ixzz18rEJxqlZ http://www.creditloan.com/
|