By Rhonda Duffy | Agent in Atlanta, GA

Warning Signs That You Need to do a Short Sale
Posted under: Home Buying, Home Selling, Foreclosure | November 15, 2011 10:25 AM | 6 views | No comments
ning Signs That You Need To Do A Short Sale

If you are experiencing a period of time where you can’t pay your mortgage payment or you are short but are sending in your payments, you may need to do a short sale. After a couple of months of non-payment or short pay, you will find that the penalties accumulate to a point of no return as expressed by many homeowners in your same situation.

Other signs include that you regret the purchase of the property and feel that the property will never be the same value that you paid for it. Some homeowners state that they feel the need to sell when their neighbors start doing short sales and they see foreclosures. Some neighborhoods have been 90% short sale and foreclosures leaving the few homeowners that don’t want to short sale or foreclose feeling no relief.

Some homeowners can forecast that they will have to short sale or foreclose when they loose their job, get a divorce or experience a loss of an immediate family member. Others have renters move out after months of non-payment and they just can’t recover. Some homeowners are not even behind in their mortgage payment when they decide to pursue a short sale and some banks are okay with that and appreciate that the anticipation will save the bank and the homeowner headaches and unnecessary costs.

The solution is to actively find a buyer for the property and present both the buyer and your situation to your lender. An active short sale agent that is a short sale expert can help you greatly when the goal is to remove the property and the debt from your name. The key to a short sale is to act quickly, precisely and keep your eye on the prize as you patiently wait for everything to fall into place.

For more information on short sales,
Please give me a call
John Hanson. 408-281-8383

With loans in the Bay Area up to $650,000 thousand dollars and only 3.5% down one can still get into a home with a little over $20,000 out of pocket. (max loan of $650,000, much less if smaller loan)

Sellers can pay all closing costs to help keep costs low and one does not even need a termite clearance if all parties agree not to get one.

Many agents are reluctant to buyers to obtain an FHA loan fearing it might take to long. This not the case as any direct lender doing FHA loans can close them as fast as they do a conventional loan.

Having done FHA loans for many years I still find them to be one of the best loan programs available for buyers who do not have large down payments and the program is not just for first time buyers.

Monthly Quarterly Yearly Property Analysis

County: Santa Clara

Property Types : Single Family
City: San Jose

Trends At a Glance Jul 2011 Previous Month Year-over Year
Median Price $615,000 $640,000 (-3.9%) $637,685 (-3.6%)
Average Price $793,801 $823,994 (-3.7%) $804,110 (-1.3%)
No. of Sales 809 1,099 (-26.4%) 1,004 (-19.4%)
Pending Properties 2,065 2,169 (-4.8%) 2,063 (+0.1%)
Active 2,405 2,381 (+1.0%) 2,899 (-17.0%)
Sale vs. List Price 99.2% 99.7% (-0.5%) 100.2% (-1.0%)
Days on Market 48 48 (-1.5%) 43 (+11.2%)

Should I Buy a Home Now?

It’s funny, back in 2006 and 2007 almost no one was asking that question. Instead, they were asking, “How much home can I buy?”

Wrong question at the wrong time.

Fast forward to today and buyers should be asking “how much home can I buy” and not “should I buy a home now.

Yes, I know, a real estate agent will always say yes when asked if it’s a good time to buy a home.

But, today’s market offers an unprecedented opportunity. Let me explain.

First, take mortgage rates, back during the peak of the bubble in 2007 30-year mortgage rates were in the low to mid 6% range. Today? Rates are in the low to mid 4% range, a drop of 33%.

Next, the median price for single-family, re-sale homes in Santa Clara County peaked at $868,500 in October 2007. It bottomed out at $445,000 in February 2009. Yes, you missed the bottom!

The median price has been in the high $500,000’s to the mid $600,000’s ever since.

O.K., so you’re afraid to buy because you don’t know where home prices are going. Well, no one has a crystal ball, and, as Wall Street is fond of saying, the past is no predictor of future results.

But, as Baron Rothschild is credited with saying, “Buy when there’s blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own.”

Now for the caveats, yes, there are caveats!

As always, the best homes, pristine move-in condition, in the best neighborhoods, i.e. schools, are selling first for the most money with multiple offers.

If the best neighborhood is your primary criterion, and the best homes are beyond your means, consider fixer homes or condos and townhomes.

If the best neighborhood is not a consideration, but a pristine home is, you will find less competition in other areas.

The market in Santa Clara County is very spotty with towns like Palo Alto, Sunnyvale Los Altos, Saratoga and Mountain View being exceptionally hot, primarily due to dot com and ipo millionaires: think Facebook and LinkedIn.

You will absolutely, positively need an in-depth neighborhood market analysis to buy or sell in this market.

DO NOT DEPEND UPON ZILLOW FOR THIS!!!

If I could get what Zillow says my home is worth, I’d sell it in a minute. According to my calculations, Zillow has over-valued my home by 36%, and that’s before selling costs!

P.S. The conforming loan limits are dropping from $729,750 to $625,000 for loans closing after September 30th. Some lenders have already stopped processing loans up to the $729,750 limit, and all lenders will likely stop on or around September 1 for new applications.

These statistics are generated using information from the MLSListings Inc. MLS, but have not been verified and are not guaranteed. MLSListings Inc. disclaims any responsibility for the accuracy and reliability of these statistics. This information should not be relied upon for real estate transaction decisions.

The data on this page is copyrighted by http://rereport.com. All rights are reserved.

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Proposed changes include lowering the loan amounts from the 729,000 range to 625,000.  In high cost areas this effect many of the loans currently on the books and they will not have the opportunity to refinance or purchase at todays great rates.

Changes to appraisals and underwriting guidelines will also change again making it harder and harder to obtain good financing. In addition more and more risk based pricing base on credit scores will take affect.

Bottom line if your even thinking about taking out a new loan this is the time to do it. Rates are at all time lows and options are still great.

If need a free consolation to see if the time is right for you please give me a call at 800-777-9811.  I have been helping clients in the mortgage business for over 30 years.

John Hanson

NMLS 252980

NEXT TUESDAY: UPCOMING WORKSHOP!!
LEARN IF YOU QUALIFY FOR A $50,000 LOAN TO PURCHASE A FORECLOSED HOME IN SAN JOSE

The Housing Trust of Santa Clara County and the San Jose NSP2 Consortium invite you to attend a workshop to learn more about our Purchase Assistance Loan (PAL) program, a deferred second loan of up to $50,000 to assist qualified home-buyers purchasing Foreclosed/REO properties in designated areas of San Jose.

DATE: Tuesday, March 22nd

TIME: 6pm to 8pm

LOCATION: Tully Library, 880 Tully Road, San Jose

Who qualifies? Individuals earning up to $86,950
and families earning up to $124,200*.
*Family of four, see website for other income limits based on household size (www.housingtrustscc.org).

Sign up today! Email: jeanette@housingtrustscc.org

IF one reads between the lines it appears as usual the Government attempt to change the industry my only be a continuation of finger pointing not a real attempt to fix the housing crises.
GSEs: Where’s the reform?

Richard Smith, loan originator, Churchill Mortgage

As published in Scotsman Guide’s Residential Edition, March 2011.

As most mortgage brokers likely recall, when the mortgage crisis first broke in 2007, it was confined to the subprime market. Many industry experts indicated that the overall housing market would survive the fallout from subprime losses.

As the crisis developed, however, the greater role of government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac within the subprime and alternative mortgage market became more evident. The discussion began to focus on fundamental assumptions about the makeup of the U.S. housing market and the role of the government within it.

We all know the results of the mortgage and economic crisis. Among them, there was: economic recession; massive losses in home values, family assets and institutional assets; the ongoing foreclosure crisis; large- and small-bank closures; billions of dollars in federal support in numerous areas; and extensive regulatory overhauls.

The regulatory changes have been piecemeal and include the Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act; Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act reform; changes to loan-originator compensation; and Housing and Economic Recovery Act Regulations on underwriting standards. And more are coming. Surprisingly, though, the various changes have not yet addressed the more-fundamental issues of GSE reform and the role of the federal government within the housing market.

The GSEs have cost the U.S. Treasury Department and taxpayers about $134 billion and growing. And within the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was a deadline of January 2011 for the Treasury to put forward a proposal for the future of the GSEs. At press time, that proposal had not yet been published, although it was expected in mid-February.

Essentially, the federal government is reconsidering the future makeup of U.S. housing, including its role in encouraging and supporting homeownership, and the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This started in 2008, when the Bush administration put Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship. This past July, the Obama administration issued a statement that “the current structure of the government’s role in the housing finance market is unsustainable and unacceptable” as it announced a conference on the future of housing finance.

Although that conference was held this past summer, little was publicized about its conclusions. And the bigger debate about GSE reform and U.S. housing policy was missing from the mainstream press’s coverage of this past fall’s elections and the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation.

The U.S. housing-policy debate should be more center stage this year. The discussion about home interest-tax deductibility is typical of the questions regarding the government’s role, a role that has been gaining public attention given the push for balancing the federal budget.

Santa Clara County has just notified us that they have received a new allocation for 2011 for first time buyers tax credits.

On January 26, 2011, the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee (CDLAC) awarded Santa Clara County’s Mortgage Credit Certificate Program (MCC) an additional $3,041,670 in MCC tax credits to be issued to qualified first-time homebuyer’s.  The MCC Program is a federal income tax credit equal up to 15% of the homebuyer’sinterest paid on their first loan.

This popular tax credit program can save buyers $200-$300 dollars a month in tax expense in addition to the interest and property deductions.

Home buyers must meet certain income and sales price guidelines.

1-2 person household: $103,500, 3+  person household: $119,025

$570,000 for Resale Properties,

$630,000 for Newly Constructed Properties.

Lenders must be approved to offer the MCC program as part of their loan programs.

With a limited number of MCC  certificates available it is important to work quickly with us to get the tax credit for 2011. Please call for more information. information

Related articles

• Tax Deduction vs. Tax Credit (turbotax.intuit.com)