Posts Tagged ‘Foreclosure prevention’

Are We Missing The Point With All of The Banks?

Today, Bank Of America announced they were putting a Halt To ALL Foreclosures in ALL 50 states.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-08/bank-of-america-extends-freeze-on-foreclosures-to-all-50-states.html

This is incredible.  I sense another bailout request rearing its ugly head due to this situation they have put themselves in.
It seems to me the only banks that aren’t worried about this potentially illegal or fraudulent foreclosure filings are the smaller community banks… you know, the one’s that don’t have any of our TARP money and are WAY more likely to be shut down by the bank regulators.  This is just one more reason we should not be propping up the “Too Big To Fail” banks.  They have no clue what is going on in their own organization.  How could any outside regulator possibly understand the complexities in these giant banks.  I think they are all wrought with fraud and illegal procedures that the public may never hear about.  I say “Bring them back down to a sensible size.”

We should be promoting more community banks, not less of them.

I recently wrote an article about this very topic right here on my blog.

The only reason the smaller banks are getting shut down every Friday is because no one helped them out with TARP money.  If they were able to get access to some “FREE” money just like BAC, PNC, ALLY/GMAC, and 5/3rd. etc., we wouldn’t already have 129 failed banking institutions in 2010.

Go read the article on Bank Of America halting their foreclosures and then leave a comment below or click here if you don’t see the “Comments” section and then scroll to the bottom of the page.

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Online Marketing For Real Estate Investors

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FHA Waives 90 Day Seasoning Rule

This is great news!
While I’m not an attorney, the legal speak in the pdf below tells me that FHA is now going to allow a buyer using FHA financing to purchase it even if the seller has not been on title for a minimum of 90 days.

http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/waivpropflip2010.pdf

The 90 day seasoning rule was instituted to try to keep “Illegal flips” from occuring. I have “illegal” in quotes because it is only illegal if someone is committing fraud by getting an appraiser to appraise the property for MUCH higher than the real value of the property.

This is totally illegal and I’m pretty sure you can be put in jail for that. Again, I’m not an attorney so don’t take my word for that.

However, the way most of these transactions are happening is this. An investor purchases a property either from a bank or from a homeowner in distress at a substantial discount because of the distressed situation.

Banks do NOT want to spend money to fix up foreclosed homes.

Homeowners that are having trouble making house payments do not want to make repairs either. They are struggling just to pay their bills.

Why would they continue to repair a home they are likely going to lose in foreclosure anyway?

So these properties NEED an investor buyer to step in and buy the home and rehab the home back to move-in ready condition.

Well, in these times of tight credit, it’s next to IMPOSSIBLE to get a decent rate on a long term loan for an investor. So, rather than holding the property as a rental, the investor fixes up the home using high interest loans.

The investor then turns around the property and finds an end buyer that wants to live there. Typically, the end buyer still gets a really good deal on now an updated home rather than a distressed property.

Well, when FHA decided to implement the 90 seasoning rule, that eliminated a TON of buyers, especially first time home buyers that typically rely on FHA programs to get in with low down payments.

They don’t typically have extra money to fix up a home.

So, I welcome this change for everyone involved. It is going to speed up the acquisition of these distressed properties because now the investor will have an easier time finding a buyer.

What do you think of this plan?
Leave some feedback below.

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What is a Short Sale?

Short Sale is a term that many media outlets are throwing around right now not really understanding what the term means.
The basics of a short sale in real estate are a mortgage lender accepting less than the full amount owed to payoff the note. Example: Current mortgage balance is $200,000. The owner has found a buyer for their home, but the only buyer they could find after having their home on the market for 6+ months was someone that is only willing to pay $175,000. Who makes up the other $25,000? Well, if the home is underwater by that much and the owner is not financially able to come up with the $25,000, the lender may accept a payoff for less than the full amount.

Why would a lender do this?
1) If the homeowner can not afford the house payment and it is headed for foreclosure anyway, it is actually less expensive in many cases for the lender to accept less than the full balance as a payoff.

2) Foreclosure is very expensive for a bank. I have seen some estimates that the bank expects to lose anywhere from $30,000-$40,000 on every home that goes into foreclosure. If they can find a buyer that is willing to pay $25,000 less than the full balance, they actually come out ahead by selling before the forclosure sale.

3) Once a home is foreclosed on and becomes an REO (Other Real Estate Owned on the banks books) the property is no longer properly cared for and begins to deteriorate very quickly. In fact, the longer an underwater homeowner stays in a home, the likelyhood of the home deteriorating while they are there goes up as well. If someone can’t pay their mortgage and knows they are going to lose the home in foreclosure anyway, what are the chances they are going to spend any of their hard earned money on keeping their house in good working order.

Someone heading for foreclosure is usually in a very bad place mentally. It is an extremely stressful time for the family and often times is caused by some major life event. Coupling that major life event, e.g. job loss, death in the family, major illness, etc, with the prospect of losing their family home can be extremely stressful.

I receive calls frequently from homeowners that are underwater. Some of them can be helped, others may just need to go through the foreclosure process. I am coming up with a way to handle more of these cases, but it is never the easiest type of deal to work.

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