Short Sale Incentives

 

 

 

 

Get cash to sell the home you can’t afford

Since the beginning of the housing crisis, millions of homeowners have found themselves pinned in by their financial circumstances and chained to a mortgage on which they owe more than their home is worth. In the past, homeowners enduring these challenges had very few options, and most would be forced to lose their home to foreclosure.

 

Today, however, there are more options. The government and the banks have created a multitude of programs and foreclosure alternatives that can help people in these circumstances find a dignified solution for their problems without crippling their financial future. These options include loan modifications, refinancing, or short sales.

The most amazing development in today’s market, however, is one simple fact: Banks are now willing to give cash to homeowners to sell the home they can’t afford.

 

Please contact me today if you or someone you know could use my help and wants the latest information about current incentives available to distressed homeowners.

Rob Sales

Prudential Southeast Coastal Properties

Associate Broker, CDPE Advance,
DPP, REO Specialist, CIAS
912-655-7674
www.smartshortsales.net

 

Short Sales to Overtake Foreclosures in 2013

Short sales are expected to overtake foreclosure in 2013 as the dominant workout solution for distressed homeowners.

Credit-rating agency DBRS attributed the change to “the record number of servicers that are using short sales as their primary loss-mitigation tool to prevent delinquent loans from entering foreclosure.”

HOPE NOW, an alliance of mortgage servicers, investors and non-profit counselors, reported this week that nearly 40,000 short sales were completed in August, bringing the total to more than 1 million since December 2009, when it began tracking statistics. Another 36,260 were completed in July.

“The increase of short sales has been significant and, for the first month since reporting on short sales, we estimate a high of 39,559,”

Short sales in recent years have lost their stigma as hundreds of thousands of homeowners have used it as the best solution to avoid foreclosure. Banks responded by creating massive departments and streamlinin g the process.

Why?

Because they net 12% to 25% more money in a short sale than a foreclosure. Is it any wonder why banks prefer a short sale over foreclosure? HOPE NOW Executive Director Faith Schwartz said in a release. “Short sales provide another tool to avoid the high cost of foreclosure for families, communities and investors.”

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reported earlier this year that 138,000 short sales were completed in the first half of 2012, and anecdotal evidence from the industry suggested that number would continue to increase in the second half of the year. HOPE NOW also reported foreclosure sales nationwide in August increased 12% to 71,149, up from 63,527 in July.

 And foreclosure starts increased 14% to 187,941, compared with 164,593 in July. In the West, foreclosure starts have been on the decline. California saw a 20.7% decrease in September from August, according to ForeclosureRadar, an online industry tracker. The number of starts dropped by as much as 40% in Nevada and Oregon. Regional foreclosure filings were down even more from the previous year. California dropped 48.1% from September 2011, while Nevada and Washington saw decreases of more than 70%.

Still, more than 14,000 foreclosure actions were filed last month in California. The recent foreclosure activity, along with the approximately 5 million homes in shadow inventory (homes 60-plus days behind or already owned by banks but not on the market), indicates the housing market has a long recovery ahead.

Short sales and loan modifications will play an integral role in putting the economy back on its feet.

Smart Real Estate Investing.com (800) 452-7627

WSJ- Courts Stall Housing Recovery

Even as the nation's foreclosure rate continues to fall, states with court oversight of the foreclosure process are lagging behind, potentially delaying their housing recoveries.

 The Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday that 4.1% of mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit homes—about 1.9 million households—were in the foreclosure process at the end of the third quarter, down from 4.4% a year earlier and the lowest level in 3½ years. The national average, however, masks big differences between the states. Among the 12 states with foreclosure rates that exceed the national average, 11 of them require banks to take back properties by going to court.

Foreclosure rates stood at 6.6% in those "judicial" states in September, while they have dropped sharply to 2.4% in the "nonjudicial" states where banks face fewer hurdles to foreclosure. Foreclosures have always taken longer in states with judicial review, but in recent years, the sheer volume of cases has overwh elmed courts, and the "robosigning scandal" that hit lenders added to the delays. Judicial review may give troubled homeowners more time to work out problems, but critics of the system say the delays are postponing states' housing recoveries.

"The distinction between the judicial and the nonjudicial states is, if anything, getting sharper," said Michael Fratantoni, the MBA's vice president of research. The upshot is the housing recovery is likely to be "muted" in judicial states, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. "Some markets are still going to suffer more price declines," he said.

Smart Real Estate Investing.com (800) 452-7627

Fiscal Cliff for Short Sales Too!

If Congress drives the economy off the "fiscal cliff," wave goodbye to short sales that have helped the housing market get back on its feet.

At risk is a provision that erases taxes on selling a home for less than what's owed to the bank. Expiration of the tax treatment would create a major new headache for the one in four homeowners who owe more than their house is worth. Those "underwater" sellers would have to come up with a big check for Uncle Sam to pay the tax on the difference.

That “would be a blow to the housing recovery,” said Paul Diggle, a housing economist at Capital Economics. “The increased use of short sales, rather than foreclosures, has become an important support to the recovery.”

Currently, roughly a quarter of all home sales are short sales. Bank of America Wednesday reported that some 62,000 borrowers have completed short sales that saved them $7.4 billion in debt, or an average of about $120,000 each. In 2007, as the housing boom turned to bust, Congress passed the Mortgage Debt Relief Act, which shielded such forgiven debt from taxes.

The law was extended in 2010 but is due to expire at the end of the year unless Congress acts to steer away from the so-called “fiscal cliff.” Separate bills have been introduced in the House and Senate to extend the mortgage relief tax break for another year. The measure would cost about $1.3 billion in uncollected taxes. The law is credited with helping pull the housing industry out of the worst recession in nearly a century. Though still deeply depressed, sales of both new and existing homes have been steadily rising.

 Home prices appear to have bottomed out and are rising again in many parts of the country. Restoring the tax on debt forgiveness could throw cold water on one in four home sales by sticking the seller with a large tax bill. “If (homeowners) decide that a short sale is not the best option, and they just allow (the mortgage) to be fore closed, that has a more negative impact on the neighborhood and on home values,” said Blomquist.

That would be bad news for lenders, too. The average price of a bank-owned property seized in foreclosure is about $30,000 lower than comparable house transferred in a short sale. Banks also avoid the legal costs of seizing a home and the extended cost of maintaining it. “(A short sale) really does work out to both the borrower’s and lender’s benefit in most cases,” said Michael Fratantoni, a research analyst at the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Smart Real Estate Investing.com (800) 452-7627