The Great Housing Rush!

 

Been thinking about selling your home?

If you’ve been thinking of selling your home, but don’t believe it is worth enough to cover what you owe, you might be pleasantly surprised. The reason? Prices have gone up significantly during the last year!

This simple fact has helped a market that only about one year ago was still bouncing off the bottom, begin the slow, but steady process of recovery. As a result, people are buying homes again.

I have a report that explains in detail why prices have gone up and why your home might be worth more than you think! The report is entitled “The Great Housing Rush,” and I believe you’ll be surprised by when you download and read the report. Once you are done, contact me today for a free market analysis.

Rob Sales
Prudential Southeast Coastal Properties
Associate Broker, CDPE Advance,
DPP, REO Specialist, CIAS
912-655-7674

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

Fannie Mae Rolls Out Online-only REO Offers

The secondary mortgage market company, Fannie Mae, launched an all-online system for submitting offers on its inventory of foreclosed homes in February 2012.  I personally use this system for my REO investors and 1^st time home buyers.

Here’s how Fannie describes it on its HomePath website:

“Making an offer to purchase a HomePath property is now quick, easy and entirely online! Beginning February 2, all offers on HomePath properties must be made using the HomePath Online Offer system. If you’re ready to make an offer, just have your real estate professional click the “Make an Offer” button on the property information and follow the instructions.”

Only licensed agents can make offers, so any consumers shopping for a home on Fannie’s HomePath site have to contact an agent first.  Fannie Mae requires agents submit applications and go through its proprietary selection process in order to become an approved Fannie Mae listing agent.

Every market is different, but generally the company works with a handful of brokers or agents that it has selected to list its REO properties.

Fannie gives owner-occupant buyers a 15-day window after a property comes on the market to make an offer without competition from investors. Offers made by investors during that “first-look” period are rejected from the system with instructions to resubmit after the 15-day period ends, if the property isn’t under contract by that time. The offers are not kept in the system and queued up.

Buyers can use any financing they want, including Fannie Mae financing through its two HomePath mortgage programs, one for purchases and one for purchases with renovation. If the buyer is using HomePath financing, Fannie only requires a down payment of 3 percent, waives the appraisal and also doesn’t require mortgage insurance. Investors can get up to 90 percent financing.

On February 7, 2012, in Breaking News, Mortgage Financing, Selling, by Robert Freedman