Register Real Estate Advisors

This week’s White Board Monday is on the Short Sale Relocation Assistance Program. This is an amazing deal for sellers with a short sale.

Wondering why your neighbor that hasn’t paid a mortgage payment in a year is still living nextdoor or down the street from you?  You might not think it’s fair since you pay your mortgage payment every month, but Freddie Mac is allowing forebearance on mortgage payments for up to 12 months.  In some cases it’s longer than 12 months.  Freddie Mac is trying to help unemployed homeowners, hoping they will find employment and be able to keep thier home.  Below is an article about the help Freddie Mac is offering to homeowners.

By Ronald D. Orol

I read the article below and think it makes some good points about what is currently going on in the real estate market.  Most of the short sales that I deal with have homeowners that are able to rent houses after their short sale.  Many people who are foreclosed on are also able to go rent a home afterwards.  Does that seem right to you?  Should their credit still be good enough to be able to rent a house?  It’s good for the landlord business.  In 2011 we saw a big demand for rentals in the Houston real estate market.  So if you have thought about buying an investment property to rent, please give me a call at 281.288.3500 and I can help you find one and get it rented.  There’s a demand for it, so call me today while interest rates are low.  Hope you enjoy the article below that got me thinking about this and how it can benefit you.

Posted By susanne On October 23, 2011 In Consumer News and Advice,Home Owner News,Real Estate Information,Real Estate News,Real Estate Trends,Today’s Marketplace,Today’s Top Story – Consumer

A new survey of former homeowners who have walked away from their homes found that their credit was good enough after foreclosure for the vast majority to rent new housing and few were required to make a larger than normal deposit.

YouWalkAway.com, which counsels troubled buyers to strategically default, found that owners and managers of rental properties regard the influx of renters in the market due to the housing market meltdown as a boon, and many are willing to accept potential renters even if they do not have credit scores as high as landlords previously would have required. (more…)

When you purchase a home, the home inspection is one of the move important parts of the process. If you don’t get a home inspection, you may pay for a house that has a leaky roof, poor wiring, termites and other pest damage, dangerous asbestos qualities in the air, or a cracked foundation. After you’ve purchased the house, there is little you can do if you’ve waived your right to a home inspection. As a Realtor, I highly recommend all buyers get home inspections. I have many inspectors that I have personally worked with and can give you a list to choose from if you are not familiar with an inspector to call on.

1. Not getting a home inspection is the number one mistake you can make when purcahsing a home.
2. You should always sign a contract with your home inspector that outlines the services he will provide for you and the price.
3. Don’t use a person, use a company for your home inspections.
4. Read the contract carefully that the home inspector provides so you understand what he will be inspecting. There should be a guarantee in the contract against mistakes and omissions the inspector might make.
5. Consider all of your payment options. When did sellers last get a home inspection? Maaybe they have a recent one you can use. Or maybe you can get them to pay for part of it.
6. Make sure your inspector is not affiliated with a contractor. That’s just bad…don’t go there.
7. Make sure you get samples of thier work and recommendations before you lock into a contract with an inspector.
8. Buyers should attend the home inspection so they understand any negatives the inspector adds to the report. You need to understand your home inspection report.
9. For anything you don’t understand about the inspection results, ask the inspector to explain it to you. Many inspectos provide photos in their reports which can be helpful.
10. Sellers will need to understand the inspection if they are going to be asked to make repairs on the home.

I liked this article below about renters paying more money a year on housing than homeowners.  I encourage everyone I know to buy a house instead of renting.  Why pay someone else’s taxes, insurance, and mortgage?  I even have a rent vs. buy calculator.  Call me today and I can tell you how much money you could be saving by buying a home instead of renting.  Call me today at 281.288.3500 and we can discuss your options for purchasing a home.

Posted By susanne On October 25, 2011 @ 3:59 pm In Consumer News and Advice,Home Owner News,Real Estate News,Real Estate Trends,Today’s Marketplace

Sheryl was RREA’s Winner of our first quarter listing contest for 2012. Congratulations Sheryl!

As a Realtor in the Spring and The Woodlands area, I read a lot of articles about the foreclosure crisis and short sales.  I am a Certified Distressed Property Expert, which just means I earned that designation because I took a lot of classes on distressed properties and how to help homeowners that are upside down on their mortgages.  The article below is from the Huffington Post and I thought it was intersting and wanted to share it with my readers.

More than four years into the housing crisis, and after millions of Americans have lost their homes, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is finally taking a stand.

Bernanke sent a Federal Reserve paper to the leaders of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Financial Services arguing that relying heavily on foreclosures to deal with mortgage borrowers that can’t meet their obligations is “costly and inefficient” for the housing market because they can lead to deteriorating homes and weigh on the property values in the surrounding community.

Instead, the paper encourages lenders to “aggressively” pursue loan modifications and for servicers to be given more incentives to seek alternatives to foreclosure.

Foreclosures “can result in ‘deadweight losses,’ or costs that do not benefit anyone, including the neglect and deterioration of properties that often sit vacant for months (or even years) and the associated negative effects on neighborhoods,” the paper said. “These deadweight losses compound the losses that households and creditors already bear and can result in further downward pressure on house prices.”

The Obama administration has already pursued policies aimed at encouraging lenders to modify loans, although to very limited success. The Home Affordable Modification Program, which Obama announced in February 2009, had helped fewer than 700,000 homeowners as of October, despite promises that the program would encourage banks to modify the loans of 3 to 4 million homeowners.

The paper mirrors findings from regional Fed banks indicating that foreclosures can be detrimental to more Americans than just those who are losing their homes. Properties that are occupied, but in foreclosure, drive down the surrounding property values twice as much as vacant properties, an October study from the Cleveland Federal Reserve found.

And with millions of foreclosed properties already in the pipeline, the foreclosure process is already taking longer than in recent memory — a situation that may only be exacerbated if lenders don’t take the Fed’s advice. The average foreclosure process now takes 674 days, almost triple the time necessary in 2007.

Another alternative to foreclosure proposed in the paper is to combine a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure — or a program where borrowers return the home to lenders without foreclosure proceedings — with a rent-back arrangement. Others have floated a similar plan, including left-leaning economist Dean Baker, that would allow defaulting borrowers to stay in their homes, but as tenants.

The Obama administration also considered a plan in August to boost falling home prices by turning thousands of government-owned foreclosure properties into rentals. If the program goes through, the spaces would likely have some takers; the U.S. apartment sector has expanded past recovery, indicating a boost in rental demand.

Register Real Estate Advisors is pleased to announce that Sheryl Hunter was awarded the 2011 “Top Selling Agent” for the company at our recent awards ceremony.  As a Realtor, Sheryl is professional and has a solid understanding of the real estate industry.  She has gained extensive experience from listing and selling properties in and around the Houston area.  Among her specialties, Sheryl has acquired her Accredited Buyers Representative Designation and she is a Certified Distressed Property Expert.  She understands the current market challenges for sellers and the difficulties with qualifying for a mortgage.  Congrats Sheryl!  If you or someone you know is looking to buy or sale a property in 2012 – contact Sheryl at 281.288.3500.

If you are in the market to purchase a home then you will need to know about short sales.  If you decide to look at or even make an offer on a short sale, you should find out all you can about short sales.  The article below is one of the best that I have seen regarding short sales.  If you are interested in purchasing a home anywhere in the Houston area, please give me a call today and I would be happy to help you buy a short sale, foreclosure, new constuction, or resale home.  281-288-3500

If a home is being sold for below what the current seller owes on the property—and the seller does not have other funds to make up the difference at closing—the sale is considered a short sale. Many more home owners are finding themselves in this situation due to a number of factors, including job losses, aggressive borrowing against their home in the days of easy credit, and declining home values in a slower real estate market.

A short sale is different from a foreclosure, which is when the seller’s lender has taken title of the home and is selling it directly. Homeowners often try to accomplish a short sale in order to avoid foreclosure. But a short sale holds many potential pitfalls for buyers. Know the risks before you pursue a short-sale purchase.

You’re a good candidate for a short-sale purchase if:

• You’re very patient. Even after you come to agreement with the seller to buy a short-sale property, the seller’s lender (or lenders, if there is more than one mortgage) has to approve the sale before you can close. When there is only one mortgage, short-sale experts say lender approval typically takes about two months. If there is more than one mortgage with different lenders, it can take four months or longer for the lenders to approve the sale.
• Your financing is in order. Lenders like cash offers. But even if you can’t pay all cash for a short-sale property, it’s important to show you are well qualified and your financing is set. If you’re preapproved, have a large down payment, and can close at any time, your offer will be viewed more favorably than that of a buyer whose financing is less secure.
• You don’t have any contingencies. If you have a home to sell before you can close on the purchase of the short-sale property—or you need to be in your new home by a certain time—a short sale may not be for you. Lenders like no-contingency offers and flexible closing terms.

If you’re serious about purchasing a short-sale property, it’s important for you to have expert assistance. Here are some people you want to work with:

• Experienced real estate attorney. Only about two out of five short sales are approved by lenders. But a good real estate attorney who’s knowledgeable about the short-sale process will increase your chances getting an approved contract. Also, if you want any provisions or very specialized language written into the purchase contract, a real estate attorney is essential throughout the negotiation.
• A qualified real estate professional.* You may have a close friend or relative in real estate, but if that person doesn’t know anything about short sales, working with him or her may hurt your chances of a successful closing. Interview a few practitioners and ask them how many buyers they’ve represented in a short sale and, of those, how many have successfully closed. A qualified real estate professional will be able to show you short-sale homes, help negotiate the purchase when you find the property you want to buy, and smooth communications with the lender. (All MLSs permit, and some now require, special notations to indicate that a listing is a short sale. There also are certain phrases you can watch for, such as “lender approval required.”)
• Title officer. It’s a good idea to have a title officer do an initial title search on a short-sale property to see all the liens attached to the property. If there are multiple lien holders (e.g., second or third mortgage or lines of credit, real estate tax lien, mechanic’s lien, homeowners association lien, etc.), it’s much tougher to get that short sale contract to the closing table. Any of the lien holders could put a kink in the process even after you’ve waited for months for lender approval. If you don’t know a title officer, your real estate attorney or real estate professional should be able to recommend a few.

Some of the other risks faced by buyers of short-sale properties include:

• Potential for rejection. Lenders want to minimize their losses as much as possible. If you make an offer tremendously lower than the fair market value of the home, chances are that your offer will be rejected and you’ll have wasted months. Or the lender could make a counteroffer, which will lengthen the process.
• Bad terms. Even when a lender approves a short sale, it could require that the sellers sign a promissory note to repay the deficient amount of the loan, which may not be acceptable to some financially desperate sellers. In that case, the sellers may refuse to go through with the short sale. Lenders also can change any of the terms of the contract that you’ve already negotiated, which may not be agreeable to you.
• No repairs or repair credits. You will most likely be asked to take the property “as is.” Lenders are already taking a loss on the property and may not agree to requests for repair credits.

The risks of a short sale are considerable. But if you have the time, patience, and iron will to see it through, a short sale can be a win-win for you and the sellers.

After reading an article in Home Trends By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine, I found that there are color experts in the world that forecast what colors will help sell houses in 2012.  Her article explained that the current hot picks are colors that come from the outdoors – like native plants and flowers, oceans and lakes, and rocks and minerals.  According to the Paint Quality Institute there will be a lot of bold blue and I can admit when I shop at the mall for clothes this season, bold blue is everywhere.  It’s a soothing color most people seem to enjoy.  Another color you will be running into is Vibrant Green.  This is not your mother’s old Avacado Green Appliances, but a brighter variety of greens that range from the color of celery to asparagus and ferns from the outdoors.  Lastly, you’re going to see some majestic violet colors.  These are your patriotic blues and red hues.   Enjoy the fresh colors being introduced this year and bring home some samples to try in your house.  If that doesn’t appeal to you, you might want to buy a new home.  Call me today to get started and I will find you your dream home and get it painted the colors you like!