Foreclosure

Foreclosure Inspections

Many Realtors and Mortgage brokers have written articles on short sales and foreclosures.  One point the haven’t touched on is what is necessary to prepare a foreclosed home for inspection.  When banks own  the home they often (usually) have them winterized and often allow propane tanks to empty.  Other utilities are usually left on.  It is understandable that they would want to protect their investment as much as possible.  Unfortunately, this protection makes it impossible to do a thorough home inspection.

When buying (or selling for you Realtors out there) a foreclosed home, it is very important to insist that the bank has the home de-winterized and has propane put in the tank.  Without these items being taken care of, the water heater, heating system and plumbing systems can not be fully evaluated.  I just returned, today, from a re-inspect of one of these homes for just the reason I’ve stated.  Not only did this slow down the process, it also cost the buyer an additional fee for me to go back out to the site ( a rural one and some distance to drive).  So please, on foreclosure sales, get those utilities back in operation!

David Helm, Bellingham home inspector

Foreclosure

Short Sales, What They mean to Your Credit as a Seller

Short Sales have been made to seem like a really good thing. They help the seller out of a financial bind. They enable a Buyer to get a good deal on a home. They enable Realtors to sell a home that would otherwise not be saleable. A short sale even gets a bad loan off of a bank’s books. This all sounds really good and I believe that it is. There has been something left out of the equation though.

What does this do to the seller’s credit rating? In all of the articles, blogs and press releases that I have read the subject has not come up. Why is this? I am not in a position to say. I can let you know what it does to a seller’s credit. A Short sale shows up as a foreclosure. I have been told by many that a Short sale is not as bad as a foreclosure.

This is true in a moral sense. A short sale allows a home owner to take the high road. To do the job of the banks REO department in helping to dispose of a troubled asset. As for the Sellers ability to get a loan after taking this “High Road”. They will have a foreclosure on their credit report and will have to wait a minimum of 2 years before another lender will talk to them about getting a new home mortgage. If you look you will find that there are some lenders who are making exceptions to this rule.

So why not just let it go to foreclosure? Because we are “Americans” and want to do the right thing! So how about just toughing it out by making the payments even if they hurt? I understand that many people are in positions which make this option impossible. There are many that are going the short sale route as an easy out. You can stop making payments on your home. Live there for free. Why not everyone else is? When and if the home does sell the lien holder will eat the cost of carrying the house during the sale period because the Seller is doing the right thing.

I hope that you have found this blog thought provoking. I applaud those who are genuinely trying to do the right thing by helping the owner of the mortgage loan get out with a smaller loss than they would have realized if the home where to go through a traditional foreclosure. To those of you who are in a genuine bind due to loss of income or value in your home and those who got swindled into a bad loan with increasing payments, I offer my condolences. In this case I would recommend that you talk to a Realtor who specialises in distressed properties. You will find their assistance to be quite valuable.

Sincerely, Jack

Foreclosure

What is a Short Sale?

Everyone’s talking about this new phenonemum called the Short Sale.  What is it you ask?  A short sale in real estate is not always a pleasant transaction.  In times of declining home values, a homeowner can be caught in a position of negative appreciation.  In other words, the current market value of the home is less than what is owed to the bank.  This causes a problem if the homeowner experiences a hardship such as loss of work, or if he/she needs to relocate for any reason.

At this point the homeowner has 4 options available to him/her: 
 

• Continue making payments until market conditions improve to sell the home.
• Do a Deed in lieu of foreclosure.  Give the keys back to the bank and walk away.
• Quit making payments and allow the home to be foreclosed on by the bank.
• Do a Short Sale

A Short Sale is when the homeowner procures a buyer that is willing and able to purchase at a price less than what is owed to the bank.  Next you have to get the bank to agree to take this lesser (or short) amount.  This is where having a trained professional on your side makes all the difference.  The bank won’t want to let you off the hook too easily, and not without plenty of proper documentation. 

As a Real Estate agent, I am not licensed as a lawyer nor a CPA and cannot advise on those consequences. Except for certain conditions pursuant to the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, be aware the I.R.S. could consider debt forgiveness as income, and there is no guarantee that a lender who accepts a short sale will not legally pursue a borrower for the difference between the amount owed and the amount paid. In some states, this amount is known as a deficiency. A Real Estate lawyer can determine whether your loan qualifies for a deficiency judgment or claim.

If you are considering purchasing a property listed as a Short Sale, I can offer you some advice and strategy.  With a little patience, the upside in many cases is getting the Home you want for less than market value.

Call me…let’s talk Real Estate,

Dale Kreiser 360-319-6365

Foreclosure

Save Your Home by Stopping Foreclosure

Author: Jane Anthony

There would be less home foreclosures if people would work harder to stop a foreclosure before it even starts. The problem is that lenders up until now were unwilling to help people to have their loans modified to better suit their new economic status and refinancing wasn’t always an option due to the decline in real estate value.

So, how do you stop a foreclosure before it starts now? The first thing you need to do is talk to your lender if you are having trouble making your payments. The first time your mortgage is due and you are struggling to pay the entire amount is when you need to be on the phone discussing your alternate payment options. If you have never been late before, your lender may not believe you are hitting an economic crisis, so you may need to provide proof, but you have many options now that you might not have at a later date, so as soon as you wind up struggling to make your mortgage payment, you need to act so that you can stop a foreclosure before it happens.

• If your crisis is a short term thing, see if you can make part of your monthly payment for a couple of months and stretch out the remaining balance over a period of time. This will help protect your credit rating and ensure that your lender knows exactly what your plan is and how you plan to repay your back amount owed.
• Another thing you can do is see if your lender will let you skip a couple of monthly payments now and put them on the end of your loan, or re-amortize your mortgage. This option is only for short term financial crises and you may still be required to pay something toward your mortgage in the mean time.
• Look into refinancing if you have some equity in your home, so that you can have a lower monthly payment that you won’t be struggling to pay each month.
• If you’re looking at a long term financial crisis, such as a layoff and want to stop the possibility of a foreclosure, you should consider a loan modification, which can change the terms of your loan, or stretch the term of the loan out a little more so that you can afford to keep your home and make your payments on time, even without your job.

These are the ways to stop foreclosure, by attacking the problem before it begins and making sure to stay in contact with your lender at all times so they are aware of your efforts to ensure that you are not faced with a foreclosure in your future. Lenders want to help if you will let them and even though sometimes your customer service representatives may not be able to help you, a supervisor probably can either help you or can refer you to someone who works with your lender who can help you to stop foreclosure.

To lower your rate, remove your late payments and stop foreclosure, contact a professional today. You can Stop a Foreclosure on your home.

About the Author:

Jane Anthony offers advice and information on a wide range of subjects, from auto loans to wedding photography – and everything in between.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/mortgage-articles/save-your-home-by-stopping-foreclosure-741109.html

Foreclosure

Costs of a Foreclosure Procedure

Author: Jill Borash

The price included in a foreclosure procedure are many and can be heavy in terms of money and emotions. You do not get to rewind time after foreclosure has already been started so if you are on the brink of foreclosure, I encourage you to do everything that you can to end it. The costs involved once it has started are great and best averted.

The monetary costs in a foreclosure procedure come in numerous forms. Once foreclosure has begun there are lawyer fees that start adding up. Bringing lawyers into it means that court costs are not far behind. Because I allowed my foreclosure procedure get as far as it did, I wound up having to fork over money for the publication of my foreclosure in local papers. This was only one of many of the costs that the county evaluated that I wound up having to pay. I also wound up having to pay the attorney fees for my lenders. All of these costs ended up being well over $4,000.

I had a insane number of “miscellaneous fees” in my foreclosure procedure. It was ludicrous the sum of money that they expected me to pay them for all of these “miscellaneous fees.” They never even told me what they were for or why I had to pay them and in the end it was over $2,000. To this day, I have no idea what those fees were.

I highly recommend you to look for legal guidance to to try to avoid some of the costs in your foreclosure procedure. A decent lawyer can help you protect your rights in a manner that you just cannot on your own.

If you are already in the heart of your foreclosure procedure, I do not need to tell you about the emotional costs that is part of foreclosure because you already have experienced them. You live with them on a routine basis. If the foreclosure is on the house that you are living in, the price is extremely high. Because then foreclosure is not just worrying about losing a house but it is about losing a home. You worry about where you will live if you lose your home. The struggle for enough money to live and pay the bills is a daily struggle and it can often feel like a constant uphill struggle. But no matter what your foreclosure procedure position, there is bound to be a continuous worry and stress over money.

Finding a means to deal with all of these emotions during your foreclosure can be hard but you have to find a way. One of the greatest paths to help you deal with the emotional fallout of your foreclosure procedure is to have family and friends close by who love and support you.

About the Author:

The toll in terms of money and emotions are high in foreclosure. If you want to get those costs as small as possible, you have to find a path to end your foreclosure procedure as speedily as you can. The longer you let it drag on, the higher those costs get. For more assistance to stop mortgage foreclosure on your house, go to http://www.stopping-home-foreclosure.com/ForeclosureProcedure.html

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/mortgage-articles/costs-of-a-foreclosure-procedure-752027.html