Silvia Ruch Blog » real estate

Foreclosures, easy to buy?

Silvia Ruch — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:44:30 +0000

This is for all frustreated buyers and Real Estate Agents with all my love,

Foreclosures Explained

Silvia Ruch — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:24:27 +0000

There are a lot of alarming statistics out there about foreclosures. But when you understand what a foreclosure is and how it works, it takes some of the fear out of the unknown.

To break it down to its bare bones, a mortgage foreclosure happens when a lender exercises its lien against a borrower’s home in order to sell the house to pay off the mortgage loan. This, of course, only happens after the borrower has failed to make mortgage payments for an extended period of time, has ignored notices that the payments are behind, hasn’t bothered to call the lender to see what can be worked out. So how did we get from popping the champagne cork on closing day to having our belongings set out on the lawn? It didn’t happen overnight:

Step 1 – Notice of default is recorded by the bank
This happens after you’ve missed a payment. Usually, especially in the old days, it happened after several payments were missed. Banks are tightening the reins, however, trying to move homeowners to action long before the point of no return. So you’ve missed one or several payments, and now the bank officially records the notice of default.

Step 2 – Opportunity to reinstate the loan
This sounds pretty hopeful, doesn’t it? You can reinstate your loan! You have the power to stop the foreclosure process anywhere along the way-until five days prior to the auction of your home.but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. How do you reinstate the loan? Bring your loan payments current plus the late fees and whatever penalties are assessed, and you have just reinstated your loan. You’ve stopped the foreclosure. You won’t lose your house.

Step 3 – Date of foreclosure is set by the bank
But what if you can’t beg or borrow the back payments and other fees? Is all hope lost? Not quite. We’ve come to the third step of the foreclosure process: the bank sets a date of foreclosure. Typically, the date is three months (about 90 days) after the bank sets the notice of default. You are allowed to live in the house until the actual date of foreclosure. You cannot be evicted or thrown out of the house until this date. You still have time to come up with that money.

Step 4 – Notice of trustee sale is prepared, published and posted
Now the bank prepares the notice of trustee sale. The bank will publish it (you’ve seen those notices in your local newspaper). The bank then mails you a copy of the notice and physically posts it on the outside of the house. You still have time to bring the payments current.

Step 5 – The house is sold at a foreclosure auction
We’ve come to the final step: the foreclosure auction sale. If you are still living in the house and it is sold to a bidder at the auction, the winning bidder can have you evicted by the sheriff within 24 hours. If the house doesn’t sell, the bank will show the house just like you would if you were selling the house yourself. The bank may also have you evicted within 24 hours, or the bank may decide to let you stay until the house sells.

Bottom line: if you miss a payment, don’t let it turn into two. Find the money, even if you have to borrow from family or friends. Although the process can be stopped anytime up to five days before the sale, the earlier you intervene, the easier it is to stop.

Your Mortgage Has Been Sold:
Now What?
If you receive a letter from XYZ Mortgage telling you they’ve bought your loan and you should now send payments to them, don’t do it unless you receive a coinciding letter from your current lender. This type of mortgage scam goes on all the time, and many homeowners don’t even think twice before sending off a check.

Congress took note of these scams, and in 1990 moved to regulate the assignment, transfer or sale of mortgage loans. As part of the National Affordable Housing Act, certain provisions were added to the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA):

1.The lender must disclose to the borrower its policy on assigning or selling loans at the time a borrower applies for a mortgage loan. HUD has written a model disclosure statement that all federally related mortgage lenders must use.
2.If a lender assigns, sells or transfers your loan, both your current lender and the mortgage buyer must make certain disclosures, including the name, address and telephone number of the transferee, as well as the effective date of the transfer.
3.Each disclosure statement must declare that the transfer does not affect any term of the mortgage other than who’s servicing the loan.
4.A 60-day grace period ensures that borrowers can’t be penalized if they mistakenly send payments to the old lender. Even if you send your payment to your old mortgage company during this time, and they have to reroute your check, you cannot incur any penalties during this time, neither late fees nor black marks on your credit report.

Selling mortgages is becoming more common all the time. It’s called the secondary mortgage market. Organizations such as the FannieMae and FreddieMac purchase large packages of loans from lenders at a discount, providing the individual lender more cash available to generate new mortgage loans. Lenders depend on available cash to do business.
While having your mortgage sold over and over again can be inconvenient and annoying, the bottom line is that it’s good for everyone. Why? As more lenders enter the marketplace by issuing conventional mortgages, the result is more competition, which helps keep interest rates competitive from lender to lender because consumers have more choices. For more information, write to the Mortgage Bankers Association of America and request their free booklet, “When Your Loan is Transferred to Another Lender,” at 1125 Fifteenth St., NW., Washington, DC 20005.

My New Listing at Sunrise, FL

Silvia Ruch — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:44:48 +0000

Short Sale – Foreclosure

Silvia Ruch — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:08:09 +0000

My Office

Silvia Ruch — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:50:06 +0000

FHA Key to Housing Rebound, Say Realtors®

Silvia Ruch — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:54:02 +0000

WASHINGTON, April 02, 2009

The Federal Housing Administration is a primary source of mortgage financing for millions of America’s families and plays a key role in helping bring stability to the housing market. This is the message that the National Association of Realtors^® delivered to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee today.

“Without FHA financing, families would be unable to purchase homes and communities would suffer from continued foreclosures and blight,” said Lennox Scott, a member of NAR’s Real Estate Advisory Board and CEO of John L. Scott Real Estate in Bellevue, Washington. In his testimony, Scott shared NAR’s belief in the importance of FHA and concern for the safety and soundness of its programs due to its dramatic growth over a short period of time.

“We believe that FHA has done a good job stepping up to today’s market challenges. However, along with the dramatic growth in market share comes greater responsibility and the need for increased infrastructure and staff,” Scott said. Over the past 18 months, FHA has handled an increase in volume four times greater than 2007 levels, increasing its market share to over 30 percent.

NAR suggests a number of FHA improvements that will help maintain safe and affordable FHA loan products. These improvements include investment in staff and technology improvements; increased oversight and risk management; technical correction to help implement FHA programs; and monetizing the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit to allow buyers to apply it toward downpayment requirements.

“The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has made a number of important and valuable changes to FHA over the years that has enabled it to stand up to the challenges of today’s mortgage market,” Scott said. “FHA is now a principal source of financing for millions of America’s families, and without it, the economic crisis would be significantly prolonged. This is why it is so important to invest in FHA improvements and advancements.”

NAR pledged to continue to work for FHA reforms that will ensure the continued success, availability and safety of FHA mortgage insurance programs.

This article is © Copyright NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of REALTORS® This info comes from http://www.realtor.org/

Existing Homes Sales according to NAR

Silvia Ruch — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:46:58 +0000

Parkland Average Days on Market by Month

Silvia Ruch — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 01:19:45 +0000

WELLS PUTS BEST ASSET ON DISPLAY

Silvia Ruch — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:38:25 +0000

By Robert Trigaux, St. Petersburg Times Business Columnist

Wells Fargo displayed on Wednesday that it really is the Big Kahuna of Florida banking at a time when many bank competitors are in a serious hurt.

The California banking company reported quarterly earnings – a $2.55 billion loss, in fact – and the market still decided to reward Wells by pushing its stock to $21.19 a share, an astonishing 30.88 percent jump.

The practical impact is Wells Fargo’s market value rose by $16 billion in a single day to $70 billion. In contrast, Bank of America has a market value of $37 billion and Citigroup’s is just $23 billion. Combined, the value of these behemoth competitors is smaller than Wells at the moment.

For those napping out there, Wells Fargo bought Wachovia Corp. at the start of this year. In so doing, Wells became the No. 1 banking company in Florida. Ads promoting the Wells-Wachovia merger are under way (given its name, Wells Fargo is big on Old West stagecoach images). Later this year, “Wachovia” will be retired and replaced by the Wells Fargo name.

Amid banks asking for federal infusions of capital, Wells (which has accepted one round of federal dollars worth $25 billion) says it does not need more federal aid to absorb troubled Wachovia. Wells is even leaving its dividend untouched while many banks are slashing theirs.

Wells has – how can I put this? – a proud personality that we are just starting to encounter. Wells CFO Howard Atkins and Wells CEO John Stumpf shed some light on the bank’s style in Wednesday’s earnings call.

Atkins spoke at length about Wells’ ability to avoid many of the nasty financial pitfalls that hurt other banks.

Wells, he said, did not lose its disciplined lending standards, so many of its loans and mortgages have not gone bad.

Wells, he said, did not and will not offer tantalizing CD rates because it does not need to. Customers tend to stick with Wells without the sweetener of high-rate deposits.

And Wells, he said, did not choose in recent years to grow at a double-digit pace by forfeiting profitability.

“We were building our capital in that period waiting for the dam to break, and it sure did,” Atkins said.

We may have gotten a slight preview of Wells in action already. The Sembler Co. sold its stake in St. Petersburg’s struggling BayWalk – the former linchpin to the city’s downtown rebound – to developer Fred Bullard, who in turn hoped to gain some flexibility from BayWalk’s mortgage holder. It did not happen, and BayWalk fell into foreclosure. Now mortgage holder Wells Fargo is expected to gain formal control of BayWalk in a scheduled Feb. 13 foreclosure auction and, presumably, put it up for sale.

Cut and dried. By the book. Disciplined.

Stumpf, Wells Fargo’s CEO and its apparent people person, pointed to a silver lining of absorbing Wachovia during such a weak economy.

“Wachovia’s talented team members are choosing to stay with the company in greater numbers than we anticipated,” he said. “These are really terrific team members who are among the very best at serving their customers. And customers that left Wachovia prior to the merger are coming back and are excited about giving Wells Fargo their business.”

Homebuyers get a bonus in the stimulus bill

Silvia Ruch — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:14:39 +0000

First time buyers could receive a $7,500 tax credit if they purchase soon.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — If you’re thinking of buying a home, there could be a big bonus for you in the economic stimulus bill that’s now before Congress.

Among its many provisions is a $7,500 tax credit for first time home buyers. The House passed the $819 billion stimulus plan, including this tax credit, in a vote late Wednesday. The Senate may vote on its version of the bill some time next week.

Technically, the stimulus bill is actually changing the terms of the $7,500 tax credit that was issued as a part of the Housing Recovery Act, which Congress passed last summer. That legislation required that the tax credit be repaid over 15 years, making it more of a no-interest loan. The stimulus bill now under consideration would make that tax credit a true credit that doesn’t need to be repaid.

Many in the housing industry believe this credit could do a lot to jump start the moribund housing market.
“Our economists have studied the effect [of the credit] and they say there could be a 10% increase in home sales if it’s implemented,” said Mary Trupo, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Realtors. “It gives people who are sitting on the fence or who have inadequate funds for closing costs an incentive to act now.”

A 10% increase would yield an extra half million sales this year.
Who qualifies
To be eligible, buyers cannot have owned a home for the past three years, and the new home has to be used as a primary residence. The credit phases out as income rises above $75,000 for singles and $150,000 for couples, and disappears entirely at $95,000 and $170,000, respectively.

Applying for it is easy, or at least as easy as doing your income taxes. Just claim it on your return. That’s it. No other forms or papers have to be filed.

Both the Senate and the House versions of the new act remove the requirement that buyers repay the credit. The Senate bill applies retroactively to any purchase completed between January 1, 2009 and the end of August. The House version is also retroactive to the start of the year, and expires at the end of June. As long as buyers don’t sell for at least 36 months, they keep the money.

And the credit is refundable, meaning that it can be claimed even if the amount of the credit earned exceeds the buyer’s tax liability. So even if your total tax bill comes to just $5,000, you can still qualify for a full $7,500 refund.

The housing industry has been pushing this idea for many months, arguing that first-time homebuyers are the key to boosting home sales. First time buyers who purchase from existing homeowners free those sellers to trade up to bigger, better houses.