How exciting you have an offer on your house and on to close you go!!! But we have one more hurdle to master…. the big appraisal question. Will it appraise and what in the world do we do if it does not? Well in good ole yesteryear people were fighting over property so they would just up the ante and away we would go to close. Today however that is not the game and even cash buyers are putting a clause in their contracts, “property must appraise” So for all of us lay folks our there here are a few things that are involved in appraising your home. READ MORE
There have been a lot of anecdotal stories lately about how appraisals and appraisers contributed to the real estate meltdown and are currently preventing the market from recovering. Your friends at www.condosaletrends.com (A certified general/certified residential appraiser in Colorado and Florida with 25 years of experience) would like to clear up some misconceptions. READ MORE
It’s a financial guaranty that insures lenders against loss in the event a borrower defaults on a mortgage. If the borrower defaults and the lender takes title to the property, the mortgage insurer (MGIC, for example) reduces or eliminates the loss to the lender. In effect, the mortgage insurer shares the risk of lending the money to the borrower. (Mortgage insurance should not be confused with mortgage life insurance, which provides coverage in the event of a borrower’s death, or homeowner’s insurance, which protects the homeowner from loss due to damage from fire, flood or other disaster.) READ MORE
I am very excited about news coming down the pike as a Realtor and my happy news may well be good news for would be buyers and sellers of short sales. When someone calls me about a home and I, through gritted teeth, tell them that it is a short sale, I can just hear their eyes rolling in their head. Hopefully these new Treasury proposed guidelines will help us all.
The main reason for the gritting of teeth and the eye rolling is the unsure outcome and the long time frame in waiting for the bank to give us an answer on a short sale. The new guidelines proposed by the federal government for short sales will address this issue. The new rules will give lenders a 10 day limit to respond to offers, free borrowers from dept and even provide financial incentives to lenders.
As the housing slump enters its fifth year these guidelines should factor into helping us see the light at the end of our tunnel. To speed up the process the U. S. Treasury is calling for lenders to respond to short sale offers within 10 business days. Sellers would be eligible for $1500 in moving allowances and they will not be strapped with repayment of any dept.
To further encourage banks, lenders will get $1,000 to cover administrative costs, while investors owning the mortgages will receive a maximum $1,000 for allowing up to $3,000 in short sale proceeds to be distributed to less senior lenders. Loan servicers participating in the Obama Administrations Home Affordable Modification Program are required to follow the guidelines.
The plan that must be implemented by lenders no later than April may be too late for my short sale that has been waiting on a decision since last April. We have gone through 3 buyers and it looks like we are at an impasse and off to foreclosure we go even though we have a willing buyer and seller. The first and second position lenders are not being good playmates. It is my hope however that we will see a change for the better. There are some banks that are already doing the responsible thing and working hard to make this painful process as pleasant as possible. You can rest assured that I will be using my brand of getting even with those fellows!!!
So till next week you know the drill by now, “The only people we have to get even with are those that have helped us”…… So get busy and go get even.
If you read my articles you know by now I try to base them on real life problems and concerns of all the sweet people I encounter during my work week, especially in the area of short sales and foreclosures. I have had so many different mountain climbing experiences lately in relation to this I decided to seek advice myself and make sure I was equipped for the task. READ MORE
You would think that we had exhausted the short sale dilemma but not hardly as I still get questions each week about whether someone should just walk away or try their hand at short selling their home. In most cases although it is a test in patience a short sale may be a better option for a seller and sometimes a buyer as well. (will address buyer advantages next week) READ MORE
An interesting thing about a prolonged down market, after three years everybody gets bored. Real estate agents have quit trying to convince the public that the bottom has been reached because every month they were proved wrong. Appraisers have been beaten up so bad for relaying the bad news; you can’t get one to admit he is an appraiser in public. Sellers have thrown in the towel. Buyers loiter about like hungry vultures. Welcome to the 2010 Panama City Beach condo market. For those who are still awake, the following is our summary of the local condo market as of the end of 2009. Unfortunately, it looks exactly like the end of 2008.
Every year we like to put a little post together showing you the TOP TEN articles on PCBDaily for the previous year. The top content is easily found by doing some digging in our analytics. This year’s top stories included a mix from airport news to auction results to information pieces about Pier Park. So, without further ado!
After a week off for Thanksgiving I have plenty of good news to report since my last update. Last week, the National Association of Realtors reported that, for the month of October, existing home sales surged 10.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.1 million units – far exceeding the 5.7 million units most economists expected. Also last week, the S&P Case/Schiller Home Price Index showed that home prices nationwide rose 3.1% in the third quarter, matching a 3.1% increase in the second quarter and marking the second consecutive quarter prices have risen. In a similar report of local interest – the Florida Association of Realtors reported that Panama City Beach condo prices actually rose 3% in October over 2008, the first increase this year, and sales of condos were up 88% in October ’09 over ’08.
