Real Estate Information

Borrowers who are determined to have the ability to make their monthly payments but walk away from their homes will not be able to secure a Fannie Mae backed mortgage for seven years after the foreclosure, according to a new policy announced by the in order to recoup mortgage debt. These would be limited to locations that allow deficiency judgments. According to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, one-third of all defaults are strategic. Fannie will instruct its servicers in an announcement next month to monitor delinquent loans on the verge of foreclosure. They will recommend cases for Fannie to pursue deficiency judgments. Terence Edwards, executive vice president for credit portfolio management at Fannie, said these steps are meant to urge borrowers to work with the servicers. mortgage giant this week. Fannie Mae will also take legal action against borrowers who strategically default

First-time homebuyers looking to land an $8,000 federal income tax credit may have a little more time to close on their purchases if a Senate amendment unveiled Thursday makes it into law. As it stands now, homebuyers must have signed contracts by April 30 and must close the deal by June 30. They could be eligible for an $8,000 tax credit if they are first-time buyers or a $6,500 credit if they owned and lived in their previous home for five of the last eight years. The closing deadline, however, could be pushed back to Sept. 30 under an amendment offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. The senators said they want to make sure banks have time to process the transactions -- especially short-sales, which is a more involved process.  It remains to be seen, however, whether the amendment will go anywhere. It is part of a controversial jobs and tax bill that may be radically changed before the Senate approves i  t. Lawmakers are not scheduled to vote on the bill until next week at the earliest. 

The most recent Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) report released by the U.S. Treasury shows “extremely low conversion rates” from trial to permanent modifications, with success just a 50/50 gamble, according to commentary from Moody’s Investors Service. As of the end of April, servicers participating in HAMP had converted almost 300,000 permanent modifications. However, they had also canceled 277,640 trial modifications. Moody’s says this represents approximately a 50 percent success rate. The report also shows 3,744 permanent modifications have been canceled. According to Moody’s, the biggest culprits keeping conversions low are insufficient paperwork and negative equity.

“We believe the low conversion rate is a combination of two issues: borrowers failed to provide the documents they promised, and the rate reduction and principal forbearance used under HAMP were not enough to motivate severely underwater borrowers to start paying again,” Moody’s analysts wrote in their report. Moody’s notes that the 56 percent of HAMP modifications, has been on GSE-held loans, as expected. However, more than a third, 35 percent, occurred in the non-GSE or “private-label” sector. “So far we assume that modifications will lower losses on pools backing private-label securities by approximately 5 percent,” they wrote in the report.

Congratulations to our real estate team for making Orlando Magazine's Top 100 for the month of June 2010.  Your dedication to helping your client's meet their real estate goals is allowing us to continue to break down barriers.

Keep up the great work!

http://www.orlandomagazine.com/Orlando-Magazine/June-2010/Real-Estates-Hot-100/

Your woes do not end with delinquency.  You now need to get better at your paper work too, if you want to avail the administration’s mortgage modification program.  With effect from June 1, New Treasury Department guidelines require loan servicers to verify applicants' income and financial hardship before placing them into trial modifications. This will make it much tougher to get temporary relief from unaffordable mortgage payments. But if you make it into a trial modification, you're more likely to get long-term assistance, providing you send in your check on time.  Of the 1.2 million people who've started trial modifications, fewer than 300,000 have received permanent assistance. Another 278,000 have washed out of the program either because they didn't send in timely payments, hand in the required documents or meet the eligibility criteria.

Paperwork has caused all sorts of problems for the president's signature foreclosure rescue program. In order to get the effort off the ground quickly, administration officials allowed servicers to place people in trial modifications before verifying that they were indeed eligible for the program.  Many homeowners have been stuck in trial modifications for months and months while they wrestle with servicers over the documentation requirements. The financial institutions say that borrowers aren't sending in the needed forms; homeowners contend the servicers are losing them.  Many loans didn't require much documentation when they were originated, which makes gathering the paperwork during the modification process that much more difficult, said Paul Koches, executive vice president at Ocwen.  The pace of people entering trial modifications has already slowed as servicers have started requiring the paperwork in advance. Only 47,160 trials were started in April, down from more tha n 72,000 in February.  Among the documents Chase and other servicers require are hardship affidavits, two recent pay stubs, a bank statement, a tax return, proof of occupancy and a 4506T-EZ form.

AUSTIN, TEXAS (April 12, 2010) — Keller Williams® Realty Inc. announced today that Joe Rothchild, formerly a top ranked Re/Max franchisee and the leader of Houston’s #1 selling real estate team in dollar volume and number of closed transactions in 2009 (Houston Business Journal, March 2010), is now at the helm of the Keller Williams Signature office in Houston, Texas. The Joe Rothchild Team closed 779 transactions for $155 million in volume last year.

“Keller Williams Realty has shown that their model can adapt to any market, which was one of the driving forces in my decision,” said Rothchild, who has left Re/Max after 20 years as a franchisee. “I have been researching and contemplating for more than two years, and I discovered that I needed to reinvent my business to revitalize it. We were implementing some of the same philosophies and mirroring the Keller Williams system, so finally, one day we said…why reinvent the wheel? And, the answer was clear.”

Rothchild added, “KW’s philosophy of putting agents and ownership on the same side of the table and training on the most critical issues facing us in today’s market were also incredibly important to us.”

“We are thrilled to be in business with a talent like Joe. For the last 15 years, Joe has been one of the top 10 teams in Re/Max, and was number one worldwide for three years in a row! When a top franchisee from one of our competitors chooses to join us, we consider it a true honor and confirmation that we have unbelievable momentum behind our growth,” said Mark Willis, CEO of Keller Williams Realty.

Many of Rothchild’s current associates will be joining him at the Keller Williams Signature office. Among them, Dale Ross, an industry veteran with 29-years of experience under his belt, 25 of which have been with Re/Max. “When I factored in the Keller Williams Realty systems, training and support, and realized it was the place I needed to be,” said Ross.

This announcement comes on the heels of a year of positive growth for Keller Williams Realty throughout the U.S. and Canada. The company outpaced the downward trend in the real estate market and grew in every category – opening 30 new franchises, ending the year with a 16 percent year-over-year increase in the number of contracts closed per agent and more than 76,879 associates across North America (up three percent). In addition, the company gave back more than $32.2 million in profit share to its agents.

In addition to recently becoming the 3rd largest real estate company in the U.S., surpassing Re/Max, according to Steve Murray at REAL Trends, Keller Williams Realty received the highest overall satisfaction ratings from home buyers among the largest full-service real estate firms from J.D. Power and Associates for the second year in a row, and was ranked as the No. 1 real estate franchise on the 31st Annual Franchise 500 list by Entrepreneur magazine.

The Federal Government's first time home buyer credit is about to come to a close.  With this program if you have not lived in a primary residence for the previous three years you are able to get a $ 8,000 tax credit.  They also expanded the program in November of 2009 to allow current home owners who have lived in their home for five years and buy a home and make it their primary residence to take advantage of a tax credit of $ 6,500.  Click here for details Home Buyer Credit  This is FREE money and this gravy train isn't going to last!

This program is about to expire!  In order to take advantage of the home buyer credit you must have a contract on a property by April 30, 2010 and it has to close within 2 months.  Now some may think that the government will extend this program again like they did just five months ago, however many of the talking heads disagree.  The main reason the goverment expanded the program in November was to help the housing industry make it through the seasonal slow months until the traditional high months started.  Traditionally, the peak season for real estate is from April through August.  Since the tax credit expires at the end of April, don't expect them to extend it again.

So if you are thinking about upgrading your house or are ready to by your first home, GET OFF OF THE FENCE AND DO IT NOW and let us help you do it.  All of our Buyer Specialist are thoroughly trained on all of the goverment programs which are avialable to our buyers.  They also only work with buyers and know the market better than anyone else because they see over 100 homes per month.  Once they get in their mind of what you are looking for, they can bring you to it faster than anyone else and isn't that what you are looking for.

Start off with our FREE list of Bank Owned Homes with pictures.