Your First Steps To Avoid Foreclosure

In today’s market, 1 in 7 homeowners is having trouble paying the mortgage. More than 70% of these homeowners proceed without seeking assistance or getting the facts. Many do not even realize that foreclosure is a process, and that there is time to make decisions that may result in a better outcome.

As a homeowner in the Virginia Beach area, you are not alone. Millions of other homeowners nationwide are in the same circumstances. To assist you, I’ve prepared a free report outlining the first steps a homeowner should take when facing a foreclosure.

Please use the link below to obtain your free report. Don’t hesitate. Get back on track today!

http://www.virginiabeachshortsale.com/Your-First-Steps-To-Avoid-Foreclosure.aspx

The U.S. Treasury Department's long-awaited guidelines to streamline Short Sales, announced Monday, will have a significant impact on families facing foreclosure, according to RE/MAX International Chairman and Co-Founder Dave Liniger.

The Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program (HAFA), part of the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), provides financial incentives and simplifies Short Sales procedures by setting limits on the time it takes lenders to respond, freeing borrowers from debt and capping claims of subordinate lenders.

The Treasury's announcement comes on the heels of more than a year's work by RE/MAX leadership to persuade federal lawmakers to address the need for a simpler Short Sale process.

"While the plan doesn't include all of our suggestions, we feel it's a big step in the right direction," Liniger says. "These new policies will make Short Sales much more attractive to our clients and much easier for us to complete."

With unemployment over 10 percent and millions of adjustable-rate mortgages primed to reset next year, a "tsunami" of distressed properties could be on the horizon, Liniger says. The new guidelines, as well as a growing acceptance by lenders and second-lien holders, give homeowners a better chance of closing a Short Sale rather than losing their house to foreclosure.

Here are some of the program's key guidelines (download the program's full details in the HAMP Supplemental Directive):

• Lenders must respond to Short Sale requests within 10 business days of receipt of the offer package.
• The seller will be released from all liability for repayment of the mortgage debt.
• Subsequently, the seller is entitled to a relocation incentive of $1,500, which will be deducted from the gross sale proceeds at closing.
• The lender will be paid $1,000 to cover administrative and processing costs for a Short Sale or a deed-in-lieu.
• The property must be listed with a licensed real estate professional who does regular business in the community where the property is located.
• The lender is prohibited from requiring, as a condition of approving the Short Sale, a reduction in the agreed-upon real estate commission. 
• The investor will be paid a maximum of $1,000 for allowing a total of up to $3,000 in Short Sale proceeds to be distributed to subordinate lien holders, or for allowing payment of up to $3,000 to subordinate lien holders.

RE/MAX leaders have been advocating Short Sale improvements for quite some time. In September, Liniger met with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan and other U.S. housing officials to discuss the need for prompt action. A meeting with Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also moved the process along.

For their part, RE/MAX Associates have embraced training in Short Sales and REOs. The network accounts for nearly 60 percent Certified Distressed Property Expert designees. That education will continue to play a vital role in order for Associates to successfully handle Short Sale transactions and establish themselves as the leading experts in their markets, Liniger says.

The official effective date is April 5, 2010, but participating mortgage servicers can begin operating under terms of the new program prior to that date if they are ready to meet all reporting requirements.

© 2009 RE/MAX International, Inc. RE/MAX Affiliates may share this article, provided they do not charge for it and this notice is included. All other rights reserved.

Income limits have been raised for Virginia Beach area homebuyers, and now some existing homeowners can also claim a credit if they buy a new home too.

The basics:

• To claim any credit, buyers must have a contract by April 30, 2010 and close by July 1, 2010.
• The income limit has been raised to $225,000 for couples.
• First-time buyers can claim an $8,000 credit, as before.
• Buyers who already own the home they are selling (or have sold), and have lived there for five of the past eight years can claim up to a $6,500 tax credit (on homes worth $800,000 or less).
• Both credits apply only to primary residences.

It was announced to membership meeting today that I was elected Vice President of the Hampton Roads chapter of the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) for 2010.

You can find out more about NARPM on their website at  www.NARPM.org. 

The National Association of Residential Propety Manager Governmental Affairs Committee wants to warn you about an internet rental scam that has been making its way around the country. Scammers are copying information, photos and text, from legitimate online rental ads and then posting that information on Craig’s List. It is listed with a significantly reduced rent and the property manager’s contact information has been replaced by the scammer’s. In some ads the text is full of misspelled words and bad grammar but not always. This is because many of the scammers are operating outside the country, typically Nigeria, but many cases have also involved local scammers who are able to meet potential tenants in person. With international scams, the potential tenants are usually required to send the deposit and first month’s rent through Western Union and are promised that the keys will then be over-nighted to them. Local scammers are often able to copy a key or simply break into a vacant property and replace the door lock with their own so they can actually provide the new tenant with a legitimate key. In one situation an unsuspecting tenant was actually able to completely move into an apartment without the knowledge of the legitimate property manager. The property manager was only alerted to the problem when the tenant called the office to request that the “For Rent” sign be removed from their front yard.

These scammers are often very sophisticated and can play the part of a legitimate property manager well enough to fool potential renters. Make sure you are checking your vacant properties and Craig’s List on a regular basis. If you find an unauthorized ad flag it so that others will know that it may be fraudulent and contact Craig’s List to request that they remove it from their website. Some property managers have even posted an additional listing with the same name but included, “THIS IS A SCAM” or similar language at the end of the post to help warn people. This way it will come up in the listing right after the fraudulent post and give the property manager an opportunity to provide the correct information.

The FBI has received countless complaints about this and other rental scams but they explained that this type of crime is low on their list of investigative priorities. If one of your properties gets caught in this scam, we recommend you visit www.IC3.gov and report the crime. The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). IC3's mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime. If you encounter a potential tenant who has been scammed and made the mistake of providing sensitive personal information such as their social security number, it is highly recommended that they go ahead and put a freeze on their credit.

 

The housing market is looking healthier. Here are six reasons why now is the time to jump into the market.

1. Uncle Sam is willing to help. First-time buyers (defined as anyone who hasn’t owned a home in the last three years) are entitled to a maximum $8,000 tax credit; interest rates are at record lows; and the Federal Reserve is doing its best to make mortgage loans available.

2. People have to live somewhere. About 800,000 new households are formed each year in this country, ensuring that the housing market will tighten, even if the economy doesn’t soar.

3. Borrowers leverage their investment. If you put $10,000 into the stock market and it earns 10 percent, you’ve earned $1,000. If you put $10,000 down on a home and its values increases 10 percent, you’ve made $10,000.

4. When prices come back up, you’ll have instant equity. In parts of the country where foreclosures have driven down prices, better times will mean the price of the home you buy will rise rapidly.

5. Mortgage costs stay the same. If you get a fixed-rate mortgage, the monthly payment stays the same – while everything else, including rent, goes upward.

6. You own it. There is something comforting in the notion that your home is your own. You can paint it any color you want, let the dog run in the back yard and hang a swing for the kids in the front.

Good Morning America cited data from Zillow this morning which heralded Virginia Beach as the number one place, and Richmond as the number seven place, to buy a home right now.

When buying a home, according to Zillow, buyers should “look for communities with a strong job market and stable housing values. Some common threads: cities with military bases, state capitals and college towns all fare well because they are more ‘recession proof.’”

Here’s what Zillow is seeing…

In Virginia Beach:

- Median home value: $223,800, down 1 percent from a year ago.
- Property values are up 7 percent compared to five years ago.
- Houses cost an average of $139 per square foot.
- Buyers are paying 2 percent less than the listing price.

In Richmond:

FHA-approved lenders received the go-ahead to develop bridge-loan products that enable first-time buyers to use the benefits of the federal tax credit upfront, according to eagerly awaited guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on so-called home buyer tax credit loans that was released today.

Under the guidance, FHA-approved lenders can develop bridge loans that home buyers can use to help cover their closing costs, buy down their interest rate, or put down more than the minimum 3.5 percent.

The loans can't be used to cover the minimum 3.5 percent, senior HUD officials told reporters on a conference call Friday morning.

Thus, buyers applying for FHA-backed financing with an FHA-approved lender that offers a bridge-loan program can get a bridge loan to bring down the upfront costs of buying a home significantly but would still have to come up with the minimum 3.5 percent downpayment.

There remain many sources of assistance for buyers needing help with the 3.5 percent downpayment, including many state and local government instrumentalities and nonprofit lenders.

In addition, some state housing finance agencies have developed their own tax credit bridge loan programs, so buyers in states whose HFAs offer such programs can monetize the tax credit upfront to cover all or part of their downpayment. These programs are separate from what HUD announced today.

The first-time homebuyer tax credit was enacted last year and improved upon earlier this year--to help encourage households to enter the housing market while interest rates are low and affordability is high. The credit is worth up to $8,000 and is available to households that haven't owned a home in at least three years. The credit does not have to be repaid, and is fully reimbursable, so households can get their credit returned to them in the form of a payment.

Learn more about the credit, including how to apply for it this year even if you've already filed your taxes.

Source: Robert Freedman, REALTOR® Magazine Online