Archive for November, 2009
Top 3 ways to know if your market has rebounded
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I have been blessed to be in such a wonderful position in my life. It doesn’t have much to what I where, where I live, what I have and what I don’t, except my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Everything is gravy after that! Sorry for the pun, but it needed to be expressed.
Ok, so you want to know what the top 3 ways to know if your market has rebounded? After all it is about trends and that is what makes it safe to track. here they are:
1. Jobs (or unemployment rate) are they coming or going.
2. Inventory (house total) increasing or decreasing?
3. Foreclosure rates (Notice of defaults) same as above.
Measure the trends to determine month over month where these go. Also one other factor for the delay is the season trend. November-February are typically slow months for sales, and could back up inventory as more foreclosures/bank owned properties hit the market.
Keep it short,
Mike Ouellette
Posted in 
The refinance craze was a group effort…
More and more finger pointing and exposed practices occur when things hit the fan. Like for instance when the refinance craze happened over 2002 to 2007(ish). You know that period where you would call a lender because you want to squeeze some juice out of that home of yours to maybe do improvements, take a trip, buy that Harley Davidson etc? And weren’t we just tickled pink when we heard of home much the value of our home was worth…AGAIN!? Knowing somehow the refinance we did the two years prior was 50 thousand less…Oh, Happy Days!
As we work with over-leveraged homeowners and we notice the mortgage history on the property, it is not uncommon to see that type of trend. it is unfortunate, and somewhat accurate, as to why now we can see that we were all turning a blind eye to the ability to suck the money out of our homes from thin air. I hear many homeowners complain that it was the lender and the appraiser that came to that value, thus allowing the refinance (see the link to the article below). But, we weren’t stopping them as we collected the tens of thousands of dollars to use for some benefit were we? NO. Now this is not a judging session on whom was the rat and whom was the cheese. It is merely sharing that this mortgage mess is a group effort. Some more on some side and on the other side, with a good portion in the collective middle.
If you may have a overinflated value from a previous refinance(s) then consider what and who it is valued from. It may help your cause when looking to do a Loan Modification, but it may help you also com to grips that the house wasn’t truly what the value was worth when you got that refinance check. That may help some come to grips of letting go and starting over. Sorry, just a little reality in this correction of the market.
Keep it short,
Mike
For help with shortsales please visit: www.Help-Me-ShortSales.com
Do you ever wonder why a short sale is not so short?
Ok, so the pun in the heading is really not about the discount in debt, but the time line of a short sale, duh! I like playing with words because it is the only thing I can manipulate successfully. So, the issue is still the same. If you have ever tried a short sale or have been on the back side of one, you probably have dealt with some serious time delays. In fact it is probably what makes you not want to try them. That is if you are not the one needing one (before you are faced with a foreclosure). Unfortunately, if you are not specializing in these or you do not know how to “play by the banks rules” then you most definitely will fall into the “victim category” and probably left with many scars. I have mastered my operation to handle the short sale from start to finish in less than half the time than most attempts. I have found that when preparing for the necessary steps, that each one done correctly can benefit the entire process with a successful outcome. The one big difference in how I will do them versus 98% of all others….I make offers on all cases! How can I do that? I have a property investment company (buyer) that will make offers on the property. If the offer is accepted then the short sale is bought! If it is rejected we still can renegotiate the offer, but if it is something that the investment company cannot/will not buy, they have the rights to either buy and resell (for a profit) or step out of the way completely and have it sold for retail 9to the end buyer). The big thing is that the offer is what stimulates the short sale process. Without it the bank cannot begin the process. The bank(s) need several months to work their process (see “playing by the banks rules”) to determine if the offer is worth it or not. The only way they can do that is to get a accurate value of the property, which you will have to support or force them to get it (interior BPO). Miss these steps and you can basically expect to be off the mark with your offer, and they will reject it. After doing over 100’s of cases we now know the positioning of the short sale with the lender so well, that we can predict if we will get an approval or not. We also know that it will make for a quick decision on whether to buy and hold, buy and resell, or have it sold (step out of the middle). In short here is the steps and the timeline:
Day 1: Full packet submission to lender (with offer)
Week 2: Assigned to Negotiator
Week: 3 Interior BPO ordered
Week: 4 Confirm receipt of the BPO and await review
Week: 6 Decision on original offer and the BPO negotiations begin
Week: 7-8 Counter offers to determine the final price & if investment company will purchase, purchase & resell, or step out and retail sale
Week: 9 Verbal approval / Market for sale
Week: 10-12 Written approval
Week: 14-16 Purchase and or resell
Case closed.
** There may timelines that can be extended due to several steps being delyed, but this is the ideal process doing the short sale process as I had mentioned. I welcome comments and feedback.
As always, Keep it short. Mike
