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Buying Government Foreclosures or Bank Foreclosures: Basics

William Henderson - Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Foreclosed homes are regularly set on the market by the two major home lenders: government agencies and banks. Be they government foreclosures or bank foreclosures, what matters most is that they can be purchased at expenses lower than their real market value. This is why homebuyers or investors generally are in haste as soon as a reliable foreclosure opportunity is listed. After having investigated the real estate market and its potentialities, homebuyers must move quickly if they want to grasp this temporary chance. In what follows we will see some of the basics and advantages of opting either for government foreclosures or for bank foreclosures.

The most popular government agencies that frequently market foreclosure properties are as follows:
1) the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (you are probably already familiar with HUD foreclosed homes);
2) the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (for the well-known VA foreclosures); 3) local agencies of taxation;
4) the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC – the department dealing with foreclosure sales);
5) the Internal Revenue Service (IRS – once again the segment dealing with foreclosures).
However, the market of government foreclosures is led by HUD foreclosures and VA foreclosures.

In any case, the point is that with government foreclosures one of the above mentioned government agencies is holder of the property’s title. As a rule, they will place any foreclosed property at auction. The buyer’s advantages are basically drawn from bidding opportunities generated by auction circumstances: the potential buyer’s chance to set a limit for the house value, the certainty over the time interval spent to acquire a property, the possibility to evade prolonged negotiations with the former homeowner. As with any auction, government foreclosures are purchased if the bidder’s offer is appropriate. Also, your involvement in government foreclosures auctions needs to be mediated by a certified real estate agent who is regularly rewarded a 6% bonus for having successfully sold the property. The real estate agent’s indemnity is an additional figure to the sum you place as a bid.

To what concerns bank foreclosures, there are three major ways of purchasing such properties. One of them is in pre-foreclosures. In this case, you will need to act promptly, because there is actually very little time up until a property in a pre-foreclosed stage is transferred to foreclosure terms. So before properties actually become bank foreclosures, the active, smart homebuyer/investor – who has previously undergone a serious investigation of an area’s real estate market – will know to move in the direction of negotiating directly with the distressed homeowners. If pre-foreclosure attempts fail, the next step is an auction.

With bank foreclosures, the auction is required by the banks whose lends haven’t been acquitted on time. In such circumstances, the homebuyer/investor could try to overpass the bank’s bidding offers. Yes, the bank will also bid in such auctions, interested in stepping further along the process of profitably selling foreclosures. If the auction is won by the bank, the property becomes an REO (real estate owned) foreclosure property. This is the third way in which you could purchase bank foreclosures. When you are interested in REOs, you will negotiate directly with the bank. The main advantage of the potential homebuyer/home investor is that this is the most certain manner (and one of the fastest) of acquiring a foreclosed property. You will need to make an offer, but be careful: the offer should be commonsensical, don’t expect a bank to accept a discount of 50%, even if we are talking about foreclosures. Most often, you will get a 10%-20% lower price for an REO foreclosure.

In the end, the key toward purchasing foreclosures, no matter the entity selling them, is given by two stages:
careful real estate market investigation and promptness in action when the time comes to place your offer.
Remember that the market of foreclosures, no matter how advantageous, is highly competitive, since many homebuyers/investors are interested in it.


About the author: The above Real Estate information on Buying Government Foreclosures or Bank Foreclosures: Basics was provided by William Henderson, a Florida Licensed Real Estate Agent with over 15 years in the Banking, Finance and Real Estate related fields. William can be reached by email at whenderson586@gmail.com or by phone at 786-346-5611. You can also check the website http://www.foreclosuredump.com for up to date properties for sale in your area.

 

Thinking of short selling your home? I can help get the process done!

 

I service the following area of Miami Dade County: Miami Beach, Brickell Area, Downtown Area, North Bay Village, Normandy Isle, Surfside, Sunny Isles.


More than 25 percent of first-quarter home sales were foreclosures

William Henderson - Wednesday, July 14, 2010
07.14.10
By Credit.com Staff

In an effort to find more affordable home prices, more Americans turned toward foreclosures during the first quarter of 2010, according to a new report. The study - conducted by foreclosure listing and information website Foreclosure Deals - reveals that 31 percent of home sales during the first three months of the year were for homes whose previous owners defaulted on their mortgage loans.

The total number of foreclosure home sales during the first quarter is 33 percent lower than those sold during the first three months of 2009. A combined total of 232,950 foreclosed homes were sold in January, February and March. Lower sales prices are one of prime reasons consumers turn toward a foreclosure, with the average price being 27 percent lower than a traditional home during the first quarter of 2010.

"Buyers are attracted to foreclosures because they offer tremendous discounts," Foreclosure Deals business analyst James Foxx said. "The numbers show that each year, the total number of foreclosures sold has increased, and that's not just a reflection of supply. They're very popular, and for good reason, there's no better investment value in real estate currently out there."

Statistics reveal that foreclosure home sales have increased by 320 percent overall since 2007.

Many lenders, such as Fannie Mae, have implemented programs and created help centers to assist borrowers and try to reduce the incidence of foreclosure. But as unemployment rates remain high and the backlog in repossessing foreclosed properties may be skewing the real amount of Americans who have defaulted on their mortgage, it is unlikely that recovery will come as quickly as many individuals hope.

A recent report from the Center for Responsible Lending found there are almost 6 million homes at imminent risk of foreclosure right now

William Henderson - Saturday, July 10, 2010

It has been more than two years since Sandra Hines got shoved out of her family's home of 38 years, but her loss still feels fresh and raw. She remains proud of her northwest Detroit neighborhood. Its streets are lined with stately trees and dozens of modest brick and concrete houses like the one her family called home for a generation. Today, the two story house sits empty, but through the window a ladder and can of paint can be spotted in the living room -- signs that the new owner has been here working.


Hines, now in her mid 50s, looks inside and sees her lost future. "They were going to grow up," she says of her two nieces, "and this was going to be the house for them, from one generation to another... the one that was going to be passed down in the family."


Two years ago, Hines, her two sisters and a niece watched as bailiffs came to the house to throw out their belongings and padlock the doors. "I never imagined we'd be in this place," she told me through tears not long after the foreclosure. "I moved into that house when I was 18 years old. It was our base."


But the summer of 2007, the Hines took out an adjustable rate refinance loan from H&R Block, to do some repairs on the house. Like millions of other families, when their monthly payment began climbing after just three months, they could no longer keep up. They fell rapidly into default and just days before Christmas they were evicted, becoming one of 2.5 million foreclosures completed between 2007 and 2009. Some analysts predict another 10 to 13 million more will begin the foreclosure process before the crisis ends.


The Applied Research Center, which publishes ColorLines, featured Hines' story in Race and Recession, a 2009 investigative report on the uneven fallout of the economic downturn. The report finds that the economic crisis is not only impacting communities of color at disproportionate rates, but that the country's long failure to address systemic racial inequity through public policy eventually threw the whole economy into free fall.


Now, as the country slumps toward completing a third year of this recession, it continues to roll roughshod through communities like the one Hines once called home, where boarded up windows and empty driveways now litter a once vibrant neighborhood. Despite the Obama administration's  foreclosure prevention program, little has changed in either the scale or pace of lost wealth--and community--in places like this. In the ColorLines video above, which was featured on GRITtv this week, Hines revisits her former community and reflects on her own loss.

A recent report from the Center for Responsible Lending found there are almost 6 million homes at imminent risk of foreclosure right now. These are homes where the owners are at least two mortgage payments behind.
 
Goldman Sachs estimates that by 2014, 13 million homes will be gone. And Black, Latino, Asian, Native American and Alaskan Native/Pacific Islander borrowers are all more likely than White borrowers to be at risk of losing their homes immediately. One in five of both Black and Latino homeowners today are at the brink of foreclosure.

In dollars, the losses already tallied will mean that between 2009 and 2012, Black and Latino communities will be drained of $194 and $177 billion, respectively, because of the plummeting home values in the high foreclosure neighborhoods. "This is wealth that would have been passed down, used to pay for college, to use in retirement, to buy a car," says Keith Ernst, who authored the Center for Responsible Lending report.


In 2009, the White House pushed through its Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, as the president's signature foreclosure prevention program. Congress rejected reforming bankruptcy law to allow judges to modify home loans and the administration resisted calls for HAMP to include forced reductions of principal balances on loans. Instead, HAMP offered mortgage servicers incentives to reduce struggling borrowers' monthly mortgage payments to no more 31% of their income by bringing down interest rates and extending the life of the loan.

In March, the administration updated the program to urge loan servicers to adjust principals on homes where the owner owes more than the property is worth and to encourage modifications for unemployed borrowers who are not yet in default.


The program has nonetheless failed by any measure to meet the need, mostly because it remains little more than a subsidy for the servicing industry and fails to make meaningful modifications mandatory. As of May, servicers participating in HAMP had reworked a mere 340,000 mortgages, which amounts to only about a fifth of the homes eligible for a modification under the program.


"At best," says Ernst, "HAMP might help in the low millions of owners. But when we're up against the more than 10 million number, that's not enough."


Advocates continue to campaign for the administration to force servicers to write down principal balances on underwater loans. More localized movements are pushing for even more. Hines helped start a Michigan group called Moratorium Now. It's pushing for a total halt on foreclosures in the state for a period of several years--something President Obama supported nationally during his 2008 campaign.


While a moratorium is not a long term fix, "it lets people facing foreclosure get their finances together and figure out what's going on," says Hines. Until the principals of underwater homes are adjusted, it might be the only solution.


"It's easy for people at risk of foreclosure to keep spiraling and spiraling," adds Wilhelmina Leigh, a senior researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Three years into that spiral, she says, "We still don't have the kind of infrastructure we need to help."


Meanwhile, the recessionary forces are compounding upon one another. Foreclosures stemming from the subprime schemes that swept communities of color have now been largely replaced by foreclosures caused by job losses. "Foreclosures are hitting people who had been doing okay," explains Leigh, "who hadn't gotten an adjustable arm and now they've lost their jobs."


The Labor Department's June jobs report shows unemployment for all Americans remains stuck at just under 10 percent. The number is much higher for Blacks and Latinos, who face 15.4% and 12.4% unemployment respectively. That's compared to 8.6% for whites. And young people of color, single moms, those in the construction industry and those who were in the lowest income bracket even before the downturn are without jobs at even higher rates. Black teenagers are looking at summer unemployment levels of almost 40 percent.


The jobless have not gotten much good news from Washington recently. Congressional deficit hawks defeated a much needed unemployment benefits extension even though 46 percent of the unemployed have been without work for longer than the normal benefits last. More than a million will now be left without a job or income support.


 Sandra Hines urges Chase Bank to help victims of foreclosures at the Chase Bank building in downtown Detroit.

So, community leaders like Hines continue trying to build momentum elsewhere, like here on the streets in Detroit, where last month Hines carried a bullhorn at the front of a crowd of hundreds marching on the Chase Bank building downtown. "Money for jobs, not the banks! Money for education, not the banks! Money for healthcare, not the banks," she chanted, in a sadly familiar refrain.


Later that day, back at her old home, Hines stood on the porch and, spotting an elderly woman in a driveway across the street, lifted her hand to wave. "Hello Miss James," she called.

"This has become a real community," she said.

As she stepped off the porch, a black Dodge truck raced up the road and stopped in front of the house. A man got out and walked quickly over to the lawn.


"What's going on over here?" he asked. "I'm the owner of this house."

"I used to live here for 38 years," Hines replied, staring at the younger man.

"I lived around the corner for 40," he offered, before wishing Hines well and heading back to the car. Hines called after him to dismiss any tension from the awkward exchange. "Ain't no problem with trying to check on your property," she assured her former neighbor. Then she walked next door to say hello to another one-time neighbor, and came out with a few pieces of mail the neighbor had saved for her. "This is where we lived," she said.

More Mortgage Defaults and Foreclosures for Sale in Florida

William Henderson - Thursday, June 03, 2010

By John Cutts 
International Business Times

 Foreclosures for sale continue to rise in Florida as more homeowners default on their home loans.

In April, although new foreclosure filings dropped in Florida, the number of bank owned homes increased from 8,643 housing units in March to 9,259 units, a surge of 7.13 percent.

Based on a study by credit information analyst TransUnion, Florida posted the second highest rate of mortgage default in the first quarter this year, behind only Nevada. In Florida, 14.65 percent of all mortgaged homes were delinquent by more than two months, just behind the 15.98-percent share of delinquent mortgages in Nevada.

What is troubling for Florida is that the delinquency pace surged in sharp contrast to the drop of the national mortgage default rate to 6.77 percent over the quarter. The national default rate has been rising over the 12 consecutive quarters before the January-March quarter this year.

Also, the percentage of bank owned foreclosures for sale in April as a proportion of total foreclosure filings increased despite the drop in total filings. In April, 19.14 percent of total filings were REO units, an increase from 14.63 percent in March. Some real estate professionals interpret this as a reflection of the increased efforts of banks to complete foreclosures more quickly.

As maintenance and holding costs increase, banks need to put troubled properties into the market immediately in order to cut down their REO holdings. Other analysts contended that the failure of homeowners with modified mortgages to get permanent modification partly drove the surge in distressed homes for sale in April.

Although Florida was among the states with the biggest number of trial and permanent modifications in the April HAMP report, there were still a substantial number of modified mortgages which failed to move on to permanent modification status.

In addition, among the 4 states that have been dominating mortgage default and foreclosure charts over the past two years, Florida is the one still posting default rate increases. If this delinquency rate does not get aggressive intervention,foreclosures for sale in Florida will continue to surge.

TOP 5 REASONS TO USE FORECLOSUREDUMP.COM TO SELL YOUR PROPERTY

William Henderson - Wednesday, June 02, 2010

1. Market until Sold For $9.95 Per Property
When you choose Foreclosuredump.com advertising, you have the comfort of knowing your home will be showcased until sold, however long it takes. There are no time limits. There’s no certain period in which your home must sell. Foreclosuredump.com doesn’t give you a month, two months, a year; we just promise to advertise your property until sold. It’s that simple and it only costs you $9.95 per property.

As long as you want it advertised, Foreclosuredump.com will keep it online.

Plus, you have total control over when it’s displayed – Want to remove your advertising for a while because you’re going out of town? No problem! Your property’s listing will still be available when you’re done. Just let the customer service department know, and they’ll remove it and reactivate it when you’d like.

At Foreclosuredump.com, it’s all about putting the power back in your hands. That’s the difference. That’s the Foreclosuredump.com difference

2. The Power of the Internet
What’s the best and fastest way for home buyers to find their next home? Hint: it’s also the easiest. They shop the internet.

Not only is the Internet available worldwide, streamed into living rooms and offices 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but it also is convenient whether the weather is sunny or snowing. As many parts of the Unites States experienced frigid temperatures and snowfall this January, keeping many buyers away from open houses or touring properties, there’s one thing you can be sure they’re still doing: looking at your house online.

In today’s society, there’s no question that the Internet is the most important tool in maximizing your real estate marketing needs. Through strategically chosen descriptions and images, you can allow interested buyers to tour your property without leaving their living rooms. That’s a benefit everyone can appreciate.

That’s why it makes sense to advertise with Foreclosuredump.com: you’re putting your home where the buyers are looking and buying


3. Custom URLs

Did you know all Foreclosuredump.com property advertisements come with their own custom URLs? It’s astounding! Choose to market your home through Foreclosuredump.com, and you’ll receive a customized Web page, perfect for sending to your friends, neighbors, potential buyers and anyone else you deem worthy of seeing your property

Essentially, here’s how it works: When you load your pictures and the property description the webpage is essentially made and your unique URL is made and can be blasted everywhere and you will be taken directly to that property.

You can include your custom URL in e-mails, on your Facebook page, in online forums, your own custom flyers, craigslist, backpage and any other social networking site you can think of

4. Customer Service
One of the best benefits of selling on your own through Foreclosuredump.com is the support you receive. When you have questions, want to make changes or just aren’t sure who to ask about something, the friendly and knowledgeable customer service department is there for you!

  • Available seven days a week, Foreclosuredump.com’s customer service staff is unquestionably one of the most helpful resources for do it yourself sellers.

5. Complete Control
One of the most appealing reasons to sell with Foreclosuredump.com is that you have complete control over your property listing!

Not only do you customize your ad yourself, choosing how much text, the photos you put up, as well as what info is important to include, but you also have full authority to make changes when your property ad goes live all for the low price of $9.95 till it sells.

That’s because when you use Foreclosuredump.com’s  internet sit to put your ad together, the listing is not set in stone. If you would like to change something, all you have to do is go into your account manager and change it. This is your property, so no one knows it better than you! Whether you would like to add text, drop text or change photos, you are free to customize your ad as you see fit.

Have questions about marketing and advertising your property on foreclosuredump.com? Feel free to contact one of our friendly customer service reps as they are available to help you seven days a week!!!

For examples of how a property can be showcased in a Foreclosuredump.com ad, check out these existing listings!

We here at Foreclosuredump.com are dedicated to helping you SELL YOUR PROPERTY FAST!!!!! No Questions!! Try us out today!!

Florida Foreclosures Worth $1.77 Billion Taken Back by Banks

William Henderson - Friday, May 28, 2010
The total value of Florida foreclosures repossessed by banks in the state increased by nearly 8 percent in the first quarter to $1.77 billion, based on figures from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

These properties in bank owned listings also contributed to the downfall of a lot of banks in Florida. On May 7, the FDIC closed the tenth Florida bank to tumble this year and as of March 31, a total of 24 Florida banks were struggling from under-capitalization.

The FDIC has already lost almost $1.3 billion to pay claims arising from Florida bank failures this year, in addition to its $7.3-billion loss in 2008 and in 2009 involving 16 failed Florida banks.

This year, 17 more Florida banks are expected to collapse this year if there is no significant intervention to rescue these distressed banks. Their substantial exposure to Florida foreclosures are tying their hands up, leaving them with no funds to finance their operations.

Based on interviews with Florida bankers, the cost they have to bear to put properties into listings of foreclosure homes so they can resell them has shot up to around $100,000 per one foreclosure case, up from only $40,000 in 2007. The time spent to complete foreclosures has also lengthened from only 6 months in the first months of the crisis to around 18 months this year.

What worsens the situation after all the costs and hassles banks undergo is to be forced to list their repossessed properties as cheap houses for sale, as higher-priced foreclosures languish on the market.

Despite the decline in foreclosure activity in the state in April, Florida moved up from fourth-place to third-place on charts of foreclosure listings by state during the month. It was California which improved by two places from second in March to fourth in April.

To help banks survive the effects of Florida foreclosures, the Florida Bankers Association has proposed in the last state legislature session to speed up the foreclosure process.

Mortgage Delinquencies, Foreclosures Break Records

William Henderson - Tuesday, May 25, 2010

by The Associated Press

The number of homeowners who missed at least one mortgage payment surged to a record in the first quarter of the year, a sign that the foreclosure crisis is far from over.

More than 10 percent of homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment in the January-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. That number was up from 9.5 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and 9.1 percent a year earlier.

Those figures are adjusted for seasonal factors. For example, heating bills and holiday expenses tend to push up mortgage delinquencies near the end of the year. Many of those borrowers become current on their loans again by spring.

Without adjusting for seasonal factors, the delinquency numbers dropped, as they normally do from the winter to spring.

More than 4.6 percent of homeowners were in foreclosure, also a record. But that number, which is not adjusted for seasonal factors, was up only slightly from the end of last year.

Stocks slid Wednesday as investors remain concerned with the European debt crisis. The rising number of mortgages also drew some attention. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 160 points in early trading.

Jay Brinkmann, the trade group's chief economist, said the foreclosure crisis appears to have stabilized. Seasonal adjustments may be exaggerating the change from the previous quarter, he added.

"I don't see signs now that it's getting worse, but it's going to take a while," he said. "A bad situation that's not getting worse is still bad."

The number of American homeowners who have missed at least three months of payments or are in foreclosure has surged to around 4.3 million, Brinkmann estimated.

The Obama administration's $75 billion foreclosure prevention program has barely dented the problem. More than 299,000 homeowners had received permanent loan modifications as of last month. That's about 25 percent of the 1.2 million who started the program since its March 2009 launch.

About 277,000 homeowners, or 23 percent of those enrolled, have dropped out during a trial phase that lasts at least three months.

Economic woes, such as unemployment or reduced income, are the main catalysts for foreclosures this year. Initially, lax lending standards were the culprit. But homeowners with good credit who took out conventional, fixed-rate loans are now the fastest growing group of foreclosures.

Those borrowers made up nearly 37 percent of new foreclosures in the first quarter of the year, up from 29 percent a year earlier.

The risky subprime adjustable-rate loans that kicked off the foreclosure crisis are making up a smaller share of new foreclosures. They made up 14 percent of new foreclosures in the January-March period, down from 27 percent a year earlier.

High-end homes fall prey to foreclosure

William Henderson - Friday, May 21, 2010

FORT MYERS, Fla. –Heated pools, ocean views and media rooms are not what most people would expect to find in a foreclosed property, but more high-end homes – priced at more than a million dollars – have been falling into the hands of banks this year.

Foreclosures of homes worth more than $1 million began increasing at the end of 2009, according to data provided to CNBC.com by foreclosure tracking website RealtyTrac.

Foreclosures reached a high in February 2010, the last month data were available, when 4,169 high-end homes were somewhere in the foreclosure process; having received a foreclosure notice, had an auction scheduled or had ownership taken over by the lender. That's a 121 percent increase from a year ago.

The deterioration comes just as housing experts say that foreclosures in the low and middle ends of the housing market are showing signs of stabilization.

Owners of expensive homes "were able to stave off foreclosure longer," says independent real estate analyst Jack McCabe, CEO of McCabe Research and Consulting in South Florida. "Lower-end homeowners were the first ones to see the escalating foreclosures, because they generally do not have the cash reserves or credit available that the luxury homeowners do. They had the ability to take their credit cards and pull out thousands of dollars, while the lower-end buyers were already tapped out."

McCabe expects foreclosures in the high-end market will increase into 2011.

Though the RealtyTrac data on high-end homes are not available on a regional or metropolitan basis, anecdotal evidence indicates the problem is cropping up across the country. High-end and luxury categories vary widely from market to market. In some suburban areas, in the Northeast and California, for instance, million-dollar homes are fairly common; but nationwide, they represent 1.1 percent of overall housing stock.

"We have seen an increase, in the million-plus range, of the number of foreclosures and short sales in the greater Chicago area," says Jim Kinney, vice president of luxury home sales at Baird & Warner.

He says that of the 295 million-dollar, single-family properties sold in the first quarter this year, 37 were either a foreclosure or short sale, when a bank and homeowner agree to sell the home for less than the loan is worth. During the same period a year ago, 10 of 231 fell into those categories.

In the Fort Myers, Fla., area, Mike McMurray of McMurray and Nette and the VIP Realty Group says he has seen a few foreclosed high-end homes on the market compared with none last year. He's currently showing a 4,800-square-foot, $3.65 million home on Captiva Island, where foreclosures are usually rare. The bank-owned home has five bedrooms and access to 150 feet of Gulf Coast beachfront.

"There are more we see coming down the pipeline," McMurray says.

Data show that may be the case around the country. The 90-day delinquency rate on home loans worth more than a million dollars hit a high in February at 13.3 percent, above the overall rate of 8.6 percent, according to real estate data firm First American CoreLogic. Foreclosure proceedings generally start after a homeowner has been at least 90 days late on a mortgage payment, experts say.

One difference in the high-end market is that lenders are willing to do more to head off foreclosure by renegotiating the loan or accepting a short-sale transaction, which is essentially a last-ditch effort.

"Lenders are far more likely to go the short-sale route," says Andrew LePage, an analyst at real estate research firm DataQuick. "There's a lot more money at stake, and maintenance can be high if a foreclosure just sits there."

A $1.15 million condominium in Chicago in the landmark Palmolive Building was initially offered as a short sale, but after a buyer did not materialize, it's now owned by the bank, says Janice Corley, founder of Sudler Sotheby's International Realty, which is currently listing it. The condo has lake views and a long list of luxury-building amenities, including a steam room, doorman and gym.

The rise in luxury foreclosures has one Las Vegas real estate agent flying prospective buyers into the city via private jet. Luxury Homes of Las Vegas and JetSuite Air teamed to offer the complimentary trip for buyers flying from Los Angeles to view three foreclosed homes priced between $4.9 million and $6.1 million.

Agent Ken Lowman says he gave three tours over a one-week period and hopes to expand the offer to buyers from other West Coast cities.

There's just too much competition, Lowman says. "It takes an innovative approach like this to get results."

Copyright © 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc., Joseph Pisani.

Survey: 4 in 10 homeowners would consider walking away from ‘underwater’ mortgage

William Henderson - Friday, May 21, 2010

MIAMI – May 21, 2010 – More than 40 percent of homeowners with a mortgage say they would consider abandoning an "underwater" property, according to a national online survey released Thursday.

The study conducted this month by Harris Interactive for real estate firms Trulia and RealtyTrac touched on a topic that affects many South Floridians.

More than 371,000 homes in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties were worth less than the mortgage amount at the end of the first quarter, Zillow.com said recently.

Pete Flint, chief executive of Trulia, said on a conference call with reporters he "absolutely expects" more homeowners to walk away in the coming years as the stigma of foreclosure fades.

This is the fifth such survey of consumer attitudes since 2008, but the first time questions about underwater mortgages were included, Flint said.

Because South Florida home prices have fallen by more than 40 percent since the peak of the housing boom in 2005, underwater borrowers here may have to stay put for a decade or more until they can break even in a sale, housing experts say.

Some of these homeowners say they're unwilling or unable to wait that long.

RealtyTrac executive Rick Sharga said many borrowers are disgusted with their lenders, feeling as though the banks are "stonewalling" their attempts to seek mortgage modifications and stay in the homes.

"There's a lot of visceral anger at the banks right now," Sharga said, adding that there may be fewer people walking away from homes if they felt lenders were negotiating in good faith.

Lenders insist they are, pointing to the mortgage modification offices they've set up across the country to help borrowers who can demonstrate actual need.

"With people who can afford their payments but their home is worth less than what they owe, that is not considered a hardship," said Nancy Norris, a spokeswoman for banking giant Chase.

Sharga says the nation's housing market is in the process of a "long, slow, relatively flat recovery that probably won't feel much better until about 2013."

The Mortgage Bankers Association issued a report Wednesday that sent mixed signals about delinquencies and foreclosures. Some figures indicating a drop in the rate of distressed loans weren't seasonally adjusted, but other numbers that were adjusted showed minor increases in late payments.

Jay Brinkmann, chief economist for the trade group, said in a statement that Florida is getting worse when it comes to delinquencies and foreclosures.

Meanwhile, Sharga and Flint said lenders are doing a good job of managing inventories of foreclosed homes.

RealtyTrac has as many as 800,000 bank-owned homes in its database, but less than 30 percent are for sale. Gradually putting those on the market helps prevent major price declines, Sharga said.

Copyright © 2010 Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Paul Owers. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Short Sales & Foreclosures – Buying Homes in Peril

William Henderson - Tuesday, May 04, 2010

The economic climate of the past year or so has led to the proliferation of homes in distress, facing short sales and foreclosures; many of these homes have made it to market where buyers are hungry to snatch up deals. While many prospective home buyers are eager to lay claim to one of these possible bargains, the fact is that not all of these homes will be a bargain.

What is important to remember though, is that not all foreclosures or short sales are a good deal.

Properties that haven’t yet progressed to the foreclosure stage are called short sales. Short sales are homes that are worth less than what is left owing on them and are subsequently sold for less than what is owed on their mortgage. A short sale can free a homeowner from their debts from the home, but can leave them still owing if their lenders won’t negotiate a settlement on the funds owing. Short sale homes may have liens on them from more than just mortgages as well; sometimes they’ll have debts connected to them based on unpaid utilities or taxes as well. Short sales can also take a long time to complete, so if you’re in a hurry to buy a home they are likely not a good choice.

Foreclosures, in contrast, are bank owned properties which can be a faster and more straightforward purchase. There are a few dangers in purchasing a foreclosure; foreclosures are usually sold as-is and consequently there is no option to have any problems repaired before you take possession of the home. Many foreclosure homes are auctioned with no opportunity to even have the home inspected so it can be hard to have a very good idea what a given property is worth.

Due to the emotional investment that many homeowners have in their homes, foreclosure can result in some passionate retribution from owners who’ve been foreclosed on, resulting in full-scale vandalism. Some homeowners who’ve suffered foreclosure strip their homes of anything that might be able to fetch a few dollars or attempt to cause as much destruction as they can to the home before they vacate. Some homes are stripped of all appliances, cabinets, and copper pipes and wires, which can cost the new owners thousands of dollars to repair and replace.

The best way to avoid thousands of dollars of unexpected costs is to engage a realtor who has experience with short sales or foreclosures, whichever you’re looking to buy into. An experienced agent on your side in this sort of endeavour is essential to make your investment progress smoothly and without any expensive pitfalls.

Looking for the deepest discounts in Foreclosures and Short Sales contact William Henderson at 786-346-5611. Be sure to check http://www.foreclosuredump.com daily.


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