Information and Expertise – Understanding the Process
In a major victory for REALTORS®, Governor Brown signed into law today a C.A.R.-sponsored bill, Senate Bill 458, prohibiting a deficiency after a short sale for one-to-four residential units, regardless of whether the lender is a senior or junior lienholder. Effective immediately for transactions closing escrow from this day forward, both senior and junior lienholders [...]
Generally, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) treats debt forgiveness by a creditor as taxable income. However, under federal legislation that took effect in 2007, certain home mortgage debt cancellations—such as loan modifications, short sales, or foreclosures—may be exempted from federal taxes. Other exemptions are also available. Homeowners considering a loan modification, short sale, or foreclosure [...]
By Connor P. Wallmark • Mar 11th, 2010 • Part I of this article reviews an agent’s counseling of a negative equity homeowner by analyzing the owner’s net worth in a balance sheet, and the agent’s advice on asset management for the residence. Underwater property: the family’s black-hole asset The Great Recession wiped out trillions [...]
By Connor P. Wallmark Part II of this article discusses the rational decision of a negative equity homeowner to strategically default on his purchase-assist mortgage, and thus force the lender to buy his property, with no personal liability for the lender’s losses when the retention of the property is a mismanagement of his assets. The [...]
By DAVID STREITFELD Published: March 7, 2010 In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave. This latest program, which will allow owners to sell for less than they owe [...]
The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) recently announced that it has shut down 85 alleged online mortgage modification scams that prey on vulnerable homeowners through Web banners and other Web advertisements. SIGTARP investigates mortgage modification schemes in which companies charge struggling homeowners a fee in exchange for [...]
Nov 24, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post
WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 17, 2011) — The seasonally adjusted delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties fell to 7.99 percent in the third quarter of 2011, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) National Delinquency Survey. This is the lowest level recorded since the fourth quarter of 2008. The third [...]
Nov 24, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post
Foreclosure filings increased 7 percent compared with September, according to the latest report from RealtyTrac. Including notices of default, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions – of which all increased month-over-month – filings were reported on 230,678 U.S. properties in October. Defaults in California, Florida, and Michigan all rose to their highest levels in at least [...]
Nov 18, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post
As another major victory for REALTORS®, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced today that it will generally not enforce the Mortgage Assistance Relief Services (MARS) Rule against real estate brokers and agents engaged in short sales. Real estate professionals must nevertheless comply with MARS prohibitions against misrepresentations and other laws prohibiting unfair and deceptive acts. [...]
Jul 18, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post
In a major victory for REALTORS®, and short sale sellers, Governor Brown signed into law today a C.A.R.-sponsored bill, Senate Bill 458, prohibiting a deficiency after a short sale for one-to-four residential units, regardless of whether the lender is a senior or junior lienholder. Effective immediately for transactions closing escrow from this day forward, both [...]
Jul 17, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post
The sheer volume of documents, price opinions, people involved, conflicting agendas and other considerations are daunting, and some agents say as few as 20 percent of short sales are successful on the first go-round. The pipeline is slowed by a still-high volume of short sales. The process of divesting yourself of a property this way [...]
May 25, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post
It’s the end of the first half and the game is in the bag. The big banks it’s seems are not only to big to fail, they are too big to be brought into compliance by the Regulators. How polite can we be? We all know that the banks, when left to their own devices, [...]
Apr 24, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post
March 10, 2011 An important message from the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®: I write on behalf of the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, whose 170,000 members continue to witness the devastating consequences the home foreclosure crisis is having on California’s families, neighborhoods, and communities on a daily basis. The number of families affected by foreclosure is [...]
Mar 13, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post
Standard & Poors The volume of distressed nonagency residential mortgage properties in the U.S. continues to fall, but at an ever-slowing pace. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services currently estimates that the principal balance of these distressed homes amounts to about $450 billion, representing nearly one-third of the nonagency residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) market currently outstanding. [...]
Feb 10, 2011 | 0 comments | View Post
What is HAFA? HAFA is a government-subsidized Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program for distressed homeowners to sell their homes to avoid foreclosure, even if the sales price is not enough to pay off their existing mortgage loans. Under HAFA, a participating lender will pre-approve the terms of a short sale and give the borrower at [...]
Nov 12, 2010 | 0 comments | View Post
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