Real Estate Information

 By: Sarah Stelmok, ABR, GRI, e-Pro / Trulia

Listing a short sale is a little like venturing into the wild, wild west.  There’s only a little order, lots of imposters, and laws are broken without much penalty.

Real estate agents bring a little stability to the transaction, but a short sale’s success depends on a variety of variables.  This type of transaction is constantly evolving; however there are a few things that remain the same, and that every agent needs to know when working with short sales.

Market Value Matters

Short sales sell for market value.  That’s right.  A bank will typically agree to a short sale if the numbers make sense.  Banks understand that homes need to appraise.  Banks also need to mitigate their loss.

Listing a home for well below market value is not the best strategy for getting a short sale accepted.  Sure, you may get plenty of offers, but if the bank won’t accept any of them you end up having wasted a ton of  energy, not to mention paper, and facing quite a few angry potential buyers.

Banks are no longer in the business of giving away houses.  If you send the bank numbers that make sense, you increase your likelihood of a successful short sale closing by 90%.

Only Real Hardships Get the Help

I’ve lost count of the number of times potential sellers have told me the only reason they are pursuing a short sale is because everyone else is doing it. Purchasing a house during the housing boom is not a legitimate hardship.  Purchasing a house during the housing boom and being unable to pay your mortgage is a hardship.

Strategic default is never a good idea! Banks actually analyze short sale sellers’ hardships, and most center on the economy, so the bank is going to make sure that a short sale is in their own best interest.  Acceptable hardships include medical issues, divorce, disability, significant loss of income, death, unemployment, and relocation.

Laws are local

It’s important to know your state’s foreclosure laws because there are currently no national short sale laws on the books.  There are federal guidelines, but they can be applied when and how a bank wants.

States, however, can either have recourse loans or non-recourse loans.  A recourse loan allows the bank to demand a borrower pay the difference between what the property is sold for and what is owed on the lien.  Many recourse states allow lien holders (banks) to pursue judgment liens against the borrower for the deficiency amount.  This process allows the bank to garnish a borrower’s wages until the debt is paid off.  Garnishments can be as much as 25% of non-exempt disposable earnings, and bankruptcy doesn’t always save a defaulted borrower from judgment liens.

Real estate agents are not allowed to practice law, unless they are actually licensed to do so. However, agents do need to be aware of possible penalties for short selling a home and also be able to direct their clients to the right resources to discuss the possible consequences and solutions.

Short sales, just like the once-wild west, can be scary to navigate. That’s why it can pay to learn the lay of the land. If you do, there can be a few successful commission in it for you, and some much-needed relief for your clients.

Real Estate

Houses are more affordable than they’ve been in a decade...

By Pat Mertz Esswein, Associate Editor

From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, October 2011

1. Prices have nearly hit bottom.

In most areas, most of the excess has finally been wrung out of the market. But if you’re buying a first home or looking to trade up, there’s no need to rush. Although prices may fall some more -- blame foreclosures still working their way through the system and tighter credit -- they won’t fall by much. Fiserv Case-Shiller, which tracks home prices, forecasts that the median price nationwide will ratchet down for about six more months, then stay flat for three or four years.

In most of the cities where home values experienced a double dip after the expiration of the home buyer’s tax credit in mid 2010, median prices won’t fall below their 2009 or 2010 lows, says David Stiff, Fiserv’s chief economist. These cities include San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego and Washington, D.C. But in cities with lingering oversupply of homes for sale, Fiserv forecasts a decline of 10% or more in the median home price (for the year ending March 31, 2012). These cities include Riverside–San Bernardino, Cal.; Las Vegas; and Miami.

2. Houses are affordable again.

Homes haven’t been this affordable since 1991. Economists often define affordability as the ratio of median home price to median family income. According to Fiserv Case-Shiller, the U.S. ratio now stands at 2.6 -- down from a peak of 4.1 in mid 2005 and just under the long-term average of 2.8. Of course, some areas continue to defy affordability. In California’s coastal cities and the New York metro area, the ratio is 5 or more. Average mortgage payments are another way to look at affordability. Since the housing market’s peak in 2006, the average principal-and-interest payment in the U.S. has fallen from $1,063 to $645.

Renters considering the jump to homeownership may be encouraged by the price-rent ratio, or the median home price divided by the median annual rent. In 2005, the national median home price had inflated to nearly 21 times the median annual rent, according to Marcus & Millichap, a commercial real estate brokerage company in Encino, Cal. Since the bust, the ratio has deflated to 14, less than the historical average of 15. During the same period, the difference between the median monthly mortgage payment and median monthly rent fell from $745 nationally to $102. Marcus & Millichap expects rental vacancy rates to hit pre­recession levels this year, allowing landlords to raise rents by an average of 3.5%.

3. Mortgage rates won't go any lower.

For the past couple of years, interest rates have hovered at levels last seen when the veterans came home from the Korean War. According to HSH.com, which tracks mortgage rates, at the beginning of August the national average 30-year fixed rate was 4.5%. FHA loans, which require only a 3.5% down payment, had a 4.3% rate. Adjustable-rate mortgages are even cheaper, and even rates for jumbo mortgages have hit lows not seen since the 1980s.

Freddie Mac forecasts a 30-year fixed rate of 5% by year-end and 6% by late 2012. Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating won’t have an immediate effect on rates because of the weak economy (see Ripple Effects of the U.S. Debt Downgrade). But credit is tighter, and you’ll need a credit score of 740 or more and a down payment of at least 25% to nab the lowest rates. If you fall short of that, you’ll pay interest-rate risk premiums if the bank plans to sell your loan to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. For example, lenders must charge an extra 0.25 point if a borrower has a 740 credit score but puts down less than 25% (but at least 20%).

4. It's a buyer's market.

Demand is low; supply is high. In early summer, the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes (single-family houses and condos) fell by 9% from the year before. NAR also reported 9.5 months’ supply of homes. That’s how long it would take to sell all the homes on the market at the current pace of sales, and it strongly favors buyers. (Four to six months’ supply is considered balanced between buyer and seller.)

With so much selection, you’ll find more properties in good school districts or near your job, or homes that offer added value, such as a mother-in-law suite, says Thomas Popik, research director with the Campbell surveys of real estate professionals. You’ll spend less time shopping and competing against other bidders. And you don’t have to waste time with sellers who set unrealistic prices (although they’re still out there).

One caveat: If you’re searching among entry-level homes, which had more extreme price declines than upper-end houses did over the past year, you may face stiff competition from investors. They typically pay cash, which makes them attractive to sellers who want to close the deal fast. However, says Popik, you may find opportunities in homes that were bought and fixed up by investors, who intended to flip them but have had difficulty making a sale.

5. You may find a distressed property.

Bank-owned foreclosures (or REOs, for “real estate owned” properties) sell for an average discount of 35% off the per-square-foot price of conventional homes for sale, according to RealtyTrac. In the first half of 2011, lenders owned about 870,000 REOs but listed only about one-fifth of them for sale, concentrated in such high-foreclosure states as Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nevada and Ohio; even with the slowdown in the foreclosure pipeline due to legal-processing issues and new supply exceeds sales. Find more on buying foreclosures. Short sales, or homes sold with lenders’ permission for less than their owners owe on their mortgages, have also grown in number. Lenders have become more amenable to them as they seek to avoid the often huge losses associated with foreclosures, says Rick Sharga, of RealtyTrac. Short sales offer buyers less of a bargain than REOs, but the homes tend to be in better condition. Banks may still take two to six months to sign off on a short sale, so patience is imperative.

6. Homeownership is still attractive.

A home is the biggest purchase most people ever make. But deciding whether and what to buy isn’t purely a financial decision, says Chris Herbert, research director at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. When you own a home, you can control your living environment and security, upgrade and change your home as you see fit, and create a sense of rootedness in your community.

You can offset some of the cost of homeownership by deducting mortgage interest. But don’t mistake a home for an investment, at least not in the short run. “If your goal is to jump in and get a return of 6% annually, that’s a bad idea,” says Fiserv’s Stiff, given the forecast for weak price appreciation. Instead, you need to commit to owning the home for at least five to seven years to ride out any further price declines and recoup your down payment and transaction costs. If you think that you might need a bigger home before that time to accommodate a growing family or that you might have to move to another area for your job, don’t buy unless you’re willing to become a long-distance landlord.

Shop carefully, and be patient. Exclusive buyer’s agent Michael Crowley of Spokane, Wash., tells buyers it may take three to four months to find the right house. “We can be in a hurry, or we can be particular, but we can’t be both,” he says.

September 25, 2011 - Content From Trulia

In today’s market, most listings aren’t instantly flying off the market. While we all know price is one of the most important factors in the sale of a home, there are other factors they can improve the saleability of your listings. Here are a few tips to get that stale listing sold plus a handy download designed just for sellers.

(1) Offer incentives or alternative financing options

Incentives can make a big difference for buyers who are stretching to find the down payment to buy a home or who may be sitting on the edge of loan limits. Seller incentives such as paying for closing costs, inspections, or repairs, or providing allowances or credits for home upgrades after closing can make a big difference to home buyers short on cash. Other alternatives could include pre paying taxes, homeowners dues and insurance. Consider offering buyer incentives to encourage on the fence buyers to take action on your listing.

(2) Make it accessible

Take a hard look at the accessibility of a home. Today’s home buyer is impatient. They want to see homes and they want to see them now. Make sure your listings are simple and easy to show. Carl Medford, an agent with Prudential California Realty in the San Francisco Bay Area believes home accessibility is the #1 reason homes don’t sell. “If we can’t get in, we can’t show the house. If we can’t show the house, we can’t sell it. We frequently end up showing less than six homes because we can’t get access to homes on the list.”

(3) Expose it- everywhere!

We are often surprised by the number of homes with property addresses undisclosed on the internet. It’s no secret homebuyers are looking on the internet for homes, make sure they can easily find it. Two popular search filters we see prospective homebuyers using on Trulia.com are filters for listings with open houses and filters for listings with price reductions.  Want more eyeballs on your listings? Make sure they are updated weekly on popular real estate search sites like Trulia and Craigslist and be sure to list your open home times to get the max exposure for your listings. Want more info?  Call The Steve Ticknor Team 503-336-6111

(4) Refresh Your Photos!

(Today’s homebuyer spends a lot of time online. As your listing becomes stale, so do the property photos. Consider retaking the photos, especially if seasons have changed. If taking new photos is out of the question, you may want ot consider changing up the order your photos display online to give it a fresh appearance for web browsing buyers. Many agents start their photos with a picture of the front of the house when they would be better served displaying the huge backyard or the amazing chef’s kitchen.

(5) Put some zing in your marketing copy

In addition to stale photos, your marketing copy may be putting prospective buyers to sleep. “Check out my 3 bedroom, 2 bath home in a great location.”  Yawn. Add some zing to your headlines and descriptions to draw the attention of homebuyers. Your marketing copy needs to tell a story that appeals to the people most likely to buy your listing. Your copy can get old too. Simply freshening it up frequently is a good way to capture more attention to your listings.

It’s your turn- what other tips do you use to move your listings?

Call The Steve Ticknor Team - 503-336-6111