Jacksonville FL Real Estate Update

Melbourne, FL – Morton Massengill, Bank of America’s Chief of Loss Mitigation Relations, was rushed to Melbourne Memorial Hospital today after collapsing at a local Board of REALTORS(R) Installation Banquet.

Massengill, invited to the affair by outgoing President, Zola Klepp, spoke to attendees at length about Bank of America’s new EQUATOR (formerly Reotrans) short sale processing system. Attendees were skeptical, but hopeful that the new system would help to eliminate approval delays that have plagued the real estate industry for over 3 years. 

Table decorations were miniature beach cottages surrounded by fragrant frangipani blooms.

The bank executive apparently collapsed during a heated ‘round table’ discussion following meal service and officer installation.

Ms. Klepp explained that catering staff started serving meals to attendees long before Massingill was finished speaking, rather than waiting untill the keynote speaker was seated, as instructed. She went on to say “he apparently never got his meal.” Klepp assured reporters that the catering company would be stricken from the board's list of approved vendors.

The President of the catering company, Chef LeGay, denies any responsibility in the matter and told reporters “I find it unthinkable that anyone could starve to death in the midst of 250 pounds of filet mignon, hundreds of lobster tails, buckets of Ceasar salad and enough creme brulee to feed an army!” He went on to say “honey, something is fishy around here and it isn’t my lobster tails.”

Witnesses at the affair claim Mr. Massengill repeatedly asked about his meal after being seated, but seemed to get the “run around” in spite of advising wait staff he was “starving to death” and hadn’t eaten since 6:00 am.  Instead of food, he was reportedly served with a number of probing questions.

• “Are you sure you sent your order to the right department?”

• “Did you log into the menu system at http://www.eatwaiter.com properly? (it's case sensitive)

• “Did you remember to click “initiate” meal after entering your table number?”

• “Did you order the steak or the lobster?”

• “Do you remember the name of your waitress?”

• “Did you call 866-677-2516 to register your meal order?”

• “Did you include all of your contact info?”

• “Did you remember to initiate “other” in case a menu item was no longer available?”

• “Was your 3rd party authorization menu form filled out properly?”

• “Were you aware that if an order gets rejected three times in 7 days, the process starts over?

Mr. Massengill is expected to be released from the hospital Tuesday and fully recover after being treated for low blood sugar, slight dehydration and stress, according to officials at Melbourne Memorial.

A spokesperson for Bank of America refused comment and suggested reporters log on to the EQUATOR system for further updates.

MORE AND MORE SHORT SALE LISTINGS in your market???  SAME HERE. 

GET USED TO IT!  It's going to get worse before it gets better.

LIVE AUDIO CONFERENCE - NEW GOV'T SHORT SALE PROGRAM

Yesterday, I attended an interesting conference on Short Sales.  1.5 hours of short sale talk presented by speakers from Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Campbell Surveys, Freddie Mac, and two additional information providers. 

The MD/Northern VA market is not as bad as some geographical areas across the country, the worse being CA/NV/FL and some others.  However, in some price ranges, it's difficult to find a property listed for sale that isn't a distressed sale.   Freddie Mac has had a 600% increase in Short Sales in the past year and predicts twice that number this year.  I ran stats for 4 counties in my market area and found short sale listings as follows:

	ACTIVE Listings	Short Sale Listings
County #1	4614	1480
County #2	2647	500
County #3	2364	389
County #4	1136	246

These numbers reflect ALL listings.  The percentage of Short Sale listing is higher in lower price ranges.

WHAT IS A DISTRESSED SALE??  Depends on whom you ask!

This is important because the definition of "distressed sale" as determined by Wells Fargo and Bank of America does not include Short Sales.  These top two lenders consider Short Sales regular sales.  They consider distressed sales to be bank owned listings.

However, on page 14 of the SURVEY, Short Sales are, indeed, included in the survey as a distressed sale.

FOR A REVIEW OF THE MATERIAL COVERED IN THE CONFERENCE, read the 66 page report of the survey prepared by Campbell Surveys.   It's worth your time if you are at all involved in listing or selling Short Sales.

SEE: 

• Title:  Understanding the New Rules of the Short Sale Game:  
• Subtitle:  What Major Players Are Doing to Increase Activity

THE SHORT SALE GAME??  Take notice of the title of the Survey, "Understanding the New Rules of the Short Sale GAME". 

Some of the "rules" of the Short Sale GAME as determined by Wells Fargo, Bank of America, et al. include:

• 1.  Portfolio held mortgages will close far faster than those mortgages, first or seconds, held by investors including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.   Wells Fargo claims a 37 day start to finish short sale approval for portfolio borrowers.

• 2.  Real estate commissions are treated more favorably when the listing agent lists and markets the property as a regular sale, meaning market value of regular home owner sales (excluding bank owned).

• 3.  The lenders are looking for "market offers" and expect the short sale listings to be competitive with regular home owner listings.

 

• 4.  Home buyers who are approved by Wells Fargo Mortgage will have a competitive advantage if they finance their purchase with Wells Fargo.  With these major bank players, buyer's agents might as well get used to this practice if they are not already.  We've seen this practice with Bank of America and Wells Fargo in our market for some years now.

GET READY FOR "EQUATOR".  Beginning on page 36 of the Survey, you'll be introduced to a new tracking system being implemented to manage Short Sales for the lender.   IF, and it is a big IF, the lenders use and update this tracking system timely, it could be a helpful tool for listing agents.  Anything will be an improvement over the many hours that listing agents spend on the phone trying to get status of Short Sale contracts. 

All in all, the conference was interesting, although from start to finish, other than the promise of Equator, I heard little that will expedite approvals if there are investors involved.  What I did get from the participants was:

• Portfolio loans will receive approval faster than investor held loans.
• Lenders are going to be seeking "market value" for the properties.
• Lenders are going to use their position to attempt to finance short sale buyers.
• Lenders will support agents commissions as agreed if the listing agents market the properties aggressively.
• Lenders do not consider Short Sales to be "distressed listings".
• Short Sales are complicated by many diverse interests and lenders.
• Fannie and Freddie have no viable programs to help home owners keep their homes.

The Live Audio Conference - New Government Short Sale Program, was sponsored by the Dulles Area Association of Realtors ("DAAR").   Not a week goes by without opportunities for well presented and managed seminars, luncheon meetings with speakers from our local real estate market ara.   DAAR is a small local board devoted to LOUDOUN COUNTY REALTORS.  DAAR is are staffed by friendly and helpful folks and offers a wealth of CE and other resources to help Loudoun County Realtors be the best that we can be to serve the home buying and selling consumer. 

Courtesy, Lenn Harley, Broker, Homefinders.com, 800-711-7988.

Has your short sale or loan modification been turned down and you have no idea why? Let's examine some of the reasons. These reasons may not make you feel any better or maybe they are just excuses by your lender, however there are a few things you may not even know about your loan.

Let's say that you make your mortgage payment to Wells Fargo. You can no longer handle your payments so you ask Wells Fargo to modify your loan- to do a loan modification for you. You are behind in your payments. You are in fact, in foreclosure but you are still living in your home and the judge in your case has not ordered the sale of your home at auction yet. You are scared. You see your neighbors losing their homes all around you. You are hopeful because you see on the news and in the newspapers that the Federal Making Homes Affordable Program has been helping some folks keep their home and get a loan modification.

You are no longer making your mortgage payment because your adjustable rate has been applied and your mortgage payment has gone from $1600 a month to $2300 per month. You just can not make these payments. You have been trying for almost 2 years now to get Wells Fargo to approve your loan modification. You even hired an attorney to help you with your foreclosure defense.

Wells Fargo turns down your loan modification request. You wonder, how could this be? After all, Wells Fargo is one of the large lenders and is participating in the government's Federal Making Homes Affordable program.

But Wells Fargo tells you that the investor is the one that will not allow you to get a loan modification. What in the world is an investor doing making decisions on your loan you wonder. Well, you are not alone in your confusion. Every day we are explaining the whole mortgage note owner thing to buyers agents, real estate agents and homeowners.

Just because you make your house payments to Wells Fargo does not mean they own that note that you are paying on. They are the servicer. Other words you will hear them called are  asset management companies.

The very first thing you need to do before you ask for a loan modification is to find out who actually owns your note. You can do this by calling who you make your mortgage payments to and asking them.

If it is Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae that own your note- you have a much better chance at getting your loan modification approved if you qualify. If it is a private group of investors, your chances go way down. Why would this happen?

One in eight homeowners' loans were sold to investors on Wall Street. What happens is that a bunch of loans are packaged together. These are called mortgage-backed securities. They are then sold off to investors. Homeowners who have mortgage-backed securitized loan are five times more likely to be late on their house payments. Many of these borrowers were given loans they were not qualified for from the beginning. Many of the homeowners getting these loans did not read the fine print and did not realize how high their mortgage payments might go when adjusted.

The rules to allow modifications, short sales and terms of foreclosures and deficiencies are ambiguous at best. Homeowners who are told no by the investor have little recourse.

The federal Making Homes Affordable program lenders who participate in the program must modify all homeowners that qualify. The exception is when the investor has a rule that they do not allow modifications.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported to Congress on June 3rd that these securitized mortgages are a "hurdle" to the success of the Making Homes Affordable program. The treasury department has not disclosed why the modifications are denied so there are little to no facts to go on.

Why would the investors say no to your loan modification? Well, Wells Fargo's response is that the investors need their money. Wells Fargo has one situation where the borrowers ( the homeowners) are trying to get their loan modified but Goldman Sachs is the issuer and Deutsche Bank is the trustee. But when you go and talk to these investors and we have on several occasions when doing short sale negotiations for our sellers; the investor passes the buck back to the servicer. For instance, Deutsche Bank says that Wells Fargo is solely responsible for the decision to modify a loan or not.

Some people say that the investors are the scapegoats. Everything can easily be blamed on them. Since you rarely get to speak to anyone at the investors' group it is hard to tell who is telling the truth. In this particular situation Wells Fargo is saying that the investor is not forgiving the past due debt and that makes the payment go up on a loan modification because then Wells Fargo would have to put that past due balance along with all the penalties and fees into the loan modification which then may cause the homeowner to not qualify financially for the loan modification.

Servicers have agreements, contracts that they sign with investors. These agreements contain the rules for modifications. These agreements are called Pooling and Servicing Agreements which is known as PSA's. The PSA is most often what the servicer says is the reason for them not being able to do the loan modification or release the deficiency on a short sale.

But when you talk to other people in the management areas or to the investors they claim that there is nothing in the PSA's that would prevent the servicer from approving loan modifications, short sales and releases. There is a new study coming out from a law school wherein they state that only 8% of these mortgage-backed securities  agreements contain any language that says the servicer is not allowed to do a loan modification for these notes. That means that about 92% of all the NO's; could actually be YES's. So why would that even happen?

Fear of law suits! The language in the PSA in question here, Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank- it says that Wells Fargo can "waive, modify or vary any term" as long as Wells Fargo as the servicer makes a "reasonable and prudent determination" that the modification is in the investor's best interest. Attorneys examining these agreements say there is quite a bit of room for servicers to make these decisions. But the language itself in this agreement is enough for the servicers legal counsel to be concerned with the investor suing them for not acting in the best interest of the investor. They can not, no matter how inhumane this sounds, put the homeowner ahead of the investor. This is about business and if they want business from investors they need to make sure they are looking out for the interests of the investors.

The treasury department has stated that the fear of law suits is the biggest deterrent to getting the servicers to approve loan modifications and short sales. So doing little or simply turning down the loan modifications are the answer many servicers choose. This is not personal and this is not against you, the homeowner. The position of the servicers is to watch their own backs and to protect the assets to which they have been entrusted with, your mortgage-backed security. The Treasury Department says they can relieve some of the pressure of the fear of lawsuits by standardizing requirements for loan modifications and also provide some type of calculation to figure out if the investor will make more money by the loan modification or by the foreclosure.

We need to keep in mind one big thing in all of this and that is that these investors end up being regular people because most of these mortgage-backed securities were bought by pension funds and retirement plans of folks like your parents or even yourselves. You may well be one of the shareholders of the very loan you can not pay.

 

        

 

 

To  view Florida Short Sales- Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

 

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Is Your Short Sale Or Loan Modification Being Turned Down?-was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Is Your Short Sale Or Loan Modification Being Turned Down?* 

 

How do  you know when your home is overpriced?

Well you could have your agent pull comps and if they're half way competent you could take their word for it.

Or you could wait until the lock box on your front door sits long enough for all the creepy crawly things to feel safe enough to make it their home.

Bottom line if the spider living in your lock box is netting more visitors than  you are chances are you're priced out of the market.

Statistically they say it takes two to three times longer to sell a home through price reductions than it does to price it right up front.

If your home is priced right for it's condition, for it's competition, and for the market, your agent shouldn't have to proceed with caution when removing the lock box from your door.

You can save yourself time and net a bigger return doing the research upfront and gettig the equation right from the start.

As for me I don't like spiders so if I show up at your door and your lock box looks like this, I'm going to leave it and it's inhabitants for the next agent.

 

 

Like many real estate agents I am getting more than a little ticked off at how the government banks are handling the foreclosures and the sale of homes and condos. In my opinion, they are running the real estate market right into the ground. Of course, right behind them are the appraisers who are actually "untouchable" now thanks to the HVCC Home Valuation Code of Conduct. One of my favorite blogger's Chris Griffith wrote about this recently. Right behind them are the underwriters who yes work for the banks.

So do I sound ticked off? Well I am and right now I am beginning to think it's some kind of conspiracy to cripple the middle class. No I am not going nuts it's just I am seeing first hand what is happening to the real estate market here in Macomb County, just outside Detroit. I just can't take it anymore and I think people need to know what's going on. I think the banks are holding real estate prices back.

Here's why -

• last month we sold a home that was listed at $149,000 it had 7 offers and our buyer offered $169,900. Now that means the market is talking right? Not quite - although our buyer's offer was the best and his offer was accepted the appraiser brought the value in at $152,000. So much for the market talking. The best part is this home sold in 1988 brand new for $150,000 and the township well they are collecting taxes based on a value of $241,000.

• a few weeks back we sold a condo for $92,000 actually we thought it was a pretty good deal.  Guess our 20 years of real estate experience means nothing - the appraiser said it was worth $83,000. The estate was appalled because their mom paid $80,000 in 1979. Of course, they were forced to sell since we could not fight the appraiser.
  

• this tops them all - a condo sells for $83,000 this time the appraiser says it's worth $85,000 - ready for this one? The underwriter says No - she ran the automated evaluation system and said it was worth $73,000. What???
  

• here's one that I have first hand knowledge of - we bought a condo in 2003 for $105,000 bank owned. These units sold back in 1994 for $65,000 and in 1988 brand new for $58,000. But in the past 3 years the banks have ran the market right into the ground - $95,000, $62,500, $59,900, $49,900, $44,900, $40,500, $38,000. Urgh
  

Now remember Macomb County was NOT an area that went way up in value. No this area did not see double digit appreciation in a couple years. We had normal appreciation and then the banks came in and ran it right into the ground. The other day I saw a home selling in Detroit for $850 yep you read that right. No it was not a wreck. It was a 3 bedroom brick home with a basement and a garage and a few miles from where I grew up. Sick just sick.

So what do you think?