Real Estate Information

I am just off of the phone with Tampa Bay Short Sale Attorney Chris Boss.  He is with the law firm of Yesner & Boss based in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Like many Florida homeowners from Tampa to Clearwater, Sarasota to Lakeland, St Petersburg to Pasco to Bradenton and beyond, you may find yourself underwater on your mortgage, meaning you owe more than your home is currently worth. If you’re struggling to make ends meet, and are having trouble making payments on debts you owe, a potential option may be to consult with a short sale attorney.  Chris said that he would like to offer my Sellers a FREE meeting with him to discuss their options.

A short sale is the sale of a house for fair market value, even if that value is less than what is owed on the mortgage.  If the mortgage lender agrees to accept the proceeds of the short sale, this is clearly a good thing for a struggling homeowner. However, there may be tax or other consequences to the borrower. At Yesner & Boss, P.L., a short sale attorney can guide you through the process of how to do a short sale and assist you with the legal and tax consequences of a short sale.  This course of action can be beneficial to both you and your mortgage lender, as the lender can avoid a lengthy and costly foreclosure, while you are able to pay off the loan for less than what is owed.

In addition to the financial stress faced by most people facing a possible foreclosure, the short sale process can also be very overwhelming without the proper assistance. At Yesner & Boss, P.L., a short sale attorney can assist you with the offer, sale and submission of the proceeds to the bank in order to pay off your mortgage, and in most cases there will be no further liability to you. The goal of these lawyers is to make sure you present your short sale request properly and adequately to lenders, as this can often be the difference between succeeding and failing.

At Yesner & Boss, P.L. they represent homeowners facing foreclosure or considering a short sale, and they strive to help their clients protect their home, family, and credit. Each short sale attorney from their firm successfully represents clients by assisting them with various potential solutions that can often help them to avoid foreclosure completely, avoid any deficiency judgments after a foreclosure, or to delay a foreclosure sale, allowing additional time to either sell the home or vacate the home.

There are several alternatives to foreclosure they can assist you with, including a short sale. For more information from a short sale attorney at Yesner & Boss, P.L., including information about how to avoid foreclosure, please contact them today. They will be happy to schedule an appointment for you, whether you’re located in Tampa or anywhere in Florida.

You can also visit them online at www.yesnerboss.com.

Please let me know how we can help you as your real estate agent.

Every November for the past 4 years Nathan Bangs and Associates of Keller Williams Realty has hosted a Friend and Client party.

This is our way of giving back for your business, support and referrals.

Please come join us for some New Orleans favorites at NOLA Cafe in South Tampa between 1 and 3 PM on Saturday, November 14th. 

A cup of Red Beans and Rice, Jambalaya or Chicken & Andouille Gumbo
An order of Three French Doughnuts called Beignets
and the famous Chicory Coffee Cafe Au Lait

Bring the family, bring the kids, they have Old Meeting House Ice Cream for the little ones!

Thanks!

Nathan Bangs and Team

Homeowners who walk leave houses to fate

NEW YORK – Nov. 4, 2009 – U.S. foreclosure rates are up against more than stubborn banks, as homeowners also choose to abandon their mortgages, economists said.

Credit score company Experian and consultants Oliver Wyman reported 588,000 borrowers voluntarily gave up on their mortgage payments in 2008, twice as many as the previous year, USA Today reported Tuesday.

With home prices low, many find their homes financially underwater, meaning they owe more on their mortgages than the home is worth. Under those conditions, the futility of making payments, especially if a breadwinner has lost a job, cause many to walk away and let the bank take the home.

“It’s increasingly a more important factor driving the foreclosure crisis,” said economist Mark Zandi at Economy.com.

Home prices are down more than 50 percent from their peak in Las Vegas and Phoenix and about 25 percent below on a national scale.

CitiMortgage, part of Citigroup, said 20 percent of their defaults are the result of homeowners strategically giving up on their loans.

“It’s a very large number and it’s a very, very significant risk to the housing recovery,” said Sanjiv Das, chief executive officer of CitiMortgage.

Senate panel OKs extension for home buyers’ credit

WASHINGTON – Oct. 29, 2009 – Senators reached a compromise to extend the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, a boost the housing industry expects will help it pull out of its two-year-old downturn.

Lawmakers in Washington also added a $6,500 tax credit for other primary-home purchasers and raised the qualifying income limits to $125,000 for single taxpayers and $225,000 for joint taxpayers, housing-industry sources said.

Under the Senate compromise, buyers must have sales agreements in hand by April 30, but they will have until June 30 to go to settlement, the sources said. The measure still faces votes in the full Senate and the House.

The current tax credit did little for the new-home market in September, the Commerce Department reported – news that took many industry analysts by surprise. Sales fell 3.6 percent from August and 7.8 percent from September 2008.

Industry observers had expected a fifth consecutive monthly increase in new-home sales, believing that the tax incentive for qualified first-time buyers – credited with 357,000 sales of previously owned homes so far this year – would do the trick.

Instead, sales of typically more expensive newly built houses slipped.

“The decline in new-home sales seems to us to be more a function of the attractive pricing available on resales in the current environment than a reflection of weakening demand,” said Michael Feder, president of Radar Logic Inc., of New York, which tracks the market.

“Big deal,” said Joel L. Naroff, of Naroff Economic Advisors, of Holland, Bucks County. “Since hitting rock bottom in March, demand is up 20 percent.”

For Naroff, the robust rise in existing-home purchases – 9.2 percent year over year in September – indicated that the housing market was not faltering.

“Maybe the issue is supply, which fell to its lowest level in 27 years,” he said. “Builders, at least those left standing, have been making sure they don’t have any houses sitting around, and they have been very successful in controlling inventories.”

IHS Global Insight Inc. economist Patrick Newport echoed that, noting new-home inventories “sank for the 29th straight month to their lowest level since November 1982.”

Naroff maintained housing had recovered enough to stand without the tax credit. But Newport said he believed that if the credit were not extended and expanded, housing demand would take a hit, and home sales would drop.

Until the Senate compromise today, the extension of the credit seemed mired in what National Association of Home Builders vice president Jerry Howard called “a game of partisan chicken.”

Howard’s take on the lower September numbers: It was too late to sign a contract on a house that would be completed by the current Nov. 30 deadline, and many buyers were concerned the credit would not be extended.

The credit has helped, acknowledged Marshal Granor, a principal in Granor Price Homes, of Horsham. But he added, “I’d love for it to go away, for a month.”

“People who believe there is no rush aren’t buying, they are waiting for more bargains from more squeezed sellers,” Granor said.

Still, said Feder of Radar Logic, lower home prices have carried “buyers further into the autumn than we would expect, based on historic patterns.”

Declining inventory means builders will have to ramp up production, Newport said.

As the Senate worked on the compromise, third-quarter data were released showing that the burden of foreclosure filings in the post-bubble market continued to shift from the subprime-ridden “sand” states (California, Nevada, Florida and Arizona) to areas with rising levels of unemployment and adjusting rates on the “exotic” mortgages prevalent in high-cost metropolitan markets.

Yet Las Vegas remained the toxic-loan capital, according to the third-quarter survey by RealtyTrac Inc., of Irvine, Calif. – its rate of foreclosure filings was seven times higher than the national average.

Senators differ on extending homebuyer tax credit

WASHINGTON (AP) – Oct. 27, 2009 – Top Democrats in the Senate are pressing a plan that would extend a popular tax credit for first-time homebuyers but gradually phase it out over the course of next year.

The proposal, by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., would extend the $8,000 tax credit – which expires Nov. 30 – through March 31. Its value would drop by $2,000 for each of the subsequent three quarters of 2010.

The plan, which could face a vote in the Senate this week, appears aimed at countering a far more generous $17 billion bipartisan plan that would extend the $8,000 credit through June 30, 2010, boost the income cap for eligibility and open the credit to all buyers, rather than first-timers.

Senators are maneuvering to add the homebuyer tax credit extension to legislation to extend unemployment benefits by up to 20 weeks. That bill faces a key test vote on Tuesday.

Supporters say the tax credit has helped revive the housing market and say that if it’s cut off as scheduled at the end of next month, home sales could drop off.

Reid sought to schedule a vote on the competing measures on Monday but was blocked by top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who is demanding votes on unrelated GOP proposals.

One such proposal would require people receiving unemployment insurance to be processed through the E-Verify program to prove legal immigration status and would require all federal contractors to use E-Verify. E-Verify is an Internet-based system that employers use to check on the immigration status of new hires.

The Democratic plan also would extend the ability of money-losing businesses to claim refunds on taxes paid during profitable times up to four years ago. All businesses could take advantage of the credit; when passed in February it was limited to smaller companies with annual revenues of $15 million or less.

The provision is especially popular with homebuilders who made huge profits in the housing boom but are struggling today. Critics say it’s a giveaway to some of the very companies that helped build up the housing bubble years ago.

If you know of anyone in trouble with their house, please have them contact me.   Did you know over 50% of all foreclosures have no visible means of intervention?   A persons credit can be saved with a short sale vs. a foreclosure and you would be able to buy another house in as little as two years vs. five plus with a foreclosure.  WE CAN HELP !

Being a CDPE means we have become well versed in short sales - or selling a home for less than what is owed to the bank - as this has become more and more commonplace in today's market.  In fact, on a national level some 51% of all sales in September were distressed sales, and in badly hurt markets such as Florida, Nevada and Arizona its as much as 90%. 

Foreclosures rise 5 percent from summer to fall

WASHINGTON (AP) – Oct. 15, 2009 – The number of households caught up in the foreclosure crisis rose more than 5 percent from summer to fall as a federal effort to assist struggling borrowers was overwhelmed by a flood of defaults among people who lost their jobs.

The foreclosure crisis affected nearly 938,000 properties in the July-September quarter, compared with about 890,000 in the prior three months, according to a report released Thursday by RealtyTrac Inc. That puts foreclosure-related filings on a pace to hit about 3.5 million this year, up from more than 2.3 million last year.

Unemployment is the main reason homeowners are falling into trouble. While the economy is likely out of recession, the unemployment rate — now at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent — isn’t expected to peak until the middle of next year.

Mortgage companies sometimes allow unemployed homeowners to defer three to six months of payments while they are looking for a job. But there’s little else they can do.

“The sheer scale of the problem is preventing the loan modification programs from having the kind of impact we’d all like,” said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice president for marketing.

Last week, the Obama administration hailed a milestone in its mortgage relief effort, reporting that 500,000 homeowners have received help since the program was launched in March. But new defaults are still exceeding the number of borrowers getting help.

Mortgage companies have slowed down the pace of foreclosures as they evaluate whether borrowers qualify for the administration’s program. Analysts, however, forecast that many of those homeowners won’t qualify, and foresee a new wave of foreclosed properties hitting the market next year. That’s likely to further depress home prices.

Some homeowners are in such a massive financial hole that it’s hard to design a modification that will actually provide lower payments. And some have avoided paying their monthly bills for a long time.

Carlos Estrada, 57, of Tulare, Calif., for example, hasn’t made a mortgage payment since February 2008. The construction jobs that kept him working more than 40 hours a week during the housing boom have all but vanished.

Earlier this year, he turned down a modification offer from Bank of America because it would have incorporated his unpaid balance and raised his monthly bill. But a bank spokeswoman said Wednesday that Estrada’s foreclosure sale had been postponed until late next month while the bank reviews whether he can qualify for help.

“I’m still here waiting for them to help me resolve this situation,” Estrada said in Spanish.

According to the RealtyTrac report, there were nearly 344,000 foreclosure-related filings last month, down 4 percent from a month earlier but still the third-highest month since the report started in early 2005.

It was the seventh-straight month in which more than 300,000 households received a foreclosure filing, which includes default notices and several other legal notices that homeowners receive before they finally lose their homes.

Banks repossessed nearly 88,000 homes in September, up from about 76,000 a month earlier.

On a state-by-state basis, Nevada had the nation’s highest foreclosure rate in the July-September quarter. Arizona was No. 2, followed by California, Florida and Idaho. Rounding out the top 10 were Utah, Georgia, Michigan, Colorado and Illinois.