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Author Archives: Lane Bailey

This might actually help…

Walk-away borrowers have been a problem in a few markets (luckily, not so much in Atlanta).  The government and lending industry are both looking at ways to keep borrowers from just walking away.

So, here is the situation…

Someone buys a home with a 0% down loan.  The market turns a bit south, and now the property is worth less than the mortgage balance.  The ARM is getting ready to reset, or does reset to a higher rate.  The payment is no longer comfortable. 

At this point, the borrower is faced with a tough decision.  They can stop paying… it will take a few months for the bank to foreclose.  They can try to sell the home in a short sale.  Or, they can try to find a way to refi or keep on making the higher payments. 

The problem is that a lot of borrowers are choosing to ride it out as long as possible, and then walk away.  There are even websites and groups promoting this.  They tell people facing these choices that they can “save” thousands of dollars and not face any negative consequences.  They are right that one could bank up a goodly amount of cash (house payments for 3-12 months)… but there are going to be negative consequences.

The government and the lending industry are taking aim at “walk-away” home owners who stop making payments and months later send the house keys back to their lender.

Such borrowers will not be able to get another mortgage through Fannie Mae for five years, unless there are “documented extenuating circumstances.” In that case, the prohibition is three years. Even after the prescribed time has elapsed, a borrower with a foreclosure in his file will have to make at least a 10 percent down payment and have a FICO credit score of at least 680 to qualify for a Fannie Mae loan.

Freddie Mac, which counts foreclosures as major credit black mark for seven years, is now aggressively pursuing walk-away borrowers where permitted under state law, a senior official said.

Federal legislation enacted last year allows home owners who negotiate loan modifications with lenders and have portions of their principal debt eliminated to escape income tax liability for the amount forgiven.

Walk-away borrowers, by contrast, have nothing forgiven, and the Internal Revenue Service may demand taxes on the balance they never paid, the IRS says.

Source: Washington Post Writers Group, Kenneth R. Harney (04/12/2008)

There are some very good short sale agents (I’ll tell you flat out that I am not one of them… it is a specialty that requires more than a 4 hour class to do well… and a complete focus on just short sales) and a good short sale agent can negotiate a loan modification to sell the home.

Do yourself a favor.  If you are in trouble, get help.  I’ll be happy to help find a good short sale specialist wherever you are.   If you want to stay in your home, contact your bank.  Talk to them.  It won’t be fun, but it will be way better than having the Sheriff do an eviction.

Here’s a deal…

This story was my “Good Morning” today.  The AP and AOL conducted a poll, and while the story is probably accurate (technically), I am seeing a serious bias here.  And I really don’t like to play the media bias card…  Let me toss out a couple of quotes from the article:

The growing reluctance to dip into the housing market seems to stem partly from worry that housing prices will continue falling — good if you’re buying a house but bad if you have to sell one.

The public anxiety is in reaction to an economy that is veering toward recession and losing jobs even as the housing market sputters badly. Foreclosures have soared to record highs, mortgage rates have increased, sales of existing and new homes have fallen and home values have dropped.

Of course, with a title like AP poll: More avoid buying homes, one shouldn’t expect it to be rosy…

Same story… different quotes:

Some pockets buck regional trends. Laurie Jensen, a single mother of three, struggles to make payments on her home in Whitehall, Mont., by working as a seasonal road construction flagger and at times collecting unemployment. She said she’d like to move outside of town, but the area is popular and prices have surged.

“Things are pretty crazy,” she said. “Places I don’t consider that great are really expensive.”

Even so, he said, many people bought their homes before the run-up in values that started around 2001 and remain in good shape.

“So the value of your house goes down temporarily,” he said. Unless the homeowner must sell now or can’t afford the payments, “that doesn’t have that much of an impact.”

There are a lot of stats in the article… but, as you read it, try to stay open to both sides of the picture…

“This is a great time to buy, but not necessarily to sell,” said Robert Jackson, who lives in a two-bedroom house in Ferguson, Mo., with his wife and four young children. He said he would love to purchase a larger home, but can’t because even if he found a buyer, he would probably lose thousands on his house, which he bought less than two years ago.

“We’re just going to have to slap a Band-Aid on it and stay here until the market gets a little bit better,” Jackson, 30, said in a follow-up interview.

Let’s look at this a bit more objectively.  If Mr. Jackson can afford a bigger house, he should do it.  The same “discount” that drops the price of the home he would be selling would be dropping the price of the home he would be buying.  If he loses $5,000 to gain a $10,000 discount on the $200,000 house he wants for his family, that seems like a good net to me.  I just don’t think that the best plan is to wait until the prices go up on both homes…

Now, if he were retiring and wanted to sell his big house and down-size… I’m right there.  It wouldn’t be the best time.  Taking the $10,000 hit to get a $5,000 discount isn’t good business.

Here is a another…

One in 10 have adjustable rate mortgages, half of the number who said so two years ago. These mortgages generally start at a low interest rate and are later adjusted to market conditions — which has often meant steep, unaffordable boosts that have forced many to refinance or even lose their homes.

Daniel Gallego, a warehouse worker in Stockton, Calif., said he may have to sell his home at a big loss. He said rising gasoline and other costs have made his adjustable rate mortgage unaffordable. Because he doesn’t expect his home’s value to recover soon, he said he may be better off moving now, before his rates rise.

So, nothing positive to say about fewer people having adjustable rate mortgages?   Nor a mention that the resets have been less than expected because of the slowing economy…  I’m not even going to hit on the idea that many of the adjustable rate borrowers weren’t real responsible taking out loans that they really didn’t have a plan to be able to pay back…

There is no doubt that the real estate market is not groovy for a lot of people… especially those that need to sell.  However, the fact remains that it isn’t as bad for most as it is for a few.  There are some pockets that are incredibly bad… and many in the media are portraying those as representative.  There are also a lot of places that are just chugging along.

I also don’t want to chime in with the NAR’s “All Real Estate is Local” mantra, but you really should look into the area that you are in and/or considering.  Heck, I’m starting to see builders jumping back in again.

Sunday, Air Video Sunday

I wanted to elevate the level of the videos today a little higher… So, let’s get airsick.

The first one is the gentler of the two…

The second one is a little wilder…

I hope you enjoyed…

I also want to apologize for the slow reaction of the site of the last few days. I believe it is corrected now.

Problem solved, slowdown sped up.

I figured out what was slowing down my blog when it was loading up.  I have corrected the problem and the page loads up MUCH faster now.

Look for the video post later today.

Thank you for your patience.

Are you NOT in a car club?

If you are an enthusiast, you should be…Curtis and Jay at Beasley Knob

I posted a few days ago offering a free rotating banner on my website for any local car club (or local chapter of a national club).  I would love to have as many clubs as possible showing themselves so that people coming to Atlanta can find them.

But, what if you are an auto enthusiast and aren’t in a car club?

You really should be.  There are several great reasons to join a club of like minded enthusiasts.  To start with, there are the friends.  If you have a GTO, and join a group of other GTO owners, you all have a similar interest.  You will probably find that your fellow members are like-minded in a lot of ways.  So, it’s fun to hang out after the meetings and compare experiences and trade tips.  Of course, there are the great technical resources.  You can bet that the other folks in the Porsche Club know exactly who should and should not service their cars.  And they are quite willing to share that info.  Instead of finding out the hard way that the independent shop around the corner isn’t really that good, get 50 personal referrals for a great shop.  And then there are the deals. Mud for Blood 2 Almost every club I have been involved in has had a member or three just want to make sure that some parts or cars found a good home.  In some cases, they were parts that were tough to find.  In other cases, it was a cheap price because the seller wanted to make sure that someone was going to car for the toy.  Finally, by joining together with other enthusiasts, you can accomplish great things.  Oddly, nobody talks about it, but every car club, 4wd club and motorcycle club I have ever come across seems to have adopted some charity or cause.  Usually it is because a member has had some connection at some time.  And, these groups of enthusiasts band together and promote the cause.  Toy drives at Christmas, Charity Runs, Blood Drives and all sorts of other events raise money and awareness.

So, if you are just about any kind of auto enthusiast, find a good club and join up.  Participate.  You’ll have a great time, meet great people, and maybe even accomplish some great things.

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