We are now awaiting a briefing that is supposed to be coming from the Treasury Department near the end of September, but today is the 30th and we’ve yet to hear another word. Up til now, the short sale process here in Georgia and nationwide has been a stressful roller coaster with many. Many Georgia agents will roll their eyes at the thought of attempting a short sale and some have even been known to deter buyers away from making offers.

This coming program would give banks an incentive to speed up the acceptance process, which would surely be good for Atlanta homeowners as well as homeowners nationwide. But, like we mentioned in previous posts, would this program even work? Banks who have been slammed with thousands upon thousands of requests for short sales on top of the many loan mod applications.

“We had a learning curve…Any stakeholder has a right to disapprove the sale. Realtors out there were used to regular sales. Now, all of a sudden, the servicer and Realtor have had to learn a lot,” says David Knight, Sr VP of Default Retention Operations, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, in a recent USA Today interview.

We certainly hope the program helps Georgia homeowners, but we’re not holding our breath for government programs to actually make a dent here locally. We try to stay ahead of the curve and try to beat the short sale system banks have set up, as they are a large percentage of Georgia home sales. Other Atlanta agents may avoid them all together, but signs in the market show that short sales are going to be around for many years to come. Atlanta, we’ll be here for you still.

Post from: Georgia Short Sale

Short Sale Changes Coming to Georgia?

“I want your 401k!” …is what your bank will say if you send in your 401k documentation, included in your short sale package. Did they ask for this information? NO! Do they need to take your every last cent and any small chunk of change you might have in a 401K or other stock plan, no.

So why do other short sale agents send this information in with the short sale package only to have the lender ask the poor homeowner for every last dime? I don’t know. The lender will ask for documentation from you, and most every single time, stock or 401k documentation is not required. If your Atlanta short sale agent is requesting this documentation as part of a short sale package, RUN.

Now, some of you, in an attempt to save your credit, have already tapped that 401k to pay the mortgage. But, what happens when it’s gone? Right, you’re in the same boat as before… just several thousand down the drain.

You shouldn’t hide this from your lender by any means and that’s not what we are suggesting. They just don’t ask for it in order to make a short sale decision, so why would you give it to them?

Post from: Georgia Short Sale

I Want Your 401K

We thought it might be a good idea to start sharing some of our short sale approval letters with you so you can see what kind of discounts banks are giving on short sales. This short sale is located in Lawrenceville, GA. The lender on this family’s property was HSBC. They owed $154,000 and the bank was willing to accept a short sale net payoff of just over $80,000.

This Lawrenceville family is now moving on with their life and out from under this massive debt.

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Lawrenceville Short Sale Approval Letter

I think we can all agree that this housing market is terrible, but this video might just make you laugh… or make you angry. Timothy Geithner is having a little trouble selling his $1.6 Million dollar house in New York. That’s right, the current United States Secretary of the Treasury can’t sell his house. You may know him from his infamous $1.5 Trillion dollar bank bailout plan. Watch and comment.

Post from: Georgia Short Sale

Home Crisis Investigation

I had an interesting conversation with a client the other day (before they became a client) and in it, the client posed the question about qualifing.

They were told that they did not qualify by a real estate agent because the home they needed to short was now a rental property.

Unfortunately, many people believe this!

In this process, the bank will sometimes be unpredictable, but most times the bank bases their judgements on your ability to pay the mortgage and your hardship situation. So you could be a savvy investor but if you’ve fallen on hard times and the property is upside down, it may very well be a short sale candidate.

The key is getting to a professional who actually specializes in Short Sales!

There’s so much mis-information out there about who can do a short sale and who cannot and what happens….etc. The bottomline is do your research.

Ask questions of the person helping you or giving you information. How many deals are you working? How many have you closed? Success ratio… etc.

Post from: Georgia Short Sale

How Do I Qualify For A Short Sale?

I ran across a Nightline special that I remembered seeing a few months back and I wanted to share it on ShortSalesAtlanta.com because I know many of you can relate to it. If you have attempted to modify your existing loan, you understand how hard it can be. Even the Obama administration has commented on the lack of action taken by the major lenders. After the Making Home Affordable Plan went into action, many homeowners felt a sense of hope, only to get the “run around” from their lender. Watch the Nightline video below.

We run across hundreds of families every month who have attemtped a loan modification here in Georgia and have experienced the same, “run around”. If this is you and your Georgia loan mod didn’t work, please don’t walk away. There is help.

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Loan Modification Nightmare! Is Obama Plan Working?

When counseling a home owner, I remember telling them that the bank could come after them for a deficiency judgment. They would ask, how likely that would be and I’d say I’ve never seen it or heard it. Sounded like an idle threat.

Here’s the scenario:

Home Owner owes $500,000
Home is worth: $400,000

The home owner has options.

1. Attempt a short sale for $400,000 and get a short sale expert to take care of it and if all goes well, the $100,000 is forgiven.
2. Let the bank take the home, take the home to auction, buy it back and resell it several months later for $350,000. Afterall, a foreclosure is going to get them less.

Both of these things take time, but in the instance of a foreclosure, if the home owner manages to make a clean break and get back on their feet, guess who might be standing at the door with their hand out?

That’s right, the bank.

This is becoming more and more common as the banks scramble to recoup the money. Garnished wages is just one way that can happen.

Post from: Georgia Short Sale

Deficiency Judgements From Foreclosure On The Rise

SHORT SALES TAKE TIME!

Even the fastest short sale deals take some time because of the process banks have to go through to approve one. If you’re a Georgia real estate agent and your client wants to offer on a short sale, educate them on the process and tell them it’s going to take some time for the banks to approve it.

For the sake of all of the homeowners losing their homes, make sure your client is ready and willing to ride out the short sale process to get the best deal. If not, they will get anxious and they’ll start asking you, “Did you hear anything?”, “What’s taking so long?”, “What’s wrong? It’s a yes or no…”
While in theory, it sounds simple, offer on a short sale, the bank says yes or no, and you close or walk away. But, banks have to establish your hardship, they have to establish the value of your house, next they assign the short sale to a negotiator who has to look at it, and then and only then will they give you an answer. This process can take a month or sometimes 2-5 months.

Remember, 1 in 8 homeowners are behind in payments and 1 in 5 are upside down. They have TONS of foreclosures they are dealing with. I was looking at Fulton County’s foreclosures tonight and there are THOUSANDS… yes thousands.

Short sales take time. If you intend on buying a short sale property, make sure your ready to hang in there. If not, don’t waste the owners time. If you bail, they have to start over marketing the house for another buyer. By that time they might be losing the house. Think about it.

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Are You Going to Offer on a Short Sale Property in Georgia? What You Need to Know.