Lynn Minnick
By Lynn Minnick
Although I’ve been in real estate for 10 years now, I just closed on my first HUD foreclosure. We haven’t had that many in my market (yet!) and so far I’ve somehow managed to avoid them. I almost fell out of my chair at the closing when the HUD attorney handed me a survey to complete regarding my experience selling the property! Really? I had a lot to say about not getting answers from the transaction management company when I asked, but mostly my beef was with the additional expenses incurred by the buyer.
1. When the information lists a repair escrow, it’s not the same as you’d think. In this case, it meant the buyer has to mortgage the amount listed ($2,000 in our example) which is held in escrow by their lender, and paid out to the contractor upon completion after the closing. This was unclear to me, the buyer, the lender and the attorney involved. There really should be some type of disclosure/explanation attached regarding this on the offer documents or somewhere in the paperwork.
2. In the case of a condo, as mine was, HUD does not provide resale packages. At $100 a pop, this was another surprise expense to the buyer, and there is no clause for condo document review. There was no ability to add such a clause either.
3. Not only are there no keys to the property, which of course I expected, but there was no remote garage door opener, and no mailbox key. (Looking back, I suppose none of that should have come as a surprise – we imagined we’d be able to get an extra mailbox key from the association – that wasn’t the case – the buyer has to install a new lock there as well. That’s more of an annoyance than an expense.) Continue reading »
Consumers who’ve been through foreclosure may think their days of owning a home are over. Not true. Share the “5 Steps to Owning a Home Again After Foreclosure” from the November “Foreclosure Resource Guide” now available at the REALTOR® Content Resource. Here’s just some of the information:
1. Rebuild your nest egg. Establish a safety net. Since you’re coming out of foreclosure, having six months of living expenses in a liquid account is a minimum to show stability and that you’re able to pay your bills if you lose your job.
2. Raise your credit score. After foreclosure, your credit score, according to myFICO, probably dropped by about 150 points. Raise it with perseverance. Pay bills on time, and keep your credit card balances below maximum levels. The foreclosure will stay on your credit report up to seven years, but it will become less of a red mark as years go by.
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By Dave Robison
A short sale would have you think it’s going to be a quick and short closing. The problem is they all have too much Junk in the Trunk. In a race, their tail end is dragging along the ground, which makes the vehicle go about as slow as my kid in a wagon.
Here are two examples of what is going wrong and what you can do about it.
First case involves Aurora. We submit an offer in to the bank on our listing from a buyer. It goes 60 days or so before we get a negotiator from the bank. In the meantime a couple comes in with an offer for higher than what the current offer is. Aurora approves a sale price and we should be good to go right? Wrong!
The bank will only take the offer they reviewed. You can’t switch it out for a higher offer. If you do, you have to cancel the offer, resubmit another offer and guess what …. wait another 60 days for a negotiator. Too much junk in the trunk! All of these policies in their trunk are making the banks lose even more money.
Second case involves Fannie Mae. Banks appraisal at $230,000. FannieMae wouldn’t accept less than $270,000. Really? That’s right, Fannie Mae won’t take anything less than $270,000 when the purchaser owes $255,000. That is just plain silly that they think a buyer is going to come up with $40,000 more than what it appraises for.
This home got foreclosed on. Today, it is on the market for the same price it could have sold for 8 months ago. They could have cut their losses 8 months ago but now their cut is getting deeper and deeper.
Third case from various lenders. They approve the short sale but want the seller to sign a note for the difference. The sellers are going into bankruptcy. This doesn’t make any sense. If they could make payments for the difference, they would rent it out and make payments for the difference.
I have three deals right now with different banks that the banks want a note and the buyer won’t sign. The buyers attorney said don’t do it. We are doing bankruptcy.
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