Walker’s Wholesale Houses

According to the 12/11/2008 Richmond Times Dispatch

Foreclosures in Virginia continue to rise from a year ago, but the rate here is better than it is nationally.

One in every 567 Virginia households, or a total of 5,694, received a foreclosure filing in November, according to a RealtyTrac report released today. By comparison, one in every 488 U.S. households receiving a filing. Filings include notices of default, trustee sales and foreclosure sales, according to the online database.

Filings here rose 121 percent last month from November 2007, while nationally they increased 28 percent, according to the report.

This number shows the market in pre-foreclosures is still very active.  What this report doesn’t reveal is how many of these are upside down, or how many can have a deal made from them. 

Source: Homeowners Delusional On Values – More Dangerous Than Banking Crisis? 

Rob Blake reports on a Zillow survey showing in fast relief just how out of touch the average home owner is when it comes to evaluating their own home’s value.  He takes a spin wondering if that will lead to a real estate freeze, not because of lending requirements, but because no one wants to pay an inflated price.

According to the Richmond Times Disptach, title company Land America is laying off 120 workers because of

The title insurance company and real estate services provider has been hurt by the housing downturn.

Source: LandAmerica lays off 120 workers

I received a bulletin that announces that FHA is suspending the 90 day seasoning requirement that has recently prevented many first time home buyers from buying REOs from the bank.

Seasoning issues reflect to change in Title.

If a bank forecloses on a home and they repossess it, they have to hold on to it for 90 days before a person with an FHA loan could purchase it.

Likewise, an investor who bought a distressed property, fixed it up, has been required to hold onto it for 90 days before selling to a person with an FHA loan.

The 90 day rule has been temporarily suspended for REO properties.  At this point, I do not know if it is true for rehab properties, or simply REOs.  Lenders will still have to make all the repairs necessary for FHA “safe, secure, and sound” guidelines.

Source: http://www.inman.com/news/2008/06/13/fha-waives-90-day-waiting-period-resales

“The action we take today will allow home buyers to purchase these [REO}homes in much greater numbers and ease the excess supply of unsold homes in neighborhoods across the country,” said Federal Housing Commissioner Brian Montgomery in a statement announcing the change.

But because FHA also requires that homes purchased with loans it guarantees to be in “safe, secure and sound” condition, lenders still won’t be able to resell many of the homes they’ve foreclosed on to FHA-eligible buyers until they make the repairs needed to bring them up to FHA standards.

“It’s not going to have as much an impact as one would assume, because most of the properties aren’t going to meet FHA standards,” said Glen Daniels, director of real estate-owned properties for the distressed and foreclosed property listings site, Foreclosure.com.

Here are links to FHA appraisal and property requirements, including repair conditions.

There are two major player in the lending industry right now, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, both of these companies are very important because they more or less dictate the rules and guidelines for lender and banks across the USA.

Freddie Mac recently released a guideline change – “We are revising our requirements for Investment Property Mortgages to reduce the number of financed properties in which a Borrower who owns more than one financed Investment Property may have an individual or joint ownership interest (including the subject property) from 10 to 4. Also, effective for Mortgages with Freddie Mac Settlement dates on or after August 1, 2008, the borrower on a cash-out refinance mortgage must have owned the subject property for at least six months prior to the note date of the new refinanced mortgage.”

Investors that hold properties titled in an LLC’s, will have to wait 6 months after they quit claim into their personal name to refinance.

Who is Freddie Mac and why are they so important?

Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned corporation established by Congress in support of homeownership and rental housing. Freddie Mac purchases single-family and multifamily residential mortgages and mortgage-related securities, which it finances primarily by issuing mortgage backed securities and debt instruments in the capital markets or Wall Street. Historically, Freddie Mac has opened doors for one in six homebuyers and more than two million renters in America.

Investors need to start worrying when…

As of 6/3/03 the larger and more influential Fannie Mae has not changed their guidelines, but if they do change their guidelines, millions of investors would have to find new source of funding or be content with owning four or less properties.

Source: Lender Guideline Changes That Effect All Investors

The US Department of Justice has issued a ruling about the MLS.

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/reports/223094.htm

You can read the whole version of “Competition in the Real Estate Industry” at the above link

“Until today, most Internet-based real-estate brokers were considered second-class citizens, and their clients were left in the cold. But perhaps that will change with today’s news that the Department of Justice has reached a proposed settlement with the National Association of Realtors that requires NAR to let Internet-based residential real estate brokers compete with traditional brokers. NAR has agreed to be bound by a 10-year settlement, under whose terms NAR will repeal its anticompetitive policies and require affiliated multiple listing services to repeal their rules that were based on these policies.” (Posted at http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/27/2044207&from=rss)

By: shortage

Unbelievable but true – more than two million citizens of the United States are facing foreclosure due to a missed payment or delay in repayment of there mortgages secured giants their property every year! The phenomenon of property foreclosure is escalating in the United States and more and consequently more people are selling off their homes at lower prices than their actual market value to avoid this unfortunate predicament of real estate foreclosure and seizure of the property by the lender organization. This is providing the real estate investors with magnificent opportunities of buying off property at much reduced prices and selling them at normal industry rates, thereby being able to keep a massive profit margin on each transaction.

The phenomenon is given more impetus by the property short sale option that more and more homeowners are availing these days, which helps them avoid foreclosure and losing home. Since the homeowners can conveniently avoid and overcome foreclosure and the consequent forfeiture of their property by the lender entity, short sale is coming by as a very viable option. Short sale in most cases equips the homeowners with the authority of selling their homes at a rate less than what they owe the lender institution, that is, less than the loan balance, thereby clearing off the mortgage balance at a single go. The homeowner, instead of losing one’s entire property to the bank or the mortgage company, becomes entitled to receive whatever remains excess from the short sale proceedings after paying off to the mortgage company.

This, combined with the bank’s willingness to short sale a property, has contributed towards the excess of short sale properties in the market. The bank, by encouraging short sale, also saves a lot of its effort and money, which otherwise would have been spent on conducting a foreclosure auction, refurbishing the property, finding an investor, and so on and so forth. The two factors have flooded the market with valuable property options, which provides the ideal platform for the US realtors and foreign investors to invest here. As a real estate investor, you can find yourself some good short sale companies, who will assist you in every aspect involved in closing a successful short sale deal.

The short sale experts also offer you assistance in negotiating with the seller party and save you the otherwise involved hassles. You can simply relax and take count of the money the industry can fetch you. All you need to do here is simply contact the best short sale expert company and supply him with all the needed information that will help them negotiate each aspect of the deal. You can initiate with buying some of these properties and see what benefits and profits each of them reaps you in no time at all. The further impetus is provided by the increasing demand of real estate in the United States, which foresees no decline in the recent future.

Possibilities are abundant in real estate in the US and greater are they if the property under consideration is a product of short sale. Massive interests and huge benefits – this is what the industry believes and this is what you to can get.

Article Source: http://www.realestateinvestmentarticles.net