Jose (11)

While prices are rising in the Silicon Valley there are still homes that are underwater and you may need to short sale your South San Jose home. If this is the case, don't wait!

Bank of America has instituted some new policies which can have a major influence on your South San Jose short sale.

Co-operative Short Sales: Bank of America has a program where they will let you know ahead of time how much they are willing to accept for you South San Jose home in a short sale. Once you agreed to do the short sale they would put a hold on foreclosure activity and give you some money at close of escrow.

The new policy is that there will be no holds on foreclosure until the offer is fully accepted by Bank of America. What this means is that if you can not make your payments  on your South San Jose home and want to short sell you can not wait. You will not be allowed to stay in your home for months trying to modify your loan and trying to get a new job. Once the notice of default has been recorded you will have 3 months to get your South San Jose home sold as a short sale before the notice of trustee sale is recorded. At that point you have another 3 weeks before foreclosure on your South San Jose home.

As any real estate agent familar with south San Jose short sales knows, they take time for approval. Even a Bank of America co-operative short sale can take time. 4 months is not unheard of to obtain approval on a South San Jose Short Sale, so if you can not make your payments, do something or you could lose your home to foreclosure.

If you have any questions about Short Sales in Santa Clara or San Mateo County please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

D.R.E. 01191194

650-619-9285

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I am so excited about this news! I know, it doesn't take much for me to get excited, but this is really big news in my opinion.

Up until now if you were involved in a Silicon Valley Bank of America Short Sale they did not take electronic signatures. This would have been ok if the bank could sit with you in your conference room and look at the offers. We all know this does not happen and the paperwork will often be faxed several times before B of A gets to see a document. Since they cannot accept illegible documents it made things harder for the participants.

Also, despite the sometime lengthy process of a short sale, Bank of America will often say they need a document now, and not being able to get electronic signatures is sometimes tough.

Now, for any new short sales, you can send all documents with electronic signatures. This makes me very happy. As a Silicon Valley Short Sale Specialist anything that can make a short sale more efficient is ok with me.

So if you have any questions about short sales in San Mateo or Santa Clara Counties please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

D.R.E. 01191194

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I listed a short sale with 2 loans serviced by Chase. CLTV is LESS that 50% of market value. Submitted a CASH buyer and assigned a negotiator in less than 3 weeks. Today, he is submitting my package to the investor. 

We'll see...NOD in May 2012 but nothing posted in public record. Negotiating to include payoff to release an abstract of judgement from a deceased husband over a year ago. 

Scheduled to close AUGUST 30. 

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Just got approval on another short sale in San Jose with Chase. They are getting to be one of my favorites!

This was not straight forward. Client lost his job and was not able to make payments. He tried a loan mod but did not qualify due to having too much in retirement account. Client is close to retiring.

Put condo on market and got 13 offers. The San Jose inventory for small affordable condos is quite low. Accepted an offer 30% over asking price, cash, with no appraisal contingency. Asking price was market value at the time of the listing. Last 2 sales in the complex were within 5K of listing price.

6 weeks later get approval from Chase but buyer, who was an investor, dropped out.

I start to worry because none of the other 12 offers were over 10% over list price and I am afraid Chase (or actually Freddie) will want more since first offer was so high.

Submit a back up offer for 10% over list price, cash with no contingencies. 4 weeks later get approval.

Everyone is happy!!!

So fortunately the first offer which was so high did not taint the the process, and since there was no foreclosure date set there was not a danger of losing the condo to a foreclosure. But this is a risk in short sales in the Silicon Valley. The inventory is low. There are many investors and first time buyers in the market competing with each other. Sometimes people make ridiculous offers which they later regret.

How do you know what is the best offer? Is it the highest, is it the owner who wants this home more than anything, is it the person who puts the most money in escrow, has the least contingencies?

This is a complicated question that deserves its own blog. But my best advice to sellers of short sales is start by picking an experienced agent who knows how to analyze offers from a short sale perspective. This is not the same as a traditonal sale perspective. And understand that sometimes things go south, so be prepared for some bumps in the road to finally get to the magic words:

Congratulations: You are off the hook!

If you have any questions about short sales in San Mateo or Santa Clara County please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

D.R.E. 01191194

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Cambrian Distressed Property Watch 2011

It's the beginning of the year so time for the round-up of last year's distressed property sales in the Cambrian Neighborhood of San Jose. So here's what happened:

 

Single family and condo townhomes :

Total sales:  656

Short Sales: 130

REO:            89

Distressed sales as a percentage of total sales: 33.45

Compare to 2010

Total sales:   750

Short Sales:   114

REO:            104

Distressed sales as a percentage of total sales:  29%

 

My conclusion:

The percentage of distressed properties in Cambrian is higher in 2011 over 2010. Also a 34% distressed property sale percentage is absolutely probably not enough to affect values. What is interesting is the the number of short sales in 2011 went up as the number of REOs went down from 2010 as banks have been more wiiling to approve short sales. This is being seen all over the bay area.

If you have any questions about short sales or bank owned homes please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

D.R.E.  01191194

Marcy Moyer Keller Williams Realty Palo Alto, Ca. Specialist in Short Sales and Trust and Probate Sales

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There are several different types of short sales that will approve your price and the seller's eligibility before you get an offer. If you do not qualify for one of those programs (like HAFA or Bank of America co-operative short sales) then you can try to do a traditional short sale.

In most traditional short sales after the seller signs an offer, his/her short sale real estate agent will send the offer and all of the seller's financial documents to the lender. This can be a time consuming process, and if the lender is still using faxes to gather information rather than online platforms, several weeks can be lost while the lender checks to make sure all the needed documents have been collected.

Chase has a policy which makes this portion of the short sale truly shorter. Once the seller signs the listing agreement the short sale realtor can send all of the documentation to Chase. Once an offer is received and signed, you will be weeks ahead of the game.

So, if you are short selling your home with Chase be sure and ask your short sale realtor to send in your documents right away and save time when you get that offer!

If you have any questions about buying or selling short sales in Santa Clara or San Mateo County please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

D.R.E. 01191194

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San Jose Short Sale Got Wells Fargo Approval

I just got approval on a Wells Fargo Short sale in San Jose. It was both a long and short road.

The long road first:

Town home put on the market in October of 2011 at $575,000. After one week we received an offer for which the seller accepted and it was sent to the bank.

Sellers were not behind on payments but are getting divorced and neither one can afford the home alone or afford to buy out the spouse.

Bank orders BPO which comes in a little under accepted price. I do not under price my short sales because I want them to get accepted by the bank. Also I knew this would be a popular property.

Negotiator immediately rejects the short sale saying the investor will not approve short sales where the seller is not behind in payments. Keep in mind this is not a Wells Fargo policy, it is the investor who bought the loan's policy.

Seller stops making payments and we plan on going back on the market in Jan of 2012.

Before we go back on the market a buyer makes an offer which is accepted by the sellers on Jan 16th.

Offer goes to Wells Fargo and this time is accepted on Feb 29th, 6 weeks after submission. 

On March 2, 2 days later the approval from the second which is a Wells Fargo HELOC arrives.

We are all happy with the results!

If you have any questions about short sales in Santa Clara or San Mateo County please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

D.R.E. 01191194

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I got a chance to watch a couple of agents go at it with each other in a real estate forum trying to answer a question about doing short sales.   It was interesting, to say the least.  Besides the two main agents who proclaimed themselves the “experts” and hijacked the conversation, there were a few others who chimed in and made some comments.  But the question was never specifically answered.

 

The question posed was whether a lender will approve a short sale if the borrower had assets. He didn’t provide a lot of detail but wanted to either do a short sale or let his home go into foreclosure and he specifically asked not to get into a debate about the ethics in not paying his mortgage.    

 

The argument or “discussion” in the forum quickly evolved into a big debate about the ethics of what people considered to be strategic default.  One expert proclaimed it was morally and ethically wrong to engage in strategic default and the lenders would not go for it.  The other expert proclaimed morality and ethics had nothing to do with his decision and it was more about money.

 

As a San Jose Short Sale Agent, I tend to agree with the latter expert.  When you are dealing with short sales with lenders, the department you deal with is called Loss Mitigation.  Let me say it again:  Loss Mitigation.  Their job description is patently obvious: it is to mitigate or lessen the loss for the lenders. 

 

Yes, there obviously are moral and ethical implications of not paying your mortgage when you have the financial ability to do so.   I firmly believe you should pay when you can and live up to your contractual obligations.  However, the question posed specifically asked not to judge the ethical implications but sought opinion as to whether a lender would agree to a short sale when the borrower stopped paying and was headed towards foreclosure.   

 

There is no definite yes or no answer in these matters as the answer lies in the details.  It has a lot to do with how much assets the borrower has or does not have.  However, if the lender is faced between foreclosure and short sale, from my experience, the loss mitigation department chooses short sales over foreclosures.   At the end of the day, the primary decision will be about which method loses less money for the lenders, then, other factors like ethics and mortality can be entertained. 

 

Why do you think big lenders like Chase and Wells Fargo are offering people up to $35,000 to do a short sale without even verifying their financial information?   HAFA recently amended its rules to state that servicers are no longer required to verify any financial information, but only to collect signed hardship letters.  Do these actions by large lenders and servicers sound like they are overly concerned about the ethical or moral issues surrounding foreclosures?   

 

I can’t speak for other States, but in California, the recent changes in the law means if the lenders agree to permit a short sale, then the issues about deficiencies become null and void.  Once a short sale has been approved, the seller can walk away clean without looking over their shoulders.  Yet, another procedure that make completing a short sale more effective and efficient and preferable to foreclosure.  It’s all about money; if the institutions can make more money foreclosing, they will certainly choose that method, but everything recently is geared towards choosing short sales. Yes, the lenders hate strategic defaulters, but they hate losing money even more.    

 

So back to the question about would a lender approve a short sale if the borrower has assets?  It would depend on how much assets the borrower had and whether foreclosure would yield more money for the lender or a short sale. 

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San Jose Ca Distressed Property Market Report

San Jose Single Family homes

Active Short Sale Listings:  371

Active Bank Owned Homes: 77

Pending Short Sale Homes: over 578 (mls stops counting at 500 and there are more than 500 San Jose Short Sales waiting for bank approval, 41 bank approved waiting for buyer to remove contingencies, and 338 just waiting to close)

Pending Bank Owned Homes: 127

Sold Short Sale Homes, Last 6 months 378

Sold Bank Owned Condos/Townhomes: 378

That is an amazing coincidence!

 

San Jose Condo Townhomes

Active Short Sale Listings: 166

Active Bank Owned Condos:  78

Pending Short Sale Condos/Townhomes: 578

Pending Bank Owned Condos/Townhomes: 104

Sold Short Sale Condos/Townhomes:  210

Sold Bank Owned Condos/Townhomes 314

 

So, if you add up all the short sale activity there are/were 2281+ for short sales and 1078 bank owned transactions.

My conclusion: even there has been a lot of press recently about how foreclosure filings are up in California right now short sales are dominating the distressed property market in the city of San Jose.

If you have any questions about short sales or foreclosures anywhere in Santa Clara or San Mateo Counties please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

D.R.E.  01191194

 

Marcy Moyer Keller Williams Realty Palo Alto, Ca. Specialist in Short Sales and Trust and Probate Sales

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When making an offer on a San Jose Short Sale it is common for the buyer's agent to ask the listing agent about his or her experience with short sales. They want to know if the seller's agent knows what he or she is doing because that is essential for a successful short sale completion. So when I am asked those questions I can honestly say that I am certified (CDPE), experienced, and successful.

But enough about me, what about you buyer's agent.  How many buyers have you ushered through the sometimes long and tedious process of a short sale? How many of your buyers have dropped out because they got tired of waiting or found something better? How many of your buyers really understand what "As-Is" means? How much do you understand about the process.

When I represent the buyer on a short sale I make sure they understand what is going to happen, how long it could take, and what will be expected of them.  I also make sure the buyer really wants that particular house, and is not just making lots of offers and willing to take the first one that gets approved.  

So if you are selling a San Jose Short Sale, ask your agent to talk to the buyer about their short sale experience and expectations before you sign that offer.

If you have any questions about buying or selling a short sale in San Mateo or Santa Clara Counties please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer CDPE

Keller Williams Realty

www.marcymoyer.com

marcy@marcymoyer.com

650-619-9285

D.R.E.  01191194

Marcy Moyer Keller Williams Realty Palo Alto, Ca. Specialist in Short Sales and Trust and Probate Sales

Read more…

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