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By now, you should have heard that the real estate market is picking back up. Low interest rates and low inventory are spiking the average home price here in Washington State. Homeowners are now deciding on their options of either letting go of their underwater homes via short sale or foreclosure, continuing to live in it, or even rent it out and becoming a landlord. Which option would be best for you?

According to Corelogic, home prices nationwide increased on a year-over-year basis by 8.3 percent in December 2012 compared to December 2011. The spike is largely attributed to investors buying out most of the inventory thus increasing demand. This appreciation rate will most likely be unsustainable but of course, only time can tell. Zillow Home Value Forecasts (ZHVF), expects home values to increase 3.3% (Dec 2012 to Dec 2013).
Ah good news, home prices are rising again! So shouldn’t we keep our home that is underwater until we break even so we can avoid a short sale and a ding on our credit?
Let’s explore this option.

We will use the example of Mr. and Mrs. Smith who are barely making their payments and have a home that is worth $230,000 but owe $300,000 to their lender. The Smith’s think to themselves, if they live in their home in hopes to sell it once they come out from underwater, they don’t have to sell short. Assuming we will get a 5% appreciation rate (being optimistic), it will take them about 4 years just to break even. The Smith’s realize that it isn’t worth throwing away about $57,000 over the years in a home that has negative equity.

So they discuss their option of making their home into a rental property for the next 4 years to avoid the ding on their credit. Most likely, they will have a negative cashflow situation for all four years if you include PITI (principle, interest, tax, insurance) along with maintenance and repairs. Most importantly, the Smith's do not realize how difficult it is to be a landlord. Dealing with tenants (finding and maintaining), lease contracts, property maintenance/repairs, among others difficulties many times suck the life out of landlords. Many homeowners who opted to rent their homes because it was underwater are concluding to short sell years or even months later. Just ask friends or family about their experiences as landlords.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s situation is very typical and if they took the route of holding until breaking even, they will most likely be left with an even bigger headache.

What if Mr. and Mrs. Smith chose to short sell now?

A short sale is when you sell your home for less than what is currently owed on the property. The Smith’s decide to find a short sale expert and talk to their lender to see if they qualify for a short sale. IF they short sell now, they will finish in about 120 days which means if they started now, they will be done and out of their negative equity situation by summer time.

How would the financial rebound look like for the Smith’s? If they were not delinquent on their payments but was able to show inevitable delinquency, the ding on their credit score would be significantly less. If they were delinquent prior to closing the short sale, you will be facing about a 80-160 point ding in your FICO score.

Now how soon will they will be able to rebound on their credit depends on different factors. If the Smith’s end up using Lexington law to expedite rebuilding their credit score, they can easily repurchase another home within 2 years (possibly sooner) using the money that they saved from the mortgage payments that would’ve wound up in their underwater home. Once they are in a home, again, assuming that there is a 5% appreciation rate, they will start BUILDING equity.

So what is the best choice for Mr. and Mrs. Smith?

What do you think?

Peter

If you are one of the smart homeowners who were involved in mortgage restructuring or a short sale in 2012, tax time is an IMPORTANT season for you. There are tax implications associated with debt cancellation/mortgage forgiveness. For those who have been involved this year, here are instructions and tips from Seattleshortsaleblog on how to take advantage of the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act that was extended until 1/1/2014!

Here is an example of your liability if the debt relief act did not get extended or if you do not follow tax instructions posted here: Example: If you owe $150,000 on your home and it sells in a foreclosure auction for $100,000, the amount remaining of $50,000 would be taxable income. If you are in the 25% tax bracket, you will have to pay the IRS $12,500 in taxes on the foreclosure.

The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief act allows you to exclude this income on your taxes but you must take action.

Here are instructions directly derived from the IRS Website. Read the full page HERE

If the forgiven debt is excluded from income, do I have to report it on my tax return?
Yes. The amount of debt forgiven must be reported on Form 982 and this form must be attached to your tax return.

Do I have to complete the entire Form 982?
No. Form 982, Reduction of Tax Attributes Due to Discharge of Indebtedness (and Section 1082 Adjustment), is used for other purposes in addition to reporting the exclusion of forgiveness of qualified principal residence indebtedness. If you are using the form only to report the exclusion of forgiveness of qualified principal residence indebtedness as the result of foreclosure on your principal residence, you only need to complete lines 1e and 2. If you kept ownership of your home and modification of the terms of your mortgage resulted in the forgiveness of qualified principal residence indebtedness, complete lines 1e, 2, and 10b. Attach the Form 982 to your tax return.

TIPS For Mortgage Forgiveness from TurboTax: Dealing with incorrect 1099-C forms
If your lender has reduced or eradicated your debt under a short sale or mortgage restructure, it will send you IRS Form 1099-C at the end of the year, showing the amount of the debt forgiven and the fair market value of the property. Review the document carefully and compare it to your own figures. If it contains misstatements, contact the lender and attempt to have it correct the form. If it is not able, or not willing, to do that in a timely manner, recalculate the correct figures and provide the IRS with documentation showing how you arrived at your figures when you file your income tax return.

It is vital to follow these steps after any type of mortgage forgiveness. Please read through these instructions & tips. Also, make sure you are reboosting your credit!

Feel free to contact me at Peter@seattleshortsaleblog.com

Good luck!

Peter

Dedicated to bringing homeowners across the nation the latest news on short sales, we’ve discovered new information on the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program (HAFA) for 2013. Let’s explore the updates on HAFA’s success for 2012, what these new policies are for 2013, and when they will be in effect.

For those who do not know what HAFA is, it is a short sale program that is a part of the Making Homes Affordable (MHA) program run by our Government. Their success has been increasing with the latest data showing completed short sales for October at 38,518 which is a 13% increase from September. New and improved policy changes continue to incentivize lenders and homeowners to complete short sales through HAFA.

What Are These New Policy Changes?

Data provided from dsnews.com

Here are some of the significant updates:

• The decision on a borrower’s request for a short sale must be made by the servicers within 30 days as opposed to the previous 45 day policy.
• Introduction of the “pre-determined hardship.” If the borrower is delinquent on payment 90 days or more and has a FICO score less than 620 (probable if 90 days late), then they are considered to have a pre-determined hardship. However, they still need to execute a hardship affidavit prior to closing the sale. Lenders will not have to further validate the hardship.
• HAFA provides short sales for non-delinquent borrowers who own non-owner occupied properties and offer relocation assistance to the tenants who are occupying the space at the time. This is an old but modified policy.
• Another change involves the solidification of the sale to be an “arms-length” transaction. This means no money between the buyer and seller is given or received without it being reflected on the HUD 1 Settlement statement.
• Treasury increased reimbursement amounts to up to $5000 (increase from $2000 previous) to primary mortgage investors for payments to the subordinate lienholders.
• Fraud prevention is increased by stating a resale of a HAFA short sale cannot be made 30 days after closing. Also, HAFA short sale resale’s of more than 120 percent are not allowed if they occur between 31 and 90 days after closing.
• Certain HAFA documents are now optional such as the SSA, DIL agreement, Request for Approval of Short Sale (RASS), and Alternative Request for Approval of Short Sale (Alt RASS).

When will these updated policies go into effect?

The HAFA policy updates are set to be in effect February 1, 2013 but changes may be implemented earlier by servicers.

Hope this helps!

Peter

According to the Obama Administration’s October (2012) housing scorecard and “[…]the FHFA housing price index posting its largest annual gain in five years and new home sales at its fastest pace since April 2010” (Erika Poethig, assistant secretary for policy development and research at the Department of Housing and Urban Development) as well as numerous other sources, we can confidently say we have a recovering housing market. Even Warren Buffett, deemed as one of the greatest investors of all time, is bullish on the US housing market recently purchasing multiple real-estate brokerages including Prudential and his partnership with Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian real-estate investor, to more than double his size of his brokerage business.

Our housing market is rebounding slowly due to various factors such as tight lending practices, fluctuations of supply & demand, and just the general current economic health but it is on its way to recovery. Will your client be ready to secure their next home investment and cease this opportunity?

Clear Capital exposed a sobering point: “Prices are 37.6 percent below the peak. This means a home bought for $200,000 in 2006 would be worth somewhere in the range of $124,800 today.” (source: dsnews.com) Prices were up 4.6% annually in October and as I have stated multiple times in previous articles, prices will not rebound in a U-shape but rather similar to a NIKE symbol. Concurrently, mortgage interest rates have remained at all-time lows with the latest report from Freddie Mac announcing a 15-year fixed-rate at 2.66% and 30-year fixed averaging 3.37%.

The opportunity is there and will be there for some time but are your clients preparing themselves to be able to jump on the bandwagon of nationally appreciating housing values?

A recent report shows that 23 percent of consumer mortgage requests were turned down by banks and I know from several sources around the Washington state that it is increasingly difficult to obtain a loan due to the fact that mortgage rates are so low that they aren’t incentivized to generously hand them out to just anyone.

I'm an agent. How do I prepare my client(future)? If your client had a short sale and got a significant ding on their credit score but want to prepare their credit situation to qualify for loans for their next home purchase, by the end of this article, have them talk to a Lexington Law credit specialist. I have personally researched and found them to be the absolute best company to work with in rebuilding credit scores. Here is a direct number provided through the seattleshortsaleblog for a free consultation: 888-586-6113 or you can apply through their website.

Hope this helps

Peter