Minna Reid's Blog

2011 was a slow year for home sellers in Andover, CT. Andover is a small town and in 2011, just 20 homes sold. Should the trend continue, just 8% of the 22 homes currently on the market in Andover will sell in any given month.

Another telling figure is the amount of homes that expired in 2010. An expired home is a home that goes on market, but ultimately just does not sell at all and ends up going off market again. In 2011, 13 homes in Andover expired – meaning there is a 40% chance a home seller in Andover will go on market and fail to sell.

Pricing on listed properties may offer some clue as to the reason so many fail to sell. The average listing price of all homes on market in Andover is currently $291,517, while the average price of all homes…

Connecticut Home Sales Down 13 Percent In 2011...7th straight year of declines in home sales.

This fascinating article from Commercial Record details the current state of our market here in CT. The statistics mirror what I myself have witnessed as local real estate professional.  It's a truly depressed market here in the Nutmeg State.

The only question is...have we hit bottom yet?

While my crystal ball eludes me at the moment - I would have to say NO. From what I see going on in our local CT market - We have aways to go before we start turning the corner.

Need CT short sale help?

While none of my other HAFA experiences have ever been good ones, this Nationstar short sale was the exception to the rule and hopefully a sign of things to come.

My clients came to me when their two mortgages with Nationstar had become debilitating and their commute to work had become unmanageable.

After 6 weeks on market a buyer was secured and a full short sale package headed to Nationstar.

 A few weeks later I heard from our negotiator.

While my client was not “delinquent enough” to be approved for an in-house short sale, they could be approved via HAFA.  Despite 9-15 month timeframes on my previous HAFA approvals, seeing no other option I advised my client to go ahead and attempt the HAFA short sale.

To my surprise – Less than…

In a short sale it is always the homeowners goal to get the “shorted” amount forgiven by the lender. For example – if the mortgage on a home is $400,000 and the home sells for $250,000, there was a shortage of $150,000 to the lender. Under normal circumstances the homeowner would receive a 1099 for this amount at the end of the year as this is viewed as taxable “income” by Uncle Sam. As many homeowners have significant negative equity – having to pay taxes on this “income” could result in a great amount of tax debt.

The Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007 was enacted to allow taxpayers to exclude income from the discharge of debt on their principal residence.

*The Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007 is set to expire at the end of…

A happy ending to a long story….BUT….what I don’t quite understand is why Wells Fargo and GMAC can process their FHA short sales through Equator (a fast and efficient online platform), yet Bank of America still requires all FHA short sales to be processed  manually.

A regular Bank of America short sale processed through Equator will generally take about 3-6 weeks….BUT this FHA MANUALLY PROCESSED short sale with Bank of America took a whopping 6 months to make it through the system.

Why BofA? It doesn’t need to be this way.

There wasn’t even any good reason the short sale took 6 months to get approved…forcing sellers through endless qualifying, repeatedly losing paperwork and unresponsive negotiators are the only reasons this short…

Recently, I submitted a new short sale package to McCue Mortgage for a CHFA short sale. My clients were recently divorced and the house has been ordered to sell by the court. Neither can keep the house.

With a full package detailing the hardship and obvious lack of other options, McCue made a decision.

MY CLIENTS WERE DENIED FOR THE SHORT SALE BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT IN DEFAULT.  They even sent my clients a letter specifically stating they were denied because they were current on their mortgage payments.

So my clients had a rather easy choice to make. They decided to default and we resubmitted the short sale package.

What McCue did next blew us all away.  

MCCUE ASKED…for guess what…FOR MY CLIENTS COME UP WITH PAYMENT ARRANGEMENTS IN…

Single mortgage short sales for folks with significant hardships are the simplest short sales to close.  But more often than not, short sales come with complicating factors that will make it more difficult to get your short sale closed.

The most common complications to your short sale are:

• Second mortgages. These are very common, but present another party that needs to approve you short sale.  Second mortgages can make your short sale more complex.
• PMI. Private Mortgage Insurance companies are highly likely to complicate your short sale. Your MI company will be covering any loss to your lender, and will also have to approve your short sale. MI companies tend to be more demanding than second mortgages.
• Judgment liens.  Every cloud on…

Many folks who get a loan without putting 20% down have PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance).  If you are not sure you have PMI, if you make a small payment every month in addition to your regular mortgage payment, this is usually Mortgage Insurance.

Mortgage Insurance is insurance that you pay for, but that does not protect you. Mortgage Insurance protects your lender in case you default on the loan and the lender suffers a loss.

If you attempt to short sell your home, the mortgage insurance company will be paying out on the loss. So what does that mean to you? It means the mortgage insurance company must also approve your short sale. If there is a single party involved in your short sale that will make demands and make it more difficult for you to…

Usually the answer is no.  As a condition of any short sale approval, the lender will usually require the seller have no proceeds from the sale. However – there are a few instances where the seller can in fact be paid an incentive from a short sale. These are:

FHA short sales.  In an FHA short sale the seller is allowed an incentive of $1,000 during the first 90 days of the ATP, and $750 thereafter. If there are unapproved closing costs, these funds may used  and any payments to junior lien holders (if any) must first be paid through the use of this incentive, before it will be paid to the seller.

HAFA short sales. HAFA promises $3,000 to the seller, however these funds may also be distributed towards unapproved closing costs. As a general…

If there is a single short sale that I enjoy lately it’s a Bank of America Fannie Mae owned loan.  This is quite possibly the single most predictable servicer/investor combination and one I am more than happy to take on.  Most Bank of America short sales will go through their Equator system, including all their Fannie Mae owned loans.

Many of my clients are in the middle of a divorce leading to the unavoidable short sale of their home, as was the case here. My client was anticipating a long troublesome journey through the short sale process and was quite elated when his short sale proved to be quick and painless.

Within 5 weeks on market we secured a buyer for the home…and after submitting the package to Bank of America – a short sale…