April 26th, 2010
A very reputable publication, the San Francisco Chronicle, recently posted a story on their website that is a true sign of the times; “Your Mortgage: When It’s Time to Walk Away.” Wow. Only in America.
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March 19th, 2010
ORLANDO, FL – It was quite an honor to be asked by the folks at Rich Dad to speak on the subject of Short Sales and Foreclosures at their Annual Forum a few weeks ago. It was four days of 12 hours a day intense real estate investing education. I feel like I met and spoke with just about everyone of the more than 1000 people in attendance in that 96 hour period. What I learned from interviewing all of these different types of investors was quite interesting and I wanted to pass it along to you. (Plus, in case you are wondering about my experiences with hanging out with Robert Kiyosaki himself, I’ll touch on that as well.) So onto what I discovered that I think you will find quite intriguing.
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February 19th, 2010
Actor celebrity Brian Austin Green (Former 90210 star and now dating screen siren Megan Fox) is selling his home on a short sale. He purchased the home at the height of the market in 2006 for nearly $2,000,000 borrowing almost the entire purchase amount which created a monthly mortgage payment of nearly $70,000 per month. Can you imagine servicing a debt load of that size? Apparently it was too much for even a superstar to handle. Sources say that the economic recession has hit Green hard and his Rep explained that the house is being sold on a short sale for “strategic investment” reasons.
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February 12th, 2010
You’re not going to believe which organization just had to sell their headquarters building on a short sale. This is so embarrassing. Ready for this?
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February 5th, 2010
Banks across America are mounting a hiring surge right now. Why? They are gearing up for what lies ahead…more defaults, more short sales and more foreclosures. Collectively, the big 4, including Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo and Citi have recently added over 17,000 new employees to their payroll to help manage the volume of loan modification and short sale requests as well as the disposal of foreclosures. And the most ambitious are those that have a large number of Alt-A (Interest Only and Option ARM) loans. Wachovia, for example, is loaded with these loan products. They were recently acquired by Wells Fargo so now it’s Wells Fargo’s responsibility to deal with the mess that is going to be hitting them this summer when many of these Alt-A loans begin re-casting to fully amortized loans.
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January 27th, 2010
HUD announced Friday that the 90 day title seasoning requirement on FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans will be waived beginning February 1, 2010 for one year. This is the greatest news to hit the real estate investing world in the past 20 years.
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January 7th, 2010
A breaking new short sale trend for 2010 is shaping up that you need to know about…$500,0000+ deals. That’s right, loans with principal balances above $500,000 are making my students and I a fortune right now. Bloomberg News recently reported that $500,000+ loans are defaulting more than twice as often as $250,000 or less loans. What makes this so fascinating is that only a year ago, $500,000+ loans defaulted at a below normal rate of 4.7%. This rapid rise in luxury house defaults is very predictable and the beginnings of the next wave of massive foreclosures that is going to slam the residential real estate market.
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December 28th, 2009
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) just released FHA loan guidelines for prospective borrowers who have experienced a short sale. HUD sent a memo to all FHA lenders and underwriters explaining how to handle an FHA loan applicant with a short sale on their record. (Download the memo HERE). This is great news for hundreds of thousands of Americans who got rid of a previous home through a short sale and are interested in purchasing a home in the near future.
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December 17th, 2009
Don’t be fooled…we’re not out of the woods yet. Although sales temporarily increased in November (and now spilling into early December), property values continue to decline nationwide. The $8000 tax credit deadline of November 30th pushed a large number of buyers off the fence and into the buying mode but it didn’t solve the real problems. The underlying factors including unemployment, excessive foreclosure inventories and more and more underwater properties keep the trend heading downward. In fact, experts are predicting that the 3rd quarter of 2010 is the expected bottom.
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December 4th, 2009
It’s here, the much anticipated plan from the Treasury Department on how to streamline short sales was announced on Monday, November 30th. Since the Making Home Affordable program has been a miserable failure thus far, the Obama administration has turned their attention from loan modifications to short sales as a way to solve the real estate debocle in America. Here is what you need to know about the changes that have been enacted:
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