A new study just came out on how home buyers shop for a home.  This study was a collaboration between Google and the National Association of Realtors.  A couple of interesting statistics were found.  (interesting to me).

As anyone who is currently alive can tell you, home buyers shop for homes on line.  Actually only 9 out of 10 use the internet as their primary shopping tool, and that's mind boggling to me.  I just can't understand what the other 1 out of 10 does.  ???

Another interesting stat from the study:  Days of research on the web before a potential home buyer "takes action on the site".  That would lead me to believe before they request information about homes they've found or sign up to keep up with their favorites, etc.  The stat finds…

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Who prices a short sale listing?  

Your Short Sale REALTOR

Will the bank give a listing price?

Nope.  95% of the time, the bank request we submit an offer.  Very very rarely, we encounter a pre-approved list price through a seller who has an FHA loan or sometimes through Bank of America's short sale cooperative program.  However, even then it's dicey to say the least.  

Making it as difficult as possible to price, sell, get short sale bank approved, then buyer's bank approval of price for closing, there are several prices that seem to always come up:

  1. Property Appraiser's Market Value:  I've found these numbers to be very high and very low.  However, they do have an algorithm producing this market value.  
  2. Zillow:  Ahh Zillow, the…

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Interesting stats for today's real estate market versus last year's real estate market here in Jacksonville, FL.  This is a look at short sales sold in Jacksonville vs total sales of all properties in Jacksonville.  

On the market right now:

Currently Active Short Sales available for purchase:  1,003

Currently Active NON short sales available for purchase:  3,782

6 month period look back.  Duval County only.  

May - November 2012:  SOLD Short Sales only = 1,055 

May - November 2012:  TOTAL sales = 4,639

Same months 1 year ago

May - November 2011:  SOLD Short Sales only = 827

May - November 2011:  TOTAL sales = 4,177

A great point about this data:  Foreclosure volume is down, but Short Sale volume is up as you can see in the…

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Over 1 in 6 Florida Mortgages are Behind on Payments!

Why are so many home owners in Florida behind on mortgage payments?   I believe its due to several factors:

  1. Tops in underwater home owners:  The more home owners underwater, the more home owners attempting to refi, apply for one of the many jokes of government assistance, short sale, etc.  
  2. Requirement to be delinquent for modification:  That's right, most of the "help" available to home owners struggling to make payments REQUIRE a home owner to be behind on payments.  Crazy, but true.  
  3. Requirement to be delinquent for short sale:  That's right again, most of the banks and investors (including our government Fannie and Freddie) have required home owners to be late on payments in…

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Another happy home seller gets a short sale approval from Bank of America!

This one took several months, and we had to wade through the normal Bank of America mis-direction and re-direction with a little bit of red tape.  It pays to know the system!

Sellers got out due to a military relocation and were forgiven of any future debt obligations from the deficiency balance.  Congrats!

As a matter of fact, the mass majority of our Sellers in 2012 were able to short sale and be relieved from either all or the major majority of their deficiency balance.  I think we will continue seeing this trend in Florida as both Fannie and Freddie have just revamped their short sale process......again.  

Need to short sale a Bank of America mortgaged home?…

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Despite all the rosy reports on a booming housing market nationwide, we can't put lipstick on a pig forever here in Jacksonville!

Foreclosure activity may be down overall nationwide, but some of the largest cities have seen a sharp increase in foreclosure filings.  New York, Tampa, Chicago, etc.  Check out this report from Business Insider on Foreclosures.  Also see the main source at Realty Trac.  

And Sunny Jacksonville Florida's Foreclosures?  Not so good either:

#10 Nationwide for the highest foreclosure activity.

1 out of every 100 homes received a foreclosure filing in Q3 2012

Properties with foreclosure filings:    5,984

Change from Q2 2012:   +44.09 percent  (That's UP 44%)

Change from Q3 2011:  +32.48 percent  (That's UP 32%…

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Another happy short sale customer!

The Nationstar Short Sale is not one of the easiest but they are 100% doable.   This particular short sale had a previous buyer that wouldn't meet the bank's counteroffer, which is very common, but we quickly found another buyer who made a higher offer.

That higher offer was countered by Nationstar, only to have the buyer stay firm with their price and supplying a contractor's list of repairs needed.  Nationstar accepted the offer, and we closed within a few weeks.

The key to a successful short sale with Nationstar:

  1. Experienced Short Sale Listing Agent.
  2. Experienced Buyer's Agent.
  3. Realistic offer price.
  4. Buyer who will give it the needed time for approval.
  5. Buyer and Seller who will both act…

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Interesting read here:  You Walk Away Blog.  

The article linked above has a lot of info about why the housing market is still in trouble.  Undoubtedly, we all know that right?  Well, most of us realistic real estate professionals know this and don't pretend to blow smoke about how great the market is.  

Don't get me wrong, this market is great if you are a Home Buyer in Jacksonville, but as a Seller of a home in Jacksonville Florida - not so good!

2 big points I see from this article:

  1. 11-19 million homeowners are still underwater.  That's a lot of homeowners, and considering Florida was one of the biggest over valued real estate markets in the country, a large portion of those millions under water belong to us Floridians.  Jacksonville is…

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A hot topic surrounding short sales is the potential credit impact that will happen after short selling. 

There is no doubt that a short sale will impact your credit.  In fact, it's reported the same way a Foreclosure is reported on your credit report.  Most of our short selling customers have either already stopped paying the mortgage or are just about to run out of cash and will have to stop paying at some point in the near future. 

Why do a short sale instead of just letting it foreclose? 

  1. Deficiency balance:  In Florida the bank has the right to collect on the deficiency (amount owed vs amount the home sold for in a short sale or a foreclosure sale) for UP TO 5 YEARS after the sale happens!  Ouch, that's a lot of time!  So:
    • In a short…

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Bank of America Short Sales are finally speeding up! 

Several BOA Short Sale approvals as of lately and I can't help but notice they are picking up the pace..........FINALLY.

Is it due to their processes finally getting in check? 

Is it their preemptive planning for the major speed up in short sales coming in November? 

Is it just that they've been doing mass quantity for 5 years now and they finally have their act together? 

Don't know.  But for whatever the reason - I don't care, I'm just very happy for my short sale customers who are doing a Bank of America Short Sale. 

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