From the monthly archives:

July 2008

The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 is Signed into Law!

July 30, 2008

Recently, the House and Senate passed broad-based housing legislation, which was signed into law by President Bush this morning. Heralded as the most sweeping housing reform since the “New Deal”, it includes the creation of a strong regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, changes in conforming and FHA loan limits, a comprehensive modernization plan [...]

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Countrywide Takeover Will Pay Off, B of A’s CEO Says

July 29, 2008

This is a great article from the Los Angeles Times about the BofA and Countrywide merger. The most interesting point is that the CEO of BofA, Ken Lewis, thinks that the California real estate market has about another 20% drop in the not too future…I would have to agree. This is one of the first [...]

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How Not to Handle a Short Sale Client

July 28, 2008

Well, last Friday was the first time I actually “lost” control with a client. We have been negotiating a short sale with this one particular client for about 3 weeks making great progress. In fact, it looks like we will be able to get the approval on the short sale today. This is a personal [...]

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Lenders Stick Listing Agents with REO Liabilities

July 24, 2008

This is a great article written by Matt Carter of Inman news about how banks are transferring the risk of their REO listings onto agents, like myself, shoulders who deal with selling bank owned property.
SAN FRANCISCO — With distressed and bank-owned properties now capturing a double-digit share of home sales in many markets, some agents [...]

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Randall and Donna Huddleston Give a Video Testimonial for Mark Shandrow

July 21, 2008

Wow, this was just one of those real estate transactions that you are happy it is over–everyone is happy is over, but the buyers got their dream house in the end. While I was away on vacation, my realtor friend, Clay Wilson, helped the Huddlestons find a great deal in Anaheim. They had been outbid on several foreclosure [...]

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Nehemiah Down Payment Assistance Program

July 21, 2008

Nehemiah will gift up to 3% of the final sales price to a qualified Nehemiah buyer for the down payment. This allows a you to buy a home with no down payment when combined with a FHA loan. This program requires the assistance of the home seller.
Nehemiah is a private California non-profit housing corporation. Nehemiah [...]

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Real Estate Comments About the Short Sale, Foreclosure and Loan Industries

July 21, 2008

After about a year of actively transforming my real estate practice from the the "old" model to the Real Estate 2.0 model, I have learned a ton, too much to talk about in this one blog post, but I will try and hit the highlights. It has been an incredible ride and I can honestly [...]

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You Now Want To Do A Short Sale. Top 10 Seller Short Sale Questions, Answered.

July 20, 2008

Number 10
I can’t make my house payments but I do have an ability to pay back all or part of the negative equity. Also, I want to preserve my credit score…is a short sale right for me?
Probably not. In cases where the seller can pay back all or part of the negative equity (usually to [...]

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Countrywide Short Sales

July 17, 2008

I learned an interesting fact the other day from a Countywide Loss Mitigation Negotiator. These are the people that we work with when we are negotiating a short sale.
This individual said that Countrywide has over 28,000 short sales in process, but only closes about 7% of these. Wow!! You know what that means? Only a [...]

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Bloomberg Article on US Housing Crisis

July 16, 2008

July 16 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. housing crisis may accomplish what years of parental hectoring couldn’t: Turn Americans from spenders into savers.
Spending will fall because homeowners can no longer use rising real estate values to borrow cash — $837.5 billion in 2006, according to a report by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and senior [...]

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