Real Estate to Real Life
11/18/2012
Seven Options Before Short Sale
Guest: Scott Piper of MRA Short Sale Solutions
Last Sunday, I opened the show with the two BIG questions: Did you buy a home in the height of the last market? Or did you finance or refinance your home with an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) that grew two hands which are slowly choking the life out of you with monthly payments?
If that is the case, I hate to say this but, “You’re no longer a Home owner, you’re a Loan Owner of an INFALTED loan on a DEVALUED Home?" Now do you feel like cussing? Well, I don’t blame you! Do you "Want to avoid using the Big F word: Foreclosure?"
Then keep listening; I mentioned that it cost you nothing to listen, but to not know what we need to costs a lot. I want to help save you money, but most of all your life and your family. I have a saying “If you can’t save the house, then you have to save the people in it.”
According to Zillow, 32% of Homeowners are underwater, and according to TopBAYAgents.com of which I am a member, this week 28% of the homes in Danville for sale are Short Sales. If you are a part of that percentage, there’s no shame in it for you’re not alone. Truly, there’s one thing worse than embarrassment and that is to do nothing at all!
In decades past, prior to the perpetuation of the ARM and 80/20 100 % financing, you got a 30 year fixed rate. This was the main stay of the American dream and the American Middle Class. It added to the stability and the credibility of home ownership, the economy, and the market because it wasn’t lending on impending risk, for your home payment would never go up!
Furthermore, with a 30 yr. fixed, you could ride out these underwater storms if you had put enough money down and had a fixed mortgage payment. Because of the fixed monthly payment and the stability that provided, the storm would pass and you and your home would not be blow away.
Conversely, the Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) to me was lending on a bet that your income going up. It offered shorter terms, and the monthly payments would adjust upward! In essence the two methods of loans contrasted lending on fixed security versus adjustable insecurity.
When I first heard about the ARM, my prophetic thought was there goes the stability of homeownership. Hmm, I ask myself, how can you place your home and expect to keep it there if it was placed on a financial foundation that shifted? Then in the 80’s, when the banks started pushing these adjustable products, ARMS were foreign to the old school homeowners and buyers. Eventually it took time to bring it into the mainstream of home buying and home financing, but bought and sold it was, until the housing came crashing down and the whole country paid the price in 2008.
In closing, five years post-crash, if 32% of homeowners are still underwater, it indicates that no matter how many buckets full of money was used to try and bail out the debt, and no matter how much liquidating assets to make monthly payments were used, it failed. The boat got heavier and heavier until homeowners found themselves underwater, and yet, it’s not the sub-prime anymore, it’s the high-end prime real estate and exemplary A+ buyers that are taking the hit! My sentiments are that you are not the captain of the Titanic; you don’t have to go down with the ship!
So we got to the nitty-gritty of the information which we discussed, as outlined:
SEVEN OPTIONS BEFORE SHORT SALE
1. STAY PUT
2. RENT OUT HOME
3. LOAN MODIFICATION
4. BANKRUPTCY
5. FORECLOSURE
6. DEED IN LIEU OF
7. SHORT SALE
For the in-depth discussion about the aforementioned, you may log on to www.MaryAnn.AM and catch a podcast of the show. However, if you find yourself a Loan Owner of a DEVALUED home especially if you have a JUMBO loan and you would like some honest help. Please reach out and call me to discuss your options and see if I and/or my team of professionals may assist. There is no cost to you, to list, or to enlist the help of my Short Sale team of experts. However, we may prevent you from using the bad F word known as Foreclosure and get you to the good F word known as Free and be freed-up from LOAN Ownership of a sinking ship!
Video: ShortSaleHomes.TV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpM_WfzFiSc
By Mary Ann Cadorna
AM 1220 and streaming www.KDOW.biz
Sundays 9:00 - 10:00 AM
MaryAnn.AM @ FACEbook.com
www.HomesGPS.com (buying or selling your home)
www.DanvilleRADIO.com
On Danville RADIO @ Danville.patch.com
