Home Buying and Home Selling Tips » Home Foreclosure

Report: Banks pay cash to homeowners to avert foreclosures

varac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:57:04 +0000

Short sales are crucial to clearing the post-bubble housing market, but banks typically drag their heels. That’s because approving a short sale means accepting – and accounting for – the fact that you’re never going to collect what you’re ostensibly owed.

In what may be another sign of an incipient recovery, Bloomberg reports that some banks are now embracing short sales in a big way: by paying large incentives to sellers to agree.

Full story is available on philly.com

How to avoid losing a short sale listing in the eleventh hour

varac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:55:45 +0000

If you have taken more than a few short sale listings, then it has probably happened to you. You have taken the listing, you have advertised it all around town (and all over the Internet), perhaps you have already even gotten through most of the short sale negotiation process. Now, all of a sudden, your short sale seller decides that s/he does not want to sell.

There are several reasons why this occurs.

Full story is available on AGBeat

Homeowners Make Money by Not Foreclosing

varac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:54:02 +0000

In an effort to get rid of delinquent mortgages, some banks are offering as much as $35,000 as a bonus to homeowners that sell their properties under what they owe. The transaction, called a short sale is usually a last ditch effort, but now banks are finding these deals are faster and cheaper than foreclosures. The banks loss is about 15 percent lower than that on a foreclosure.

Full story is available on Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Bill would let foreclosed home owners to rent

varac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:45:35 +0000

The foreclosure crisis is still taking its toll in all over Arizona, but one legislator is hoping to improve the situation.

Rep. Anna Tovar (D-Tolleson) is pushing HB 2601, which will allow owners who are being foreclosed on to rent their home for at least one year.

Full story is available on KTAR

Foreclosed homes may be sold as rentals

varac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:01:59 +0000

The government is starting to shed foreclosed, single-family homes it owns – by selling them in bulk to investors, who would turn them into rental properties.

But officials are saying only that test sales will occur “in the near-term,” with a focus on the areas hardest hit by foreclosures. They declined to comment beyond a news release.

Full story is available on MarionStar

Renting Out Foreclosures

varac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:54:11 +0000

Throughout metro Atlanta, thousands of vacant homes now owned by the federal government sit languishing dragging down home values and adding to a mass of housing woes that stunt the region’s economic recovery.

Atlanta’s nearly 4,600 government-owned foreclosed properties is No. 1 in the nation, far outnumbering those in Phoenix, Las Vegas and other major metro areas hit hard by the housing bust, according to a report last month from the Federal Reserve. Statewide, Georgia has more than 6,400 of the homes, second only to California, with nearly 9,000.

Full story is available on LoanSafe.org

Time Running Out for Short Sales

varac — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:39:51 +0000

Time may be running out for homeowners hoping to do a short sale on their home and not get hit with a big federal tax bill because they had time running out – short sale to walk away from their mortgage. The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act approved by Congress is scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

The program could be extended by Congressional mandate, but many housing analysts feel the act, passed at the height of the financial crisis won’t be extended. The law eliminates any federal taxes on mortgage debt that lenders cancel or forgive up to $2-million, and currently applies to debt forgiven from 2007 through 2012.

Full story is available on Housing Predictor

Foreclosure Deal Gets Closer

varac — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:34:39 +0000

They’ve been here before, but this time, they say it is for real. After a yearlong haul that has featured numerous false starts, federal and state officials aim to wrap up this week a multibillion-dollar agreement with five major banks to settle probes of alleged foreclosure abuses.

State attorneys general must indicate by Monday whether they are signing on to the deal, said one person familiar with the negotiations, a key test of whether banks and federal officials will be able to wrap up a deal.

Full story is available on The Wall Street Journal

Helena woman claims Bank Of America wrong-doing in foreclosure

varac — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:48:13 +0000

When Donna Peterson bought her dream home in Helena in 2007, she didn’t know her purchase would turn into a nightmare.

After being diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer in 2009, she lost both of her home-based businesses while undergoing treatment.

It was then that she asked Bank of America for help.

Full story is available on kxlh.com

A homeowner who fought foreclosure and won

varac — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:46:23 +0000

Foreclosure commonly represents the end of a struggle. A borrower can’t pay a mortgage, loses a home and moves on.

But Karen Mena, a 38-year-old county worker, never gave up. Mena fought even after her San Bernardino home, Calif., was no longer hers. And she won the three-bedroom house back — at least for now.

Full story is available on goerie.com