Real Estate Blog

2009 Mobile Home For SaleAmenities include: Beautiful community Playground, open space, 2 car off street parking, HUGE carport and FREE storage unit included with rent or purchase WAC-WAD Call Today 888,683,6375 Ext, 305RBI 36354

Excerpt from:
2009 clayton Manufactured Home For Sale in liberty hill, Texas

2007 Mobile Home For Sale-REDUCED to 185-month, This might be the lowest priced housing in the Bentonville-Rogers area for a home this nice, This price does not include the lot rent of 225-month,1 Bed-1 Bath, Great lot with beautiful back deck that backs up to open space, The lot is very private due to it-s location, This home is in excellent condition and it-s VERY nice inside,Amenities include: Clubhouse, located near lake in a country setting but still close to town, Beautiful trees in community with deer and wildlife Call for more details, WADCall Today 888,683,6375 Ext, 505

Read the original here:
2007 champion Manufactured Home For Sale in Rogers, Arkansas

Parkway Properties Inc. said Monday its fourth-quarter funds from operations dropped 33 percent as the office property owner wrote down the value of some of its holdings by $8.8 million.

More here:
Parkway Properties says FFO dropped in 4Q; gives outlook, cuts dividend

From Yakima, WA, in the Buying Foreclosures section of Home Buying Advice, within Zillow Advice, misssassy1146 asks:

“How do I short sale my house?”

Having been through a short sale myself, my opinions are very biased. That being said, I’ll share my personal experience, which I found to be very similar to the many short sale blog posts I encountered as I searched for help myself.

How to start the process of short selling your house:

1.)  List your home for sale with an agent. Do not do a short sale by owner, as there is no money to be saved. Start gathering paperwork you’ll need for the short sale.  Call the bank and ask them for a short sale packet. They’ll send you/tell you what you need to submit with the offer (see #4).
2.)  Make sure the agent you choose has experience doing short sales. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but at least two preferably.  The basic concept is the same, but each bank has its own rules.

3.)  How should you price it? This is up for discussion. One would think an owner should show a valiant effort in selling their  home for a price that would cover the loan balance.  You can do this my starting at that price, and lowering the price every week to show you made an effort. This is what I did.  In hindsight, the bank never asked for, or looked at the MLS history, so I think this was not really necessary. We could have posted it at what the current market said it was worth. In the home description make sure to say, “Short Sale, bring all offers!”  This tells buyers know they just have to submit an offer and see what happens.

4.) You get an offer, now what? You or your agent needs to send the offer along with any requested paperwork from the bank in one package. I say you or your agent because a short sale is an emotional transaction. Some people might want more control, while some want someone else to take over. Regarding the short sale package, do not send this in piece meal. Keep fax confirmation sheets, emails if electronic, or mail via certified mail. The person who sends this should call as soon as possible to verify the bank has received it. Every time you or your agent call, write down who you spoke with, when you spoke with them, exactly what they said, and what they are/were wearing.  Keep a log every time the bank is called. They should be called every week for an update. This seems extreme, but in my own experience they apparently “lost the paperwork”, or told me I was missing an item at least three times. This is important to be on top of, because if your “file” is missing one item, or one T is not crossed, your process starts all over.  It was 5 months before my bank even told me if the offer was accepted or not.

5.) The bank says my offer is accepted… Now what? Read the fine print of what they offer you. If you have a first and second mortgage, watch for, ” We reserve the right to demand the amount of the second mortgage in full.”

There are many options for help with a short sale. For example, you can hire a lawyer for the price of title insurance to follow up with the bank for you. You can trust your agent to handle it, or you can make all the calls yourself.

Do you have an experience with a short sale? Please contribute to this post or the short sale thread!

More:
How Do I Do a Short Sale on My House?

Richard Blackwell Published on Monday, Feb. 08, 2010 11:13AM EST Last updated on Monday, Feb.

The rest is here:
Competition Bureau seeks to smash a anti-competitive’ CREA rules on MLS

HAMP’s loan modification program seems to be finally speeding up its conversion rate from trial loan modifications to converted modifications. However, the 4 million troubled homeowners targeted by the program are not even close to receiving the help they need.

The debate continues on exactly how much responsibility the Government has towards troubled homeowners. Should they simply shoulder their responsibility, lose their home and start from scratch?

One, obviously upset, commentator had this to say about the issue:

How many people seeking home loan modifications used their home as their own personal ATM’S? How many people who are seeking loan modifications bought homes using an interest only ARM, and purchased a home they could not afford? How many people “fudged” their mortgage apps in order to qualify? I have no sympathy for them. I do feel sorry for those who were really victims of poor mortgages, and job loss. I think more people made poor personal choices and want others to bear the responsibility for their poor financial choices.(Quoted from a comment on the RGJ.com, Reno Gazette Journal online edition 31/1/2010)

This opinion is by no means unique. Many, especially those that didn’t buy a home because they felt they couldn’t afford it, feel people are being unfairly shielded from their own bad financial decisions.

However , the distress and misery the current credit crisis has created does make most of us feel the Government has some responsibility to stabilize the situation just as it did when the banks were the ones that needed bailing out.

Sadly, even those that do receive some kind of “financial help” on their mortgage are often just taken advantage of. The media is full of cases of troubled homeowners that qualify for a loan modification just to see their monthly mortgage payments are more expensive and they are deeper in debt and deeper underwater on their mortgage.

The Government has issued some new guidelines that put more pressure on servicers and lenders to reduce monthly payments by extending the loan term to 30 years and dropping the interest rate to current low levels of 2%-3% for a fixed 30 year loan. Unfortunately, servicers were often simply picking up the months the borrowers were behind on and loading them on the mortgage, without actually modifying the loans in any useful way for the homeowner.

The lessons we can learn from these situations are important although often of little value for the homeowners that are suffering the consequences of poor financial judgment and unfair lenders.

Lesson 1.) Do not spend your life savings paying a loan modification company to manage your application. If you do decide to hire such a company check their credentials and find out their history.

Lesson 2.) Never pay for any services before they have been carried out. This is not only illegal in most states it is also rather stupid. Would you pay a day worker on a farm before he started?

Lesson 3.) Contact the HAMP free counseling services before you are committed to a loan. Even if you later decide to go a different route you will at least have one opinion you can use as a benchmark. Contact a lawyer and ask him what your options are. Is there any way to fight the legality of the loan? Do you have any leverage on your bank?

Lesson 4.) Loan Modifications are not the holy grail of mortgage woes, they are not for everyone and they don’t always improve your mortgage payments all that much. Even though it will severely affect your credit score foreclosures and short sales are often a way to have a fresh start and are sometimes more practical than hanging on to a sinking mortgage. They are, obviously, not an ideal option but sometimes they are best of two evils.