Short Sale Designations-WHO’S Real and WHO’s NOT

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac jumped into the short sale arena.

Can you really make money with all the new programs

Our guest Vanessa Liddell reveals short sale secrets and will flush out Myths about professional designations on Monday night at 6:00pm. 

Vanessa Liddell, Short Sale Trainer and Consultant has agreed to talk with us about the new Fannie Mae and Freddie mac movement into the Short sale arena this Monday at 6:00 pm at  http://budurl.com/wetalk

Due to a souring real estate market, there has been a great deal of confusion and uncertainty. Program after program, company after company, Designation after Designation popping up daily!  After all those expensive Designations and programs, who is really qualified to assist distressed homeowners in trouble?  Do those acronyms with no experience really mean anything? WHO’S WHO in the short sale ZOO? 

Don’t miss this show.  Tune in on Monday at 6:00pm on www.WeTalkRealEstate.com with Butch Grimes and hear the real deal about Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Hafa and Designation Myths!

Click on the link to hear the show. http://budurl.com/wetalk

 BIO:

Vanessa Liddell, coach and consultant in the real estate industry, specializes in short sales and working with distressed homeowners.  Most recently, Vanessa was featured as a guest panelist discussing the new HAFA program at California Association of Realtors SWAT programs which reached over 2,000 California agents held in eight cities across the state. She continues her work with C.A.R. as an instructor for the “Distressed Property” program as well as “Navigating Through the Mortgage Process”, a newly formed class created with the assistance of Freddie Mac and Citibank.

Vanessa is also the author and presenter of her own 4 hour HAFA Workshop – which she is teaching in California to offices, real estate association and boards.  Vanessa’s information on distressed properties and working within the short sale world comes from an extensive background within the title and escrow industry spanning more than 25 years.  Before short sales were even a household word – Vanessa developed and managed a short sale processing company where over 600 short sales were processed with contacts to more than 100 lenders. 

I look forward to answering your questions on Monday!

I was just in Laguna Hills teaching a GRI class and met some great new real estate professionals.  The more I teach, the more I realized how important it is for us to connect, share and become better educational ambassadors in the industry.  Distressed homeowners are looking to all that are in the real estate industry to be equipted and well informed to assit them with their questions, problems and concerns.  

Step it up fellow colleagues and Educate yourself!

Trying something new…This post will likely change several times before we are done today.

I have been wondering when the govt. is going to take this crisis a little more serious.  Not that they haven’t been, but I think there is so much more to work on then givining institutions all that tarp money to find out that it never reaches those that really need it.  Here is an article that briefly outlines some of the new changes that will be made tio move the procvess along!      

The U.S. Treasury on Monday set long-awaited guidance on a plan for mortgage companies to speed “short sales” of homes and other loan modification alternatives to stem a rising tide of foreclosures.

The Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program provides financial incentives and simplifies the procedures for completing short sales, a growing practice in which a lender agrees to accept the sale price of a home to pay off a mortgage even if the price falls short of the amount owed, according to an announcement on the Treasury’s website.

Guidelines address barriers that have often sidelined short sales by setting limits on the time it takes a bank to approve an offer, freeing borrowers from debt and capping claims of subordinate lenders.

The incentives, first announced in May, expand on the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, known as HAMP, that has seen limited success in lowering payments for distressed homeowners. The Treasury earlier on Monday stepped up pressure on mortgage companies to make permanent the 650,000 trial modifications they have started.

“While HAMP program guidelines are intended to reach a broad range of at-risk borrowers, it is expected that servicers will encounter situations where they are unable to approve” or offer a modification, the Treasury said in its announcement.

Financial incentives for completing short sales or similar deed-in-lieu transactions — in which the deed is simply transferred to the lender — include a $1,000 payment to servicers, and a maximum of $1,000 to go to investors who sign off on payments to subordinate lien holders, the Treasury said. Borrowers would receive $1,500 in relocation expenses.

Short sales are favored by real estate agents and community groups over foreclosure because they can preserve the borrower’s credit rating and leave the property in better condition than when a homeowner is evicted. While primary lenders typically realize steep losses, their recovery is typically far better than under foreclosure.

But short sales have been frustrating for borrowers and real estate agents, often hung up by negotiations with multiple lien holders and mortgage insurance companies. Real estate agents have complained that sales fall through as lenders bicker over the sales price, what they should receive from the proceeds, and whether the borrower will be held accountable for the debt in the future.

Among requirements, mortgage servicers have 10 days to approve or disapprove a request for short sale, and when done the transaction must fully release the borrower from the debt.

It also prohibits mortgage servicing companies from reducing real estate commissions on the sale, a practice that has dissuaded many agents from taking short sale listings.

In one of the most contentious issues gumming up negotiations between lenders, the guidance caps the aggregate proceeds to subordinate lien holders at $3,000.

Second lien holders in recent months have begun demanding more money from the first lender, seller, buyer or agent in exchange for releasing their claim, agents have said. Because primary lenders would face larger losses in a foreclosure, some subordinate lenders have felt empowered, the agents said.

The largest second-lien holders are Bank of America Corp, Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc.

Second lien holders may proceed with a short sale outside of the Treasury program, if they felt the cap was too low, a Treasury official said in October.

“If there was a short sale program that didn’t recognize the second lien holder position, it could have pretty damaging consequences for the industry,” Sanjiv Das, chief executive officer of CitiMortgage, said in an interview last week.