Fannie Mae short sales- Valuations

(Quote) A classical work doesn't ever have to be understood entirely. But those who are educated and who are still educating themselves must desire to learn more and more from it.

"Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel"

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There have been a lot of issues with the Fannie Mae short sale valuations. They are countering offers at a very unrealistic price. Fannie Mae is basically trying to push prices up to minimize their loss. Here is an example:


Lets say you list a property and within 5-10 days you receive an offer. It may or may not be an offer at fair market value but you want to get the short sale package submitted to the lender as soon as possible as shorts sales can take up to 6 months to process maybe even more than that. Even with the shorter time frames we have been seeing with the lenders we will still run into the more difficult deals pushing our time frames up as every deal is unique. The full package gets submitted and because Fannie Mae deals take longer to underwrite we typically do not get a response back for 60-90 days plus or minus to only learn that they are countering at $150,000 hire than your offer. Frustrating, I know but there some actions you can take in the beginning of the process before the short sale gets submitted to the bank. We have talked about this before but with Fannie Mae deals moving forward you really do not have a choice and need to take the following steps if you want to have a successful out come .

Here are some tips to help you structure these deals properly:


1. Use the seller questionnaire in the listing agent packet I created to help you pre qualify your clients. One of the questions on there asks if their loan belongs to Fannie Mae. If they do not know you can log onto the government site to punch in the name , address and social and the system will automatically generate and answer for you.


2. If there is not a sale date ( hopefully you are not taking on transactions with sale dates 2-3- weeks away) we need to market the property for a substantial amount of time. The starting price should be what is owed on the property. I know it will be unrealistic however; we have to create a listing history for Fannie Mae. Keep it at that price for 30 days and then set up two price reductions on the 1st and the 15th of the month. You may need to do more. The goal is to show Fannie Mae where you started ( at what was owed) and where the offers started coming in with the price reductions. You have to be able to back up the offer you are bringing to the table.

3. There are going to be times that you need to take it a step further. If you have a strong listing history and Fannie Mae is still not budging then an appraisal should be ordered. A buyer is not going to pay more than a home is worth period, and at the end of the day the bank gets nothing if all parties cannot come into agreement.


So, having said that; It is important that you understand the potential pitfalls going into a Fannie Mae deal. There may be times you have a smooth experience but I have heard from a lot of frustrated agents and sellers, myself included who are experiencing difficulty. Agents, we need to set proper expectation with a buyer and a seller on these deals . If they don't understand the time frames and what kind of fight we may be looking at you run risk of killing your deal before you even start.
Please note; we can go through all the proper steps and still run into pitfalls. We do the best we can with the information we have at hand.


Short sales are always going to be challenging. That's not going to change and you cannot control what the bank or the investor is going to do on the other end. What you can control is how you effectively and efficiently pre qualify, market the property and create a solid short sale package with no holes which will minimize the pitfalls that you encounter.


Please contact me with any additional questions or concerns you might have.


REALTORS, what is in your business plan this year? What are you doing to create a system that will allow you to build your short sale business? How often are you out there prospecting and how do you know if you are taking the listings that are going to be successful and not a waste of your time?


Call us today and let us show you a system that works to help you expand your business and effectively and efficiently close short sale transactions.


LOTUS REALTY GROUP
PROFESSIONAL SHORT SALE NEGOTIATORS



At Lotus Realty GROUP, helping people ethically succeed is at the forefront of who we are...

Another Housing Bubble? Recovery Shows Dangerous Signs, Reports Say

(Quote) “I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position. Attitude keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitudes are right, there is no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me.”


I wanted to share this article I read in CNN Money this morning. It reminded me of how we can all get our hopes up and then the moment they come crashing down we forget who we are and what we are made of and how we all have special and unique gifts. I feel that when things don't happen quite as we expected them to it is easy to become paralyzed without motivation to move forward. Here is what I know; nothing happens exactly the way we want it to and nothing lasts forever. Life is messy and nothing stays the same. But circumstances do not make up who we are and what we are capable of.


I do not think we are 100% out of the woods with the housing market and I feel there will be some challenges ahead however; this could be a good opportunity to get in touch with your message and special gift that you want to give to the world. Maybe it has nothing to do with Real Estate or maybe there is a special niche in the current Real Estate market you have inside of you to create. Hardships help use tap into our creative self. So what if what we expect to happen doesn't; how are we going to move forward in spite of what is happening around us and be the best we can be? The market doesn't determine our fate, we do.


Another Housing Bubble? Recovery Shows Dangerous Signs, Reports Say- CNN Money


It's impossible to ignore the increasingly loud cheers: The housing recovery is in full swing! Just on Monday, CoreLogic reported that home prices increased more than 8 percent year-over-year in December -- the largest gain in six years, when the boom was at its height. Home sales recently have been the strongest we've seen in a long time (though they are expected to temper in January due to a normal winter slowdown). All of that sounds great, but here's the problem: It seems to be mostly smoke and mirrors.

As CNBC reported, the jump in home prices is on an upward trajectory as dramatic as it was in the boom years. Prices soared 7, 8 and 12 percent year-over-year in the early 2000s, prompting experts to scream that the huge leaps were unsustainable. As we all know, the crash hit shortly thereafter. Now, though home prices are still down by double digits from where they were, the shoot up is happening at a similarly fast and furious pace. Conditions like these are what set us up for the last housing bubble to burst. The question now is: Are we heading for another housing bubble (that will inevitably pop)?

       There's another factor that is also a cause for concern. As David Stockman, former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan, told Yahoo! Finance, a disproportionately large chunk of home sales has been driven by investors buying up distressed properties and betting on being able to flip them for big profits once prices rise further. But the everyday home buyers (first-time buyers and buyers trading up for larger properties) that investors would need to sell to have been mostly staying out of the real estate market. Financial hardships, continued unemployment (albeit improving) and other factors are keeping them on the sidelines. So when prices reach a level where investors are ready to sell, there may not be many buyers to sell to -- and that could be disastrous for home prices once again.

       "I would say we have a housing bubble again," said Stockman, who recently has been working in the private equity sector. "We don't have a real organic sustainable recovery because, in a world of medicated money by the central bank, things aren't what they appear to be. ... It's happening in the most speculative subprime markets, where massive amounts of 'fast money' is rolling in to buy, to rent, on a speculative basis for a quick trade. And as soon as they conclude prices have moved enough, they'll be gone as fast as they came."


I am always here to assist you in your short sale transactions and help you build a plan of action that is in alignment with what you really want and allow you to sustain in any market. Please feel free to call me with any questions or concerns you might have.


REALTORS, what is in your business plan this year? What are you doing to create a system that will allow you to build your short sale business? How often are you out there prospecting and how do you know if you are taking the listings that are going to be successful and not a waste of your time?



Call us today and let us show you a system that works to help you expand your business and effectively and efficiently close short sale transactions.


LOTUS REALTY GROUP
PROFESSIONAL SHORT SALE NEGOTIATORS



At Lotus Realty GROUP, helping people ethically succeed is at the forefront of who we are...