Category: Orlando Short Sales

Orlando Realtors Fed Up With Bad BPO’s

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Bad BPO’s= Inflated Values

Orlando Realtors that specialize in short sales know how important the broker’s price opinion [BPO] part of the process is. The BPO refers to the value of a property as decided by a local real estate agent or broker. It’s important to note that BPO agents are not appraisers. BPOs should be done by taking into consideration the characteristics of the subject property such as similar properties in the neighborhood [square footage, upgrades, etc.] They should also consider other important factors such as the repairs that will take to make the property ready to be put on the market.

Once a contract is submitted to a lender on short sale property. The lender will then order the BPO to be done through a large BPO agency. The agency will then hire a local real estate broker or agent to do it. Most of the time the broker or agent will then do the BPO based completely on electronic data and will sometimes even complete their BPO report before even leaving the office. This means that some of the items such as necessary repairs, neighborhood trends, etc. aren’t taken into consideration often resulting in bad BPOs that a short sale agent receives.

What can an Orlando Short Sale Realtor do to prevent a Bad BPO?

1- Automatically assume that the BPO will be bad or overinflated. This will give you more time so that you’re ready to fight it.

2-Do your own Comparative Market Analysis [CMA] providing at least 5 comparable properties that will help to prove your case.

3-Take a bunch of pictures of any cosmetic, structural, or neighborhood issues that can negatively affect the value of the subject property. You should also take pictures of dated appliances, old water stains, mold and mildewed walls, worn-out wall coverings, and fixtures. Big-ticket items like roof, ceiling, AC, and water heater damages should also be included. You should also take pictures of any overgrown landscaping, broken or deteriorated fencing as well as any other issues with the yard. You should also take pictures of nearby commercial locations that could potentially influence the value of a property.

4-Carefully review the BPO report that was completed by the other agent. Remember… you are the local expert, not them. Take note of how old the comparable properties are as well as the square footage making sure that the comparables provided are a good match for your property. Make sure that the school ratings and nearby amenities were also recorded correctly such as parks, shopping, entertainment, and dining.

5-Make sure that any needed repairs were also considered as part of the BPO, this is a big one! If possible take any pictures of the comparable properties that were used that will help to prove your case with the lender. By doing this, you can prepare a detailed side-by-side comparison showing the lender that the BPO agent got it wrong.

6-Submit your analysis to the bank as soon as possible after you received the unreasonable BPO that was prepared by the Broker or agent. This will not only show the lender that you know your stuff but that you are ready to move quickly towards a resolution.

Once you’ve done all these things, it will undoubtedly make the bank take notice. Remember to always be respectful with the negotiator and use humor whenever appropriate to keep things light. I don’t care who it is, people will always appreciate a good laugh. Then the only thing left to do is follow up, follow up, follow up. At the very least the lender will have no choice but to order a second BPO.

 

 

 

Certified Distressed Property Expert

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Florida’s Housing Market Recovery Still Intact After October Hesitancy

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

 Florida’s housing market has been seeing great development in the recent past, even though this recovery process paused in October. According to Florida real estate agents and builders across the state, the underlying trend of recovery is still improving despite October’s setback.

The October setback for Florida’s housing market

Prices and sales were slowly scraping their way back to normality from the housing market collapse. The lower interest rates were doing well to lure buyers looking for their first home. Price appreciation was also doing a great job to boost move-up purchases from buyers who could sell existing homes that were bought in the last few years, without incurring any losses.

However, October presented a few obstacles in this steady recovery process. The partial shutdown of the government that lasted for two weeks seemed to have affected the confidence of consumers. The recent spike in flood insurance costs also hit the desire for customers to buy homes in coastal communities. Along with these reasons, seasonal trends of home-buying injured the number of sales when compared to the buoyant market in summer. Even though sales percentages were up from last October, the pace was slower than a 36% year-to-date growth recorded by the Florida area president of David Weekly Homes.

The housing market is recovery still recovering strongly

Recovery had taken a rapid and noticeable growth spurt in May, though October made itself a nuisance due to dramatic cost spikes in insurance as federal subsidies fell away. There were insurance bills that topped $10,000 which easily scared off prospective buyers. Such insurance bills effectually took away a large provision of inventory from the market. However, even though October was regarded as a small “hiccup” in the recovery progress, buyers are now focusing on newer homes that are less affected by these insurance premium increases. Thanks to this, November sales were off to quite a good start.

Price appreciation has started to bring move-up buyers and sellers back onto the market as their home equity returned. One-time homeowners that were subject to Orlando short sales and foreclosure have now repaired their credit enough to enable them to buy again. Even though it is quite normal for the market to dip at this time of the year, the government shutdown did not help. The biggest problems that are being faced right now are the job markets and consumer confidence. Builders are also not producing as fast as they once did. However, there are many Orlando realtors that remain very optimistic concerning the industry.

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Top Orlando Realtors Work Harder During The Holidays

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

With the holiday season among us, it seems that buyers and sellers take a vacation from buying and selling just like everyone else. With all the distractions that the holidays have to offer like shopping, dinner parties, celebrating, traveling, etc. Many Orlando realtors welcome this time of year to enjoy some much-needed downtime with friends and family. Real estate professionals know that once all the holiday distractions disappear that it’s back to work as usual because historically that’s what happens. This is why Top Orlando Realtors never stop working and even work harder through the holidays.

Marketing your business and keeping up with the competition is no easy task but it’s by far the most important. The fact that the phone doesn’t ring as much during the holidays allows for top real estate professionals to work even harder so that when things go back to normal again they find themselves ahead of the game instead of having to play catch up. I hate coming back from a long vacation to face an even longer to-do list. It makes me feel like I need a vacation!

 Catch up on your Blogging

With the phone not ringing as much, it also provides more quiet time during the day which is perfect for writing articles for my blog, like this one. It’s a lot more challenging keeping up with a daily blog when you have to follow up with 20+ Orlando short sale files every day. I get my best ideas when I have silence and the more silence that I have, the more I write.  As a matter of fact, I usually do enough writing during December to cover my company blog all the way through the end of January freeing up more of my time to work on other projects.

A Great Time to Sharpen Your Real Estate Marketing Tools

It’s also the perfect time to knock out some things that I’ve meant to get to for a while like revamping my website by changing over to a new theme with responsive capability. This means that when it will be user-friendly on all devices including desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Have you ever gone to a website on your smartphone and you can only view a small portion of it?  It’s very frustrating… you have to manually scroll over to see the information one tiny section at a time. Not only that, but the new Google algorithm “Hummingbird” is supposedly going to start penalizing websites that aren’t mobile-friendly moving into 2014.

Thank Your Real Estate Clients From 2013

Working as full-time Orlando Realtors, we depend on our clients for 100% of our income. I think it’s very important to reach out to those people that have bought and sold properties through us during the past year. Not just so that they refer their friends and family to us but because it’s just the right thing to do. After all, if it wasn’t for our clients, we wouldn’t be able to survive.

That being said, I would to thank all of our clients from this past year for choosing https://orlandorealtyconsultants.com/ and putting your faith in us to handle one of the most important transactions of your life. Thanks to you it’s been a fantastic year for us. It’s been our pleasure to serve you.

Happy Holidays!

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Cash Incentives for Short Sales Continue

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

 Cash Incentives for Short Sales

It appears that new short sale guidelines that have been put into place continue to make it easier for distressed homeowners to get relocation assistance after completing the short sale on their distressed property. Mortgage companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have launched a new short sale program allowing the homeowner to complete a short sale and receive cash incentives without missing any mortgage payments….It’s about time!

I don’t know why this hasn’t always been the case. I believe that as long as the homeowner can prove a valid hardship, then why force them to miss payments if they’re willing to work with the bank sooner than later. For one thing, the lender loses less money. Why would you want the homeowner to miss at least one or two payments before allowing them to start the process if they’re willing to start the process while continuing to make the payments? I think that if this were the case then there would be a lot less distressed homeowners doing a strategic default.

[HAFA] The Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program provides distressed homeowners with cash relocation incentive of $3,000.00. The problem is that the guidelines have several restrictions that many times kept distressed sellers from getting the assistance they so desperately needed.

B of A, The nation’s largest loan servicer offers the HAFA program in addition to several other in-house programs. Its most popular program is the “Cooperative Short Sale Program” which has an “Enhanced Relocation Assistance” that ranges anywhere from $2,500 to $30,000. Just this past year we were able to qualify 3 of our Orlando short sale clients for the $30,000.00 cashback at closing. Bank of America has recently launched the enhanced program on a national level. This program applies to pre-approved short sales, these are short sales that are started without there being an offer to purchase. The amount of the incentive is based on the value of the home.

 

WILL YOUR LENDER COOPERATE?

There are some who will tell you that banks would rather take a house to foreclosure or modify the loan than approve a short sale. This just isn’t true, it costs a lender a lot of time and money to take a house through the foreclosure process and at the end of the day, it’s just a numbers game.

The truth is that short sales net lenders twelve to twenty-five percent more than they would make from foreclosure because of the time and money that it takes to not only regain control over the property, but to make any repairs, market and finally resell the house. And as far as loan modifications are concerned, over half of them default within the first year then ultimately turn into short sale or foreclosure.

Lenders have finally figured this all out and that’s why they are constantly streamlining there process and continue to create enticing offers to help out distressed homeowners. By completing a short sale, a distressed homeowner can avoid going through a foreclosure and limit the damage done to their credit.

 

 

 

Realtor in Orlando, FL

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The Root of All Short Sales is a Valid Hardship

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

 

A borrower’s hardship still remains the main criterion in order for a lender to approve a short sale on a home. The simple explanation or definition of “hardship” is when someone is in “a state of affliction or misfortune” meaning that the borrower has gone or is going through something in their life whether it’s personal or financial that has affected their ability to continue paying their mortgage. There could be countless reasons that someone could be going through hardship but there always seems to be a handful that we hear about over and over again.

Working as an Orlando short sale realtor for the past 8 years, I’ve heard hardship stories that have literally brought tears to my eyes. However, listening to some of these stories has only fueled my passion for wanting to help these people that are going through a valid hardship. I also help investors that are facing foreclosure on their Orlando investment properties for whatever reason, but there’s a world of difference between losing an investment property or two or three as compared to face losing the home that you live in with your family.

Generally speaking, it’s much harder to get a short sale approved on investment property, than it is on someone’s primary residence. The truth is that some lenders are just not interested in approving a short sale on a property unless there’s a legitimate hardship at the root of it. OMG!… Does this mean that some of these loss mitigation negotiators actually have compassion for people that really need and deserve it? I’m happy to say that, yes it does. In my experience, the majority of loss mitigation reps will actually read the hardship letter and factor it into their decision of whether or not to approve a short sale.

Here are some of the main reasons why people are facing financial hardship.

1. Reduction of income

2. Loss of employment

3. Medical problems

4. Divorce

5. A death or serious injury in the family

6. Having to relocate because of employment or school.

7. Business going under

8. Drug addiction

Financial hardship alone, however, is just not enough to get a short sale approved. The biggest reason is that the home must be worth less than the full payoff of the mortgage. If not, then the home could typically be sold as a traditional listing providing that there’s enough equity to cover the closing costs of the transaction.

Here’s a basic example that can be used as a template to create a hardship letter.

Dear Lender,

I’m writing this letter to explain why I am no longer able to continue making my mortgage payments to you.

[Here is where you want to write about your personal hardship in detail]

Also, current market conditions in my area have significantly deteriorated causing my home to be worth substantially less than what is owed on my mortgage balance. As a result, I’m asking that you please consider allowing me to sell my house as a short sale.

Kindest Regards,

Distressed homeowner.

Cash Back to the Seller at Closing

Assuming that all of the other criteria of the lender are met to proceed with the short sale, the borrower may also be eligible for relocation incentives from the lender. Programs such as HAFA [Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives] will actually pay the seller anywhere from $3,000 to $30,000 back at the closing depending on the situation.

 

 

 

 

Orlando short sale expert

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