Tag: orlando real estate news

Ask your Orlando realtor questions about your short sale

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Don’t be afraid to ask your Orlando realtor questions about your short sale

  So you’ve decided to pursue a short sale on your home either because it owes more than what it’s worth and and just want to get out from under it or because you’ve fallen behind on your mortgage payments. You’re next step should be to find a experienced short sale realtor with a proven track record. How do you do this? Well like everything else these days… you Google it!  For example, if you need to find a good short sale realtor in Orlando, you should type in terms like “Orlando short sale realtor”, “Orlando short sale specialist”, “Orlando short sale expert”, etc…. you get the picture.  Once you hit the search button your computer screen will pull up the top results for the best short sale realtors in the city of Orlando. I would suggest that you choose from 1st page results and forget about going to page 2.

Now that you have a list of the top Orlando short sale realtors, start calling and emailing them. This is a great test to see which realtors will get back to you right away and which ones will call you 3 days later or maybe even not at all. Quick tip; If a realtor takes more than 24 hrs to get back to you, stay away! Imagine how frustrating it would be for you if this person had control of your short sale and every time you tried contacting them with an important question you had to wait days for a response.   By using this tactic of contacting every realtor on the first page, you will eliminate at least half the Orlando realtors that are showing up, which never ceases to amazes me. I can’t tell how many times sellers have called me and told me that they’ve called another realtor before me and they never got a response.

Now you should have a hand full of realtors that you were able to get a hold of immediately or at least in a short amount of time. I suggest that you now have a long conversation with them over the phone. You can tell a lot about someone by just talking to them for a while. While you’re talking with them be sure to make notes about that individual such as; “seemed friendly and knowledgeable” , “answered all my questions” , “was very impatient”, “felt like I was being rushed”, “not experienced enough”, etc. Remember, you’re looking for someone that’s not only going to be looking out for  your best interest, but this person will be [or should be] in constant contact with you and it needs to be someone that you feel comfortable  with.

The Final step in Hiring an Orlando short sale realtor

OK, now hopefully you should have at least 2 realtors that you’re thinking about listing your house with. The final step in choosing the best realtor for you is to make an appointment for them too come and see you at your home. Ask them to bring testimonials from past clients as well as anything else that they can use to prove their track record to you. You should also ask them to have a plan of action laid out for your home if they were to get the listing.   Remember, when they come over to meet with you, you’re the one in control. They are their to try and get you to hire them, not the other way around. After meeting with the 2 or 3 realtors that you’ve set appointments with, you will undoubtedly have made a decision on the realtor that best meets your needs.

Follow up with your realtor as well as your lender

Now that you’ve  found an Orlando short sale realtor that you’re happy with, make sure to follow up. A good short sale agent should provide you with weekly status reports n the status of your short sale. Another way to make sure your file is being handled properly is to follow up with your lender and find out what’s happening with your file as well as when was the last time your realtor mad contact with them. You shouldn’t feel bad about doing this and your realtor shouldn’t feel offended because you’re checking up on them. This is probably one of the most important things happening in your life right now and you have a right to know exactly what’s going on.

 

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Florida incomes and Orlando real estate continue to rise

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Floridians income increase along with their confidence

 

Florida has shown substantial gains on three different areas, Real estate prices, income and consumer confidence. Much of this can be attributed to the overall housing market in Florida. Orlando real estate is a great accelerator when it comes to creating jobs and increasing local incomes, then the next logical thing that happens is a confidence boost. It’s just human nature, when people are doing OK financially they not only feel better about themselves but they become more confident about how much they can spend when house hunting.

I think It’s good that Floridian’s consumer confidence is at it’s highest point in 5 years but potential home buyers still need to be careful. The Orlando real estate market is constantly changing and right now it’s on the rise as it has been for the past 2 years or so. This doesn’t mean that you should buy just any house listed on the MLS. The truth is that many Orlando properties that I see listed are seriously overpriced. Sometimes this is due to the seller wanting to sell for the absolute highest price in the neighborhood because sellers typically believe that the house where they live is special compared to other houses in the same neighborhood, again…just human nature.

 

Short Sale Lenders are sometimes to blame for overpriced real estate listings

As short sale realtors, we are sometimes told by the client’s lender how much to list the property for. Sometimes, no matter how many years of experience we have in selling Orlando real estate, they still think they know more about the local market than an experienced Orlando realtor. I’ve argued with negotiators until I’m blue in the face as far as “fair market value” is concerned and they will still try to tell me how much the property should be listed for. However I quickly learn, usually on the first conversation, whether arguing my point will do you any good. Lenders that absolutely insist on telling me how much to list a property for… in my area of expertise,  I do just that.

9 out of 10 times, the result is that the property spends a lot more time on the market than it should have. With no offers or contracts after several weeks or even months of the property being listed, short sale negotiators will eventually figure out that they’re asking price needs to be lowered, then…I do just that and the property gets sold.

 

 

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Banks are becoming more experienced with Orlando short sales making things easier for realtors

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Banks are getting much faster at the Orlando short sale process

Short sales have had a bad reputation in the Orlando real estate market for several years now. Realtors didn’t want to take on short sale properties either because they didn’t know what was involved and were afraid of getting in over their head or because they knew exactly what was involved and they didn’t want to commit to the hard work that’s involved in completing an Orlando short sale. Buyers didn’t like them because of the time that it would take to hear back from the bank about their offer that was submitted. Sometimes a potential buyer would submit a contract and have to wait three or four months just to find out that their offer wasn’t accepted, and all that time they spent waiting to hear back from the bank could have been utilized searching for other properties. This was extremely frustrating for everyone involved.

Lenders also must have felt frustrated because the truth is they just weren’t prepared to take on all these short sales. They weren’t prepared to handle short sales period… let alone hundreds of thousands of them coming at them at once. I believe that this is probably one of the reasons why loss mitigators would often tell agents that they didn’t receive certain documentation over and over again, or they would say things like we needed these docs in a certain order or a month later they would tell you to send everything again because it needs to be updated. Any experienced Orlando short sale realtors that are reading this post right know exactly what I’m talking about. In my opinion, these were stall tactics because lenders didn’t know how to get these short sales processed in an efficient manner.

Orlando short sales are being fast tracked thanks to experienced negotiators

Short sales are now being processed much faster than was the case just a year ago. Lenders have come a long way in putting systems in place to make things move more smoothly for the homeowner as well as the Orlando realtor processing the whole thing. I feel that the biggest change, however, is because of the short sale negotiators having much more experience in dealing with short sales now. At the end of the day, Big banks don’t run things, people do, and for some people, it’s easier to say that they didn’t receive something or come up with some other type of lame stalling tactic rather than to admit that they didn’t know what they doing.

Lately,  I’ve noticed a huge difference in the way that short sale negotiators handle short sale files. They’ve gotten better in every area; from ordering the BPO to negotiating with their investors and even getting extensions on payoff letters. I have about a dozen or so negotiators with several different lenders that I just love working with because “they get it”, they know how this business works and they will do whatever it takes to get the deal done.  Don’t get me wrong, I still have conversations with some short sale negotiators that frustrate me to no end because they are clueless about the Orlando real estate market or real estate in general yet they still try to tell me how much I should list an Orlando property for, but for the most part it’s gotten much much better.

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Fannie Mae Making great Strides in the Orlando Short Sale Process

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Fannie Mae is taking the Lead on making short sales move even faster for Orlando homeowners

It’s amazing to see how far certain lenders have come in the way of helping homeowners to get their Orlando short sales approved. In the not-so-distant past, some of the major lenders were hell bent on making the short sale process a nightmare for not only the homeowners but also, the short sale realtors that had to work the entire process. Then even after you’ve submitted the complete package to the lender dotting every I and crossing every t, you would then have to re-submit the entire short sale package several times over either because it needed to be updated or the lender had lost it or claimed to have never received it. I know this may sound absurd to some of you but believe it or not, this used to happen on just about every single file at least once or twice.

It’s only been in the last year or so that we’ve seen a drastic change in the way that lenders handle Orlando short sales in General. There are systems in place such as HudHomes.Gov that some lenders use which make short sales move along a lot faster. And with systems like these in place, no longer can negotiators claim to have never received certain documents or that they’ve lost them. It’s as easy as logging into your account and uploading every page that they request. This was just one of the steps which began to streamline the short sale process.

Since then, there have been laws implemented by congress which require lenders to respond within 60 days of a short sale offer being presented, this was Huge! Even bigger, was when Lenders started giving homeowners large “Cash for Keys” incentives to complete short sales. Not only were homeowners able to get their debt forgiven, but they were able to receive enough cash at closing to start over in a new life.

Most recently, Fannie has come out with new guidelines for loan servicers to follow.  The new guidelines are a part of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Servicing Alignment Initiative. The idea is to prevent more foreclosures and help neighborhoods to stabilize.

Fannie Mae’s new guideline changes

• Hardships. Servicers will now be permitted to approve a short sale for borrowers who have certain kinds of hardships but are still current on their loans. Also, in order to reduce paperwork, no documentation of hardship will be required for borrowers who are 90 days or more delinquent and have a credit score lower than 620.

• 2nd-lien payments limited to $6,000. Before, 2nd lien holders often attempted to negotiate higher payments. The loan servicer will be able to offer the maximum payment of $6,000 in order to facilitate the transaction. By setting a standard payout amount and a limit for every transaction, Fannie Mae is removing the guesswork in order to accelerate the short sale process.

• Servicers will have more authority to approve and complete short sales. All servicers will have the authority to approve and complete short sales that conform to the requirements without receiving individual approval from Fannie Mae. Sometimes this part of the process added several months to short sale negotiations.

Jenny Zamora Lic RE Broker, Orlando

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Orlando Real Estate, one of the Nations Highest in Asking Prices, but we won’t be Fooled Again!

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

 Orlando Real Estate is Hotter than ever right now

As of a year ago in August asking prices are up 8.6% which means that we are actually eighth in the nation, tied with San Jose California. This is good news for Orlando homeowners who elected to ride the storm out since the crash in 2007. These homeowners who have been wanting to sell their Orlando property but didn’t want to take a huge loss are now able to sell and even make a profit depending on how much they owe.

Orlando real estate Experts can speculate all they want to and try and predict what the future of Orlando real estate will be, but the fact is that only time will tell. One thing that I always try to advise my clients about is to be very careful when buying Orlando Real estate, especially as an investment. Sure, buying Orlando realty as an investment can be a great idea if you buy it right and don’t let your emotions cloud you’re thinking.

Homebuyers should never depend on Orlando Real estate appreciating when making their decision to buy. This is where a whole lot of people got into a whole lot f trouble in past years. In 2006 people went into a frenzy buying up houses and condos in new construction properties in Orlando with an “I can’t go wrong attitude” thinking that they were going to make a killing. And the fact is that many investors did make a killing doing just that. But there were many more people that lost everything and have never recovered. I know this because working as Orlando Short Sale specialist, most of my clients are short sale clients. I’ve had clients that have had 20 and 30 properties and they now have  20 and 3o properties in default and upside down.

Orlando home buyers should never forget what happened in 2007

As hot as the Orlando real estate market is today, I really hope that people don’t fall into that trance again where they believe that Orlando home prices will only rise and can never fall, that kind of thinking is what got everyone into trouble in the first place.

If you’re thinking of purchasing a home in Orlando, consult with a proven Orlando Real estate expert so that you can make educated decisions on your approach to the world of Orlando Real estate investing.

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