Tag: Orlando short sale realtor

Fannie Mae Short Sales Just Got Shorter

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Fannie Mae

I believe that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac as well as most all other lending institutions finally acknowledge the importance of the realtor’s role in the short sale process.

It seems like yesterday [back in 2004] when we started doing short sales. Orlando realtors like myself that specialized in doing only short sales dealt with frustration everyday.

Short sales were rare and many lenders weren’t equipped to properly handle the short sale process. And when you did complete a short sale, getting your hard earned commission from the lender at the closing was like pulling teeth. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since then and most lenders are very aware of how to handle a short sale efficiently.

In 2008 shortly after the bubble burst in 2007, the US Department of Treasury introduced the Making Home Affordable Program aka “HAMP”.  The intention was to reach out to struggling homeowners that wanted to try and keep their homes as opposed to selling them via short sale or losing them to foreclosure. The program was extremely successful at what it was supposed to do which was help homeowners modify their mortgage so that they could keep their home.

By this time, “short sale” was a pretty common term for anyone who owned a house or anyone who watched the local news for that matter. Lenders were also getting used to processing short sales and even started offering several different “Cash for Keys” programs as an incentive to homeowners who agreed to short sale their home. Even though, overall, short sales are still complicated and time consuming many lenders have seen the light and have taken leaps and bounds in streamlining the the short sale process.

Fannie Mae [Federal National Mortgage Association] announced recently that they will attempt to assist listing agents that want to pursue a Fannie Mae short sale. In order to understand Fannie Mae’s new and improved process, you have to understand how short sales work.

 

What Changes Were Made With Fannie Mae Short Sales?

Fannie Mae just introduced a new website www home path for short sales .com. At the time of the listing, Fannie Mae will now provide list price guidelines. In addition, the agency will work directly with the listing agent or seller to get the 1st lien approval. The next step for Fannie Mae is to allow realtors to negotiate an offer directly through them saving us even more time.

 

Jennifer Zamora Orlando Realtor

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Loan Transfers, Not Just For Delinquent Mortgages

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Most people are under the assumption that a loan has to be in delinquent status in order to be transferred. The truth is that any loan can be transferred at any time the bank wishes. Remember the fine print that you speed read through at the closing? 

Somewhere in that fine print, it states that your mortgage company reserves the right to sell or transfer your loan at any time they wish after the closing. That means that the lender has the right to sell your loan to another lending institution without your permission.

Usually, mortgage companies will give you a written notice in the mail informing you that your loan has been or will be transferred to the new lender or servicing company.

However, I’ve had many clients tell me that they were made aware of the transfer only through a welcome letter from the new lender. Sometimes loans get transferred multiple times. Just because your loan was transferred once, it doesn’t mean that it won’t get transferred again…and again, etc.

Unless you pay off your loan in full, you will never have control over who controls your mortgage.

Mortgage Transfers Are Especially Challenging for Short Sale Realtors

For real estate agents like myself that specialize in doing Orlando short sales, this can be an extremely frustrating situation. You can have hours, days, weeks, and even months invested in a short sale file then… WHAMMO!!  Out of the blue the loan gets transferred to another lender. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if they would just transfer the complete file over to the next lender so that we could just pick up where we left off. But that’s not the case……that’s never the case!

The new lender requires the agent to submit the entire short sale package again from scratch. The only thing that does transfer over it seems is the pending sale date. So not only are you forced to waste a lot more time submitting the new file, getting a hold of the negotiator, etc. but the sale date doesn’t usually get delayed.

This has happened so many times to me that you wouldn’t bother me any more right? Wrong… this has to be the most frustrating thing that can happen to a short sale realtor especially if you’ve been working the file for several months. However, sometimes it’s a blessing in disguise if you’re lucky enough to get a lender that’s more flexible with their terms or guidelines other times homeowners end up with a lender with a much stricter set of rules.

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The Quiet Short Sale | By ORC

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

A short sale on your home can be frustrating, intrusive and sometimes even embarrassing. At Orlando Realty Consultants [ORC] we’ve developed a process for people who need to do a short sale, but don’t want the whole neighborhood knowing about it.  We like to call it…” The Quiet Short Sale”. The quite short sale works much different than an ordinary short sale. To begin with, there are no “for sale” signs or lock boxes anywhere on your property. This will save homeowners from having to explain to their neighbors why they’re selling their home.

The key is getting the lender’s authorization to leave the short sale listing off of the MLS. We’re able to do this because over the years we’ve developed great relationships with all the major lenders so most of the time we get this authorization granted to us without any problem at all. By leaving your home off of the MLS, it will dramatically cut down on the number of unqualified buyers, nosy neighbors and tire kickers trying to come in and out of your home.

We work with hundreds of investors from around the country that make selling an Orlando home easy and painless. Only qualified buyers will find out about the property through target marketing systems that we use to successfully market all of our Orlando properties.

Also, every time we show the property, it will be by appointment and it will be by one of our licensed team members so you don’t have to worry about strangers walking throughout your house.

We will also work with your lender to get you the maximum amount of money back at the closing to help you get into your next home. Our clients usually receive anywhere from $3,000.00 to $30,000.00 back at the closing of the transaction.

Over the years we’ve helped thousands of Orlando homeowners short sale their homes and move on with their life.

We look forward to helping you with your short sale transaction. For more information contact our offices in Orlando at 407-902-7750.

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Orlando Home Buyers Buy Their House Back After Losing It To Foreclosure!

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

Every once in a while we hear a story about something that inspires us and that reminds us that good things still happen in the world. In this case, it was about one of our clients, Jose and Mary Guadalupe had gone through some financial hardships due to loss of employment and ultimately ended up losing their South Orlando dream home located in the Meadow Woods sub-division to public foreclosure auction.

After it went through the foreclosure process another family bought it and just 2 years later, they hired our Company to complete a short sale on the property. And so we did then we actually ended up buying it ourselves as a re-hab property. We completely rehabbed the home installing new cabinetry, flooring, fixtures, etc. The day I went to put a “For Sale” in the yard was the day I met the Guadalupe family for the first time.

These Orlando Home Buyers Never Gave Up Hope

They went on to tell me their story about how they lost their dream house to foreclosure and about the deep depression the family went through because of that experience. Since going through that experience, Mr. Guadalupe was now employed as a local truck driver for over 2 years and their financial situation had really turned around for the better. As a matter of fact, the family had recently been house hunting in that same neighborhood for the past several months never finding one that interested them.

Mrs. Guadalupe claimed that she would drive by her old house several times per week just hoping that one day it would be for sale. Then one day came when they spotted me installing our sign in the front yard. After listening to their story, I was happy to show them around the newly renovated home. It didn’t take long for Mrs. Guadalupe to start getting teary-eyed as she walked into the kitchen where she had prepared thousands of home-cooked meals for her family. ” My kids were raised in this house,” she said. It was right then and there that we decided to do everything in our power to help the Guadalupe family get back the house that they had lost just a few years prior.

stop foreclosure

Typically, it’s much harder to get a mortgage on a property after you’ve gone through a foreclosure or short sale and it used to be that you would have to wait 7 years before you could even apply for a mortgage but with the new lender guidelines in place it could go down to only 3 years for some people. Although buying back the same home that you lost to foreclosure is extremely rare, the Guadalupe family is among a recently emerging group of purchasers, that were able to get back into the housing market under new, more forgiving lender guidelines.

With these new rules in place, thousands of Central Floridians who have gone through foreclosure have the potential to make buying a home a reality again. Over 100,000 homeowners in Orlando have lost their homes to foreclosure or short sale since the real estate crash of 2007.

 

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Median Orlando Home Prices in Shoot 24 Percent Up at the Close of 2013

Posted on by Jenny Zamora

 Wednesday reinforced positive sentiments among Orlando realtors as the Orlando Regional Realtor Association released its yearly report about the Orlando real estate market. The report revealed that the average Orlando Home price for properties in the city saw a 24 percent hike in the previous year. This 2013 rise in median home prices marks an all-time high since the economic downturn of early 2006 that took the housing market down with it.

Key takeaways from the report

 The median home price in the core Orlando real estate market was $149,625, in 2013. Back in 2012, the corresponding figure stood $28,000 below, at $121,000. The last time Orlando real estate agents had seen such a hike was just before the housing bubble in 2005.

Median house prices rose by more than 33 percent that year. The same upturn of events was seen in 2013. The report holds that 2013 saw the sale of 6.54 percent more homes, than the previous year. Compared to the 28,765 homes that were sold in 2012, 30,645 were sold in 2013, showing just where top Orlando realtors had been busy the year.

Comparing the statistics for December alone, aggregate median home prices were up by 20.87 percent compared to the previous year. In the December of 2012, the aggregate for Orlando was $132,500. The 20.87 percent boost brought up aggregate median house prices for all of Orlando to $160,150 in the December of 2013.

The Christmas month also saw a 3.32 percent hike in the median home price of Orlando real estate properties from the previous month. Compared to the median price of $155,000 in November 2013, December registered the median price of $160,150. Real estate agents in Orlando sold 2367 homes in December – 11.55 percent more than their November tally.

Prime reasons attributed to the up-turn

 Orlando Regional Realtor Association’s chairman, Zola Szerencses remarked that the competition between investors and buyers helped reverse the sunken-mortgaged conditions for many property owners.

Industry experts list low inventory during the first two quarters as a positive influence. The second and third quarters presented prospects with low-interest rates – boosting confidence and increasing sales.

Despite the promising upturns, the median prices in the Orlando real estate industry remain considerably low compared to the peak Orlando realtors saw in July 2007. The real estate bubble was about to burst and median prices for the Orlando neighborhood homes peaked at $264,000. For 2014, economists have predicted a flattening up of the sales and price increase to about five percent.

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