Accepting the banks counter offer is not the same as having a deal

When you are negotiating your Chandler short sale there is most likely going to be a point where your bank is going to counter offer and you will accept the deal. That does NOT mean you have an agreement. That means based on the guidelines the investor behind the loan has given the bank who is servicing the loan, the deal is good enough to be submitted to the investor for final approval.

After you and the bank come to an agreement the deal is sent to the investor to be approved. Often the investor is going to come back and say they need more money, a cash contribution or a promissory note from the seller. This is often negotiable, but expect that to happen.

So don’t be surprised when the bank you thought you had a deal with all of a sudden says they need more money. This is when the real negotiations begin. Until you get the final approval letter in writing in your hands never assume you have a deal.

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HAFA: Sorry Alex and NAR, still not a game changer

HAFA… you heard me talk about it before A year ago, the day it was announced. The same day I said it would not work. There there was nothing in it that was realistically going to make a change.

In October of this year I reported that only 342 HAFA short sales had been closed in the first six months of the program. Not exactly stellar results or a game changer for the short sale industry as some “experts” and NAR claimed it would be.

Now there are new changes to the HAFA program.

The first change to the HAFA program is servicers are no longer required to verify a borrower’s financial information to determine if their debt-to-income ration exceeds the 31%. This sounds great on paper, but most of the homeowners who are looking for a short sale I have seen already had debt-to-income rations above 31%.

As far as the second-lien goes, there was a change there too. Originally the second-lien investor had to agree to accept 6% of the unpaid balance owed to them up to $6,000. The new guidelines eliminates the 6%, but still keeps the $6,000 cap. This could actually help a little, but I don’t think it is going to make much of a change. Many of the second’s are still not going to agree to this unless the same investor owns both liens.

So with these changes again I give them credit for trying, but if the government really wants to make programs work they are going to have to get those who are in the trenches involved in suggesting changes.

I don’t expect much of a change in the HAFA program. The approval rate may go up 100%, but that is still going to be a tiny percentage of all short sales that get approved. Sorry Alex and NAR, this is still not a game changer.

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NationStar short sales, changes you need to know

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5quJb1uktU

NationStar Mortgage has recently taken over servicing for a lot of loans including major servicers such as CitiMortgage. NationStar has also moved their short sale system to Equator following the likes of GMAC and Bank of America. While Equator is a great system, how each servicer utilizes it can vary and NationStar’s results are yet to be seen.

There is a danger you need to be aware of though when opening up your new NationStar file in Equator. NationStar has given all their new files new loan numbers which you may not be aware of. You need to make sure you use the new loan number and you are not using the old number. If you use the old number everything will appear to be fine, and you will not be given any warnings. However, the system will kick out the file and not tell you.

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Rant alert: I wish we could call agents out by name

Every now and then i do a rant video. I know there are people out there who dont like my rant videos, for those, this video and post are not for you.

The code of ethics for real estate agents says we need to be honest to all party in the transaction and that includes one agent to another and the buyers agent to the seller.

So agents, I know you have a fuduciarey responsibility to your buyer, but if you write an offer on a short sale and it says in the addendum you have ernest money for 90 days to give it time to be negotiated, then you are bound contractually.

If your buyer decides three weeks later later they want out of the deal, but when they learn they will lose their earnest money if they back out then mysteriously change their mind and decide to stay in, it is your responsibility to be honest with the selling agent.

In this situation the agent was just looking for the first opportunity to get out and save the earst money. As a matter of fact when we asked if the agent if the buyer was really still in because we did not want to lose the houes to foreclosure the agents response was sign an addendum to release the earnest money and we will answer that. That right there tells you they knew the buyer had been out of the deal for a while. Unfortunately for me the code of ethics does not allow me to call out the agent or i would get in trouble.

Yes you have fuduciary responsibility to pretoect your buyer, but you also have the responsibility of being honest. And buyers if you are not sure if you want the house, if you havent seen it yet, don’t write the offer. If you do, and your offer is accepted, then you need to fullfil the contract.

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