Have you followed the sensationalism with the foreclosure hault? It was all over the news. The evil banks were foreclosing on all these innocent home owners they should not have been foreclosing on. Well it turns out after a review of files, the foreclosures were justified.

Buying a foreclosure and buying a shorts sale in the East Valley these days can be a hairy situation. There is very little the buyer does have control over. One thing they do control is who their agent is and who their lender is.

A good agent and a good lender can dramatically change your buying experience. The deal may not always go perfect, but at least a good agent is going to let you know before hand what the scary situations may be. You can be prepared for the hurdles of buying a foreclosure or short sale and minimize surprises.

A good lender is going to get deals done on time and get them done quickly. Asking for an extension late in a foreclosure purchase could cost you money to get the extension approved. Asking for an extension late in a short sale deal could cost you the house if deadlines are not met.

Video 78: If you allow your house to go to foreclosure can the bank who had that loan come after you for any of their loses? Kevin Hardin of Thomson Conant Law Office in Phoenix answers that question for us. Would love to hear your thoughts, you can leave a comment or e-mail me Dean Ouellette.

Video 77: If you allow your house to go to foreclosure or chose to sell via a short sale will there be any taxes you need to pay? Kevin Hardin of Thomson Conant Law Office in Phoenix answers that question for us. Would love to hear your thoughts, you can leave a comment or e-mail me Dean Ouellette.

Video 53: Should I walk away from my mortgage if I am underwater? I would never advise anyone to do that, but I think it makes sense for some to consider walking away. I would love to hear your thoughts or any suggestions for future videos you have, you can leave a comment or e-mail me Dean Ouellette.

Video 48: Would a bank or lender rather do a foreclosure or see you sell your house via a short sale? It is almost never better for a lender to foreclose on a house. As long as the house is sold at fair market value the lender will average about 30% more selling the house via a short sale than they will via a foreclosure. There is an exception though, make sure you check out the video to see the exception when a short sale makes more sense for the lender. I would love to hear your thoughts or any questions you may have about short sales, you can leave a comment or e-mail me Dean Ouellette.

1) Buying a HUD home – A much underutilized resource for homebuyers looking to get into a home for as little out of pocket as possible.

2) Record 13.2 percent of mortgage loans in foreclosure or deliquent in Q2 – I like the ending “We are all subprime now”

3) Neighborhood Stabilization Program – Rail Life Style – This is a great example of someone taking a national issue and customizing it to their niche blog.

4)FHA saves duplex purchases for first time home buyers – You probably need to come up with 20% down to purchase a duplex with a conventional loan, but with FHA an owner occupied duplex can be had for much less down.

5) 203K and 203K Streamline series – Yes all these were published yesterday

• FHA 203K Streamline: Contractor requirements
• FHA 203K Streamline: How do payments work
• FHA 203K Streamline vs. 203K “Regular” what is the difference?

1) 5 dumb reasons you can’t get mortgage help – Ok, not to get to political, but read this then tell me you want the government taking over health care.

2) Can you really lose your home over 7 cents? – This is one of those ones where you really are not sure what to believe.

3) Preventing foreclosure: Protecting your home – If you are facing foreclosure or have a client who is this is a good piece to read. And of course contact a real estate attorney.

4) Good things from REConnect SF – Missed Inman Connect in San Francisco last week? Here are some good tools you may want to look into that one presenter talked about.

5) 8 ways to use photos to promote your business online – There seem to be a good number of real estate agents who are also into photography. Some of them are using the photographs to build their business, some are wondering how they can do so. Here are some ideas from Jason Crouch.

Top 5 real estate posts for Thursday 5/14/2009

1) FHA and the $8,000 tax credit – what I know and what I don’t… – Tom Vanderwell takes a look at the decision to allow first time home buyers to use the $8,000 tax credit for your FHA down payment. I did something on this yesterday too and have some of my own thoughts that are similar to Tom’s.

2) Rare breed indeed: SF Realtor is 18 years old – This Zillow blog post is an fun look at a 18 year old kid in San Francisco who is trying his hand at real estate.

3) Realtor member survey show response to challenging market – This Realtor survey has some interesting numbers such as money earned in relationship to time in business, hours worked, use of assistants, age of real estate agents and use of technology.

4) Phoenix foreclosure market, it is not the end – Last week we had a post about how the Phoenix foreclosure market has probably hit bottom, this post says not so fast, there is another wave to come.

5) Making an offer on a short sale – Jonathan writes this important blog post for those interested in purchasing a short sale. There are numerous posts warning buyers about the trouble they will face, I have written some myself. This one is a good post on how to do it if you still wish to after the warnings. And you have to respect any post that can work in a Brady Bunch reference.

  If you have tried to purchase a bank owned foreclosure home in the last two months you have surely seen the how competitive it has been. Most houses are going to multiple offers and many of those are going well above asking price. I have two customers I am currently working with who have made 3 and 4 offers, all of those offers have been at or above asking price, and they are still looking.

Why is this? The obvious answers are low prices and great interest rates, but the current situation goes a little deeper than that. This buyers market may have turned into a sellers market for the banks.

As of 2:15 PM today there were 6,307 bank owned properties on the market in the Arizona Multi-Listing Service. In the last 30 days 5,352 bank owned homes closed. That means there is only a 1.17 months supply of bank owned homes on the market today in the Phoenix area.

So when you go to put an offer in on that bank owned home and your agent tells you that the full price offer may not be good enough, now you know why.