Monday, August 23, 2010

Program Hr 3648 Mortgage Relief

If you are having trouble paying your mortgage because of job loss or health issues. You can find some help out there. There are a few situations where you can apply to your lender for a loan modification. This is a tedious task and requires a lot of paperwork.

In order to qualify for a loan modification you need to show that you are in a temporary hardship situation. Most of the time when the mortgagee loses a job they find they can't pay their mortgage. After exhausting their savings many people have gone into their 401k's incurring expensive penalties just to keep their heads above water.

A loan modification can give you a few months to try to resolve the hardship and get back on track. Nothing is free. A lot of these tack on a few extra years or thousands of dollars so that you can pay this back on the back end of the loan.

After you've exhausted all your savings and still can't get a job or your new employment is paying far less than you used to get paid you will find that you may need to sell your house. Downsizing to a less expensive house would be the logical thing to do. The problem is most people are under water on their mortgage.

The government passed a law called HR3848. This program is a Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act. This is to help stem the tide of foreclosures by removing the tax burden resulting in debt reduced through mortgage restructuring or debt forgiveness in connection with short sales.

I have aligned myself with Program HR 3648 as the Cuyahoga Representative. This company has named itself after the debt relief bill. This is a privately sponsored Nation-wide initiative to help the me help the homeowner successfully negotiate the process of a short sale.

The importance of this initiative is to help someone who qualifies for this program to restructure their lives and stop drowning in debt. It also helps the housing stock from continuing to decline in values. A short sale sells on average at 87% of the value of a regular home in the neighborhood. A foreclosed home sells for 57% of value.

It is best for all of us to support this process. The problem is handling a short sale is very time consuming. Now with Program HR 3648 helping me in this process of the sale we can get these properties sold and off the court foreclosure list.

Call me if you need my help.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Buying a bank owned home and dealing with Repairs

I recently passed the class for the designation of 203 K Specialist. What that means is I have been properly trained to help buyers get a loan that includes money to do repairs on the property they buy. I have been doing to this type of loan for years but now it is popular because of all the bank owned properties out there selling at below market values. If you are planning to purchase a property and live there you will qualify for this type of loan. This loan is not for investors or new construction. It is an FHA loan that, with a lot of paperwork can get you money for a new roof, remodel a kitchen or bath, replace windows or even buy appliances! There are two kinds of this type loan. One is called Streamline. This is the easier of the two. A buyer can get up to $35,000 for repairs above the cost of the purchase price. There are all sorts of rules about what can be done and what can't. This type of loan can not do structural repairs. If structural work is needed the buyer has to do the Standard 203k loan. There are only a few lenders who do these. It is important to use a lender that is good at this or it can take months! I have partnered with Lowes home improvement store to help people make this an easier transaction. In turn working with this program we can get some of this housing stock sold, put people to work and repair some of the blight in our neighborhoods. So if you are afraid to buy a house because of the possible repair bill give me a call and I'll put my 25 years of experience to work for you. I am also working to get my Certification in Real Estate Construction so that I can be more helpful in this process. After over 3000 house inspections I'm pretty good at this already. Just don't ask me to run a chain saw!