HOA’s, What’s your opinion on them? Do you think they are gettng out of hand?

Posted on April 12th, 2010 by admin in first rate realestate | 5 Comments »

Okay granted, they help you maintain the value of your home. IMO it’s not that much though. Especially with the dues and the fines that come along with it. It may be that because I am Texan and we have so much land that this sort of governance is only heard of in our Larger Cities. I own a home in a suburb of a suburb of Dallas (in the country but 30minutes from the city) No HOA. I refuse to give my money to an organization to tell me when to put my garbage can up and tell me when to mow my lawn. The funny thing is all of my neighbors and I keep our homes looking nice. And we dont have an HOA. It’s sort of quant how every saturday morning everyone is outside mowing or working in their garden, making things nice, loaning each other tools. Aganin: NO HOA. I think that HOAs are highly over rated useless forms of governmet

http://realestate.msn.com/buying/Articlenewhome.aspx?cp-documentid=653570&GT1=8384nt.

Read the article. It angers me. Do we need to regulate HOA’s?

HOA are a way to control what you can and cannot do with your property. They are for anal retentive types who can’t keep to here own business. I mean who gives a crap if the person next door doesn’t mow there lawn every week. I think that there are benifits of a HOA but there mostly used to police your neighborhood.

Real Estate Conditions 6 – Mortgage & First Time Home Buyer Dec08 Loss Mitigation Department

Posted on April 9th, 2010 by admin in first rate realestate | No Comments »

First Time Home Buyers use FHA Mortgage and Seller Paid Closing Costs to Buy Real Estate Now. Best Market Conditions for Foreclosures and Short Sales in Decades. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 6 (Excerpt)

How many lives have to be wrecked by the mortgage companies loss mitigation departments?

I always tell people when I was dealing with them, with their bankruptcy situation or foreclosures or whatever especially when someone would call me and they would say, I want to file a chapter 13 to save my house and I would say, You dont even think about doing that without an attorney and I would give them an attorneys name and it would work out for them because I think the numbers were like 95% of all chapter 13s filed by the home owner themselves failed.

And I think that is the kind of numbers were going to see in loan modifications, we saw numbers the other day that came out from the government saying that over 50% of the loan modifications are failing. I would suspect that 95% of those were not negotiated by an attorney.

Youre absolutely right, the other thing is people think theyre getting a loan modification because their lender told them that but theyre going to increase their payment over the next X number of months to make up for the back payments. That is not a loan modification by my standards, that is called a forbearance agreement and the majority of people who have failed its because they were put into a plan that was designed to fail.

For gods sakes if your lender is going to increase your mortgage payment by 50% how on earth are you going to pay it when you couldnt pay it when it was right? To me its just mind boggling, theyre out of their minds in these loss mitigation departments. They’re not looking out for you, theyre mitigating the loss for the banks, you need someone who is going to fight for you. And that is what we do.

Well those guys are employed by the bank and they have a vested interest in seeing the bank do well. And they have huge, huge, huge, hundreds of millions and billions in losses that they need to make up. Its kind of a no-brainer, plus, you can’t discount the psychological element in this. If youre in a stressful situation and youre emotionally tied to what if, what if, what is this going to look like in six months? You cannot objectively negotiate your own case with the lender it’s just not psychologically feasible to consider that. Even if you have the time and could figure it out.

And one thing, to take it back to a personal level, there were many times when I was working with people who were in foreclosure and got the phone call the night before the foreclosure sale. They would ask me, can you help me?, and I would say yes, here is what you want to do. You want to go down to the bankruptcy court first thing tomorrow morning and file a chapter 13 by yourself. Now I am not saying go through the chapter 13 by yourself, because I would give them the attorneys number, but they have to be there in line by nine oclock to get it filed and then go get an attorney to work with.

But why did they end up in that situation? In many cases they would tell me that they have been working to get what they called a loan modification, more accurately a forbearance agreement, that is what they were working on with their lender, they would send in all the paperwork that the lender asked for and they would call the lender back after 30 days. And the lender would say, oh well we lost it and so they would get it all together again, and they would send it in and it would be another 30 days, oh well we lost it. Or this, or that, or they would ask for more paperwork and eventually what it came down to is a couple of days before the actual foreclosure sale date the lender would call up and say No, we decided to not do your forbearance agreement for you. And then they’re calling me looking for help. Now if you were working with an attorney, I guarantee that lender is not going to lose your paperwork.

So I have this young lady of 50 years old call me today her husband had just passed away two months ago. Sad, sad situation, very difficult to talk with her because it just felt so horrible this was just unexpected. I probably should not say the name of the servicer, but she’s dealing with someone who would be considered a subprime lender, their loss mitigation department is in India. India doesn’t really have the same rules and guidelines, there is a huge language barrier between her and the person she is talking to try with to save her home.

Duration : 0:6:36

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Roslindale Massachusetts (MA) Real Estate Tour

Posted on April 6th, 2010 by admin in first rate realestate | No Comments »

http://www.roslindalemahomes.com — Tour Roslindale, MA neighborhoods, condominium developments, subdivisions, schools, landmarks, recreational areas, and town offices.

Roslindale, Massachusetts is a largely residential neighborhood of Boston. Originally part of the now-defunct town of Roxbury, which also included present-day Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury, Roslindale was annexed by the city of Boston in 1873. Once a classic street car suburb, Roslindale is now home to scenic Arnold Arboretum, a variety of historic architecture, first-rate restaurants and shops and a diverse residential population. Roslindale Square, the heart of the neighborhood, was recently honored with a National Trust for Historic Preservation Main Street award. For other town tours visit http://www.virtualhomes.com . For towns in MA visit http://www.ma-virtualhomes.com . For MA relocation information go to http://www.relocationma.com . For a MA MLS map search visit http://www.virtualhomesmls.com .

Duration : 0:4:17

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Manhattan New York Property – investment condo yield / cap rate

Posted on April 3rd, 2010 by admin in first rate realestate | No Comments »

This first episode talks about the cap rate, or net rental yield, of a Manhattan condo. The cap rate allows one to compare a real estate investment vs other alternatives. It excludes leverage, which is good because different people have different leverage tolerances.

Castle Avenue Partners at Charles Rutenberg Realty is a Manhattan real estate broker and property manager. We help clients build a real estate portfolio, from buying the first primary residence to investment properties. Visit our website at www.castle-avenue.com.

Duration : 0:1:36

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Welcome to Savannah!

Posted on March 31st, 2010 by admin in first rate realestate | 20 Comments »

Welcome to Savannah! Only minutes away from the Atlantic Ocean, the Savannah community seamlessly combines the amenities and attractions of a city with the ambiance of a small coastal town. Thriving performing and visual arts attractions, diverse dining options, and first-rate shopping abound. Georgia’s First City never fails to charm visitors with its stunning natural beauty, historic architecture, and easy lifestyle.

Cora Bett Thomas Realty & Associates
www.CoraBettThomas.com
912.233.6000

Duration : 0:5:21

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Glocester Rhode Island (RI) Real Estate Tour

Posted on March 28th, 2010 by admin in first rate realestate | No Comments »

http://www.glocesterrirealestate.com Tour Glocester, RI neighborhoods, condominium developments, subdivisions, schools, landmarks, recreational areas, and town offices.

Glocester, Rhode Island is located in northwestern Rhode Island. It is bordered on the north by Burrillville, on the east by Smithfield, on the south by Scituate and Foster, and on the west by Killingly and Putnam, Connecticut. Glocester is basically a rural community, dotted throughout by lakes and ponds. Several of these bodies of water are part of the Providence Water Supply System.

Much of the northern portion of the town is set aside as state-owned parks and forests. The highest point in Glocester, and second highest in the state of Rhode Island, is Durfee Hill at 804 feet. Glocester was immortalized by renowned Rhode Island writer H.P. Lovecraft. Entranced by the town in 1923, Lovecraft expressed its picturesque essence in the rich prose of “Selected Letters”.

Early industry in Glocester consisted of farming, coal mining, lumber manufacturing, the manufacture of potash, forging, and the manufacture of cotton seed oil. Diverse industries such as cigar making, granite and marble quarrying, distilling, box making, hat manufacturing, and tin smithing have also been established in Glocester. Today, Glocester boasts a thriving business community of shops, restaurants, and first-rate visitor services. For other town tours visit http://www.virtualhomes.com . For towns in RI visit http://www.ri-virtualhomes.com . For RI relocation information go to http://www.relocationri.com .

Duration : 0:5:1

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I Survived Real Estate 2008 – Part 6

Posted on March 21st, 2010 by admin in first rate realestate | No Comments »

I Survived Real Estate 2008 continues with Part 6. Bruce Norris introducing Philip Tirone who is author of the 7 Steps to a 720 Credit Score and President of the Mortgage Equity Group. Philip brings to the table experience from the lending and consumer side of the equations.

Philip talks about people still wanting stated income and how much harder consumers are have to work to get financing. Banks are going after co-borrowers more aggressively and doing much more background checking.

Philip discusses the issue of consumers that owe much more on their home as a similar home in the same neighborhood because of the market at the desire to buy the new one and foreclosure on the current home. Philip says that lenders are catching on to this practice and has revised lending policy accordingly. As of August 1st, if a consumer wants to buy a home in the same neighborhood, it needs to make logical sense that the consumer needs the new home due to extra bedroom, more space, etc. And if the consumer has less than 30% equity, the consumer cannot accept rental income on previous home and must have 6 months reserves.

Philip discusses the top three lending strategies for investors. Many investors that have purchased for cash want to refinance. The best financing is available within the first 60 days. If buying in an LLC, Philip says a single member LLC will get an investor a better rate. Philip also says to go to portfolio lenders for loans. They dont have the limitations that Fannie and Freddie currently have in place.

For sellers, Philip discusses the natural inclination for sellers to drop price if a property is not selling. Instead of dropping price, Philip thinks sellers should consider buying down the buyers interest rate. This could save the consumer a great deal of money and also support prices in the area. Philip also addresses buyers that dont qualify because lack of down payment. If buyers dont have down payment, FHA allows gifts for down payments. Philip says that although there is a seasoning rule for FHA, investors should make sure all due diligence is done up front so at the 90 day mark the loan will fund quickly.

Philip also says consumers and investors should manage their credit actively. 80% of people have an error on their credit report that could possibly hinder them from getting a loan. Philip says credit is really easy to manage and scores can swing 100 points. Using credit to your advantage isnt as hard as many people think.

Platinum Sponsors:

The San Diego Creative Investors Association (SDCIA): http://www.sdcia.com/
Investors Workshops: http://www.investorsworkshops.com/
Frye / Wiles: http://www.fryewiles.com/
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Gold Sponsors:

7 Steps to a 720 Credit Score and Philip X. Tirone- http://www.7stepsto720.com/
Chicago Title – https://www.ctic.com/
Elite Auctions – http://www.sellwithauction.com/
Foreclosure Trackers – http://www.foreclosuretrackers.com/
Investors Resource Center of America LA and Steve and Robyn Love – http://www.irca-losangeles.com/
Las Brisas Escrow – http://www.lasbrisasescrow.com/
National Club of Real Estate Investors and Sam Saddat – http://www.ncrei.com/
Northern California Real Estate Investors Association (Norcalreia) and David Granzella – http://www.norcalreia.com/
North San Diego Real Estate Investors and Linda Wessels – http://www.nsdrei.org/
RealtyTrac – http://www.realtytrac.com/
RE Ventures and Michael Pines – http://www.reventuresrealty.com/
Real Estate Investors Club of Los Angeles and Phyllis Rockower – http://www.realestateclubla.com/
Real Wealth Investor and Scott Whaley – http://www.realwealthinvestor.com/
Saddleback Valley Communities – http://svc4.com/
Silverstar Finance and Janet French – http://www.silverstarfinance.com/
Sunset Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary – http://www.sunsethills.cc/
The Mission Inn – http://www.missioninn.com/
The Mortgage Equity Group – http://themeg.net/
The Naked Real Estate Investor Club – Rosie Nieto – http://www.nakedrealestateinvestorsclub.com/
The Short Sale Processor and Nick Manfredi – http://www.theshortsaleprocessor.com/
Virtual Real Estate Tour and Layla Tusko – http://1wealthcreation.com/
Wholesale Capital Corporation – http://www.wccmtg.com/

Duration : 0:9:57

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Real Estate Conditions 5 – Mortgage & First Time Home Buyer Dec08 Attorney & Loan Modification

Posted on March 19th, 2010 by admin in first rate realestate | No Comments »

First Time Home Buyers use FHA Mortgage and Seller Paid Closing Costs to Buy Real Estate Now. Best Market Conditions for Foreclosures and Short Sales in Decades. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 5 (Excerpt)

Loan Modifications are all the craze beware and only work with an Attorney

I have been a part of these broadcasts where we have talked about the loan modification concepts exclusively and to your credit Michael and your team at Velocity I saw you guys as being first to the punch if you will, first to start introducing this concept not only to the listening audience but to your clientele whenever it might be appropriate for the people who need to look at that option. Now I am seeing on street signs that are handmade and posted on street signs all over the city, call me for loan modification. I am hearing commercials and radio broadcasts that are discussing this loan modification concept; I have seen infomercials regarding this now so its becoming a bigger and bigger scope, its a big buzz right now and maybe you could tell me, and I already know the answer to this how long have you been doing this? And then what are the criteria for someone to consider this process?

Its funny that the loan modification concept is new and its the new buzz word and everybody is talking about it and everybody is doing it and it has been around forever. People have been able to do this for many, many years. The banks dont want your house back; they really, really dont. They may act like it and when you talk to them it may sound like they do but they dont. Velocity Financial is working with a national network of attorneys that have been doing this for 16 years, they have done thousands of these.

These law firms have represented thousands of home owners helping them, keeping them from going into foreclosure. You will see yard signs, street signs, advertisements. As you know Velocity Financial does not advertise, the radio station does play a spot because its important for people to know there is legitimate, licensed help out there. What I want to point out is if you have tried to do it on your own and it didnt work out, I am sorry about that and it doesnt mean it cant be done.

Most importantly you want to deal with somebody that you can sit across the table from, that is here locally, and you dont want to write a check to anybody other than a law firm. A licensed attorney needs to handle this, it is the best way to handle this. Velocity Financial does not charge an up front fee; we take care of all of the necessary paperwork, the discovery work. We do all of that and we dont charge for that. You do have to pay an attorney to represent you and after the case is done and modified and everyone is happy, they will pay us for the work that we have done. So dont work with anyone who isnt an attorney, thats my opinion.

In most states its the law and in Arizona its the wild, wild, west once again as usual, loan modifications are just not regulated but you know what, if you need a legitimate firm, if you need a human being to talk to and sit down with and lets get this thing worked out.

Well as you know Michael I started in the business about 20 years ago and the entire time I have really been working with attorneys. When I was doing loans for 12 plus years, I worked almost exclusively with bankruptcy attorneys helping to bail their clients out of bankruptcy and out of foreclosure, and I had been approached by other people and seen plenty of stuff on the internet about how you can basically buy a book online for $495, or go to a seminar, or do whatever and suddenly youre this loan modification expert after you read the book and filled out a couple of forms and that just doesnt give you the knowledge, the background and especially the negotiating ability that you have when youre dealing with an attorney…

Duration : 0:5:40

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Real Estate Conditions 3 – Mortgage & First Time Home Buyer Dec08 Hot Buyers Real Estate Market

Posted on March 16th, 2010 by admin in first rate realestate | No Comments »

First Time Home Buyers use FHA Mortgage and Seller Paid Closing Costs to Buy Real Estate Now. Best Market Conditions for Foreclosures and Short Sales in Decades. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 3 (Excerpt)

Now is a great time for first time home buyers to get into the real estate market

Back in studio of course Brett Fallon are favorite and one of America’s best financial advisors, and a very good friend of mine for a long time also Dan Havey. Dan, what is the name of the book?

The name of the book that I am in the middle of writing is called, Real Estates Future. What it is, is a model that I created with a friend of mine. I didnt believe this was possible when it was first brought to me, but after working on it for six months and doing a lot of research I found that we were actually able to predict, in advance, through a whole series of equations and data, we were actually able to predict in advance the top of the last real estate market here in Phoenix by six months.

So were doing a lot more research to see if we can take that to a broader national level and see if we can come close to actually giving people an idea in advance of the top and bottom of the real estate market.

And this is not the doom and gloom type stuff, this is reality, this is not media spin or anything, correct? No, this is just numbers. That’s all this comes down to, numbers, a lot of different equations. I am not going to bore people with all the complicated stuff. When I was in college I started out with a degree in computers and mathematics and eventually ended up getting a degree in finance, so Ive got a lot of numbers spinning around in my head.

The amount of content you have put together to talk about these first time home buyers, we just talked about what you should do when buying a home right now, you need to make sure that you get the seller to pay as much as they can, obviously you want to pay as little for the house as you possibly can. You want to get the seller to contribute as much as they can. But Dan why dont you talk about what it means to be a first time home buyer or for someone who could be in the market?

Well again with the numbers we were looking at, how this came about like I said last year we were working on this model and after the real estate market kind of took a crash we put it to the side for a little bit and the other day I said, its about time to resurrect it because we have to start looking at when is it going to be the bottom of this next market and people are going to want to know that.

So I started looking at some numbers here just in Phoenix and a couple things actually surprised me, it was very heartening for me when I saw that one of the metrics that we look at is whether or not the median income household can afford to buy the median priced home. And right now in Maricopa County the median income family makes $64,000 and the median priced home is $160,000 and $160,000 home is well within the means of the $64,000 income family. In fact just running numbers at 5 1/2 to 6% you could probably buy as much as a $250,000 house.

So then I took a look at where are houses selling right now, and I found that 78% of all of the houses that were sold in Maricopa County last month were under $250,000. So 78% were under $250,000, and I do believe that between $100,000 and $250,000 its like 53% of all the houses, and obviously there is some of the cheap stuff that is being sold at the repo sales and that kind of stuff right now too.

Like I told you before, my brother picked up a couple of REOs over the weekend and I think he paid $30,000 each for them. And there is one other thing I would like to say before we move on, where I think its a great time for first time home buyers to kind of jump back into the market is another metric we look at is year over year home sales, and for obviously the last two years the home sales were declining year over year, and what we have seen is in the last 6 months there were at least a thousand to two thousand more sales per month than there were in 2007. And percentage wise that is pretty high, its not just a thousand or two thousand the percentage is significant. Sometimes the numbers dont mean a lot, but when youre talking about an increase of 20 plus percent in a few of these months, thats huge…

Duration : 0:5:47

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506 North 15th Street – Marshalltown, IA

Posted on March 13th, 2010 by admin in first rate realestate | No Comments »

We’ve done the work for you in this large, updated, 3 bedroom ranch in a quiet NW neighborhood.

Feel like you stepped into a Pottery Barn catalog in your new bathroom. Bath was remodeled in 2009 with high-end fixtures, new tiled shower, new bath, and travertine tiles on the floor.

Serve up some fun from your large eat-in kitchen. Remodeled in 2001 this kitchen features a snack bar, ceramic tile countertops, new kitchen cabinets, built-in hutch, and contemporary light fixtures.

Enjoy back yard BBQ’s from your 3-season porch which overlooks your large backyard. Don’t miss out on this one!

Duration : 0:2:57

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