The catch-22 of fighting a foreclosure is that financial difficulty, what causes the distress to start, prevents folks from being able to retain an attorney to represent their rights in the judicial foreclosure process. I can relate. When the private second mortgage on my own home was due and payable in 2010, the plan from … Read More…
Blog
What is “Cash for Keys?”
Categories: ForeclosureWhen you think about it, when a lender has a non-performing asset, which is to say a mortgage that isn’t being repaid by the borrower in a timely fashion, they have a big headache. They face a protracted judicial process of foreclosure which can take years. In the interim, they may have the collateral, which … Read More…
The Worst Part of Facing Foreclosure
Categories: ForeclosureThe firm probably closed on our first short sale sometime in 2007. Having watched how the public has come to grips with the housing crash and subsequent recession, I’d have to say that the worst part of being delinquent on one’s mortgage is not financial; it is the stress. By and large, even if your … Read More…
Don’t Abandon Your House
Categories: Foreclosure
Here’s the scenario: A homeowner falls behind on their mortgage due to illness, divorce, or loss of employment. As I have written before, they face stress, and no small amount of it. They may feel fear, shame, a foreboding of disaster, embarrassment, or who knows what else. Not knowing how all this works and wanting … Read More…
West Haverstraw Case Study: Rental Property Short Sale
Categories: Short sales, Success StoriesNot every listing we take that is in danger of foreclosure is owner occupied. In this instance, the owner lived out of state and had a non-paying tenant who trashed the residence. The original listing was taken in 2015, and the tenants were not very cooperative. We “chased the market” for a year and a … Read More…
Short Sale Scams Are Out There- Beware
Categories: Short salesI have helped short sale clients who once had millions and closed transactions for folks that never had much and perhaps should not have bought property to begin with. Distress affects us all. Few things are as difficult as financial stress. Illness or a crisis with our children certainly could be worse, but facing foreclosure … Read More…
2017 State of Short Sales, Westchester & Surrounding Counties
Categories: Short salesWe’ve seen three trends since the “recovery” went into full swing the past 18-24 months, and short sales are still part of the landscape in Westchester and the surrounding area counties (Putnam, Fairfield CT, Dutchess, Rockland, and Orange). Some people who think they are upside down aren’t. We recently put a property under contract that was … Read More…
Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Law Extended
Categories: Strategic DefaultsGood news. According to reliable sources, the late night deal to avert the fiscal cliff included an extension of the 2007 Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act which was to expire at midnight last night. According to the National Association of Realtors, and confirmed by the text in the screen shot of the bill: Of most interest to … Read More…
Is That $30,000 Incentive to do a Short Sale for Real?
Categories: CommentaryA number of short sale clients have shown me letters, mostly from Chase, offering them an almost incomprehensible amount of money if they’ll do a short sale. It would seem hard to believe, in a world where short sale sellers typically walk from closing with the clothes on their back and no proceeds, that lenders … Read More…
How Can I Get a Rental After a Short Sale?
Categories: CommentaryWho would rent to someone who just did a short sale on their house? This question has been asked many times, and I understand the concern. The presupposition, that one’s credit is so compromised after a short payoff that no landlord would accept them, is not quite that accurate. In spite of what some say, … Read More…