The White House will announce today new steps to fight the foreclosure crisis. They may require lenders to temporarily slash or eliminate monthly mortgage payments for many borrowers who are unemployed.

Banks and other lenders would have to reduce the payments to no more than 31 percent of a borrower’s income, which would typically be the amount of unemployment insurance, for three to six months. In some cases lenders may allow a borrower to skip payments altogether.

Haven’t we been through this already with the loan modification programs of the past year? Less than 200,000 permanent loan modifications have been secured since the program was enacted.

The new wrinkle will be the administrations push to deal directly with the massive number of mortgages that are ‘underwater’. They could offer financial incentives for the first time to lenders to cut the loan balances of such distressed homeowners. Those who are still current on their mortgages could get the chance to refinance on better terms into loans backed by the FHA.

I do think this could help stop people from walking away just because it is underwater who can actually afford their house payment. However, as a general thought, it feels a lot like just one more government attempt to help boost numbers thru the remainder of the year so that we can get past the elections.

Lets be honest, government attempts to resolve the housing crisis have been a miserable failure. More importantly, it has strapped the tax payer with a debt level that has never been seen in this country’s history. That will have a much longer negative effect on the housing market than the false boost we have been given from the tax credit offered.  Despite billions of dollars in government incentives, home sales and new construction totals are sinking, not expanding. 

The truth, as hard is it may be to accept, is that this is a supply and demand issue. Until supply is worked thru, the housing market will not recover substantially. The foreclosure inventory has to be taken out of the system. New home builds will not recover until ‘cheap’ houses are not an option to purchase. Who in their right mind would pay $300,000 for a new house when they can buy a similar house with more square footage that is only a few years old for half of that total?

Existing house values rise as a direct result of new home construction. New housing construction has also proven to be a leading indicator for an overall economic recovery.

To me it is pretty simple, we fix the problem by expediting the foreclosure inventory thru the system as quickly as possible. Until that excess inventory is removed from the system, the housing market will not recover. HAMP and other government programs will just drag out the inevitable supply and demand issue.

I wrote an article last fall discussing my ideas on how to fix the problem. I’ve been in countless board room and conference call discussions with industry leaders about this very thing. I’m still convinced to this day that dealing with supply will ultimately resolve the demand issue, and event he economic problems we face.

Jason K Roberts

CEO

www.SellMyHouse.com

Bank Owned · Foreclosures · Home Prices · housing market · sell my house · sellmyhouse.com · short sale · stop foreclosure

I was reading this blog from Pete Goodman who was discussing yet one more of those things we just have to shake our heads out.

Basically, Bank of America explained to him that they were going to pull the sellers credit to see if they had stopped paying their other creditors before agreeing to a short sale. If they are current on their other bills then they will make them sign a promissary note or come out of pocket with more cash.

Are you kidding me? Have they completley given up on the idea of protecting their shareholders? How does punishing the seller, who already has been thru 3 kinds of death from the stress of losing their house to this point,  help them keep their losses down when the seller finally gets fed up with their antics, shuts off the heat and throws in the towell?

It is very hard to have simpathy for these large banks when we see every single day the outright garbage they put middle america thru. I guess they arent thankful that it was middle america that bailed them out when they almost went broke in the first place.

Unreal! Looking forward to the day we get interviewed about this whole thing on CNBC! Oh the stories we have to share huh!

www.sellmyhouse.com

Jason Roberts,CEO

housing market · Realtors · sell my house · sellmyhouse.com · stop foreclosure

A week economy and job market combined with brutal winter conditions across the country have taken their toll on January pending home sales which dropped 7.6% from December to January. Issues surrounding the number: Job recovery has not begun based on the latest unemployment numbers. Lending is down across the board. Government incentives such as the tax credit will be expiring in a few months. Foreclosures are still at record levels. Bad weather effect open house events.
www.SellMyHouse.com Staff Writter

housing market · Pending Home Sales · sell my house

We always try to stay on top of the news, trends, etc here at www.sellmyhouse.com. In doing our daily research of the goings on in the market we came across the following blog written from somebody who clearly thinks that Realtors are the absolute scum of the world and we created the entire Economic collapse.

Enjoy:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Please chime in!

www.SellMyHouse.com Staff Writter

Bank Owned · Foreclosures · Freddie Mac · Home Prices · housing market · sell my house · sellmyhouse.com · short sale

We just got the report from First American Core Logic regarding mortgage statistics.

24% of houses with a mortgage are now underwater, over 11 million in total. Another 2.3 million are within 5% of a negative equity position.

Highlights of the report:

“Negative equity continues to be concentrated in five states: Nevada , which had the highest percentage negative equity with 70 percent of all of its mortgaged properties underwater, followed by Arizona (51 percent), Florida (48 percent), Michigan (39 percent) and California (35 percent).

We can use our houses as piggy banks when the market it dropping. www.SellMyHouse.com has seen estimates that predict houses could drop another 15% from current levels….or 50% from 2006 valuations.

Hope not but time will tell.

www.SellMyHouse.com Staff Writer

Bank Owned · Foreclosures · Home Prices · housing market · sell my house · short sale · stop foreclosure