Odds and ends...

Some days I don't hit upon any particular theme for this missive and this is one of those days.

I'm not sure what to make of the brouhaha over the fact that several states have now caused many of the big banks to declare a moratorium on foreclosures. On the one hand there is certainly evidence that some banks may have not properly processed some paperwork for some foreclosures. How many banks or foreclosures were involved? No one seems to know, not even the banks themselves. So the solution seems to be to throw out the entire barrel of apples because one apple has been discovered to be bad. A typical political solution, good for press coverage and photo ops. I don't think anyone has claimed that the foreclosures in question should not have happened, but just whether the bank minions followed the law and procedures to the letter. So, now we are all in a sort of limbo state on whether foreclosures will proceed or not. It just adds to the mess.

Right now short-sales are an even bigger mess. More and more delinquent homeowners are being advised or encouraged to try a short sale as a means of avoiding foreclosure. That has just exacerbated the problems of banks being short handled in their distressed assets departments. I am now three months in to two short sale offers with clients and there is no end in site on either offer. The listing agents send in the offers and all of the necessary hardship documentation and it just seems to fall into a black hole at the banks, especially if the bank is Bank of America, which is hands down the worst to try to work with. One of the two that I'm involved with was also a case where there are two loans - a primary mortgage and an equity line of credit. Having two banks to deal with takes the frustration to a whole other level and is a scenario that none of the Federal programs really addressed.

Right now does seem to be a good time to list your house, if you have to sell; at least in this area it is. I say that because we went through months and months of declining values and declining inventory locally. Now the value plunge as stopped (or at least slowed to an almost imperceptible pace) and inventory is near all time lows in many price bands or housing categories. The low inventory has occurred for many reasons; but, a main reason was that people were holding their homes off the market and waiting for the market to turn around. It's hard to make the call that we are at that point, but by the tie we can say that for sure it will be something that we look back upon and ask ourselves why we didn't jump in then. So jump in now. We are either there (at the inflection point for this market) or darned close.

I had some feedback today from a buyer who has been looking for condos and looking to financing his buy. He told me that he finds it darned near impossible to find a bank that will loan on a condo. I'll have to check that out. I just listed a condo for sale (and lease) and it woud be good to know ahead if potentiasl buyers are goign to run into that problem. More on that as I find out.