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Saturday, November 6, 2010

Is it oxymoronic?


I passed a sign along side the road today that advertised Affordable Bankruptcies. Is that an oxymoron? I think so. What would happen if the person that was trying to get an affordable bankruptcy couldn’t afford to pay for it? Would the lawyer’s fee be added to the debtors list for that bankruptcy? Inquiring minds want to know.

Certainly the term short sale is an oxymoron if not completely oxymoronic. There’s nothing short about these sales and it’s getting worse. I’ve just had a bank that my client has been waiting to hear back from for 4 months come back and tell us that we have to close in 15 days. It’s not some cheap cash sale and the bank has known all along (or should have known as lawyers are want to say) that the buyers needs to get an FHA mortgage approved. That’s just moronic. The FHA mortgage people don’t even open the appraisal request to look at it within 15 days.

And now the foreclosure market is in such disarray that the best advice for many people facing foreclosure may be to wait it out. Some of those banks may never get things straightened up to where they can actually foreclose; especially if they were one of the ones that shredded the original mortgage documents when they went to electronic forms. I think every homeowner facing foreclosure anywhere in the U.S. should demand to see the written proof that the Electronic Registrant trying to evict them actually hold the mortgage that they signed. Since they want you to show them the money, maybe you should reply “show me the mortgage.”

In other real estate news, Bloomberg reported the following - The National Association of Realtors’ index of pending home resales dropped 1.8 percent after a revised 4.4 percent gain the prior month. Compared with the same month a year ago, pending sales were down 25 percent. Moratoriums on foreclosure and stricter lending are limiting progress, the group said.

The report went on to say that purchases have steadied after a 32 percent plunge in the months following the April expiration of a government home buyer tax credit. Mortgage rates near a record low have failed to stoke demand because foreclosures are depressing prices and unemployment is stuck above 9 percent.

In Michigan we are stuck above 13% unemployment and boy do we have a foreclosure and short-sale problem in the market. Right around 50% of all home sales for 2010 have been either foreclosures or short-sales. Distressed homes still make up a large percentage of the total listed homes, too. It’s been happy hunting for first-time buyers and investors for all of 2010.

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