What is a short sale?

A short sale is when a homeowner owes more on their mortgage than what their home could sell for in their present market. It just may be the best solution for a homeowner who does not want to have a foreclosure against their credit. Below is a 13 part series with more information to help you through the short sale process.

 

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Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida- What You Need To Know If You are Buying Or Selling. Part 1

If you live here you most likely have heard about short sales in Palm Beach County Florida.

You may have heard about them from your friends down the street, the news media, your neighbor or even perhaps one of your family members. We will go through important information that you need to know before you buy or sell as a short sale in this series. This is part 1 of the series. 

We will be going through some important matters regarding short sales in Palm Beach County Florida that you should understand whether you are buying or selling a short sale. In both instances, you must have patience. 

What is a short sale? A short sale is when the homeowner owes more to his/her lender than the market value of the property. For an example: You have a loan on your house for $500,000 but in today's market a buyer will only pay $350,000 based on the last properties that sold in this neighborhood. Well, no buyer will pay $500,000 for this house  so the seller will have to ask his lender if they will take less for the note that he owes to them. If the lender says yes, than that is a short sale.

Just as there are many different lenders there are just as many different policies governing the short sale procedures. The lenders all have their own criteria of what short sales they will accept. Just because your house falls in this category does not mean that every house will be approved for a short sale. 

The next thing to understand for both sellers and buyers is that a short sale does take time.

We have had some short sales in Palm Beach County that have taken as short as one month to others that have been taking over 3 months to just get to the person at the lender who can make that decision. It is not as simple as just sending some documents in and that is it. There are formulas and procedures that lenders use and as I said above not all lenders use the same ones.

Some lenders outsource their short sales to a company that is proficient in the business of negotiating short sales. In these situations the lender gives the company a bottom line that they will accept, that is basically how much they are willing to lose to do the short sale.

And if you have mortgage insurance on your loan then the mortgage insurance company will also need to approve the short sale. What happens in this situation is that the mortgage insurance company will pay the lender the difference in the loss. Please be aware that many times the mortgage insurance company will want the seller to take back a note for some of the loss and pay some of that loss back to the mortgage insurance company.  

The lender who you are sending your house payment to every month may own the note or they may just be a servicer for the lender. If they are the servicer for the loan there is an additional amount of time in the short sale process because there is yet one more entity with whom the short sale will also have to be approved by. This happens a lot in situations where your note has been sold several times in a short period of time or when the lender holding the note is an investor. In this situation, the investor must approve the short sale as well.

If you have a first mortgage and a second mortgage with different lenders that will certainly complicate matters more and also puts a kink into getting the short sale approved since the second note holder will want something to accept the short sale and usually the first note holder offers a mere token to the second note holder however you will need the approval of both lenders in order to close and pass a clean title to a buyer. Sometimes the second note holder will accept the sale if the seller agrees to owe a note to them and pay for some of the loss.  

Why would a lender want to do a short sale in Palm Beach county in the first place? Well, sometimes the loss they will accept on a short sale is less of a loss than if they foreclosed on the property. Foreclosing is not a cheap process at all and in Florida it is very time consuming. Most homeowners can keep the lender at bay for months and sometimes even over a year. At times the lender feels it is better for their bottom line to accept a short sale.

Not every homeowner is qualified to do a short sale in Palm Beach County Florida and we will cover the criteria in the next post in this series: Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida. So stay tuned... 

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be or to provide legal advice. We recommend that you speak to your attorney and your tax accountant regarding specifics and to find out if this is the best option for you in your situation.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida - What You Need To Know  If Your Are Buying Or Selling- Part 1 was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida - What You Need To Know  If Your Are Buying Or Selling - Part 1* 
 

 

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Short Sales In Palm Beach County - What You Need To Know - Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of our series, 'Short Sales In Palm Beach County- What You Need To Know.If you have not read Short Sales In Palm Beach County Part 1 then please take a moment to read the first in this series, which is above.

Just because you own a house in Palm Beach County Florida and you have found out that you owe your lender more money than what a buyer is willing to pay for your property does not mean you are going to be able to just sell your house for less than what you owe your lender.

You must pass the Hardship Test. There must be a good and provable reason why you are not able to keep your home any longer.  

The Hardship Test: Look at your situation and ask yourself these questions to see if it will pass the hardship test.

• Since you bought the house, have you lost your job ?

• Did you have a bad accident or illness in which you got injured and could not work?

• Do have large new medical bills that you incurred after you purchased the home? 
  

• Have you been relocated to another city or state? 

• Has your interest rate gone up so much that it is now a hardship for you to pay your mortgage?

Now each short sale request is looked at individually because each situation is different. But you must be able to prove that there is a hardship.

What is NOT a hardship?

If you have used your house as your ATM machine and took all your equity out of your house and are now in debt, well, that is a hardship that is going to have a tough time being accepted. I would suggest that you do what you have to do to be able to keep your house.

If you bought your house on the tip of the market and now it is worth less than what you paid for it, that is not a hardship and not a reason at all to sell your house as a short sale in Palm Beach County.  

The Asset Test: Do you have assets that  you can liquidate to bring to closing when you sell your house short of what you owe your lender?

• Do you have money in CD's and Savings Accounts?

• Do you have stocks and bonds?

• Do you have equity in other properties?

If you have these types of assets your lender is not going to take all the loss and not have you bring some money to the closing table. They will only accept the short sale if you are contributing as well to the loss. However, you may be able to negotiate the loss with your lender.

The Fraud Test: Did you commit fraud when you applied for your loan for this property? This means when you filled out your loan application, did you lie about anything on it like: 

• Where you worked?

• How much money you were making?

• What your assets were?

Any of these lies or untruths, whatever you want to call them, will be checked out by the lender. They will match up what you are saying now to what your application said when you applied for the loan. If there is a big difference in the information, than you better have a very good explanation of why the change. A good reason for a drastic change in income would be, losing your job.

We will not list your property as a Short Sale In Palm Beach County if you committed fraud because you will be required to turn in a short sale package which we help you put together and send to the lender along with an offer and then you are exposing the fraud and that can have serious legal implications to you. 

The next post in this series of Short Sales In Palm Beach County will cover the documents that you are required to put together in the short sale package. So stay tuned for Part 3.

 

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida - What You Need To Know  - Part 2 was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida - What You Need To Know - Part 2* 

 

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Short Sales In Palm Beach County- What You Need To Know Part 3

The Short Sales in Palm Beach County is a series of articles for sellers and buyers to better understand what a short sale is and how to proceed with closing with a short sale. In order to understand where we are at in the series please make sure to read part 1 and part 2 above.

So now that you know what a short sale is and you have passed the qualifying tests as set out in the parts above you are now ready to put your short sales package together for your agent and your lender.

 

Before you even list your property with your agent you should have your short sale package put together. This way your agent will be able to expedite the short sale process. Once an offer is made on your property your short sale package must accompany that offer. You will be delaying the process and possibly lose the buyer if you are waiting until you get an offer before you gather up all your documents for your short sale package as this can take some time to prepare. There are no exceptions to this process that I have experienced or even heard about.

 

The very first thing that you need to do is call your lender, to confirm who the lender is and tell them you are putting your house up for sale. Make sure that the lender you are calling is still the note holder or servicer. We just went through sending out a short sale package for one of our sellers only to find out that the note was sold to another lender which this can happen often and because of this, we had to start the process all over again. Therefore, you may be able to save some time by confirming your lender.  

 

The next thing that you will need to do is write out an authorization letter for your agent to discuss your loan standing, details and short sale offers with your lender. This letter has to have the name of the person the loan is under and the loan number, as well as the name and company of your agent. Also, please make sure you date the letter. Most lenders have a period of time in for which the authorization letter is good for and after that time has expired you will need to write another authorization letter. 

 

Here is the list of all the documents you may be required to submit. If you put together a package and then you find out they don't need one of these documents then just take it out of the package. It is better to be prepared and find out you did more than required than to submit an incomplete package. Your agent should be checking the package to make sure there is nothing missing. The lenders receive so many files each day that they can not even look at the incompleted packages.

 

• Your authorization letter as stated above. 

• A handwritten hardship letter explaining your hardship.This hardship letter needs to explain why you are needing to sell your property as a short sale. Please read my post on qualifying for a short sale approval. 

• A completed financial statement that your Realtor® has received from your lender. We have found through our experience that each lender has their own financial statement that they provide, which is not difficult to fill out. It is in a form format with fill in the blank areas. There is an asset column and a debt column and they will have a place to write in all your income and all of your expenses. This is where it is important that you told the truth on your loan application. 

• The last 2 pay stubs for all the signers on the mortgage.

• The last 2 years of tax returns for all the signers on the mortgage.

• A copy of your listing agreement with your Realtor®; your agent will provide that.  

Once you have put all these documents together, you need to give them to your Realtor® so that they can get to work on your short sale package and make all the proper notations that might possibly need to be made. Each document will have to have your loan number written on it as well. 

After you get an offer you and your agent will have to put together the rest of the package and that includes:

• A fully executed offer of sale and purchase agreement.

• The prequalification letter for the new buyer.

• A HUD1 settlement statement from the title company with all the fees listed correctly. The lender will need to approve the expenses prior to accepting the buyer's offer.

Your agent should put together a sales package along with the short sale package. They should have your current market value paperwork and evidence showing that the offer is reasonable. We also put newspaper articles in the package showing our current market conditions. Documentation beats conversation. This is one of those times you can take all the bad news and work it in your favor. Nestor makes a very thorough and compelling argument and we have met with good responses to going the extra mile with the lenders. He is also putting together another short sale package as I am writing this post.

Stay tuned for part 4 of our Short Sales In Palm Beach County Series as we discuss what happens after the short sale package and offer is sent in to the lender. If you are interested in buying a short sale property, understanding what happens after the lender receives your offer will be beneficial to you.  

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be or to provide legal advice. We recommend that you speak to your attorney and your tax accountant regarding specifics and to find out if this is the best option for you in your situation.

The information provided herein is supplied by several sources and is subject to change without notice. Wellington Homes Blog does not guarantee or is any way responsible for its accuracy, and provides said information without warranties of any kind, either express or implied.  Entries on Wellington Homes Blog represent the opinions and ideas of the author(s).  Wellington Homes Blog does not express the views of International Properties and Investments, Inc or those of the broker. 

 

 

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida - What You Need To Know - Part 3 was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida - What You Need To Know - Part 3* 
 

 

 

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Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida- Part 4 *The Process Begins*

This series on Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida continues as we explore what happens once an offer is made on a short sale listing. This post is of special interest to buyers who are interested in making offers on short sales. You should know what is involved and your agent should also be able to follow and understand the process of making a short sale offer. 

Let us assume for this post that the seller knows what a short sale is, their Realtor(R) has experience working in Short sales, the seller has met the qualification test to do a short sale and the seller and their agent have put together all the documents the particular lender requires to do a short sale, except for the offer from a buyer.

Now we are ready to receive an offer from a buyer. A buyer's agent should know how to help a buyer to understand all that is involved from both the buyer and seller requirements in order to have a transaction that runs as smooth as possible in this given situation.  

The first and most important thing to understand about the short sale is that the seller of the property still owns the property, still holds title to the property and still has the say so of what offers will be accepted or not. The seller has mortgaged their property and the lender to whom they pays the mortgage payments to each month is the note holder or in many cases, the note servicer. The bank does NOT own the property. A Lis Pendens may have been filed and foreclosure proceedings may have started but until that property is sold on those courthouse steps the owner of records is still the person that is on the  county records.

That being said the owner/seller can accept an offer from a buyer but since the offer falls short of what the seller owes to the lender, there must also be a third party approval to the offer, which is the lender, to whom the seller owes their loan to.  

This third party lender will require the property to be sold in "as is" condition and will also have to approve all the closing fees on the side of the seller. 

As a buyer you will also need to prepare a good presentation with your offer to this third party lender. 
Submit your offer  on a FAR/BAR AS IS  Offer to  Sale  and Purchase with  the new FAR/BAR Short Sale Addendum.

Your agent should have these documents. If you are obtaining financing for this purchase, you need to have your lender's approval letter. To receive this you need to make sure you have been approved for your loan. This means that you have already submitted a loan application, had your credit checked, provided all the documentation to the lender like your W-2's and tax returns. Please be advised that should your offer be accepted it is highly likely that the short sale lender will require you to close within 3 weeks of them accepting the terms and short pay off amount. 

You should choose a mortgage company who is on the ball with short sales and knows how to get your loan through underwriting in a short amount of time.

Your earnest money deposit needs to be ready to place right into the escrow account the moment that the third party lender approves your offer. Make sure to get a signed and dated receipt of your earnest money deposit. Keep in mind that if you are paying by a personal check most title companies will require 10 to 14 days for that check to clear. To help speed this along, you may consider getting a cashier's check to the title company so that there is no hold up at closing for funds that have not cleared yet. 

Along with your offer you should submit a nice hand written letter explaining to the third party lender why you want to move into the home and that you are an end user. We had a single mom tell of her plight to get into a home with her children and that her offer was the highest she could go. She is the one who got the house in spite of their being multiple offers on the property.

Your agent should arm your offer with comparative sales in the area and other market appropriate documents to prove the case of your offer.

The next post in this series will be about how to decide what to offer on a short sale, myths and truths about offer prices on short sales.  

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be or to provide legal advice. We recommend that you speak to your attorney and your tax accountant regarding specifics and to find out if this is the best option for you in your situation.

The information provided herein is supplied by several sources and is subject to change without notice. Wellington Homes Blog does not guarantee or is any way responsible for its accuracy, and provides said information without warranties of any kind, either express or implied.  Entries on Wellington Homes Blog represent the opinions and ideas of the author(s).  Wellington Homes Blog does not express the views of International Properties and Investments, Inc or those of the broker. 

 

 

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida - Part 4 - The Process Begins  was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida - Part 4 - The Process Begins* 
 

 

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Short Sales In Palm Beach County Part 5- Short Sale Myths and Truths About Offers

This post will be about how to decide what to offer on a short sale, myths and truths about offer prices on short sales. 

There is quite a vast amount of false information regarding how much you can buy a short sale for. Like those that are watching too much late night TV about buying real estate at 50 cents on the dollar and with no money down.

MYTH- The lenders are so desperate they will accept any low offer that is offered on a short sale.

TRUTH- The lenders would rather work out a workable solution with the homeowner. There is a formula that most lenders use to determine their loss and what the actual net proceeds are that they will accept at a short sale closing.

MYTH- The lenders are just jumping up and down to get your low ball offer!

TRUTH- The lenders follow policy. The policy is that we submit the short sale package from the seller along with the short sale offer and package from the buyer. The lender then orders a BPO. The BPO usually comes back in a week to 10 days. The BPO is NOT an appraisal. It is a Broker's Price Opinion. The lender hires an agent to go out and do this Broker's price opinion for the lender. The lender pays the agent somewhere between $50 to $100 to do a BPO.  

Once the BPO is back, they work their formula and then send us a statement telling us what they will need to net. The BPO is what the last similar property sold for. They will usually accept about 5% to 15% below their BPO for an accepted offer.

MYTH- You can offer 30 cents to 50 cents on the dollar of what the listed price is.

TRUTH- The above statement is NOT true. The lender will take a small discount off of the BPO value as they want right below market value.

The list price is not your starting point in the negotiations on a short sale offer. You must pull up the tax rolls and check to see how much the owner owes to the lender. You will look to see if Lis Pendens has been filed. You will also need to take into consideration that if this house is in pre foreclosure there are other bills they most likely have not paid for that will affect the sale of the property.

Those are:

• Real Estate Agents' fees

• Second notes or home equity lines of credit 

• Unpaid HOA fees and related attorney's collection fees

• Title insurance, doc stamps and other closing costs

• Unpaid Property Taxes

All of these things are going to have be paid at the closing. The seller is most likely not going to have all that money to bring to the table. These figures are turned into the lender because the lender will choose which of these closing fees they will approve and how much they will expect these fees to be reduced.

Once you know how much the seller owes on their property you will have some idea as to how to structure your offer.

If this short sale is in Palm Beach County Florida it is very likely that you could get the property for 50 cents on the dollar on what the seller owes their lender, NOT what the list price is. The list price is usually right below market value and this is where the misunderstanding comes in for most offers.

You must look at what is owed to the bank versus what the market value is; the list price. The lender is actually reducing the loan down to the market value which can be a reduction of up to 50% as many markets have dropped that much in the last couple of years.

Sometimes you will get a better deal if you are a buyer making an offer on a property that has equity in it and the seller is motivated to take a lower than market value offer. You must have a lot of patience when making an offer on a short sale. If you need to be in a house by a certain time in the near future trying to buy a short sale if that short sale is at the very beginning of the process and there is no BPO yet on the property, then it most likely would not be in your best interest to pursue that particular offer. 

You can ask your agent to look for short sales that already have a BPO back on them and the original offerer is no longer in the picture. When this happens you will know exactly what the lender will accept as their bottom net and then you can decide if you would like to pursue buying that property. In these situations we can close rather quickly, usually within 2 to 3 weeks.  

So make your offer based on TRUTH not MYTH.  

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be or to provide legal advice. We recommend that you speak to your attorney and your tax accountant regarding specifics and to find out if this is the best option for you in your situation.

The information provided herein is supplied by several sources and is subject to change without notice. Wellington Homes Blog does not guarantee or is any way responsible for its accuracy, and provides said information without warranties of any kind, either express or implied.  Entries on Wellington Homes Blog represent the opinions and ideas of the author(s).  Wellington Homes Blog does not express the views of International Properties and Investments, Inc or those of the broker. 

 

 

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales In Palm Beach County- Part 5 - Short Sale Myths And Truths About Offers was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales In Palm Beach County- Part 5 - Short Sale Myths And Truths About Offers*


 

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Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida Part 6- After The Offer Comes In.

So now the buyer has made an offer and turned in all his/her supporting documents. The seller and their agent have put together all the required seller documents for the short sales in Palm Beach county package. 

The agent will now make sure that every document required is correctly filled out and make sure that the loan number is on every document. The agent will contact the third party lender and get the instructions to get the package to them, usually more often than not, the lenders want the package faxed to them. If they want you to express mail the package make sure you have a duplicate package prepared to keep for yourself. On one of our short sales; we expressed mailed the package and it was signed for but it ended up in the lender's black hole. Then they lost our two faxes of a package that contained over 100 pages and they even said they never received our email when we emailed the package. So make sure you have a back up. 

Super Tip: I would recommend buying one of those stamp kits at Office Depot so you can place the loan number on the stamp and use that to stamp all the pages of the short sale package instead of hand writing the loan number on 80 to 100 pages of documents. Doing this will save you some time. 

Once the Short Sale package is delivered to the third party lender we will call the lender to make sure that they have received the package. This one action is an act of patience! Some lenders are easy to get through and some lenders are a nightmare. Sometimes Nestor has been on hold for over an hour just to reach the right person to simply find out if the package is there! Please do not work in short sales if you have a hot temper or are impatient as your blood pressure will surely rise while on the phone with certain lenders. 

Super Tip: Call the lender early in the morning, get on that phone before all the other callers start calling. Be the first in line! 

Once we get someone on the phone Nestor confirms that they have received the package and that they have our authorization letter from the seller so we can talk to the lender. The first thing Nestor does is to confirm that this lender actually holds the note for this property. We had one short sale where the lender our seller was sending his payments to had sold the note to another lender and that lender in turn sold it to someone else. Since the first day of giving this lender notice that we were doing a short sale that note ended up being sold twice in a period of just a couple of weeks. The lenders were playing hot potato with his loan! 

Super Tip: Make sure that you call ahead before you even get an offer to the lender to confirm that they are still in fact the lender. Notes are being sold every day so you need to stay on top of this. 

There are note holders that service loans that they do not own. In these situations the servicer takes care of all the short sale paperwork and acts in behalf of the note holder. For instance, we have a file now where the servicer is GMAC and the note holder is Deutch Bank. GMAC is like the negotiator for Deautch Bank. 

There are also companies that just do Short Sale processing and negotiations that lenders will contract out their short sales to. We have had the best results from these types of companies. Obviously this company is also getting paid upon the completion of each short sale so they are quick to respond to us. Nestor usually can get right through directly to the negotiator on the file. 

Then there are the lenders who are trying to do it all themselves. These lenders own the note, service the note and handle all aspects of the Short Sale. These tend to be the hardest to get through to, as they are totally swamped with files and they do not have experience in doing Short Sales. A salaried employee who knows little to nothing about the real estate business is what you end up with. Most of the time, by the time these lenders do something with your short sale package the buyer is long gone! 

Super Tip: Don't sweat losing the first buyer. Once the counter is made from the lender you will know exactly what they will accept for the property and the next buyer that comes along will be able to close quickly. There is more on this in the next post, Part 7. 


Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be or to provide legal advice. We recommend that you speak to your attorney and your tax accountant regarding specifics and to find out if this is the best option for you in your situation.

The information provided herein is supplied by several sources and is subject to change without notice. Wellington Homes Blog does not guarantee or is any way responsible for its accuracy, and provides said information without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. Entries on Wellington Homes Blog represent the opinions and ideas of the author(s). Wellington Homes Blog does not express the views of International Properties and Investments, Inc or those of the broker. 

 

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida - Part 6 - After The Offer Comes In was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida - Part 6 - After The Offer Comes In*

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Short Sales In Palm Beach County- Part 7- Inside The Process

Depending on how the lender is handling their short sales, this is the point where you need an agent who is working with the seller to really know what they are doing and how to negotiate with the seller's lender. 

For illustration purposes we will call the person we are dealing with at the lender the 'negotiator'. Different lenders have different titles for this person but to make things simple we will stay with the term 'negotiator'. 

The negotiator takes the file and checks to see if all the documents are in the package and if the file is complete. Each negotiator may have upwards of 140 or more files coming in per day and they must process these files quickly as possible. Any incomplete file is not going to be attended to in a timely fashion so make sure it is all correct to begin with before you send it in. 

Once the negotiator has checked the file and has determined it to be complete he or she will order a BPO. 

What is a BPO? 

A BPO is a Broker's Price Opinion. The lender will hire a real estate agent to do a pricing report and come back to the lender with the information as to what that individual believes the fair market value of the property is right now. The BPO must consider the last solds in the neighborhood that the property is in and if they can not find any comparables in that neighborhood then they may go outside of the neighborhood to find a property of like kind. Usually this process does not take long. We often see then done about a week after the negotiator has received the package. Then that agent will send their BPO back to the lender. 

The lender then calls us to tell us what the note holder will accept as a net figure. This net is based upon a formula that is used to estimate the losses the lender can incur. What we have seen for Short Sales in Palm Beach county Florida is about a 10% to a 15% discount off of the BPO. The BPO defines what the current market value of the property is.

We then take the net amount that the lender has agreed to accept and work with the present offers we have to see if any of them will meet these numbers. If all of the offers are too low then we will call each of the buyers' agents and tell them the offer is xxx amount of dollars away from happening. The agents can then tell their buyers what the price will need to be for them to get this particular house. If the buyers want to meet the price then we have a deal and we start all the closing procedures and loan procedures for the buyer's side. 

If the price is too far away to work then we put on all our marketing and Multiple Listing Service the price that is going to get this property. 

Once the BPO is in; generally it is easier and faster to sell the house. When agents call us for showing instructions we can tell them about the BPO and that their buyer is now in a position to have a quick closing. We just closed on two short sales last week and both of them had their BPO's done in December and we closed in February. That was not that long of a time to get to closing. In fact one of them was ready to close in January but our seller had some bankruptcy issues that needed to be addressed before we could close. 

The problem that we see causes the most problems with the successful closing of the short sale is the lack of experience from the real estate agents that are involved. Nestor is on that phone with the lenders every 2 to 3 days checking on our files. Someone who knows how to deal with people must be on that phone with the negotiator, checking on the progress of the file and the state of where in the process this file is at, to ensure things are going smoothly. 

The HUD1 Settlement statement is the other item that needs to be perfectly correct when it gets sent to the lender with the offer and short sale package. Make sure every single fee is on the HUD or else you won't have a closing and you as the agent will have to pay the difference in the errors on the HUD. Once the HUD has been approved by the third party lender it is highly unlikely to approve any changes so pay attention to detail for a smooth closing! 

_________________________________

 

 

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales In Palm Beach County- Part 7 - Inside The Process was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales In Palm Beach County- Part 7 - Inside The Process*

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Short Sales- Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Short Sales But Were Afraid To Ask- Part 8

Palm Beach County Short Sales- Short Sales- Information For Sellers and Buyers. 

At least 3 times a week, we get calls from Sellers who no longer can make the payments on their home and are trying to find out what a short sale is and how it works. Most of the calls we have received this last week are from sellers who have already spoken to their attorneys and their attorneys are recommending that they sell their home using the short sale process. 

We listed 2 short sales this past week, where the seller found us on our Active Rain blog and called us after reading our posts about how to do a short sale. We had one owner call us to list his house but it would be better for him if he does whatever he can to keep his house, so we did not list his house. Instead we are sending him to resources that may be able to help him keep his home. 


Pricing your property competitively enough to encourage offers from buyers is one of the most important things to know when you list your property as a short sale. And if you are an agent you must not only have the foresight to know what a BPO will come in at but also to have some understanding on what a buyer's appraiser is going to be looking at for comps. Pricing a home too high will create headaches for a seller and in the end, possibly making them lose their home to foreclosure. At the same time, pricing too low will get offers that have no chance of being accepted since the lender is not going to approve sales much lower than their BPO. 

Please read the following story of a seller that wanted to price her home correctly but her agents priced her home too high.: 

short sales: Beware Of Damaged Goods! *The Human Consequences Of Taking Overpriced Listings* 

If you read the story from the link above, you would know why it is so important, and I can not stress this enough, that you choose an agent who knows how to do Palm Beach County Short Sales and has experience working with Short Sales. Ask your agent if they have closed on any short sales in your area. Selling your home as a short saletakes commitment, perserverance, patience and expertise in negotiations and follow through of actions. Do not leave your Short Sale to chance. 

Time is of the essence in doing your short sale.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales - Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Short Sales But Were Afraid To Ask - Part 8 was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales - Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Short Sales But Were Afraid To Ask - Part 8*
 

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Successful Short Sale Closings And We Got Paid! Short Sale Series Part 9

We closed on 2 short sales successfully and both were our listings. 

They were both difficult transactions but in the end we got our checks, the other agents got their checks and 2 new homeowners got awesome deals on these 2 homes. Patience is the principle quality you must have to follow a short sale through. Nestor is very good at following up with the lenders and wielding all the influence possible in order to get the sellers approved with short sales below market value. Knowing what to say and how to say it, is very important. 

Why is below market value important right now? Because our market is not quite finished going down, we are just about there but not quite.

One of the units was a condo, we originally had it listed for $249,777 and kept reducing the price as per the instructions of the seller's note holder. As soon as we reduced it to $150,000 we became just about the hottest listing in town. We had 4 offers on this unit within days. One of the offers was way too low at $130,000. But one single mom put in an offer of $150,000. This was good enough to get the ball rolling. Nestor made sure the BPO agent would have to meet him at the property. The problem with this unit was that in this development there has not been a sale since October of last year. That comp is not workable in a down turned market. The agent received it and was able to pull comps from outside of this development. The BPO came in at $167,000. The other buyers all went away when the counter offer came back. All of them except for the single mom with her FHA loan. We actually prayed that she would get this condo because there is nothing else like it in Wellington for that price. So the highest she could go was $155,000. We sent in her counter offer to the lender even though it was still so far off. The negotiator talked to the note holder again and he finally said go for it. Although, he only approved our commission at 5%. 

Her FHA appraisal came in at $208,000. We were so happy that our seller was able to get a clean fully satisfied, no 1099, no default judgment, no promissory note! And we are happy that this unit went to a mom who is raising her child in this new home that she can call her own. That is what makes this business worth what we go through!

 

How did we get this listing? Of course, through our Expired Listing Program. 

Our second closing on a short sale was for our wonderful and loyal seller who is a great referral source.She had her house on the market for almost a year, way too high. We sent her a letter notifying her that a lis pendens had been filed against her 2 houses. 

She moved here from Africa, from Uganda, escaping some of the most vile and cruel may ham and ethnic cleansing murders you can not even imagine. She told me stories of how women's breasts are cut off so they can not nurse their babies, so that their babies will die of starvation in their mothers arms with mothers helplessly crying and being able to do nothing to save themselves or their babies. She came here to live in a country that would never tolerate this, to live the American Dream. 

Her son and my son have become friends, they are the same age and play together. She now lives in a rental right down the street from us so we have become friends as well. Well, she rented this house out to a lady who made her living out of not paying rent. Our seller was totally scammed. The woman would come crying about how her mother had cancer and the next time, how she was in a car accident. Well, the seller has a kind heart and at first believed her sorrows but they were all lies. When she realized the scam; she hired an attorney and it took another year to get the woman evicted. This scam artist would not let us show the house either. Needless to say, our seller could not make the payments and pay the attorney's fees and this caused her to go into default. 

We listed her house right below market value but we received no offers. This was when our market was just not moving. There were months where there were just not any buyers for any of the homes in this community. The worst part about this community is that the builder is still in there building houses. He is giving away mega upgrades, low interest teasers and selling the same model for less than what any resales were on the market for. We reduced the price to $374,000 and then in December buyers started buying again. We had 5 offers on this house. The BPO was done right on this house too. The offer came back that the note holder had to net $311,000 on this house. Most of our offers were in the high 200ks, which was not going to work. But then we had an agent call us who had a buyer who just lost a deal on a short sale offer and needed to close quickly. He made an offer of $330,000, we were able to make the numbers work and he got the house. 

Our seller was not 1099'd, she has no deficiency judgment and no promissory notes to take care of. The buyers' appraisal came in at $380,000! He got a great house at a great price, we got our check and so did the buyer's agent, which made everyone happy! 

Both of these houses were closed at the end of February and both of them took less than 6 weeks to close from the point of the first offer to the BPO, to the acceptance, to the closing. 

So have faith, it can be done. 

If you are a seller please read through our Short Sale Series and make sure you choose an agent who had closed short sales and knows how to close them.

 

If you are a buyer read our Short Sale Series and make sure you have an agent working with you that understands how to present you in the best light to the third party lender.

 

If you are an agent please read and understand our Short Sale Series and partner with an agent who had closed a short sale successfully on your first short sale. It is worth splitting your fee to get it done right and to have the hands on experience before you jump into Short Sales. 

Please be aware that no matter how great our success is with getting short sales closed; there is NO guarantee that your short sale will be successful. Please keep in mind that each short sale is different, each seller has different circumstances and different lenders. If you have Country wide as your lender- well- we will pray for you! More on that in the next short sale post...

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales Closings And We Got Paid! Short Sale Series Part 9 was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales Closings And We Got Paid! Short Sale Series Part 9*

 

  

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Short Sales In Palm Beach County - Strategies For Communication- You Must Hold The Key. - Part 10

Short sales in Palm Beach County Florida take a winning and well thought out strategy in the lines of communication. Icertainly recommend that if you are a seller that you find an agent who is very good with communication and knows how to work with others well. If you are an agent than please make sure you know what you are skillful in as far as communication styles. 

Great people skils is another quality you definitely need to be successful in. The reason your agent needs people skills is that he/she must be able to break through all the walls and obstacles that the lender has in their path to a successful closing of your short sale. Nestor is very good with this type skill, as he knows how to flatter the people on the other end of the phone. He can dazzle them with his fun compliments and charm, making many become putty in his hands. He is able to get through. 


Do not treat the customer service people ( no matter how ignorant they may sound) with disrespect, having the attitude that you are better than they are. You also should never act like a weak beggar and you must communicate from a position of strength and knowledge. In the business of short sales in Palm Beach county; the true power is in your people skills and your knowledge of the market. But coming from a position of strength does not mean being overbearing, rude or disrespectful. Keep a smile on your face as you are conversing. 


In our series of posts on short sales in Palm Beach County Florida This is not the business for those with hot tempers and I as I have stressed throughout this series, you must be patient.. It will do you no good to yell and lose your temper while talking with the short sale lenders' negotiators on the phone. Your lines of communications must be kept open no matter how frustrated and upset you may get. Your file will just get put to the bottom of a very deep pile and might just end up in a lender's deep black hole. 


In order to be successful you must get to the chief, the negotiator, somehow. The most assured way to do this is by talking your way into that negotiator's line of communication. This is done through making great fun small talk with the receptionists and customer service representatives. The best way to do this is by understanding their perspective and where they come from. They are just like worker bees. All they are there for is to collect their check at the end of the week, nothing more, nothing less. They are the lowest paid on the totem pole of the company and the lowest skilled. So you need to think about where in life they are coming from and meet them at their level. 


There is no sweeter sound in any language than for a person to hear their own name. Learn the names of the people who are answering the phones, the assistants' names and the negotiators' names and then use them in your conversations with them often. Saying a person's name, grabs their attention. You can learn a lot more about this fascinating subject in the classic, How To Win Friends And Influence People, by Dale Carnegie.


When you get through to the negotiator make sure you have your file in front of you. They will get impatient with your being unprepared so make sure you have all your notes ready, the list of questions to ask the negotiator and the list of things you need to let them know about. Although don't ask questions that would lead the negotiator to believe you have no experience in doing short sales. Make sure you know how the process works before you talk to the negotiator. Always have your authorization letter from the seller with you, their loan number and their last 4 digits of their social security numbers. This information will be asked of you every time you call them and many times when they call you.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales In Palm Beach County - Strategies For Communication - You Must Hold The Key - Part 10 was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales In Palm Beach County - Strategies For Communication - You Must Hold The Key - Part 10*

 

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Short Sales and Foreclosures In Palm Beach County Florida- Part 11*What The Homeowner Needs To Pay!

Short Sales in Palm Beach County and in Saint Lucie County Florida are rising at a steady pace. You cannot look for a house for sale without noticing that there are short sale listings everywhere, due to the fact no community is really immune to this. At first I thought that the waterfront was immune but then we discovered an 18 million dollar home in Highland Beach that is on the market as a short sale. 

Most homeowners do not know that a short sale is an option. If you have been served with foreclosure papers, a complaint that must be answered within 20 days of you being served; please call us right away so that we can put you in touch with our attorney who you can talk to about your defense. At this point time is of the essence. You need foreclosure defense at this point and you need to know what your options are.

Each short sale listing we have received from our blog has been because the homeowner that has defaulted on their mortgage payments was told by their attorney or their financial adviser to find a Real Estate agent who knows how to do short sales and list their home as a short sale. So the homeowner get on their computers and Google; Short sale real estate agents in Anytown Florida and then they call us to help them.

But there are many people out there that qualify to do a short sale but have no idea what a short sale even is much less what to do to accomplish a short sale on their property.

Hence, we started our series on Short Sales in order to educate both the homeowners and the agents about all that you need to know about a short sale. This is the 11th article in this series on short sales.

A short sale is when you owe more money to your lender than you can sell your house for. The lender agrees to accept less than what you owe them so you can avoid foreclosure.  

What do you as the homeowner have to pay in order to do a short sale and what will not come out of your pocket?

First of all, there is no cost to you to list your home as a short sale. If you need foreclosure defense that is a different and separate from the short sale and there is a fee that you will be charged by an attorney or a foreclosure defense company but it is very small compared to losing your home to foreclosure.

When you list your home for sale as a short sale you are signing a listing agreement with us saying that there is a X percent commission to be paid to us at closing. That commission is not coming out of your pocket and your not having to bring it to closing. The commission will be deducted from the proceeds that your lender is getting from the buyer. So relax about that.

Your lender will pay for most all the closing costs. Each lender has different policies and rules regarding certain fees. If you are behind in your taxes, usually the lender will be paying those at closing from the proceeds of the sale.

One thing is for sure. Your lender will not allow you to have one penny from this sale. Any moneys that you get must be given to your lender, which makes absolute sense. So if you are approached by people telling you that they are going to give you money on selling your house as a short sale, that is called mortgage fraud and we suggest that you do not take any deals like that.

Your short sale lender is going to require that you pay all of your utilities. Some utilities can and will place a lien on your property if you get past due. Especially your water bill as that is a bill that in most towns here in Palm Beach County and Saint Lucie County will place a lien against your property for. You can not sell a property with clear title to a buyer with outstanding liens on the property. So don't get so far behind in your utilities and HOA fees that you can not catch up before closing. Keep a close eye on that..

Also, some lenders will pay the HOA fees and some will only pay a portion of them and some won't pay any of them. Try your best to keep your HOA fees current because they are also a lien item. We can usually negotiate that bill down, depending on when you bought your house. A new law was passed that now HOA's can come after you even after a foreclosure for money you own them but that law was just passed so it may or may not apply to your circumstances. Ignoring your HOA fee bill is not going to make it less or make it go away. The late fees and collection fees really add up fast, so make sure you watch that closely.

Call us today to get your house listed as a short sale as soon as possible. It takes time to market and prepare short sales so every day counts.

 

short sales: Broker Bryant! I Think I Just Found The Place To Top Your Poinciana In Short Sales and Foreclosures!   Broker Bryant writes a lot of posts about what his market is like in Poinciana Florida which is a bedroom community to Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Some of his posts talk about how hard it is to get loans there and others about the sheer numbers of short sales and bank ...

short sales: Agents! A Short Sale Is Nothing New!   Sometimes I just can not believe that there are some agents that have passed their Real Estate License test!  I just received a call today. The agent Googled 'Foreclosures' in our area and our blog and website came up first. I know she was calling from our Blog because she called on ...

short sales: I Think You Could Tell I Was Nervous!  Well, I finished my very first Webinar! We had some technical glitches and those were smoothed out right before the meeting started.  I know I was nervous because I was talking TOOOOO fast!!!!!! I have no problem with public speaking. I absolutely LOVE public speaking. But this was a little different because in ...

short sales: Port Saint Lucie Florida Short Sale Seminar Thursday April 17     Port Saint Lucie Florida Short Sale Seminar is being held at the Holiday Inn in Port Saint Lucie at 7 p.m. tonight.  Attention Homeowners In Port Saint Lucie Florida! Port Saint Lucie Florida is now the nation's 3rd top city for Foreclosure filings behind San Diego California according to Forbes Magazine.  Have ...

short sales: Live On Video! Short Sales In Palm Beach County- Hear What Our Sellers Have To Say! -  Short Sales In Palm Beach County Do Close. Hear and see what some of our sellers have to say about saving their home from Foreclosure.  Here is a video testimonial of our latest successful closing on a Short Sale we did in the Olympia subdivision in Wellington Florida which is in ...

short sales: Countrywide, Thank You For Cancelling The Foreclosure Sale! -  We did it! Oh, to make that call to our seller tonight was the best call I made today. The 11th Hour Save! Our attorney was calling CW's attorney all day today and when he finally reached them the attorney told him that they would gladly cancel the foreclosure sale in ...

short sales: SOS To CountryWide * Need Help Right Now!* -   This is a call for help to anyone at Countrywide who can help. If you happen to read this post today and you know anyone in the upper management with authoritative power, team leaders, supervisors of loss mitigation, CEO David Sambo;  we are calling out to you to please call us

short sales: Short Sales Port St Lucie Florida* Foreclosure Filings* Do You Know Your Options? -  Short Sales in Port St Lucie Florida and Foreclosure filings have sky rocketed.  Are you behind in your mortgage payments and do not know what your options are? Have you been served with a foreclosure complaint?  Call us today to start your loss mitigation process at 561-753-0135. The sooner you take ...

short sales: Short Sales With Countrywide* Important News Bulletin* *UPDATED*   If you are in the process of a short sale with Countrywide here is some Important News For You! Our in house attorney was just given written notice that Countrywide's Short Sale and Foreclosure departments have just shut down operations temporarily for 20 days for restructuring. On Countrywide's time table that probably ...

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short sales: Short Sales For Sale In Fabulous Belmont Condos Port St Lucie Florida -   Short Sales at fabulous prices in the gated Belmont development in Port St Lucie Florida. We just reduced two of our short sale listings in the Belmont to ONLY $99,000 each! You will not find a better buy on 2 bedroom condos. Enjoy being steps away from some of the best golf ...

short sales: Questions For You Mortgage Brokers Out There! Is This The Luck of The Draw? -  Have any of you done a loan for a customer who has been through a short sale? Have any of you seen a credit report of someone who has already been through a short sale? I am not talking about the ones in foreclosure, that is obvious their credit will reflect the foreclosure, ...

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short sales: Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida- Part 7 *Inside The Process* -   short sales part 7 Short Sales In Palm Beach County- Part 7- Inside The Process To understand the entire process of Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida please read the articles below before reading this post. This will give you a greater understanding to where we are in ..

short sales: Beware Of Damaged Goods! *The Human Consequences Of Taking Overpriced Listings* -    If you are taking overpriced listings without any notion of reducing the price of those listings within the first 30 days on the market please read this story. If you do not take overpriced listings please read this story to reaffirm why you will not do so. If you are ..

short sales: Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida Part 6- After The Offer Comes In. -  short sales in palm beach county part 6 Short Sales In Palm Beach County - Part 6- After The Offer Comes In. In order to understand the entire short sale process please read the Short Sales In Palm Beach County Series we have posted here:  Short Sales-Part1- ...

short sales: Short Sales In Palm Beach County Part 5- Short Sale Myths and Truths About Offers -   Short Sales in Palm Beach County Florida- This short sale series is to help sellers, buyers and their agents understand the complexity of using the Short Sale process as an alternative to Foreclosures. Here are the links to the Short Sales In Palm Beach County Series: What you need to know ...

short sales: Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida- Part 4 *The Process Begins* -   This series on Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida continues as we explore what happens once an offer is made on a short sale listing. This post is of special interest to buyers who are interested in making offers on short sales. You should know what is involvedand your ...

short sales: Short Sales In Palm Beach County- What You Need To Know Part 3 -   The Short Sales in Palm Beach County is a series of articles for sellers and buyers to better understand what a short sale is and how to proceed with closing with a short sale. In order to understand where we are at in the series please read part 1 and part ...

short sales: Short Sales- As The Short Sales Turn *Reality Short Sales* -     If you work in Short Sales you will appreciate this As' The Short Sales Turn' Reality Short sales or should I say, sagas!  Nestor and I list a lot of short sales here in Wellington Florida and Palm Beach County Florida. Most of the short sale listings are in the foreclosure process. ...

short sales: Short Sales In Palm Beach County- Part 2- What You Need To Know -   Welcome to part 2 of our series, 'Short Sales In Palm Beach County- What You Need To Know. If you have not read Short Sales In Palm Beach County Part 1 then please take a moment to read the first in this series.   Just because you own a house in Palm ...

short sales: Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida- What You Need To Know If You are Buying Or Selling. Part 1 -   If you live here you most likely have heard of short sales in Palm Beach County Florida. You may have heard about them from the news media or from your friend down the street or your neighbor or even perhaps one of your family members. We will go through important information ...

short sales: Sellers in Wellington Florida! Good News For Short Sales! Just came in over the wire...   President Bush just signed the Mortgage Relief Act a few hours ago. The Forgiveness act will allow sellers to sell their homes by short sale without being 1099'd for the deficiency. This Act is retroactive from January 1, 2007 and will last until December 31, 2009. So if you sold your ...

short sales: Three Little Birdies- Everything's Going To Be Alright!    You are trying to sell your house in South Florida and you are wondering if anyone is going to ever even just come by to look at it! You would be happy just about now with just somebody wanting to take a look. Maybe your house has been on the market ...

short sales: Attention Florida Home Owners In Foreclosure*If You Have Been Served With Foreclosure Papers* -   If you have been served with foreclosure papers and given 20 days to respond to your summons and complaint please be aware that you will start to get lots of mail and phone calls from all sorts of opportunity seekers and scammers. You need to take the papers you are served ...  Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options. Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only. Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.    For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here. To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today. Short Sales And Foreclosures In Palm Beach County Florida - Part 11 What The Homeowner Needs To Pay! was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com. Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales And Foreclosures In Palm Beach County Florida - Part 11 What The Homeowner Needs To Pay!*

 

Short Sales- Qualifying The Homeowner For  A Short Sale- Part 12- One of the key steps to making sure your short sale listing goes to closing.

 

Whenever a homeowner calls us and tells us they want to do a short sale we ask first understand and what do they know about selling their home as a short sale.

Most homeowners do not really know what a short sale is. Most of the time they have spoken with either their attorney or their financial advisor about their financial situation and were told the best option in their situation is to sell their home as a short sale and avoid foreclosure, so the homeowner looks for an agent to list their home without any clue of what a short sale actually is.

After we explain what a short sale is and disclose that there is no guarantee their lender will approve a short sale we do an 'intake interview'. This is just like a buyer applying for a mortage except backwards. When a buyer is qualiying to purchase a home they want to be in a good financial situation, have good credit and have money to put down on the purchase. The homeowner in a short sale wants to show a hardship, show they cannot afford their home any longer and for a good reason, for the best chance of their short sale being approved.

We do this qualification interview on the phone with the homeowner. We do this before we do a CMA, listing agreement or anything else because we want to evaluate the chances of this short sale going through, the chances of this homeowner getting a deficiency judgment and the chances of the lender asking the seller to contribute to the short sale. We are in the business of helping people however we also need to keep in mind that we are running a business and there are many homeowners who just will not get approved for a short sale in the realm of what they are hoping the outcome to be. So we need to know what we are up against before going any further. We also will not accept short sales that have more than 2 mortgages on the property.

Another reason for doing the interview is to find out if we get a sense that they were not telling the truth when they obtained their loan in the first place. If they tell us that they were not honest on their loan application than a foreclosure is their only choice because we will not take that listing and neither should any agent take a listing like that. Their lender is going to want to see their financial history and if they lied on their application and things have not really changed as far as a hardship goes than you are putting yourself in a precarious position, which is not worth it.

During the qualification interview we disclose to the homeowner all the possible outcomes of a short sale so they know going in this what can possibly happen and it helps to get their committment to the process. This is a very emotional and frustrating time for the homeowners and being a good listener is a must for them. Yesterday a husband and a wife in their 60's were crying on the phone as we went through this process. It is a tough time and we seem to get the real hardships.

The process includes a list of financial questions like how much money are they making now, what has changed financially in their lives since they got the house, how much are all their expenses and we go down a list of expenses, how much do they have in savings or retirement accounts, the list can go on and on.

The reason we need to know about retirement accounts is because the lender can not require you to cash out your retirement account to pay the deficit but they can turn down the short sale or ask you for a small note and things like that, however, that really depends on how much money there is in the retirement account.

We have been doing short sales for a long time and know what will work and what will not work. The short sale can still be approved with no hardship but the homeowner is going to have to contibute to the sale. If they know this going in to the listing than we may entertain accepting this type of listing. What we don't want our homeowners not committed to the process since we don't take any upfront processing fees and the time and money is coming from out of our pocket. We certainly don't want homeowners who are going to change their minds after we work on their file for 3 months!


Make sure your short sales listings are qualified through their hardships or through their committment to contribute to the deal. Then make sure they will remain committed throughout the process.

 

 

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales - Qualifying The Homeowner For A Short Sale - Part 12 - One Of The Key Steps To Making Sure Your Short Sale Listing Goes To Closing was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales - Qualifying The Homeowner For A Short Sale - Part 12 - One Of The Key Steps To Making Sure Your Short Sale Listing Goes To Closing*

 Short Sales In Palm Beach County and Port St Lucie- How Long Does It Take?  Short Sale Series Part 13

• The smaller the lender, the quicker the answers thus the quicker the closing can take place.

• The more of a relationship we have with the lender, big or small, the more we can get things done faster.

• Homeowners with 2 mortgages whose notes are owned by two different entities take the longest to close because you must go through the short sale process twice. We begin these simultaneously but the second note holder is not going to give any answers until they see the bottom line of the first note holder.

• If the note is being sold in the middle of negotiations you have to start all over again. These take the longest. We had a closing that took 5 months because the note was being sold like a hot potato. This note was sold 3 times to 3 different investors while we were in negotiations. Each time it changed owners they also changed servicers and therefore we had to start the entire process all over again right from the beginning. But once this note did settle down with the final lender, the process went very smoothly and closed within 30 days.

• The faster closing we have on record for a short sale was 3 weeks from the offer date with SPS. They are a smaller servicing company  and very easy to work with. They had their process streamlined and it worked well.  The other companies that seem to work smoothly are EMC and Aurora. Both of these companies get their BPOs ordered expediently.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales in Palm Beach County and Port Lucie - How Long Does It Take? - Short Sale Series Part 13 was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales in Palm Beach County and Port Lucie - How Long Does It Take? - Short Sale Series Part 13*

Florida Short Sales- What Do You Do To Keep The Buyer From Walking?

Subject:	Short Sale question from another agent
Message:	Hi Nestor and Katerina,  I'm a remax agent in North Florida. I work mostly on the sellers side and I do mostly short sales.  I have a heck of a time with buyers flaking out and canceling agreements before we ever hear back from the banks. Many times they just find another home that they like better.  Curious if you guys are putting any "early termination" clauses in your agreements? Thanks for your thoughts! Brad Officer RE/MAX Specialists Jacksonville, FL

• If you are using the FAR short sale addendum you can add an addenda that says that the earnest money is to be deposited with the sellers’ title company or escrow agent upon the signing of all parties to the contract for sale and purchase. 

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Florida Short Sales - What Do You Do To Keep A Buyer From Walking? was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Florida Short Sales - What Do You Do To Keep A Buyer From Walking?* 
 

Short Sales- As The Short Sales Turn *Reality Short Sales*

If you work in Short Sales you will appreciate this As' The Short Sales Turn' Reality Short sales or should I say, sagas! 

Nestor and I list a lot of short sales here in Wellington Florida and Palm Beach County Florida. Most of the short sale listings are in the foreclosure process. Because of the amount of short sales in our area we decided we would do a series about short sales where we explain the short sale process and the qualifying factors to do a short sale. From there we will be continuing the series with what the buyer needs to know about buying a property in a short sale and what the seller needs to do to complete a short sale. 

We also hope this series will help the real estate agents in our area and around the country to understand the short sale process in order to better assist their buyers in procuring a house through the short sale. If the agent is listing a home that will need to be sold as a short sale he or she will know more of what is involved.

This particular post is letting you know some of the ups and downs within the negotiating process that we deal with on a day to day basis.

There are lenders who are efficient in their short sale departments and then there are, well, should we say, lenders who are just not from this planet!

We had this listing that we received an offer on and turned in a whole short sale package which on average consists of about 80 to 100 pages of documents and verifications. Nestor puts this whole package together, OH, BTW, you must add the loan# on the bottom of every single page before faxing it in, he faxes it to the lender. The next day, we find out that they just sold the loan to another lender! We call that lender and guess what! They had NO idea that the seller was in the short sale process. Needless to say, the whole process starts all over again and has been going on since November!

Now on another short sale listing, Nestor sends the package all in and the lender confirms they have received it. They order the BPO. We get the call that the BPO is being done and we are told when she turns it in to the lender. Then when Nestor calls the lender, they say they do not have the BPO! Well, we know they do. It was so funny because the person puts Nestor on hold, and while he is waiting, he calls the agent who did the BPO and she is telling Nestor that of course she turned the BPO in by the deadline the lender gave her. The person from the lender gets back on and hears Nestor and the agent talking and then says, " Oh, we found the BPO." Now this same lender calls our seller a week later and asks him how is his sale on his house coming along! He tells them, it is not coming along because you, the lender, is not doing anything to get this deal done and you have not approved the sale so how can it be coming along! 

This one wins the boobie prize! One of our sellers calls the lender to ask them to help them out with a freeze on their interest rate as per our President's request to have the lenders work with homeowners who do not want to ruin their credit, etc. The guy tells this seller that they can not help them and that he does not know what they could possibly do. Then he is looking at their file about their property and says these words, " Gee, you can buy a house for only $150,000 the same size as yours there here in Texas!" They try to explain they are not moving to Texas and that they want to keep their house. He again says to them, "Why don't you move to North Carolina or something!" At least it wasn't someone from India telling them to move there! What a trip! 

You must know what you are doing, be very patient and have very good communication skills in order to succeed in short sales. If you are an agent make sure you have a thick skin and are up to dealing in short sales. If you are a buyer who is interested in buying a short sale stay tuned for our series on short sales in Palm Beach County so you get all the information you need to know. And Sellers, you must choose an agent who has the skills and experience to negotiate with your lender and knows what to do in these circumstances should they arise.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales - As The Short Sales Turn *Reality Short Sales* was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales - As The Short Sales Turn *Reality Short Sales** 
 

Agents! A Short Sale Is Nothing New!
 

Sometimes I just can not believe that there are some agents that have passed their Real Estate License test! 

I just received a call today. The agent Googled 'Foreclosures' in our area and our blog and website came up first. I know she was calling from our Blog because she called on my cell phone and our website has our office number.

So this is how it goes:

 Agent: I am calling about your foreclosures.

 Me :  How did you find out about about us? 

 Agent: I Googled Foreclosures in Wellington.

 Me: We don't have any Foreclosures listed for sale but we do have short sales.  

Agent: WHAT IS A SHORT SALE?

Well, of course I explain to her that a short sale is when the owner of the property has to sell his house for less than what he owes the bank.  

But this is the BIG Question- how does a Real Estate Agent in the state of Florida NOT know what a short sale is? That is a part of our licensing course here.

I can understand that you don't know how to do a short sale or that you have never done a short sale but to not know even the definition just baffles me.

Short Sales are nothing new. They have been around as long as mortgages have been around. Back in the early 80's we did Short Sales. Short sales have been negotiated ever since I got licensed for the first time many moons ago.  

BTW- When a property owner has to sell his property as a short sale he is not foreclosed on at this point. The owner is still the property owner and NOT the bank here in Florida. We are a deed state.  

Even is she did not remember the term and the definition from class has she been living under a rock this past year? This is what many of our listings in our county are- SHORT SALES! Look it up!

I am always happy to help but I also have to make a living and it seems that as of late we are always on our phone explaining to agents how to write up an offer for  a short sale for one of our listings!  Where are the brokers? What are they doing? Hold a mandatory sales meeting and go over these terms and what they mean! 

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Agents! Short Sale Is Nothing New!  was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Agents! Short Sale Is Nothing New! * 
 

Broker Bryant! I Think I Just Found The Place To Top Your Poinciana In Short Sales and Foreclosures!

Broker Bryant writes a lot of posts about what his market is like in Poinciana Florida which is a bedroom community to Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Some of his posts talk about how hard it is to get loans there and others about the sheer numbers of short sales and bank owned properties eroding the market there and really hurting the home owners who need to sell and can not compete against these short sales and foreclosed properties. 

I love reading Forbes magazine and read it monthly. This past month there was a report in Forbes that San Diego was the city with the most foreclosed properties in the nation but lo and behold, the city that took the #3 spot on the list of most foreclosed properties in the entire nation was in Florida and it was NOT Poinciana. It was Port St Lucie Florida!

Port St Lucie Florida has the most Foreclosed on properties and the most short sales offered for sale behind 2 other cities in the United States!

Nestor and I went to Port St Lucie to put up some For Sale signs on 2 new short sale listings that we got from our Active Rain Blog. Do you remember the photo that Broker Bryant uses on his blog with all the For Sale signs in one place? Well, Port St Lucie tops his photo! I have never in all my 26 years in Real Estate seen anything like this and either has Nestor. We have been in many markets in different states but this sight beat anything we have seen.

You did not drive for more than 20 feet without seeing a For Sale sign! They were everywhere! Most of the prices in Port St Lucie are falling back to 2000 prices.

Not only that but check this out! We went to a Foreclosure Defense seminar that our attorney was putting on that night. We met an agent at that meeting that lives there and will not do short sales. He will refer his short sale business to us. But the amazing thing is this:

Port St Lucie laid off almost all of their building inspectors because new construction obviously has practically come to a screeching halt! But they are hiring court clerks! Saint Lucie County had to add on a second shift and then a third shift of clerks to process the Lis Pendens, the Foreclosures, the Final judgments and complaints. That means they are working 24 hour shifts just to handle the paperwork that comes with all these foreclosures.

Homes that sold for $300,000 just a few years ago during the over inflating of the prices are now being sold for $75,000!

You can buy a brand new home in Port St Lucie for $80,000! This is incredible for buyers and investors. Now you can actually buy a house and rent it out and have a positive cash flow again! School teachers only bring home $2,300 a month and were priced out of all the markets in South Florida can now afford to buy a home!

Not only that, but snowbirds who just want a winter get away can find a second home at such affordable prices, heck, even less than a time share and be minutes to the beaches and great PGA golf courses. 

I don't see this as a negative at all! I see this as a market correcting itself. You see, Port St Lucie is like a retirement area and does not have any infrastructure for industry or jobs. There is no night life or downtown areas where you can go to a ball game or a concert. You have to drive everywhere when you live in Port St Lucie.

What happened during the boom is that the investors and speculators started running up to Port St Lucie to buy up all the lots and start reselling. When you walked into a new home model to inquire about pricing, you would be talking to the salesperson and as you were talking the prices would go up! I mean in 15 minutes the price of the house would go up $5000. This was a bubble waiting to burst! It was insane! Nestor told Centex homes NOT to build there. Nestor told all the major builders to stay out of there.Nestor warned  that it was going to crash! And Crash it did! It was like the wild gold rush and once everyone got there, there was no more gold. 

There was an auction last weekend and the banks were auctioning off 20 homes per hour and not one house sold for more than $80,000.  

Since we enjoy helping sellers to get out of their financial woes and help them avoid foreclosure, we see this as a great opportunity to list and sell many of these short sales in Port St Lucie. The lenders own so many homes in Port St Lucie Florida that they do not want to own even one more. This is one area where we can get a short sale done quickly. 

So if you know anyone who needs to sell their property in Port St Lucie Florida as a short sale have them call us, we can help.  

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Broker Bryant! I Thinkk I Just Found The Place To Top Your Poinciana In Short Sales and Foreclosures! was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Broker Bryant! I Thinkk I Just Found The Place To Top Your Poinciana In Short Sales and Foreclosures!* 
 

Good News! Another Short Sale Closes- Tallahassee Short Sale! Active Rain Blog Call!

We just closed another short sale successfully, this one was a listing in Tallahassee Florida, The seller found our Active Rain blog and called us for our short sale experience. He did not live in Florida any longer so we handled the entire listing and sale via email. Our Active Rain blog brings us 2 to 3 listings each week. I wish I could clone myself and write more posts to get even more!

 

We then began to search for an agent in Tallahassee which prompted me to write, Does Anyone Work In Tallahassee Florida? Through that post Leigh Brown from Charlotte, North Carolina let me know she had used Mike Carlos who was not a member of Active Rain at that time. I since invited him to Active Rain and he is now blogging!

Our Tallahassee listing was cobroked with Mike Carlos. It was a great team effort, we handled the short sale negotiations and Mike handled the inspections and the MLS in Tallahassee, put up his sign and lock box. 

This was the fastest and smoothest short sale we have done to date! Nestor and Mike priced out the property and we reduced the price every 10 days until we got offers. The house was a cosmetic fixer because the tenants let their dogs chew up all the window sills and poop all over and not clean it up. It smelled so much like dog poop that the buyer who bought the house told me she had to cover her nose with a blanket just to look at the house.

The listing of this short sale was an instrument in creating new relationships and friendships. The buyer happened to be a real estate agent who handled much of her side of the deal herself through me, who kept her abreast of each step. There were two offers on the property. We became friends. 

The lender was very nice to work with. They had their BPO ordered within a week and they accepted the higher offer and did not even counter back. We had our listing commission at 7% and the buyer needed her commission for part of her closing costs and the lender approved that as well. They did come back to Nestor and tell him we needed to send them a new HUD reflecting 6% instead of 7%. Mike and us split 1/2 of that and the buyer, who is an agent got her half. Everyone was happy. This was the smoothest transaction for a short sale. From start of receiving the offer to closing it was about 35 days.

At the same time this transaction was going on; my ordeal with my family property in Latvia was reaching deadlines. It just so happened that the buyer worked right across the street from our State Capital and offered to help me after reading my blog about Latvia and apostilled the necessary documents for me. So I thank her from the bottom of my heart.

She is so happy and excited to get this home for her family! The beauty of short sales is that the prices come down to where they need to be for buyers to afford to buy homes and make the mortgage payments.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Good News! Another Short Sales Closes- Tallahassee Short Sale! Active Rain Blog Call!  was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Good News! Another Short Sales Closes- Tallahassee Short Sale! Active Rain Blog Call!* 
 

• Have you been served with a foreclosure summons and complaint? 

• Are you behind in your mortgage payments?

• Are you looking for a way to avoid a foreclosure?

• Do you know what all your options are?

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Palm Beach County Short Sales Testimonial - Choose A Short Sale Expert Agent  was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Palm Beach County Short Sales Testimonial - Choose A Short Sale Expert Agent * 
 

Short sales in Palm Beach County Florida- Private Mortgage Insurance Can Be An Obstacle.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Palm Beach County Short Sale Testimonial - Choose A Short Sale Expert Agent  was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Palm Beach County Short Sale Testimonial - Choose A Short Sale Expert Agent* 
 

Short Sales in Wellington Florida - Why Sign A Soft Note To Close Your Short Sale?

Short Sales In Wellington Florida- Why would you or should you sign a soft note to close on your short sale property?

When you are doing a short sale on your property our first goal is to get you a fully satisfied mortgage pay off reported by your lender. That is the  best outcome you can hope for.

But this outcome depends on your personal situation and other parts of the process that are not within your control. The more of a true hardship you have the more apt the lender will approve your short sale without any payment from you.

Also, if you have only one loan on your property you are likely going to get a satisfied paid in full without any other considerations.

Most of the time where we see the lender requesting you as the homeowner, the seller to sign a promissory note for part of your deficiency is when you have more than one mortgage on your property and it depends on what you did with the money that you received from your second mortgage or home equity line.

Your credit is checked when you do a short sale. The lender will look at your credit report and try to determine what is going on based on your purchases and such. Here are a few real life examples of lenders asking the homeowner to sign a promissory note.

But first let me define what a promissory note is and how it fits into your short sale. This is for the state of Florida. Please review your own state laws that govern notes. I am not a lawyer and I am not giving legal advise. My thoughts here are for informational purposes only. I strongly urge you to hire an attorney to review your case.

A promissory note in the lingo of lenders is called a 'soft note'. That means you are signing a piece of paper that simply states that you promise to pay back the amount of money stated on this paper. All the notes we have had done were at zero percent interest. This note is not bound with collatoral by any real estate or your home ( if you have another home you are living in, in Florida).

Most of the time the lender only asks for a small portion of the deficiency to be paid back and the payments are very low. You need to put this in perspective to your situation. The first question you need to ask yourself is what did you do with the money that you borrowed on that second loan or equity line? Did you use it to remodel the home you lived in, to buy another home, a down payment on another home or an investment property or for some new toys?

Examples:

One seller took out a home equity line on his house during the boom of real estate when his house appraised for more than what he bought  if for. He took out $80,000. He took $50,000 of that and bought a car with it. The lender saw that he bought the car around the same time he took out the loan. The lender asked him to sign a promissory note in the amount of $22,000 with zero percent interest and payments of $261 per month for 84 months.

This seller was excited about this offer by his lender. He realized this was a great deal. Let me explain why. He used $50,000 to buy a new car. He had no payments on his car aside from the mortgage payments since he put the car into his mortgage on his equity line. So here he is getting to walk away from his property that is not worth what he paid for it, he has a new car and is getting a fully satisfied paid in full mortgage reported on his credit report. So now he has to make payments on his car for $261 per month at zero percent interest! Now that is a deal he should jump  on and he did.

The next seller took a second mortgage out on their home for $140,000. They used most of that money as a down payment on a new home they were building. The lender asked for a promissory note of $12,000 with payments of $150 at zero percent interest. Now this seller is living in the house he used the money to get, so he is enjoying the benefit and the lender is saying in essence, we want a portion of that money back because you are using the money for benefit. This is only fair, don't you think? That means that he just really bought his house he is living in now for $118,000 less!

The next seller took a second mortgage out to pay his wife's medical bills that were not covered by their health insurance.  They are short about $95,000 and the lender wants them to pay back $2,500 on a promissory note. But we told the lender that he does not even have that extra each month to pay. This family will be homeless and therefore there is not another penny due to the ongoing issues of unemployment. The lender finally agreed to not even do any promissory note.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales In Wellington Florida - Why Sign A Soft Note To Close Your Short Sale was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales In Wellington Florida - Why Sign A Soft Note To Close Your Short Sale*

Short Sales In Port St Lucie Florida- The Buyer Walks Away!

Short sales in Port St Lucie Florida- Today was a day that went up and went down fast and furious! A day in the life and times of short sale agents!

We have a short sale listed in Port St Lucie Florida. We had been receiving super low ball offers from investors on this house that we knew would not fall within the lender's ratios for acceptance so the seller declined those offers.

Then we had an agent we know bring us a very good offer on this house. It was going to be the best offer we could get. This was with a lender that is known for being quite aggressive with their phone collection tactics. The stress was absolutely getting to our sellers. They were afraid to answer their phone. No matter how many times they told the other side that they were doing a short sale and that they did not have any money to pay even a one month payment, the calls kept coming on a daily basis. I would consider this harassment.

Anyways, the BPO was done and the lender comes to us a few weeks ago turning down the buyer's offer. They told us what they had to net. So the buyer came up in price to meet what she felt she could carry. It was still off the mark but we gave it our best shot anyways. SO today I am on the phone with the lender and we are negotiating all kinds of things on the HUD trying to make this deal happen. Finally she feels comfortable enough to give it to her manager for an approval.

Then we get the dreaded call from the buyer's agent. Her buyer found out that her rate changed and now would need extra cash to buy down the rate which she does not have. The seller is totally broke. They are even struggling to pay their water bill and electric bill due to some hard times that fell upon them. The buyer was backing out of the deal.

Our phone rings and it is the negotiator from the lender who calls us just 5 minutes after the buyers agent calls us. The negotiator says, the deal was approved, what is your fax # so I can fax you the acceptance letter?

Those are the magic words that when we hear them we do a dance, celebrating the approval! There was no dancing this time. What timing!

SO now it is back to the drawing board. The problem is the price of the house has gone down in the market and we can not lower the price because now we know what the lender will accept.

The good news is that we can advertise this listing now at the price that the lender accepted and we can close fast! It is a great value. So for someone who needs to close fast this short sale is ready to close!

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales In Port Lucie Florida - The Buyer Walks Away was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales In Port Lucie Florida - The Buyer Walks Away*

Short Sales - Love Them or Hate Them- They Are Here To Stay For A While

Short Sales have become a huge part of our businessthese days and we project that this trend will continue for the next 3 to 5 years. Agents who learn how to move with markets will be able to carve out quite a nice niche servicing short sales like we have.

One of the biggest complaints we hear from agents is that short sales take too long to close.The average closing time we have is 45 to 60 days for short sales from the point of receiving an offer from a buyers' agent to the closing. When I first started in real estate Jimmy Carter was President and inflation was out of control, the interest rates hovered at 17% to 19%! There were no fax machines, no email, no personal computers, no cell phones, no Internet! So the deals would take anywhere from 60 to 90 days to close with conventional and VA loans took a whopping 120 days to close! FHA loans took 90 days to close. Everything had to be hand delivered or mailed through the post office. Heck, we did not even have Federal Express or UPS! We had telegrams for important stuff and Western Union! It was normal to expect closings to take a long time.

Now, here in Florida in the middle 1990's, it still took 45 to 60 days to do a conventional loan.Cash was really king because cash deals could close quickly. If you were around selling real estate in those days you will remember that there was nothing abnormal about having closings in these longer time frames.

Fast forward to the early 2000's with our real estate booming and the speedy closings, many agents got spoiled when the lenders said they could close loans in 30 days or less. Agents just getting into the business during these times did not have any other point of reference.

Now even conventional loans are taking longer to process and close as underwriters are really checking much more on the applications that come through to their desks. We waited for 3 months for a closing that was NOT a short sale and the lender gives the buyer a denial letter! So that is a deal that did not close and it was not even a short sale. It happens. That is life, that is business.

But if you still don't want to take short sale listings and don't want to learn how to service them then refer your short sales listings to us and we will pay you a referral fee upon the successful closing of the short sale. Become a hero or heroine in your sellers' eyes by referring them to expert short sale agents!

We just got another one of our short sale listings approved and after I called the buyers' agent to tell her that her buyers are the ones who got the deal, she wrote this email to us. This is the best compliment that we as agents can receive- that other agents want to do business with us! This is a great selling tool because we tell our sellers that we network with agents and that agents like to show our listings. That is huge! We keep the buyers' agents updated through out the process.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales - Love Them Or Hate Them - They Are Here To Stay For A While was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales - Love Them Or Hate Them - They Are Here To Stay For A While*

Short Sale Miracle In Wellington Florida ! Who Says There Is No Such Thing As Miracles?

Short Sale Miracles do happen and one happened here in Wellington Florida.

 

This story starts back in last September when we took this short sale listing. We had sent out a direct mail piece to people living in the Olympia subdivision in Wellington Florida who were listed in our county records as having foreclosure filings against them.

This wonderful woman called us over. Her listing agent did not know how to do a short sale and his broker did not want the listing if it went into short sale status so they had this listing listed way too high for the market. It was listed for almost a year with not one single showing, hmmm, why would you do that with a listing? So the broker cancelled the listing so we could take the property as a short sale listing.

Nestor does a fabulous job of pricing the properties with the market, low enough to generate offers, high enough to make the lender happy. There is an art to this more than a science. Much of what Nestor does is from the gut, he just feels it. He does his BPO backed up with comps and he is dead on nearly every single time. His expertise and gut in this part of the short sale process is a huge reason why we can close 100% of our short sale listings.

We list the house and we start getting low ball offers. We turn the offers into who else, but Countrywide, notorious for taking a long time to get through the process. There are two seperate note holders on this house. Time goes on and nothing happens, the market goes down and finally an appraisal is done on the house. Then a BPO is done because with Countrywide if there is more than a $125,000 loss, they need an internal BPO done.

Then again this file just sits and we get no resolve. Well, since the offers were too low no one bothered to call us to tell us that and when we called we got the typical runaround.

Now lets fast forward to May 2008. Here is the post I wrote begging Countrywide to help us stop the sale of this property on the courthouse steps the next day. We now had a good offer on the table. We just could not see this lady's house being lost after all the work that we were doing and all the praying that she was doing. We were doing everything in our power to stop this foreclosure. After all, the offer was well above what we had before.

This is when Nestor starts climbing the chain of command. He reaches one of the VP's of CW, who after reviewing the file and seeing the offer, counters the offer and Nestor and the buyers' agent rush to get the buyer to sign the countered price. The buyer signs the offer and CW calls the Attorney handling the sale of the property to stop the sale 5 minutes before he shuts his doors for the night. I was nervous because it was so late in the day. You can read my post here about this miracle and how the sale was stopped.

CW assures us that the sale is off and so we can proceed on with the short sale. Or so we ALL thought!

CW sends the package to the first and second note holders on this property and they turn down the offer! Even the VP at CW was in shock that these noteholders turned down the offer. Now, the market is falling not rising, time has elapsed and they should be singing that they got this offer.

So then we get another offer that is yet higher, the noteholders wanted too many stipulations and the buyer walks before we can work it out.

Now we market the house for the price the noteholders require and we get no offers. The houses around this house start selling and this one sits. We think we are getting close and then we get this phone call from our sellers that they were not allowed through the gate of their subdivision to get into their home!

We are all shocked, what possibly could have happened? You got it! I check the records on the county clerks website and see that the house was sold on the courthouse steps. Guess when it was sold! It was sold on the very day that CW had told the attorney to cancell the sale! Even Countrywide did not know that the house was sold back to the first note holder. Even the first note holder did NOT know that they owned the house because they were still negotiating with CW and us on the terms of the short sale!!!!!

I call the sellers and tell them the bad news. They are crying and praying. It was devestating. This would become the first and only short sale that we would not be able to get through. We can not always bat 100% but this is not the house for this to happen on. It took everyone by surprise. I faxed over to the negotiator and the VP, the papers I printed of what this attorney had done when he was told to cancel the sale.

I found out later that the reason the attorney did this is because on these foreclosure cases most of them are by the case not by the hour. They don't get paid until the case is finished aside from an upfront fee. So the attorney was acting in his own best interest and no one elses including CW who was his client!

But wait, there is another miracle! A week after I send CW all these documents, the sellers get a notice in the mail from the court that their foreclosure sale had been vacated and made null and void.

Hurry, get that listing resigned and back on the MLS pronto! Time to get out those hoops and start jumping!

This is truly a miracle as well as an act of integrity from Countrywide. They went out of their way to get this attorney to undo what he had done. I wish they would fire him, but that's another post another time.

I commend Countrywide's management for fulfilling their word to us and we will get this short sale finally done, a year later! The sellers pray a lot and know that God created yet another of his many miracles.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales Miracle in Wellington Florida! Who Says There Is No Such Thing As Miracles? was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales Miracle in Wellington Florida! Who Says There Is No Such Thing As Miracles?*

Short Sales In Florida - An Open Letter To Note Holders of Real Estate In Florida


Short Sales In Florida- This is an open letter to Note Holders of Real Estate in Florida. The comments that are added below are from others who have something to say to you note holders as well. Agents- please leave your comments below for the note holders.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales Florida - An Open Letter To Note Holders in Real Estate In Florida was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales Florida - An Open Letter To Note Holders in Real Estate In Florida*

Short Sale Success In Port St Lucie Florida! Contract To Close in less than 60 days!

Short Sale Success In Port St Lucie Florida- Just Closed! In 60 days from Contract to Close!

This was a great short sale listing; we received at least 8 offers on this 4 bedroom 3 bathroom home in Port St Lucie Florida. Because Nestor is very precise with estimated market values of our short sale listings; we were able to price it high enough that the lender would be happy and low enough that buyers would make offers. This is one of the keys to success in short sales. Typically the lender will accept about 84% of the market value.

The seller owned several other properties in Florida. This was an investment property. He was upside down in all of his properties and the rents were not covering the mortgage payments as the payments began to adjust. We were able to negotiate a fully satisfied mortgage being reported as paid in full. No deficiency, no promissory note and no seller cash to close.

The buyers bought the home with an FHA loan and the short sale lender paid the FHA non allowables. We got paid and the selling agent got paid too. This was an easy going transaction.

One of the things that helped this all go smooth was the buyers agent. She would call once a week to get her update. She was attentive to her clients always passing along the progress. The lender came back with a counter offer and her buyers accepted the counter. They bought a very nice home for a great price. Helen was so nice that after the closing she took our sign and moved it over to a new listing we just got in Port St Lucie Florida. Then she wrote this wonderful letter to us.

This is so important: to have good relations with other agents. Helen will go out of her way to show our listings now. She has already shown our newest listing and will most likely be writing up an offer on it this week. We thank Helen for being so professional and teachable about the short sale process. Here is the letter she wrote to us:

August 15,2008
International Properties and hivestments, Inc.
Attn: Katerina Gasset
Re: 1781 Effland

It has been such a wonderful, professional experience working with you and your teant I was amazed at how quickly you were able to have this Short Sale approved. You were able to have this done within the time requirements of the contract and I have never seen that happen on a Short Sale before. My past experiences with Short Sales bad been dire and when I wrote this contract I worried that it would be a long acceptance time and another unhappy outcome. How fortunate for me that you are a team of professionals.

The acceptance and turn around time that you were able to achieve from Lender amazed me. My bat is off to you for successtbily navigating and negotiating this Short Sale. I will feel most fortunate if I have more opportunities to bring buyers to your Short Sale Listings. I will be able to say to my buyers with confidence that I know about your experience and attention to detail to make a Short Sale happen.

Additionally, I want to mention that I enjoyed working with your assistant Marcy
Hoeppner. She and I had many phone calls and she also was so instrumental in making sure this very pleasant Short Salle happened.

Again thank you!
Sincerely,

Helen Frey '

Realtor

FOR OVER 90 YEARS. • MAKING REAL ESTATE REAL EASY,TM
Each Office is Independently Owned and Operated

Our seller was very cooperative; he provided us with all the short sale documents that were being required by his lender in a timely manner. And we were very fortunate to have a good short sale lender with a very responsive negotiator, a great BPO and Fannie Mae to approve the deal!

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sale Success In Port St Lucie Florida! Contract To Close In Less Than 60 Days! was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sale Success In Port St Lucie Florida! Contract To Close In Less Than 60 Days!* 
 

Wellington Florida Short Sale Agents in Sun Sentinel and RISmedia.

Wellington Florida Short Sale agents Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset are in the Sun Sentinel and RISmedia! 

We received a phone call from Paul Owers writer from the SunSentinel who found our blog on Active Rain by doing a Google search for agents working on short sales in Wellington Florida and Palm Beach County and Broward County. He wrote an article about short sales and interviewed us. We shared our knowledge about successfully listing and selling short sales. He also interviewed two of our sellers for their personal stories about their short sales. The article turned out to be very good, positive and realistic. Here is the link to the Sun Sentinal Short Sales in Palm Beach County article.

 

Thanks to Karen Monseur   for writing a post about this article in the Sun Sentinel newspaper.

Thanks to Jon Zolsky for telling me about the article being posted in RISMedia.

We already received a call from a homeowner who needs to do a short sale who read about us in the Sun Sentinel and then Googled our names.

If you can no longer make your mortgage payments on your home or properties, please call us as soon as you can. Do not wait until it is too late.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Wellington Florida Short Sale Agents in Sun Sentinel and RISmedia was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Wellington Florida Short Sale Agents in Sun Sentinel and RISmedia* 
 

Short Sales in Port St Lucie Florida- We Close Short Sales! Another Successful Short Sale Closing!
 

Short Sales in Port St Lucie Florida do close! Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset close on another short sale listing in Port St Lucie Florida.

We just closed on 1781 Effland in Port St Lucie. The sales price ended up being $175,000 for a 4 bedroom, 3 bath with over 2400 square feet under air just built in 2006. The lot that this house was built on went for $140,000 with NO house on it in 2005! Just the lot! These prices are heading back to 2003 prices quickly. This is great news for school teachers, firemen, police officers and many other folks that could not afford to buy a home in those boom years!

The best part about this short sale is that Chase was the short sale lender! Chase is the best lender to deal with on these short sales in our experience. They are fast and efficient. We have come to know the negotiators and have effective communication. This loan was owned by Fannie Mae.

Chase called us with the latest short sale we have with them letting us know that Fannie Mae just added to their short sale guidelines. From now on, Fannie Mae requires 2 appraisals/BPO's on their borrowers' properties that are in short sale negotiations. This is adding on an extra week.

Fannie Mae takes about one week to do their approvals once Chase sends them the package. That has been great for buyers and sellers.

The owner was so happy as this was an investment property and we negotiated a full and satisfied mortgage pay off with no default judgment, no promissory note! This is great news.

The owner listed another property with us; a vacation townhouse up in Orlando as a short sale. He was so pleased with the the services we provided him that he invited us to stay in his vacation townhouse for the long labor day weekend to celebrate our son's 6th birthday. What a kind gesture on his part. We really appreciate being appreciated!:) I took lots of photos of the townhouse and will write a blog about the townhouse.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales In Port St Lucie Florida - We Close Short Sales! Another Successful Short Sale Closing! was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales In Port St Lucie Florida - We Close Short Sales! Another Successful Short Sale Closing!*

Short Sales- Florida State Documentary Stamp Tax Upon Transfer Of Property


Are you ready for another hurdle in the already cumbersome short sale transaction? If your property is in the state of Florida you may just be subject to additional tax at the closing or after the closing. 

In the state of Florida we do NOT have any income tax. One of the biggest income generators for the state of Florida is in the collection of Documentary stamp tax paid on the notes and deeds in the transfer of Real Property in our state.

There is now a dispute with the Department of Revenue of the state of Florida in regards to how this is calculated in a short sale transaction.

What has happened is that at the closing the Doc Stamp Tax is paid by the seller in Palm Beach County  on the deed. This is how it has always been on any transfer of real estate. You calculate the amount of the deed with 70/100 and come up with the amount that is paid at closing for this tax.

Well, all of a sudden the state is saying they want the title companies to charge the stamp tax not just on the deed but on the forgiven amount as well. We have never heard of such a ridiculous statement. As if it is not hard enough to do a short sale as it is. If the third party lenders refuse to pay this additional amount and the seller does not have the money to pay it, this becomes a broken dea.

 This is just a disaster waiting to happen unless the state backs off and realizes that these homeowners are mostly in foreclosure status already, they don't have the extra money to pay.

This is also going to be hard to enforce and also to calculate. What is the state going to use as the standard as to what was owed in the first place? It really makes no sense. If the IRS can forgive the debt than the state should as well.

The Florida Association of Realtors talked at length with the Department of Revenue, the Attorney General's office for the state of Florida and the Governor's office to let them know what a disaster this can turn into. Do they really want even more distressed properties? This will shut down the short sale transaction and lead to an even softer market than we are already experiencing. FAR was in a 2 hour meeting with 8 employees of the DOR and the head of the agency and their counsel.

Please be advised that this one page letter that went out throughout the state of Florida on the DOR letterhead was written by one employee of the DOR ( Hmmm, what was that person thinking, or NOT!) and stated that the tax is due on the higher amount. This opinion was based on a phone call made to the help line.

This is NOT the official position of the Department of Revenue.

FAR has been helping and offering to educate the staff of the DOR to understand what a short sale is and why they are killing the deal with a position such as this. FAR has also requested the DOR to participate in a TAA, A Technical Assistance Advisory to develop a form to use for short sales.

Florida Association of Realtors has been working for about a month on this issue. While we hope the outcome will be what makes sense with the only the deed amount being taxed, it may also not turn out the way we want it to. If it turns out to be an adverse decision FAR will immediately explore "amnesty" avenues in the state Legislature on past short sale transactions.

FAR just received a notice this week that the DOR will have  the TAA ready soon. Most of the time these kinds of advisories take a long time to complete. The expedient manner in which the DOR worked on this hopefully shows that they know we are facing a serious issue with short sales being successful here in the state of Florida.  Please stay tuned as we find out the details to this important topic.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales - Florida State Documentary Stamp Tax Upon Transfer Of Property was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales - Florida State Documentary Stamp Tax Upon Transfer Of Property* 
 

How Do BPO's Limit Your Ability To Complete A Short Sale?

We have this one condo 1 bedroom 1 bath in an upscale Boca Raton Florida Condo near the Boca Mizner area. This one bedroom condo is a short sale. There has not been a one bedroom unit sold in this building since it was a hot commodity a few years back.

Victory For Short Sales In Florida - Realtors Win For Sellers!

 

There was a memo that was sent out by one of the employees of the Department of Revenue that on short sales the state wanted to collect documentary stamp tax on the forgiven debt plus the sales price. To catch up on this story and news you can click here to read my post about the documentary stamp tax in question.

When these things happen the Governmental Affairs of the Realtor Associations ban together to present to our Senators and DOR directors what our take on this is. There is nothing in the DOR rules that addresses the issue of the forgiven debt. There is no money exchanging hands and our position is that the tax is due on the deed. That is what the law says. Nothing more.

I had a talk with our state Senator Jeff Atwater about this issue and he said he interpreted the rules the same way we did and that he would look into it.

Victory! Realtors win their case with the DOR regarding the short sale documentary stamp tax!

It is official. The Documentary Stamp Tax is to be collected on the lower amount, the short sale amount!

Please pass this information along to your Title companies and Attorneys here in the state of Florida who do your short sale closings!

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Victory For Short Sales In Florida - Realtors Win For Sellers! was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Victory For Short Sales In Florida - Realtors Win For Sellers!*

Short Sales Saga- Nightmares or FairyTales? A Day In The Life Of A Short Sale Agent. 

Short sales- a day in the life of a short sale agent.

WOW! What a week we had!

First off, we had good news but a very trying week!

We received 3 acceptances for short sales that we have offers on this week. Things were getting pretty hot and heavy during some strenuous negotiations with some tough lenders and up the ladder Nestor climbed to find those in charge who could make some sensible decisions. Nestor has the great internal instincts to negotiate and persuade others to rally for his side. He also does not like to lose. So his teeth go in and stay there until we get the answer that we want to hear. This takes tenacity and strong patience to hold back his tongue from speaking all sorts of words and feelings better left tempered.

We have this one offer for one of our short sales that is in foreclosure. The lender turns down the offer because the offer does not fit within what the lender wants to net yet their value is from a BPO that was done back in May. I tell the negotiator about the market here and that the values have gone down since May and he needs to order a new BPO. This young guy starts to tell me how real estate works and how FHA buyers are going to need 60 to 90 days to get their loan! WHAT! We close FHA deals from start to finish in 2 weeks to 3 weeks. I tell him that I an a Realtor(R); I think I know what I am doing. Nestor has some patience because I could feel him tapping on me to settle down with this guy.

Nestor says he is just going above his head. Within 20 minutes we get a call from one of the executives who tells us that things will be reconsidered. They will order a new BPO.

In the meantime, we told the buyer what was going on and they increased their offer to where we may have a workable solution without a second BPO.

 

We will know more when we get their net, (the amount that the lender wants to receive after all the closing costs are paid).

Then came the nightmare of all nightmares. The dreaded call from the homeowners- they had papers in the mail that day with a foreclosure sale date of- you guessed it- the following morning. (We had that happen to us once before but we saved the day).

The attorney for the lender asked for this hearing at the beginning of last month and NEVER notified the homeowners! They receive the documents when they arrive home and look in their mailbox. That is when they find out that in 12 hours from then they were going to be losing their house, a house that had a short sale offer in progress on it! We got the call from the homeowners at 6 p.m.

Nestor quickly started shooting out emails up the chain of command. I started looking up the court case records online to see if there were any other motions filed that the homeowners were not notified of. We both started consoling the homeowners and giving them the moral support that they were going to need to get through this highly stressful time.We gathered all the emails and documents they would need to show the judge that they did have an offer on the house that was highly likely to be closed on soon.

By 10 p.m. that evening we were getting emails from the negotiator and the top managers that they had stopped the sale and that the homeowners did not need to go to try to stop the sale. This was a 2 hour drive for the homeowners to the court. But we and the homeowners felt they still had to go. We can trust no one in these situations.

At 10:00 a.m. the homeowners called us after they left the courthouse. The opposing council was there and told the judge that they were canceling the sale because they had an offer in the works. The judge wished the homeowners good luck. They were so very thankful to Elohem for the miracle they said they witnessed. I said to them that I was sorry they had to make the drive. They then told me, "No, we had to go. We had to go to witness the glory of Elohem, his amazing hand in our lives and how blessed we are." Tears filled my eyes as I felt their amazing faith in their hour of need and trial.

This is why we serve our clients. This is why we do short sales. This is why we will not give up!

 

 

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

  

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales Saga - Nightmares or Fairytales? A Day In The Life Of A Short Sale Agent was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales Saga - Nightmares or Fairytales? A Day In The Life Of A Short Sale Agent*

 

Are you in foreclosure?

Have you been served some papers that look like court documents?

This is called a summons and complaint and is a document that tells you that you are being sued in court. This summons and complaint must be answered within 21 calendar days. We strongly urge you to have an attorney represent you and if you can not afford an attorney contact the Legal Aid society where you live and ask for the format to be able to respond on your own.

We have homeowners we are doing short sales for do it both ways depending mostly on their finances. You can go down to the courthouse and they may also have a self help center where you can obtain the documents that you will need for a small fee.

If you are in foreclosure you may be able to sell your property as a short sale.

To learn more about what a short sale is and if you may qualify for a short sale please read our Short sale articles that we have written to help you by clicking here.

There is a big difference between living in Florida and getting foreclosed on and living in many other states. Most of our homeowners do not live here anymore and have moved back up north. If you live in another state and are going to end up in foreclosure on a property here in Florida you will need to check with an attorney in your state to find out what your asset protections are. Florida is an asset protection state. You can read more about Florida Asset protection by clicking here.

Lenders are changing their rules all the time. It is important for you to understand your options. Don't listen to well meaning friends and neighbors who are putting their two cents into the mix about what you should do.

If people are telling you that you have to behind in your payments before you can do a short sale; that may or may not be the case in your situation. Each lender is different and each short sale is treated according to your financial ability to pay or not.

If you have been told that you have to be totally broke to do a short sale that is simply not the case. The more money you have in the bank, the more money you make and the better your credit is; the more likelihood of you needing to contribute in some financial way in order to avoid foreclosure and minimize the damage to your credit and finances. This does not mean that you can not do a short sale.

If you are broke, lost your job, have sick parents you are taking care of, divorcing or any other situation that is causing you to become late in your payments than your chances of being approved to do a short sale are very high.

If you want to know if you qualify for a short sale you can contact us and we can assist you with information that we have from the lenders that we have been closing short sales with.

There are NO guarantees that your short sale will be approved. But you can choose to become proactive in your given situation and give it your best shot.

We are here to help you as agents who list and close short sales.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Foreclosures-Short Sale Options - Get The Right Information was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Foreclosures-Short Sale Options - Get The Right Information*

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

BPOs For Palm Beach County Short Sales - It May Not Be Your Lender was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*BPOs For Palm Beach County Short Sales - It May Not Be Your Lender*

I have been on the phone this week with 3 homeowners and 1 real estate agent who have been so misinformed about short sales. It made me think that there must be a lot more people out there that are misinformed. 

• If your home is your primary residence and has been for 2 out of the last 5 years, the homesteaded property in the state of Florida you will get a 1099 for the short fall in January of the following year. However, the debt relief act that President Bush signed into law says that the IRS will not treat that short sale loss as a gain or ordinary income. This law is in place until December of 2009. Most lenders are going to send one out to you because they do not have systems in place to differentiate from those who should get one and those who don't. You will need to take that to your accountant and make sure your accountant knows about that act.

• If the property that you are doing a short sale on is NOT your primary residence, meaning that you used it as an income property, bought it for your kids or parents, etc, than you will get a 1099 and it will be according to the IRS treated as income for tax purposes. I think this stinks but I can't seem to get the IRS to listen to me:). What you can do is talk to your accountant. You can see if you are insolvent. The insolvency then may wipe out your gain. Also, remember that you have losses to report as well. Make sure you keep your closing statements because those closing fees, some of them you can add to your loss. I am not an accountant so check with an accountant to help you mitigate the damage. Most of our investor listings are so upside down that they will be insolvent at the end of the day.

• If your property is an investment property you may still qualify to do a short sale which is still way better than a foreclosure. One of the biggest myths is that you can NOT do a short sale if this is an investment property. We have closed many investor short sale properties with very little to no deficiencies.

• If you have money in the bank, have a job and have retirement accounts you still may be able to do a short sale. This is another falacy running wild out there! It is not true that you can not do a short sale if you have money. What is true is that the more money you have and the better your credit scrore, the more money the lender will expect you to bring to the table to mitigage their loss.We have negotiated $140,000 requests from lenders to homeowners to pitch in down to $27,000 and less depending on what the money our client has is used for. It is far better to pay a deficiency of $27,000 and make it go away than getting a deficiency of the entire $140,000 plus more after a foreclosure.

• In the state of Florida which is a deficiency state you may or may not get a fully satisfied paid as agreed status on your short sale. We will write another article with the different types of outcomes you can expect to happen. If you have a HELOC as a second, that is a Home Equity Line of Credit or PMI, Private Mortgage Insurance you will most likely these days not get away with getting a totally and fully satisfied mortgage reporting. HELOCs are treated differently than mortgages and most of them require some sort of payment. We have been able to get this amount reduced and have been able to get the amount negotiated from buyers or the sellers borrowed the money from their parents, ect to make it work because it is still far better than a foreclosure. 

Short Sales- Country Wide Streamlines Short Sale Process- Important Changes

Short Sales- CountryWide has a new and more efficient way to handle short sales. CountryWide has been one of the longest to get a short sale done company around but they are moving forward and looking for ways to better streamline the process.

Countrywide has a new preshort sale department and they will be accepting preshort sale packages. Of course, we have always sent preshort sale packages in to get the ball rolling but now it is official. You can turn in the preshort sale package and that will be processed and Countrywide will order the BPO ahead of the offer.

• does not know the area

• does not know the market

• wants to get the REO listing so he/she will skew the BPO

• All servicers that opt into the HAFA program must sign a SPA agreement with Fannie Mae in behalf of the United States. This SPA agreement is the same type of agreement as a PSA agreement.  

• The servicers get to decide the extent to which they want to work with short sales and these guidelines don't have to take effect until April 5, 2010 although the servicers who are in HAMP can move your file into HAFA before that date.

• Your loan must be HAMP eligible and meet other requirements in the guidelines in order to be eligible for the incentives to you and to your servicer.

• you will get up to $1500 to help you with moving expenses from the servicer upon a successful closing,

• the first note holder has to remove any deficiency and can not puruse a deficiency. This does not pertain to second mortgages or HELOCs.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Short Sales and HAFA - Defining The Details For Real Estate Agents & Homeowners was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Short Sales and HAFA - Defining The Details For Real Estate Agents & Homeowners*

• Principal Residences
• First mortgages
• The mortgage is delinquent or will be delinquent in the foreseeable future.
• The unpaid balance is less than $729,750.
• The monthly mortgage payment is more than 31 percent of the borrower's gross income.

Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek legal advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Boynton Beach, Manalapan, Manalapan Point, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.

For more information about Florida Short Sales and Palm Beach County Short Sales Click Here.

To  view Wellington Florida Homes  For Sale Click here. We know Palm Beach County Short Sales and Port St Lucie Florida Short Sales and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your home in Palm Beach County Florida : Call us today.

Do You List & Sell Short Sales in St Augustine & Jacksonville Florida areas was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Copyright © 2009 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*Do You List & Sell Short Sales in St Augustine & Jacksonville Florida areas*

• A short sale is a seller's lender agreeing to accept less than what is owed to them or the seller brings his own proceeds or a portion thereof to cover the deficiency.

• A short sale is still owned by the seller who is usually the property owner.

• A short sale closing will conclude with the seller (homeowner) transferring title to the buyer.

• A short sale is not a bank owned property listing.

• A short sale is where the proceeds are not enough to pay the balance owed to the mortgage companies, the closing costs or the liens and other costs of sale or a combination of one or more of these existing.

• A foreclosure is the legal process in which the owner's rights to his property are taken away usually by default.
•