Home Closing Process

Hey there! Just wanted to give you a heads up that the Bonita Springs-Estero Association of Realtors® will be presenting the Southwest Florida Global Real Estate Expo tomorrow (3/2/12) from 9am to 5pm at the Holiday Inn Airport.

I’ll actually be a part of the short sale and foreclosure panel from 11 – 12:30 pm, so if you plan on attending, I hope to see you there. It’s only $10 and it’s open to the public so it would be great if you would attend. Here are the rest of the details:

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Fast forward 14 months and YES, “The Hardest Short Sale Ever” had closed!!!

That day was a clear reminder of just how proud I am of our team here at Winged Foot Title. As you may imagine, a process this complicated yielded many useful insights which we employ daily in our operations. But as we surge into 2012, we wanted to share with you three of those  insights that may be helpful in your business as well.

We call them our “Three Cs”:

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Well we’ve made it. The girls – my wife Lydia and daughter Emerson – and I left Fort Myers late Tuesday and made it to Jacksonville before packing it in. We started slowly this morning but banked enough time for a quick pit stop in charming Savannah, GA.

We hit Savannah about lunch time. Online and friend reviews took us to Soho South Cafe, which lived up to its billing. Lydia had a Mediterranean grill; Emerson a PB & J; and I the salmon BLT on the recommendation of Liza, our server. The restaurant is an eclectic mix of furniture and art. Its only consistent design element within the warehouse shell is its inconsistency. We were reminded of one of our favorites from Philadelphia – The White Dog Cafe. The lunch crowd was part local – from lawyers talking their first cases before certain testy judges to businessmen – and part tourist. Overall a great spot for our first stop in Savannah.

Savannah is a wonderfully walkable place – quite a welcome reprieve from what we are used to. We strolled from Soho South Cafe to Chippewa Square then snaked through side streets back to the wagon to get back on the road. We were not disappointed when we rolled into Charleston a couple of hours later..

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First of all, I love the HousingWire news feeds.  If you aren’t subscribed to a RSS feed or aren’t keeping tabs via Twitter, you should.  Check out www.housingwire.com.

This article was posted at HousingWire on Monday by Kerri Panchuk:  ”Survey Shows First-Time Homebuyers Growing Weary of Short Sales”.  In it, the author cites a recent survey that indicates a slide in the percentage of first-time homebuyers who have acquired short sales – from 54.1% in November 2009 to 39.7% in August.  We are all aware of the technical challenges of short sales; but the payoff in dealing with and overcoming those challenges is, according to the report cited, that “short sales . . . generally sell at prices 27% lower than non-distressed properties . . . .”  I got to thinking that if this is true  – that a buyer could expect a 27% discount by buying a short sale – then it would be nuts to “grow weary” of them.  Nuts, unless of course these first-time homebuyers are entering into short sale transactions with poorly set expectations.

Having orchestrated over 700 short sales over the last three years, we understand just how wrong things can go when expectations are not set properly.  So here are a few pointers mostly from a buyer’s agent’s perspective which should go a long way toward helping to manage your buyer’s expectations and toward helping them hang in there to take advantage of the short sale savings.

There is no substitute for good old-fashioned homework and reconnaissance when it comes to making an offer on a short sale.  To wit, you should know or try to find out:

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This was a great question I was asked earlier this week, during a short sale process presentation I did to a group of REALTOR’s from Sellstate Priority Realty, a very successful brokerage in Cape Coral, Florida.  It was a very engaged group, and I was glad when someone asked a question about what to do about a junior lien in a primary home short sale scenario.

Here is a short video clip (about 4 minutes) that addresses this common issue:

So as you heard, Liz and Lynda presented the following scenario of a primary home short sale of a Cape Coral property. The owner of the property is disabled and can no longer afford the home.  Here are the details:

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My company, Winged Foot Title, (a Fort Myers title company) understands the value of home ownership. More importantly, we understand the value of protecting the American dream. We know that title insurance is the key to eliminating risks in real estate transactions.

Title insurance is valued by:

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The possibilities are endless when you choose the short sale specialists at Winged Foot Title to close your Bank of America short sale (or any other short sale for that matter ).

The details of this Bank of America Short Sale are remarkable:

• The original loan amount was $328,650.
• The approval netted the lender $215,196.93 which was approximately 65% of the original loan.
• The approval resulted in 91.73% of the approved purchase price of $234,600.
• The realtor commissions were approved at 6% of the approved purchase price of $234,600.
• Did we mention the approval came in 37 business days?

But that’s not all!

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When we begin to counsel our clients about the short sale of their homes, one of the questions that we get asked frequently is “Is it possible to sell my home as a short sale and not have a deficiency judgement placed against me?” The answer is Yes! It has happened before in the past. However, that’s certainly not the norm.

Not too long ago, I was quoted in a Florida Weekly article regarding lenders pursuing borrowers for the deficiency judgment. Here is the actual article:

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