We are absolutely thrilled to announce our support of summer campers at the Alliance for the Arts. During the month of May, a portion of our revenue from every real estate closing will be donated to the Alliance to fund scholarships for summer camp tuition.
“The Alliance for the Arts is the state designated arts agency for Lee County; a member supported non-profit with a passion to facilitate and nurture the creation, development, promotion, and education of arts and culture.” There is no place better to witness the Alliance’s fulfillment of that passion than at its Summer Arts Camps. Kids aged 5 to 12 from all walks of life fill the Alliance eight weeks during the summer, lifting their voices, moving their feet and creating an array of visual arts. And each week culminates final stage performances which are an absolute riot. Take a look for yourself.
We are sold on the arts and their positive impact on the children of Southwest Florida. Here’s proof. If you’d like to learn more about the Alliance, check them out at ArtInLee.org. Thanks so much for your support! Oh, and the kids say thanks too!
That’s right; we are here for you, right from the first phone call all the way through closing. Let’ start at the very beginning. What does “closing”, “settlement” or “closing escrow” mean?
Closing or settlement is a term used for the point in time at which the title to the property is transferred to the buyer and is the final step in executing a real estate transaction
We all know buying a house is one of the most important decisions you will make in your lifetime. It is a very exciting yet possibly overwhelming experience. We find that the more you know about the process the more confident and relaxed you will be.
Once the seller accepts your sales contract, the countdown to closing begins. Timing is crucial to make sure all of the requirements for a successful closing are in order.
If so, you might not have been able to take advantage of the historically low mortgage interest rates that exist in our market right now.
Most traditional home loan programs require an appraisal, which your lender uses to determine the value of your home and to determine whether that value makes it a safe bet for them to loan you money. Very basically, if your home is worth less than you owe on it is essentially impossible to refinance your current loan.
This is of course a common problem here in Southwest Florida.
If you are currently in a FHA home loan and in this situation, there is a program that may help you take advantage of today’s great mortgage intersest rates.
It is called the FHA Streamline Refinance.
Just last week, we closed one of these loans for a couple who owed $240,000 on a FHA loan and who were paying about 5.5% interest on that loan.
Their home’s value was recently assessed by the property appraiser at $190,000 ($50,000 less than what they owed!), which in most cases would have made it impossible for them to refinance their home loan. Through the FHA Streamline Refinance program, these “under water” clients were able to refinance at a fixed rate of 3.75% over 30 years, which reduced their monthly payment of principal and interest from $1,363 to $1,109.49 – a savings of over $250 per month!
The FHA Streamline Refinance is a unique special provision. For starters, your existing loan must be a FHA loan.
According to mortgage expert Jay Beckingham, a loan officer at American Eagle Mortgage Company in Ft. Myers, Florida, FHA wants its borrowers to be able to take advantage of today’s low rates. The program therefore requires NO APPRAISAL, instead using the property’s purchase price as a baseline. The program does require that you pay your own closing costs; but the long-term savings are nonetheless clear and significant.
In the example above, those clients will save over $3,000 over the next 12 months.
Because we wanted to learn more about this program, we invited Jay to speak to us about it. Here is what Jay had to say —
If we can help you in anyway, please be sure to contact us online, or give us call at (239) 985-4142.
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.
As you can see, we’ll be busy posting a lot of information, so make sure you don’t miss anything by following us online by email, RSS Feed, Facebook, Twitter and/or LinkedIn to assure you’re notified as soon it’s available!
If you have a real estate question – please don’t hesitate to contact us at (239) 985-4142 or visit our WingedFootTitle.com web site. We service all of Southwest Florida including: Fort Myers Estero, Bonita Springs, Naples, Cape Coral, Pine Island, Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte.
NOT LEGAL ADVICE: This information is not to be construed as legal advice. Legal advice must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each case. Every effort has been made to assure that this information is up-to-date as of the date of publication. It is not intended to be a full and exhaustive explanation of the law in any area. This information is not intended as legal advice and may not be used as legal advice. It should not be used to replace the advice of your own legal counsel.
Winged Foot Tite, LLC is not associated with the government, and our [short sale orchestration] service is not approved by the government or your lender. Even if you accept this offer and use our service, your lender may not agree to change your loan.
