Southwest Florida Title Insurance & Real Estate Blog

Making community connections is a part of the Winged Foot Title company philosophy. For them, business is about more than closings and real estate; it’s about making a difference. In the winter of 2014, Winged Foot Title actively participated in this mission.

Closing with a Cause

Winged Foot Title staffers Kristen, Johanna, and Jared delivered the company’s November and December 2014 donation to Harry Chapin Food Bank.

This holiday season, Winged Foot Title, LLC raised awareness and gave back to the community through a campaign benefitting Harry Chapin Food Bank of Southwest Florida. For every closing in November and December 2014, the company donated a portion to help feed the hungry in Southwest Florida. They raised $520 in just two short months. Through its resources, Harry Chapin Food Bank can multiply every $1 in cash donations into $6 in food value.

“Many families and children will benefit from this partnership, through this holiday season and beyond.” Sam Kelly of the Harry Chapin Food Bank said.

Winged Foot Title Owner Chris Black says they will continue Closing with a Cause into the new year, next benefitting the Boys and Girls Club of Southwest Florida.

Bells were ringing

Kristen and Jillian participate as Salvation Army Bell Ringers for Winged Foot Title.

Winged Foot Title staffers volunteered as a group during the holiday season as Salvation Army Kettle Bell Ringers on December 10, 2014. photo from Facebook

90¢ of every dollar raised by the Lee, Hendry, Glades Counties Command supports its programs. The Salvation Army assists more than 33 million individuals throughout the year in the United States – over 6 million of those during the holiday season alone.

Let’s all go to the movies

Since the series began in 2010, Winged Foot Title has been a dedicated sponsor of Family Movie Nights at the Alliance for the Arts. All funds collected for Family Movie Nights supports the organization’s extensive children’s programming.

This season began with a screening of The Life of Pi on January 9, and continues Friday, February 6 at 7 p.m. with Charlotte’s Web, Friday, March 6 at 7:30 p.m. with Mr. Popper’s Penguins, and concludes on Friday April 10 at 8 p.m. with Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest.

The Alliance for the Arts proudly supports artists and art organizations in our area as the state designated Local Arts Agency for Lee County.

Winged Foot Title is a proud sponsor of A Night for the Arts for the second consecutive year. All proceeds benefit the Alliance for the Arts and the Sidney Berne Davis Art Center.

We’d love to have you come join us this Saturday night (January 26, 2013) starting at 6:00pm for a concert featuring the Screaming Orphans.

The event, presented by the Rotary Club of Fort Myers, takes place at the Sidney Berne Davis Art Center located at 2301 First St., Fort Myers, FL 33901. Tickets are $60 and can be purchased at SBDAC.com.

Need more info? Call (239) 332-8158.

See you there!

-Chris

Is your property under water?

Do you owe more than your property is worth?

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.

Also be sure to visit our free eBook Library to learn:

– Chris

Join Winged Foot Title as we co-sponsor a two day event packed full of fun for the whole family!

The Young Professional Network group and the REALTOR® Association of Greater Fort Myers & the Beach are hosting a night at the ball park tomorrow, August 24th, at Hammond Stadium.

The Miracle baseball game will kick off at 7:05 PM, so come on out for raffles, prizes, giveaways & last, but not least, baseball!

Wait, that’s not all!

Read the rest of this entry »

Voice of the Title Agent (VOTA) Panel from the 2012 NSSCS – Part III – Marketplace & Business Improvement

Coming from Southwest Florida – virtually the epicenter of the housing crisis – and starting our business when we did – January, 2007 – gives us an interesting perspective. We struggled mightily at the outset and were fortunately lean enough to survive. We survived long enough to establish a very high quality and well-respected brand, and began to grow our market share by innovating.

Short Sale Orchestration Department
Most of our success and growth over the last two and half years has come from the development of a short sale orchestration department.

We call it lien clearance or title processing on steroids, and we currently employ four full time people whose responsibility it is to work with REALTORs, short sellers, and their lenders to get the lenders in short sales to provide a lien release so that we may issue title insurance.

Our team recently discussed this suite of services and, in light of what we have seen in the market – slight increases in values, e.g. – we would like to see our short sale work comprise a much smaller percentage of our revenue in about one year. We are therefore ratcheting up our sales and marketing focus on more traditional work (settlement and closing services) driven from lenders on the refinance side and from REALTORs on the purchase and sale side.

Read the rest of this entry »