It’s time to blog.  You don’t have to go far for inspiration.  The most recent issue of Forbes Magazine on page 30 dated May 11^th, 2009 says it all.

 

Do you remember the movie Moses with Charleston Heston?  Of course you do.  It was awesome and it was so long it had to have an intermission in the 1970’s when I first saw it.

 

Moses called on to Ramsey and said “Let my people go”.  Then he quietly communicated to Ramsey that he was going to kick his bald skinning white butt out of that fancy pharos suit if he didn’t comply.  That is precisely why Ramsey let Moses go and he later parted the Red Sea and all the rest of the story.  Ramsey was no fool because Moses was a force to be reckoned with.  Moses’s people made it across the sea and are clearly a tough and very respectable group when it comes to capitalism and the pursue of the almighty dollar. 

 

Yes I am having some fun with this.  I need you to look at the family picture in Forbes Magazine that is backed by the Stanford University endowment.  They buy loans from banks and the FDIC on the cheap and come after deadbeat homeowners for the money.  I am going to quote you two sections of the article as follows to emphasize my point:  Article direct link:

 

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0511/030-fdic-foreclosure-stanford-collection-agent.html

 

Quote #1 from Forbes that I recommend each and every one of you visit Forbes and read:

 

{They make at least three attempts to negotiate before commencing any litigation.  But there are limits.  He will, he says, throw an old lady out of her house if she is missing payments while driving a new Ferrari. He has assembled a national army of cheap lawyers, for which he is now paying $300,000 per month in fees.  “Our first line is to try to work something out”, Says James Hrebenar. “if they do not pay, and we have to foreclose, we do what we have to do.”}

 

Quote #2

 

{Then there is the $49,000 loan made by a Bank of America unit to a Great Neck, NY jeweler who gave his personal guarantee.  “I offered him $12,000, that is all my clients can afford”, says the jewelers lawyer, whose offer is under consideration.  “They’re unreasonable-in simple terms, ballbusters”.

 

Now what is the point of all this nonsense?  Yes they are in fact some of Moses people. They are blood thirsty capitalists (“ball busters”) and they are buying the rights to the debt that unsuspecting homeowners like you can not pay.  There are some very strong incentives to squeeze blood from a stone when you are a capitalist.  Buy the paper for 50 cents and recover 67 cents with you comfortably eating breakfast at Denny’s, or recover 72 cents with you eating spam and sleeping on the curb.  How is the recovery going to work out for you?

 

Prevent this and avoid having to deal with capitalists like the ones depicted in the Forbes article by signing on to The Real Estate Short Sale.  These people don’t look very intimidating, but they own the rights to your unpaid debt, and you are a sissy and they will scare you with their “cheap” attorneys to capitulate more often then not.  What do I say?  I say get out in front of them and provide your lenders a solution in the form of a well planned short sale.  Avoid foreclosure and bleed the lenders like the greedy pigs they are with a solution that they cannot afford to pass up.  This is prevention in the purest form.

 

To be fair I must disclose that a short sale solution can be a lengthy and difficult process in the current environment and I have a slight advantage with my team.  We posture as ex-lenders and licensed attorneys thereby allowing us to convincingly show the lenders the staircase to “Lender Hell” if necessary, and illustrate to them the incentives of cooperation.  Sounds so eloquent doesn’t it?  Sometimes it’s bees with honey and other times its cooperation or the crowbar. 

 

My last point that I always try to make to my clients is to remember the past.  In the early 1990’s during the Savings & Loan Crisis many banks failed and there was a significant amount of debt owed floating around.  The smart people negotiated and the stupid people fled in denial only to have to face one of Moses people.

 

Go to Forbes and read this article and look at the people.  Again, they are not intimidating.  They are capitalists and they are looking for you if you look at all like an opportunity.  I say good for them.  If you are stupid enough not to take advantage of a short sale in this environment or too lazy not to investigate the subject at www.thenegotiatedsolution.com then you may deserve what you get (Free Trial still offered).

 

Why am I so harsh with this last statement?  I am purposely being harsh because people without a plan that have a family to care for can become destitute.  I took on a new client last week in this situation and I am not happy about it.  This one is a freebie and this family is really in trouble.  If this gentleman would have listened to my advice, that was completely free six months ago, he wouldn’t be where he is today.  This is upsetting to me so I am here to light a fire under all those willing to listen.

 

Protect your family, yourself, your emotional well being and don’t get in the crosshairs of Moses or any of his buddies.

 

Blogging from the front line of the housing crisis.

 

GHunter.

This is a nagging subject that simply will not go away.  Since yesterday afternoon I have had three separate realtors force horror stories on me about other realtors that allegedly do not know what they are doing with Short Sales.  You have to listen so I often find comedy along the way as the stories unfold.

 

Early this afternoon I was speaking with a very aggressive young realtor in his twenties.  I have personally worked with this individual very successfully over the past year.  We got to talking and somehow he got on an open rant about the incompetence of the old guard of realtors.  I said with humor, “The Blowhards, I mean Dinosaurs”, yes exactly he replied.  He told me he was sick of the bossy old timers proclaiming they know what they are doing and watching them walk unsuspecting homeowners to foreclosure.  Now I started to tune in to what he was saying.  He went on to tell me how they simply don’t know how to price the properties and they just want to put the listings in the MLS and get paid.  I have heard this many times before and witnessed it myself.  He told me he was a nice guy the first year or so he was in the business but that now he was out for blood.  His illustration was that he would get up for work and put his hockey suit on and plow through the realtors.  I related to his “my way or the highway attitude”.  He is sick of the incompetence, excuses and general lack of care for the business.  As we shared stories just from yesterday, it once again became clear that his point was that the old times either needed to get up to speed to properly represent the distressed homeowners, or they needed to take a back seat and let the twenty to forty year old bull dogs handle the short sales.

 

It’s comical that with each of these calls regarding stories of discontent are directed at realtors by another realtor.  Recently I have had realtors on our full service cases that have failed to follow our protocol and we buzzed them accordingly.  They hate to have “big brother” checking to be sure they do their job.  After all pricing a property is not complete by just dumping a listing in the MLS.  There is a two part process that we require as part of our program.  There is also a pricing model and means of keeping the property on the market that reflects the best interest of the seller.  Not all realtors like new things.  Many are control freaks and think they know everything.  This is true even as they fail clients and walk them to foreclosure. You would think they would want to keep an open mind and learn so they can earn referrals from helping people avoid foreclosure.

 

Recently there has been a flurry of realtors that have signed up for a class that apparently  issues them a certification as a distressed property expert.  I have had at least ten of them tell me in the last week that the only reason they took the class was for the certification.  I told one of them I thought this was completely ridicules when he proposed completely ratifying and locking up one of our listings with a low ball contract.  He got upset.  In the end he was more upset with himself when I threw it in his face that he was an expert after the course and where the hell was the clue telling him how to keep the property on the market. Oh yeah, I gave that to him and it didn’t come from the idiot handbook associated with his new certification that will gather dust in the glove compartment.  He listened and we are ok so I am not going to imply that he is just another idiot trying to make a buck selling real estate in Florida.   

 

At the end of the day I have to listen to realtors that proclaim they are the experts and that all the others are idiots.  That was a funny excerpt conversational rant from a guy in his late thirties yesterday morning.  He was the expert and all the other realtors were just idiots.  The stories never stop.  I would like everyone to be aware that these are unprecedented times in real estate and the realtors have lost control with short sales.  Realtors in general are more apt to unintentionally walk you to foreclosure than outline a real plan for you and your family.  You must educate yourself and be careful.  I am telling you point blank that realtors, and hundreds of them, are proclaiming that the real estate industry is rife with incompetence.  Listen to me so you have the time to benefit from a short sale and not have your property inadvertently sit on the market while the window of opportunity closes.

 

This is precisely why we monitor all the realtors assigned to our client’s properties.  We keep tabs on the pricing, activity, and follow up.  If somebody is a slacking off it doesn’t mean we move to get them replaced.  It means we light a fire under them so we can help the homeowner win.  Avoiding Foreclosure with successful Short Sales is a team effort. Until the realtors wise up they are creating liability for themselves and wasting too much time calling each other out on the basis of expertise.  

 

Soon we will be adding a new strategy supplement to the Resources Section of our site titled Realtor Risk Factors.  The problem is getting so bad that our attorneys have decided that it is time to elaborate on the risk associated with the distressed homeowner’s failure, and their ultimate financial demise.  Right now the realtors think they are insulated and that it’s not their problem if representation does not work out.  On an individual case basis they may be correct for the time being.  However, after listening and blogging on the unfortunate consequences of failure and the part the realtors have played over the past year, one may start to see of vision of the next big opportunity.  Maybe it will be a class action suit against the realtors.  I say this will all seriousness.  The realtors and their brokers think they are insulated.  What they do not know is that even their Errors & Emissions Policies do not cover them representing the distressed homeowners in Short Sale negotiations.  Wake up call.  Let’s call it the fine print.  Given what is going on this is a big mess just waiting to happen.  We will be adding the risk factor strategy supplement to our Premium Course Upgrade very soon.

 

In the meantime, the Dinosaurs roam free and the stories will continue.  It is up to you if you are a distressed homeowner dealing with a decision in this awful housing crisis to not count on the realtor for everything.  Understand the risk that the Dinosaurs may only be good at listing your property but not much else.  If you look at their picture and it looks like in was taken in 1990 you may want to ask what qualifies them to help you short sale your property.  I would also ask to speak with happy customers where they were directly involved and successfully completed a short sale.  Happy customers are very key.  I have lots of happy customers.  When you ask for them and the realtor attempts to ignore you, with a short sale, you better show them the door or you may be a risk.  A Short Sale to Stop and/or Avoid Foreclosure is not a rookie’s or an old timer’s game.   You need a plan.  Please join our two hour video free trail at www.thenegotiatedsolution.com . 

 

Blogging from the front line of the housing crisis.

 

GHunter

I have had so many people call me with terrible Loan Modification stories.  Many of them have exhausted their efforts and become short sale clients.  Today I would like to ask the people to call or email some of the good stories on Loan Modifications.  I can tell you lots of good stories about happy families with Short Sales.  Let’s get the email and phones going with maybe just a few good stories of loan modifications where the family was given an affordable solution and enabled to stay in their home.  I am not being feseshish.  I really would like to hear at least a couple good stories.  I am sick and tired of the negative ones.

 

I want to share with you a story just last Thursday from a distressed homeowner.  A family owns a home as their primary residence in NC.  The area is a beach town and the predominant ownership of real estate in this area is as a second home.  This guy got behind 60 days on his mortgage because his business had cratered due to the economy.  He contact his lender asking for assistance with the intent to stay in his home.  He submitted a raft of paperwork and had to wait for 60 days.  At the end of the 60 days the lender said, “Harrah, you are eligible for a loan modification”.  He was relieved but then there was more.  The lender said, “before we can offer you a loan modification we have to have you complete a four month period of forbearance.”  I call this the stress test.  The homeowner was paying over $4,000 per month on his current mortgage and having trouble.  The lender, and I might ad a TARP recipient, required that he make a payment closer to $5,000 per month for a complete four months before a loan modification could be finalize.  This wasn’t the best news but the homeowner saw it as a credible option to stay in his home and keep his family situated.  He made the four consecutive forbearance payments. He took money form every nook and cranny to make it work.  Finally the forbearance period was up.  He called his lender repeatedly and received no response.  This went on of a couple weeks.  Finally with the tenacity built up he got through to his lender.  What do you think they said?  You are not going to believe this.  They told him that he may have been eligible for a loan modification at the time before forbearance but that he wasn’t eligible now.  He was told that he could not be helped and that he was pretty much on his own.  If he falls too far behind the lender stated they were going to foreclose on the property.

 

This story is real and there is no glamour in telling it.  We decided not to even take on this homeowner as a short sale client because the second homes are not moving in the area and we felt that we would only add to his misery.  This guy is stuck and his lender screwed him.  Now you see why I am asking for someone to share a good experience about a person or family with a loan modification.  I am not making this stuff up.  I think the government programs are nonsense to date.  The large banks that received TARP are supposed to be helping people.  The only thing they are helping is themselves. The TARP money is cheap for the short term and they are leveraging it to their favor.  Alls Wells that ends Wells.  Nice earnings report fellas.

 

My point is once again that the government is going to save the free markets and you are clearly on your own.  This is an example.  Where is the accountability to the lenders for such shenanigans?  This is none.  The lenders talk the talk and their CEO’s act out on television.  It’s a money game.

 

This type of story is important not because you shouldn’t attempt a loan modification to stay in your home, but because you need to have realistic expectations and be prepared if it doesn’t work out in your favor.  What should you expect with a loan modification?

 

You should expect a reasonable reduction in payment or a calculation tied to approximately 38% of your gross monthly income being attributed to your total monthly housing expense.  Total monthly housing expense includes principle, interest, property taxes, homeowners insurance, property condo fee or HOA, and PMI if applicable.  You must also be gainfully employed.

 

I would like to share with you one more story from a recent customer that just completed a successful short sale with our company.  We just closed a short sale and got approximately $240K forgiven for a family that desperately wanted to stay in their home.  They worked diligently and frankly relentlessly with their lenders to simply keep their family in their home.  They were on a crazy negative amortizing arm loan program.  They persevered through a complete six months of negotiations for a loan modification only to have their lender offer them a payment reduction of $200 buck per month in a take it or leave it fashion.  I am not going to go into the details regarding the hardship, but I will tell you it was clearly a qualified hardship that I professionally do not believe would be questionable by anyone.  Having said that, the family contacted us and we completed a successful short sale over a total period of approximately four months.  Where is the catch to this story and why is it so significant?  The homeowners wanted to stay in their home so badly that they told me that they would move back in and continue paying two weeks before closing the approved short sale if the primary lender would let them. 

 

This makes no sense to me.  I personally connected with both the husband and wife and I really feel like we did the best for them possible given the circumstances.  I am not sure when these stories will turn the corner with loan modifications.  Most if not all loan mods require you to be delinquent.  Now they are saying with the new government programs that is not necessarily the case.  If you want to stay in your home definitely fight the fight.  If you are not happy do not lose hope.  Do not say things that recent new clients have said like “I feel desperate”.  You are not desperate.  You are disappointed and humbled but you are not desperate and you have options.  You have lost the battle but the war has just begun.  We do not endorse loan modifications as a general rule because we don’t think the review process is fair.  Frankly I think lenders use it to size the clients up and prepare the collections department for offense.  I sanction the Real Estate Short Sale.  I use this with my team as a weapon.  It’s fair and there is pain and benefit to go around but you as the distressed homeowner have a fighting chance.  These are my words and I am passionate about the take down.  When you think or feel desperation come visit me a www.thenegotiatedsolution.com an take the Free Trial Video. 

 

Blogging from the front line of the housing crisis.

 

GHunter