Short Sales can be viewed as one of the biggest real estate investment decisions of your life.

Now why would I consider a short sale an investment? Well, for one, if you are challenged with a hardship or are underwater on your mortgage, you are a great candidate for a short sale. From Day 1 of beginning the process, you will have to immediately stop paying your mortgage payments if you haven’t already done so. Banks simply aren’t incentivized to negotiate a short sale if you are proving that you are capable of paying. Typically a short sale takes an average of 6 months from start to finish. During those 6 months, and the inability to continue paying your mortgage, you can begin to save your money for relocation, paying bills, etc… Your own morals will tell you not to take your savings and go on a worldwide cruise…although you can if you really want.. Disposing of a home that has given you stress, hardship, and expendable cash limitations, the end result is like a 10,000 pound weight lifted off your shoulders.

Short sales are a tedious, time consuming, pain in the neck, mostly for the agent that is negotiating the sale for you. As a result of our experience, and established relationships, we offer clear solutions in this lengthy process. A short sale specialist with New Jersey Real Estate Guys will be able to assist in the entire process, educating you before the initial submission all the way to closing. It is important that you are aware of the process before jumping into it. Once you are detailed, a short sale seems like a no-brainer. Ok, you will lose some points on your credit score. But if you have a house to get out of and you are underwater or faced with a hardship, don’t you think dinging your credit is worth it? In the grand scheme of things, the answer is “probably”. With today’s mortgage qualification guidelines, once you short sale, you will likely not be approved for a new mortgage for about 2 years. With government making changes close to election time, I see this easing a bit. So if you do have plans to buy a home, you will need a co-signer, otherwise you can join the millions of other short sellers in renting, figuring out your next steps (which could be fun) and buying in a couple years when you are back on your feet or simply just ready for it.

First, you will need to hire a real estate agent. This is required as the bank will be sure you list your property with a brokerage. During the listing paperwork process, you will need to gather your 2 most recent tax returns, 2 most recent months of banks statements, paystubs, and be required to fill out a financial worksheet (similar to a mortgage application) and create a hardship letter, explaining why you are looking to short sale your home. The letter is very important and an agent with New Jersey Real Estate Guys can help you with New Jersey Short Sales, we are experienced, and we know what the banks are looking for.

Once all of this information is gathered, it is sent to the bank which creates a file for the sale and thrusts you into short sale mode. Once an offer is made and accepted, it goes to the bank for review and that is where the negotiations begin. Your real estate agent will typically make 3 calls per week to the bank to make sure they are on the ball. Unfortunately not many agents spend the time like this, but we do.. This is why we are so successful and are able to achieve favorable terms for the homeowner.

If your loan is insured by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, our first preference is applying for HAFA (Homes Affordable Foreclosure Alternative). This is the grand-daddy of short sale programs. It basically wipes the slate clean. It guarantees that your lender cannot ever come after you for a deficiency, it offers a payoff for any second mortgage or Home Equity Line on the home, and it also gives you a relocation cash incentive of up to $3,000. The bank is also agreeing not to take your checking or savings account reserves and using that as collateral. They are aware you need money to live. Keep in mind that if you are proactive in pursuing a short sale before you become TOO delinquent could potentially incentivize the bank to offer additional bonuses.

The final terms of the sale are pretty simple. The bank agrees to release you from debt and also agree to make any backed tax payments, HOA / Co-Op dues, attorney fees, real estate commissions, and all closing costs. The short sale process will not cost you a dime. If you live in a building where the monthly dues include cable, water, heat, etc.. you will need to continue to make those payments if you want your utilities and services. Once the terms are accepted by all parties, the buyer is allowed up to 45 days to close using their own funds or by obtaining a mortgage. If the terms grant you the $3,000 relocation incentive, this certified check is given to you at closing.

In conclusion, you should be anything BUT afraid of the short sale process. We have assisted dozens of short sale homeowners and every one of them have a bittersweet ending. Sad to leave their home, but ultra relieved to be able to start fresh and get out of a difficult hardship. It is so important these days to work with an experienced agent. Every good quality agent has a good quality attorney. The attorney is directly linked in as part of our team as they take care of contractual details. If you or anyone you know are facing the decision as to whether or not to short sale your home, give us a call for a free consultation. You’ll be glad you did and I can assure you that you will hang up the phone with a sense of relief, that there is a brightening light at the end of the tunnel.

Scott Allan, founder of New Jersey Real Estate Guys and sales associate with Weichert Realtors can be reached directly at 877-688-7582.

Maintenance usually involves cleaning the whole location, including painting all the walls back to their original color (typically beige or white), washing the windows and mirrors, checking all the light fixtures, checking all the locks (or changing them if the previous resident did not return the key), and generally doing whatever needed to make sure the place looks nice. If there was damage to the ceiling or walls, the repair men fix the drywall and repaint it to look as new as possible.

One of the most common maintenance activities is carpet repair. Carpets are one of the most used items in a living space, as everyone walks on them. Furniture can place a heavy load on very small areas of carpet, permanently crushing the fibers. Spilled drinks, sauces, and inks all leave very visible marks on carpet, and new residents don’t like seeing other people’s messes. Pets can leave both a visible stain and an odor that’s hard to clean (lots of residences charge a pet fee so they can pay for the carpet replacement after the lease ends). Specific places, like doorways or entryways, gather the most damage and wear-and-tear.

For carpet repairs, the carpet company will send out a surveyor to examine the damage and determine if the carpet can be cleaned or must be replaced. This is a costly process either way, but many renter complexes have special deals and discounts due to the high amount of business. The company will replace or repair the carpet, and the renter complex maintenance men will prepare the apartment for the next resident. After that resident leaves, the process begins all over again.

Dallas Carpet Repair & Cleaning
6534 Trammel Drive
Dallas Texas 75214

The second most important thing the wealthy real estate investor does is utilize tax deferred 1031 exchanges after the market their property is in has peaked. This little known tax break offered by the government can aid your wealth building by allowing you to defer capital gains tax on your investment by rolling over your gains into a new investment.

Do you share the traits of the wealthy investor? If so, we have a great entry level investment that we have put together for you.

As usual, the YAERDcrew has been been spending the last few months up to our eyeballs in market research and visiting potential projects all over the country. We have negotiated a project in an emerging micro market that offers a 30% cash-on-cash return in the first year! Don’t sit on this opportunity because we are only allowing 5 per investors per month as to not saturate the market.

]]> http://www.yaerd.org/blog/real-estate-investment-newsletters/yaerd-newsletter-8/feed/ http://www.yaerd.org/blog/economics/there-is-nothing-new-under-the-sun/ http://www.yaerd.org/blog/economics/there-is-nothing-new-under-the-sun/#comments Sat, 02 Aug 2008 04:00:58 +0000 Skyler Moore http://www.yaerd.org/blog/?p=38

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:8-10

Ponder that for a moment before you read the following:

Homeowners have grown accustomed to a world of aggressive mortgage brokers, realtors, and bankers. It is hard to imagine a future world in which “For Sale” signs stand on lawns for years rather than days, where instead of multiple offers above the asking price, you are faced with taking numerous discounts to your asking price, where you need to serve lunch at your open house just to get brokers to come over and look, and where banks have retrenched with new lending policies that include asking questions like what did this property sell for 10 years ago. If bankers retrench, and we assure you that this is what they do for a living (just ask any farmer in the Midwest), then all the formulas you know for lending and pricing go out the window. There will be no comparables in the neighborhood because nothing will be selling. Bankers will have to go back to very realistic valuations, probably based on square footage and historical pricing. Valuations will further be damaged by banks’ own activity as they dump foreclosed properties on the market at huge discounts to the mortgage amount. Banks really do not want to hold bad loans on their books, because it only reminds them of managerial errors of the past. They are infamous for buying high and selling low when it comes to foreclosures.

Unfortunately, their aggressive selling will only exacerbate an already weak property market. To homeowners this means that whatever rosy assumptions they had about refinancing, taking money out in the form of a second mortgage equity loan, or selling at a high price to a buyer financed by aggressive bank formulas will all basically evaporate at the same time. When an entire market’s sense of value is based solely on current “market” values, then be prepared for a wild ride when those market prices come under attack from a less aggressive banking sector.

But you know this already now, so what’s my point?

The above is an excerpt from the book The Coming Crash In The Housing Market, by John Talbott. Copyright 2003.

2003?!! 5 Years ago? Yep. I bought this book the same day it hit the shelves at Borders in downtown San Diego. I was in the beginning stages of building our investment real estate company and I knew the only way our company was going to survive this was by telling our clients what was really going on and to teach them to invest wisely and we still do that to this very day.

Some say we are in scary times, but if you look back to the last real estate cycle you will see that many millionaires were made during times like these. My recommendation is to give us a call and get a free consultation on how best to take advantage of the current marketplace.

Jeremy Quinn
YAERD.org Advisory Board Member
jeremy[at]yaerd.org

Financing investment property right now can be difficult, especially if investors are trying to use stated income loans, or have a number of properties on their credit reports.  Lately, several our investors have found they can take advantage of their home equity at a very low rate, 3.99 - 4.25% at the time of this writing.

Warning: Investors should be responsible with their equity, HELOCs should be used to increase your wealth, not advance your lifestyle. It is important to keep in mind that even though you are tapping into “your equity”, you are still borrowing money. As with all real estate investments, equity isn’t fully realized until you sell. So before borrowing, you should analyze the numbers and make sure you will be profitable.  If you are paying 4% for your HELOC you should be getting at least a 7% cash-on-cash return on the new investment. Cash-on-cash return is the ratio between the property’s cash flow and the amount of the initial investment in the form of a percentage.

Annual Cash Flow / Cash Invested

For example:

Let’s say you borrowed $40,000 at 4%, your monthly payment would be approximately $133.

You then take the $40,000 and use it as a down-payment on a $200,000 duplex. The duplex has a cash flow of $400 per month. Your cash-on-cash return would be 12%.

Pretty sweet huh? We have a ton of great deals that offer a strong cash-on-cash return like the example. I just got back from an exciting market that offers a 40% cash-on-cash return your first year!

Investors that have money and are able to put down 20% - 30% on deals are going to get some great buys.  Call me to find out more.

Skyler Moore

YAERD.org Investor Relations & Project Management
Skyler [at] yaerd.org
312-265-8417

Have you ever seen somebody’s sprinkler system on while it was raining? I see it all the time in Florida and it’s kind of depressing since we are in a drought.

Intro Cyber-Rain and their phenomenal “smart” sprinkler system. Unlike most sprinkler systems that are on a human adjusted timer for their watering, the Cyber-Rain system is linked up to Weather.com to get real time updates on the current weather. This system saves a substantial amount of water with most users reporting approximately 30-70% saving on their bills.

With the cost of system coming in at $349, your return on investment could come pretty quick if you have agreed to pay the water bill on your rental property.

This is definitely something you may want to consider on your next real estate investment build. I’m sure Mother Nature will thank you also.

Jeremy Quinn
YAERD.org Advisory Board Member
jeremy[at]yaerd.org
561-210-5636

What does this mean for real estate investors? The trend will be a shift back to the down town and urban core. Developers will be looking at infill projects to take advantage of this trend. The buyers who bought homes in speculative outlying areas , which are also the areas that will take the longest to recover, are now feeling the squeeze of seemingly paying and arm and leg for their commutes.

When you look at the micro markets and the urban core vs outlying suburban areas the data shows that the urban core’s have been less effected than the outlying areas. The pressure on outlying areas with the over supplies will result in more foreclosures. These former home owners will also fuel rental demand in urban areas as they will be forced to rent closer to work in order to save money.

Based on the gas effect trend, one of the opportunities for real estate investors to take advantage of is to hold or acquire rental units near job centers, urban cores and public transportation, as we are already seeing an increased demand for quality rentals in these areas.

Robert Stec

YAERD.org Advisory Board Member

Small investors however have been influenced ( and many would argue incorrectly influenced) by what they think is a path of least resistance and possibly the Carleton Sheet late night infomercials that teach you must invest within 10 miles of where you live. Although I admit good opportunities can be found locally, but what if your local market is in in the tank and recovery is still a long way off? Do you still only invest locally?

When major corporate investors such as REITs (real estate investment trusts) invest their money, they don’t just buy real estate in one city. The directors and managers of the REIT will look around the country and around the globe ( more on that later) for the very best opportunities. When they find the best markets they spread their money across multiple markets.

We are starting to see a trend though where individual investors are learning a couple of things from the REITs 1) Small investors are being open minded ( and proactive) about NOT limiting themselves to investing only locally. This one is partially by necessity because their local market may be in a downward slide with way to much inventory. 2) Individual investors are also seeing what the REIT’s have always known and that is diversity of investment in multiple markets. Placing your bet across multiple markets can be a very good thing ( assuming you are in the right markets) and helps shield you against down turns. In other words you don’t want your all your real estate investment eggs in one (local) real estate basket.

Their are many factors that go into analyzing and finding emerging real estate markets and micro markets and in future posts we will go into more detail on those criteria and leading indicators. In the U.S. based on the news one might think that these markets don’t exist but they are out there and we hope to continue to identify both the broader markets as well as the emerging micro markets. One such market for small investors that has pockets of very strong fundamentals is the Gulf Coast where there are still shortages of certain housing types, but even in a known emerging market you need to be careful and have a good team around you.

Another trend that we are seeing due to the current U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, coupled with the ongoing liquidity and credit crisis has resulted in U.S. investors looking to gain exposure to other emerging real estate markets not just at home but around the world.

Cross-border property investment by U.S.-based buyers totaled over $70 billion in 2007 in over 50 countries. Much of the investment is by multinational corporations, real estate funds and REIT’s but we are also seeing more and more individual investors buying in their favorite international vacation spots where costs of living and their retirement dollar gets stretched further than at home. We will be examining some of these international emerging markets in future posts and newsletters.

Robert Stec

YAERD.org Advisory Board Member

HOUSING BOOM GOES BUST IN LOS ANGELES

A word to the wise: The great Los Angeles housing boom is over. The real estate price explosion in southern California, which sparked a national boom still continuing elsewhere, has stopped. The bubble that everyone said could never burst has burst. All over Los Angeles and Orange County, home buyers can buy a property for less than it would have cost a year ago, although there are exceptions. Buyers who can pay cash can almost steal houses and real estate. The days when ordinary citizens got rich from buying houses are gone, at least for the time being and at least in southern California.

But what a bubble it was. In the 10 years from 1970 to 1980, the price of the average house in Beverly Hills went up by a factor of almost seven. The average house in West Los Angeles, a region of by no means opulent homes, rose by almost six times. Houses in Malibu routinely doubled in value every year in the late 70’s. By the end of the decade, newspapers advertisted ‘’starter houses,” for families who had never owned before, in remote desert suburbs starting at $200,000.

Any lucky person who got in on the boom in the early 70’s saw his paper profit reach about 30 times his down payment by 1980. People who had never earned more than $40,000 suddenly found that they were millionaires just from that little house with a pool in Pacific Palisades. Ronald Reagan is said to have paid $29,000 in the early 50’s for a house in Pacific Palisades that is now for sale for $1.7 million and cannot be sold, which is the whole story.

The boom went on for such a long time because the economics were right. All through the 70’s the cost of owning a house in the better neighborhoods of Los Angeles was negative. That is, the cost of servicing the mortgage plus taxes was less, usually far less, than the increase in the price of the house. Figure it out: mortgages were less than 10 percent for almost all of that decade, under 7 percent if you count the tax features, and houses were increasing in value all over the West Side of Los Angeles by a good 20 percent a year on a compounded basis. The banks, savings and loan institutions and and the economy generally were paying families to live in the better neighborhoods of Los Angeles. The economics of housing inflation were such that for a long period, lenders made mortgage loans at rates substantially below the appreciation of the houses they were loaned upon and in some years, noticeably below even the trend line for inflation. This cheap credit fueled the takeoff of the boom. As prices rose to stratospheric levels, the price history itself fed the boom. Real estate agents assured buyers that however high prices were, they would go even higher.

Wives went to work. Second mortgages were drawn up. People would do anything to get in on the boom, which looked as if it would never end. Even when prices got so high that ordinary citizens could no longer afford to get in, rich people came from all over the country and the world to get in on the one true never-ending bubble.

Even when mortgage interest rates shot up to 13 and 14 percent, the houses were still going up 20 percent a year, so who cared? The end came when Paul A. Volcker, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, decided he was going to fight inflation in a major way. By relentless pressure, the mortgage rates were driven up to 18 percent. Sounds came out of Washington that a new Administration meant business about keeping money tight for a long time and bringing down inflation. Little by little, the idea circulated that maybe if interest rates stayed high for a long time, housing would no longer be such a great buy. After all, if an investor can get 18 percent on his money with no risk, why should he take a chance on real estate, which is already very high, which costs money out of pocket and is historically not a very good investment when disinflation sets in?

Once it was admitted that it might just be possible that real estate would not go up forever, the essential spirit of prepetuity that every bubble needs was gone. Buyers became fewer and more choosy. Houses that once sold in a week stood unsold for a year. As demand fell, prices stopped rising, then began to fall. Although some surveys show a very slight price rise in the last few months, brokers say that any determined buyer can buy a house anywhere except the Malibu Beach Colony for less than it would have cost last year.

Once prices stopped zooming up, the spiral reinforced itself. A house with a stable price costs its buyer plenty with an 18 percent mortgage. Instead of making money for him, it is costing him almost a fifth of its price each year. Suddenly, certificates of deposit and bonds look awfully good and real estate looks awfully bad. Suddenly buyers decide to stay with their old houses and their rentals. Demand declines and prices slide a little more. Families who thought they were rich from their houses find that they simply cannot sell except at an immense discount. And the air goes out of the bubble.

Of course, Los Angeles is still a desirable place to live, the economy is still relatively strong and no one seriously contemplates a major crash. And, of course, all bubbles, in every commodity, whether it is land or stock or gold on tulips, always end some time. No matter how sure people are that their particular rocket will always go up and never come down, it always happens. A word to the wise.

Jeremy Quinn
YAERD.org Advisory Board Member
jeremy[at]yaerd.org
561-210-5636

Happy Independence Day from the YAERD.org team