If you are a distressed home owner who may at some point in the future or currently is facing foreclosure, then the sooner you can get your home on the market, the sooner you can move on from your situation.

But if you didn’t take part in the real estate fiasco of the last five years, then now may be the best time for you to consider getting the home of your dreams at discount club store prices!  There are many other reasons that you should consider selling your home and today’s market including:

Our market has increased in value:

Yes that is true! Our market here in the Manteca, Lathrop, Ripon, Tracy, Mountain House area has seen an increase in prices.  “How can that be?  I just saw on the cable news channel that we may double dip!”  While national and world news gives us great information on a national and global level, they know nothing about our local area.

According to Zillow.com a national real estate information provider, the national median home value declined from $188,000 in July of 2009 to $182,000 in July of 2010.  That’s a drop in value of almost 4 percent.

Contrast that with our local San Joaquin County market with a median home value at the end of 2009 of $168,000 increasing to $177,000 year to date!  That’s an increase in OUR market of over 5 percent!  So even though it is great to have a national and global perspective, you also need to know what is happening in your own back yard, and the grass is green.

Larger move-up homes are cheaper than ever:

If you have ever considered getting a bigger home, now is the best time to make the move.  Thanks to the downturn in housing, you can purchase a home in the desirable Villa Ticino area of Manteca with 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, over 3000 square feet, in ground pool and much more all for only $345,000 as of today.  Compare that to a few years ago when it would have sold for over $500,000 maybe even touching the $600,000 range!  Deals abound in the move up market and now is the time to take advantage of the prices.

Interest rates are incredibly low:

Interest rates as we all now are below 5 percent currently for owner occupied mortgages!  That means if your current 1500 square foot home you purchased in 2000 for $150,000 with a 30 year fixed mortgage with an interest rate of 7 percent your total payment may be around $1,200 a month.  But if you sold that house today and moved up to the previously mentioned home your payment would be just $2,200 a month.  That’s only $1,000 a month more for DOUBLE the house!

And downsizing your home can yield you great value as well.  Even the lateral movers are seeing great deals not just on the interest rates of their mortgages, but they can now afford to live in the neighborhoods they always wanted to before.

Have you considered renting your current home?

Many move up buyers are kicking their financial portfolios up a notch by turning their primary residence into a cash flow machine thanks to today’s low interest rates and relatively high rents.  An older 4 bedroom 2 bath house in Manteca is currently selling for $129,900 and a similar home around the corner is renting for $1350 a month.

That means with a 30-year conventional loan the mortgage is only $760 and the possible rental income is $1350, making for a cash flow of $590 a month!  Money may not grow on trees, but it seams to be growing in Manteca!

With a positive cash flow from their rentals, homeowners can move up and enjoy a bigger and better home they have desired for a long time.

So weather you are looking to move up, are in a distressed financial situation and facing foreclosure or are just thinking about taking advantage of our rental market to finance your dream home, now is by far the best time to sell and make the move.

The federal government’s Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program, or HAFA, announced in April, may actually achieve some success where its predecessors have failed.

What HAFA will not do is keep homeowners in their homes. It’s designed to make the process for getting out of an unaffordable home, without going through foreclosure, more predictable and efficient for all parties involved in the deal.

The reason for optimism is that HAFA removes several impediments to the widespread use of prior programs and provides incentives to all of the players in the workout mess.

For example, homeowners can receive $3,000 toward relocation costs, mortgage investors and loan servicers can receive incentives of $1,500 per loan, real estate agents’ undiscounted commissions are honored, and even junior lien holders can receive up to $6,000 in exchange for releasing their liens and agreeing not to pursue borrowers for deficiency judgments.

Formerly, the short-sale approval process was purely hit or miss. The homeowner and the real estate agent would list the home at whatever price they thought it would sell for. Then, once they obtained a bona fide buyer, they would submit the purchase contract to the lender for approval.

The lender could take whatever time it needed to approve or deny the request. This process often took many months and was repeated any number of times. Lenders would attempt to “negotiate” reductions in commissions and other closing costs in exchange for their approval.

Most borrowers were not willing to wait endlessly, and most real estate agents were not willing to sell the same home several times just to earn one reduced commission.

Once an approval was pried out of the lender, it often had unreasonably short deadlines, causing all parties to scramble. Buyers had to mobilize to obtain new loan approvals. Settlement attorneys had to expedite updated title searches, surveys or other lien searches and rush all parties to close before the short-sale approval deadline passed. It was a “hurry up and wait” scenario that pleased no one.

HAFA was created to provide a solution for homeowners who are not able to qualify for permanent loan modifications and conclude that they cannot afford to remain in their homes. HAFA provides a platform for the orderly short sale to proceed using standardized documents and enforceable deadlines. It also provides the way for homeowners to use a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure solution if they are not successful finding a short-sale buyer.

To qualify for a HAFA short sale or deed-in-lieu, the mortgage must be for a borrower’s principal residence; the loan balance may not be more than $729,750; the borrower must have incurred some hardship such as a medical emergency or a drastic reduction in income; the loan must have closed before Jan. 1, 2009, and first-mortgage payments (including property taxes, insurance and mandatory homeowners or condo fees) must be more than 31 percent of current gross household income.

For a deed-in-lieu arrangement, borrowers must also be able to deliver clear and marketable title to the home, free and clear of all liens or encumbrances and leave the home in “broom clean” condition. Homeowners are given a minimum of 30 days to vacate the home from the date the short-sale agreement expires or the date of the deed-in-lieu agreement.

Since lenders’ participation in HAFA is voluntary, not all loans will be eligible. But all loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac are eligible for HAFA. You can see if your loan is eligible by contacting your loan servicer or by going to http://makinghomeaffordable.gov, which also lists the required documents.

Of the more important improvements HAFA brings to the industry is that it mandates the use of standardized documents and strict time frames. These documents can be downloaded from http://https://www.hmpadmin.com/portal/programs/foreclosure_alternatives.html.

To use HAFA, a borrower applies for relief using the Request for Modification and Affidavit RMA form. The lender has 30 days to respond to the request. If the lender approves, it will offer the homeowner a standard short-sale agreement setting forth the minimum sales proceeds that the lender will accept, taking into account closing costs, real estate commissions and expenses common in the local market. Borrowers have 14 days to accept or reject the short-sale agreement. If a borrower accepts, the real estate agent has a minimum of 120 days to actively market the home, but that marketing period can be extended to a full year if necessary.

This takes the enormous uncertainty out of the marketing process for real estate agents and buyers alike. The timetable becomes clear: Homeowners have three days from receiving a ratified contract to notify their lender and request short-sale approval. The lender has 10 days to confirm that the offer meets the short-sale agreement terms and conditions. If approved, the new buyer will have a minimum of 45 days to accomplish all the steps necessary to go to settlement. The new buyer will also need to agree not to sell the home for 90 days aftsettlement.

Other major HAFA improvements include participating lenders’ waiver of their right to pursue deficiency judgments against borrowers. Thus, if they are able to obtain and comply with a pre-approved short-sale agreement, borrowers can move on with their lives secure in the knowledge that their lender will not be chasing after them for a deficiency judgment. And under the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, the IRS will not treat this forbearance as taxable income.

Finally, HAFA prohibits participating lenders from completing the foreclosure process when HAFA deadlines are pending. (They may proceed with the foreclosure process but cannot complete it.) So homeowners can rest assured that while the process is pending, their home will not be pulled out from under them, at least not by their participating HAFA lender.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”

Lincoln’s wise words not only help build individual wealth, but also improve the overall economy around you. If you have more income, odds are you will go to Bass Pro and buy more lures or take the family out for a nice Italian dinner at De Vega Brothers. You can be an economic stimulus to a community that desperately needs it. So why should you invest in our community?

Here are 4 reasons why I believe investing here is worth your while:

The price of housing is at relative all time lows.

As we all know, our housing market has taken a huge hit over the past few years. But what some are hanging their heads about and screaming doom and gloom, others are seeing as the deal of the century! For the first time in a very long time our housing market has dropped below the price of construction. There are plenty of houses for sale in our area below even 80 dollars per square foot. The cost to construct those same homes can cost any where from 90 to 110 dollars per square foot, depending on finishes and such. The deals are even better in the high end housing market where you can see a house in Ripon that sold in 2007 for $800,000 now available for $400,000.

We have also seen stabilization in our housing prices and even price gains. San Joaquin County in 2009 saw a median sale price of $168,000, and 2010 YTD we have seen our median sale price rise to $178,000, that’s almost a 6 percent gain in just six months. All of these are great signs of improvement in our housing market.

Interest Rates are below 5 percent.

That statement should stand out and grab you! Interest rates have dropped over 2 percent in the last 3 years and almost 4 percent in the last 10 years. Jim Camara with Scenic Oak Funding said, “Mortgage rates are at a 30 year low with the 30 year fixed rate loan for owner occupied properties around 4.500% and investment properties are around 4.990%. Loan products are available for first time homebuyers, move up buyers and real estate investors.”

Strong rental market

The demand for properties to rent is high, thanks in part to the slumping housing market. Many distressed homeowners who have had to short sale, foreclose or lose their homes to bankruptcy are pouring into our market looking for housing. In my opinion, they are some of the best tenants to have. Most people who have ever owned a home have a great sense of the “pride of ownership”. They understand what it means to turn a house into a home and care for a property. They also are stuck in the rental market for at least three years after a short sale and up to 5-7 years or more for a foreclosure or bankruptcy with a house involved.

The rental market is currently proving larger yields than the stock market.

Everyone who has stocks or a 401k knows what I am talking about. We all see our quarterly reports, shake our heads and read the rest of the mail. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has seen a decline from January 11, 2010 to July 8, 2010 of 542.92 points or 5.11 percent. So if you would have invested $200,000 in the index six months ago, you would have seen a loss of over $10,000!

Now take that $200,000 and invest it into our local housing market and with our low interest rates and cheap housing, coupled with relatively high rents, you could have purchased three homes providing you positive cash flow of $1,500 a month after paying the mortgages and property taxes. Now that’s a good reason to invest in Manteca and not just Wall Street!

What does it take to get started investing in our community?

Like any investment it takes money to make money. But if you have 20-25 percent down, at least 6 months worth of rent in reserves and a credit score of 720 or more you might qualify today. Or you could always purchase with cash and have all the rental income be positive.

It also takes a great Realtor who understands the community, housing market and your needs and desires to help you accomplish your goals. I would also recommend consulting a CPA and having a good real estate attorney.

And as Donald Trump said, “Well, real estate is always good, as far as I’m concerned.”

DSNEWS.COMBY: CARRIE BAY
Foreclosure activity in California is beginning to trend downward. The locally-based tracking firm ForeclosureRadar says its statistics dropped last month for every stage of the foreclosure process – with new defaults falling more than 17 percent.
It’s the second straight month that the company has recorded across-the-board declines. Filings at each step of foreclosure – default, sale, repossession – also posted sharp drops from year-ago levels. While the numbers appear to paint a clear picture of improvement, ForeclosureRadar remains cautious in its analysis.
“Given the staggering number of delinquent home loans, foreclosure activity should be rising not falling as we found again this month” said Sean O’Toole, founder and CEO of ForeclosureRadar.
O’Toole explained, “We have recently witnessed a number of cancellations where the owners have vacated the property and are clearly not working to modify their loan or complete a short sale. The most telling statistic that we present today may be that it takes lenders two months longer to foreclose then it did a year ago.”
The only significant increases from the prior year in ForeclosureRadar’s report were cancellations, up 141.3 percent, and time-to-foreclose, up 30.5 percent from May 2009. The company says it now takes lenders 235 days to complete a foreclosure in the Golden State, from the filing of the default notice to the auctioning of the property.
While extended foreclosure timelines may be skewing resolution numbers, it should be noted that newly initiated foreclosures declined significantly last month in California.
Notices of default filed against delinquent homeowners – the first step in the foreclosure process – fell 17.25 percent from April to May, according to ForeclosureRadar’s market data. They were down 43.34 percent compared to May 2009.
Notice of trustee sale filings, which serve as the homeowner’s final notice before the home is auctioned, dropped 11.88 percent on a month-to-month basis in May, and were 35.78 percent below year-ago levels.
ForeclosureRadar reports that banks took back 13,775 properties in May, 5.75 percent fewer than they did in April.
The company puts California’s total REO inventory at 87,964 homes, down from 90,000 in April and 18 percent lower than it was a year ago.

RISMEDIA, June 19, 2010–With the summer selling season in full swing, millions of Americans are finalizing real estate deals and preparing for moving day. If moving day has you feeling stressed, the following tips from the experts at GoMovers.com will help you prepare for a seamless transition.

-Complete as much packing of the items you’re packing yourself by the day before your moving day. Take care of any last minute items early in the morning on moving day. Doing so serves a dual purpose: Only the items the packers are handling will be left, which will help them concentrate only on what they’re going to pack, and your mover won’t need to wait around while you finish your portion of the packing job.

-Before the movers arrive to pack and load, remove any obstacles so they’ll have a clear path from the door to the truck. Also, check hallways and stairways and eliminate any items that are in the way. If you’ll need to remove a stair railing or other ‘impediment’ to get larger items out of the house (your estimator should have alerted you to this), do so before the movers arrive.

-Take a walk through the house and check closets and utility areas to make sure you haven’t forgotten to pack anything that is coming with you to your new homes. Make sure the boxes you packed are clearly labeled and their room location at your destination is clearly marked on the box. Make sure all of your boxes are taped closed so nothing gets lost during transit.

-Move your cars as needed to make room in the driveway so the movers have a clear line between the house and the truck.

-Make accommodations for your pets. You might consider boarding or caging them on moving day or having them stay with a neighbor or relative during the actual move. You might be able to better accommodate them by taking them to your destination in advance. You’ll want to do what’s appropriate in order to keep them out of the way of the movers and help reduce their stress levels and anxiety.

-Plan to be around to keep a watchful eye on both the packers and the movers while they’re packing and loading your possessions. That way, you’ll also be readily available to answer any questions they might have. It doesn’t hurt to build rapport with your movers and packers either, as they’re more likely to do a good job if they like you.

As many of us have heard the horror stories, loan servicers have been initiating foreclosures on homeowners even when they have been actively trying to get a loan modification or even when they are in the middle of making payments on a trial loan modification.

This bill also helps the homeowner to seek limited damages against the servicer if they foreclose due to servicer error, which happens very often.

In short… ALWAYS seek the advice and help of a Real Estate Attorney!