Mortgage Town

http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/real-estate/how-having-the-seller-pay-your-closing-costs-can-quadruple-your-money/ – How having the Seller pay your closing costs can quadruple your money –

Part 2 – On the other hand if you roll that into the Loan it’s going to take you 160 months to break even on that. 160 months which is a little over 13 years, that is the antithesis of the Velocity of Money that we talk about on the show every week, so I am not convinced that its the right deal for the masses, but something that should be considered is what is the opportunity cost of taking the money out of Account X and the type of account you taking it out of has some impact too. If it’s from a brokerage account then you experience the market loss in that account and youre selling at these low price levels, I think the markets are going to turn and the opportunity costs over 160 months, youre talking about a substantial amount of money. And the additional mortgage payment is insignificant.

Obviously no one is going to allow you to pay more than the house is worth, that’s not what were suggesting. What were suggesting is merely to look at instead of simply making a lower offer than you would normally make, I’m suggesting that you consider the closing costs and what the real closing costs are in this example.

Assuming that the house is already attractively priced, one of the things that this buyer in this example should consider instead of making a lowball offer on a house that’s already priced rather attractively in this marketplace, it might make sense to consider exactly what you’re describing now. And that would be take that money or that difference and ask the seller to include those costs as part of the deal to sell the house, versus why lowball offer the house when you already know the house is the right price.

That’s exactly right and one of the other points here is in a lot of cases the closing costs dont need to be quite that high. So there is the opportunity for the home buyer to buy down, for instance, use 1% of the loan amount to buy the interest rate down. I did a calculation here today, the cost of funds changes all the time, in fact we had four price changes today. Four mortgage rate changes today, just in one day. This doesn’t apply in every scenario, but that’s why you use a certified mortgage planner, that’s why they use a FHA certified Mortgage firm to do the loan to make sure that it’s the right thing to do but here’s the example of today. 1%, paying 1 point to buy the interest rate down will lower your mortgage payment, on this example of a $300,000 house, would lower your mortgage payment by $118 a month.

It’s not simple it’s not just like going to your local bank and having them give you a quote on the rate, there is so much more to it these days. I think that one of the things you’re pointing out right now is the fact that this type of negotiating exists and should be considered when making this purchase. And I know that you have already espoused that youre not a realtor in that sense, but your realtor should be talking to you about these options. If they are not, you may want to consider finding one who knows about that stuff.

They absolutely do and I’m not suggesting to anyone that they go out and find another realtor because yours is not working out for you. The reality of it is if your realtor doesn’t believe in the concept it may only be that they just don’t understand the concept. Have them give us a call, we can explain it to them. And I have simple illustrations we can share with them, how we would structure it financially, and they can, the realtor can set the price. That’s what their job is, but what our job is to make sure that you use every penny available to you to the best of your ability.

I have a question for you Brett, if you took $9000 and didnt take it out of your savings, 401K, or whatever, what will it turn into with today’s market? What would that be like?

Depending on the way the money is allocated, invested in a fixed income investment, or an interest-bearing account in a bank or whatever, what I can tell you is over the same amount of time, that $9000, over 160 months, youre probably talking about quadrupling the money. I would say that that is relatively easy and I’m not talking about taking on significant stock market risk. What I’m talking about is just compounding interest in some kind of interest-bearing account. I mean it could be a bank CD.

The other thing to do is we have this book called the Short Sale Playbook written by Ron Quinterro that we have available to anyone who is interested in it… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com

Duration : 0:6:12

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: bank, Buyer, closing costs, credit, down payment, estate, Expert, fha, financing, First, first time home buyer, forbearance agreement, foreclosure, fraud, government, home, hud, interest, interest rate, Lender, Loan, Loan-Modification, Loss-Mitigation, market, modification, Mortgage, Negotiate, Payment, property, purchase, rate, real, real estate, real estate financing, real estate market, real estate values, realtor, refinance, scam, Seller, Short-Sale, tax, tax credit, Time, value, values

http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/loan-modification/why-you-should-use-a-licensed-attorney-to-negotiate-your-loan-modification/ – Why you should use a licensed attorney to negotiate your loan modification –

Part 1 – Dan Havey thanks for taking the time to be with us tonight. Thank you Michael for having me and you are absolutely right 2008 for many people was a very tough year. Tough year for pretty much everybody that I know, how many banks have we lost in 2008? Hopefully the bleeding is gone; hopefully there arent too many more banks to fail. Quite a few banks have picked up some of the slack, but the reality of it is so many people have been faced with such hardships, we have solutions that we are maybe going to talk about today that they can look forward to, to make 2009 a great year.

Definitely that is what we are doing here with your organization at Velocity Financial and with the Modification Hotline and with many of the other things I am working on right now to help people out. When I first got into this business it was back in the late 80s, I moved here from Wisconsin after getting a degree in finance and I started selling repos for Fannie Mae, Countrywide, and the RTC. The Resolution Trust Corporation was responsible for getting rid of all the real estate owned by the over 1,800 S&Ls that failed. So I cut my teeth selling those reposed properties and got to know a lot about the laws and worked with a lot of attorneys and then in the mid 90s I moved into the mortgage business, and I immediately started there working with bankruptcy attorneys for the most part.

I was helping people get out of their bankruptcies, chapter 13 bankruptcies, to avoid bankruptcies, to stop foreclosures and I did that up until the fall of 2007 and at that point the market really changed for me as we know most of the subprime financing went away. Some people might look at me and say, my god you gave people subprime Loans, well if you are in a chapter 13 bankruptcy and your payment to the trustee is $1,500 a month and I can get you out of bankruptcy and reduce your total monthly outlay by $1,200, your mortgage payment would go up a little bit, I think this is a really good use of a subprime loan. And I certainly never had any complaints from anyone when I got them out of bankruptcy or I stopped their foreclosure and saved their home.

So late last year I moved out of the mortgage business for a while but I never really left it because it is pretty much what I have done my entire adult life. Over 20-25 years I have been involved with real estate, Mortgages and finance and I worked for a while for about 6 months last year on a model for an idea that we came up with of being able to accurately predict the top and bottom of all real estate markets and we perfected it for Arizona and most of California. It worked really well to the point that we could actually predict the bottom of the market 6 months in advance and then after the bottoms hit all across the country we kind of stopped working on it.

It is one of the things I am going to start working on again over the next few months. The title of the book is Real Estates Future and you can go to my website at http://realestatesfuture.com and get a copy of that if you want to, it is not available yet but just put in your information and I am going to give away a whole bunch of free copies of it.

The reason why I went through this entire story is because a few months ago Michael and Velocity Financial came to me and said he was going to do loan modifications and I had been approached by other people and I had seen a bunch of garbage on the internet and the thing that he said to me that sold me was, You know Dan, you have to understand, were using attorneys to negotiate these loan modifications.

And that is, I didnt mean to interrupt but that is the key; that is one of the reasons it took us so long to get in. Even though Velocity Financial was at the very beginning of this mad craze, heck you cant drive down the street without seeing a sign that says loan mod, kind of like back in 2006 in the heyday of the mortgage business where you couldnt drive down the street and see a sign that said, if your mortgage payment is more than 1% you are paying too much. Well now everybody is jumping into the loan modification game and it is dangerous.

And that is exactly it, it is every unemployed loan officer has gotten into the loan modification game and I guess I am guilty of the exact same thing. It is just after having 20 years experience of working with attorneys, I know what they are capable of doing, I know how they can go in and negotiate and the biggest thing is they are there to protect the home owner, to protect the consumer, to protect their client because they have a fiduciary responsibility to that client… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com

Duration : 0:6:29

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Attorney, Avoid, bailout, bank, Bankruptcy, estate, Expert, federal, financing, foreclosure, fraud, Hardship, home, home mortgage modification, Home-Loan-Modification, Insolvency, law, laws, Lender, letter, Loan, Loan-Modification, Loss, Mitigation, modification, Mortgage, Mortgage-Loan-Modification, Mortgage-Modification, Negotiate, negotiation, Package, prevention, Process, program, real, requirements, Sale, scam, Servicing, short, tax

http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/taxes/Mortgage-forgiveness-debt-relief-act-of-2007-one-exception-to-paying-cancellation-of-debt-income/ – Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, one exception to paying cancellation of debt income –

Part 5 – Welcome back to the Velocity of Money I am Michael J. Barnes Arizona’s and I’m with Velocity Financial and were here every week talking about all matters financial, regarding real estate as well as finances. Brett Fallon is back on the air with us again along with Mike Patenella who is a certified public accountant for the last 20 years and amazing brain, were glad he’s back on.

Mike we were talking before the break about loan modifications, my point before going off the air was that people think they’re going to get this huge amount of money waived on a loan that they have, realistically what most loan modifications are going to look like is extended term, significantly lower interest rate, generally a fixed interest rate for the entire time, and in some cases they will do some principal reduction, and there is some exclusions for people having to pay tax on that, is that correct?

Yes, there is, before I get into that keep in mind that with taxes normally not one rule applies to everybody, were going to talk general but everyone’s going to have their own specific situation, that they’re going to have to really check with somebody and make sure they’re doing the right thing. In 2007 in response to the economic situation, they passed a mortgage forgiveness debt relief act which essentially allows people to not pay tax on $2 million dollars debt forgiven on their principal residence. Thats in regard to be principal reduction, Loan modification.

Right, so in your example if $50,000 of your loan is being reduced, if your situation fits, under this new law, we might be able get you to avoid the tax on that.

Once again a very good reason for you to go to a professional CPA like yourself for that help, not something the average person is going to be able to figure out on their own. You have to keep up on the tax law and that’s almost a full-time job.

Hey how many pages is that tax code now? On last count I heard you say it was something like 9000 pages.

I don’t know the exact number of pages I know it’s in the several thousand and as Mike knows quite well, and I am aware of also is the tax code has been morphing and changing more than I have ever seen in my entire career here recently. Going back to the tax act of 2003 to the present there have been literally hundreds of changes. So for the average person whos listening to this broadcast who is considering a loan modification, trying to take care of a portfolio, and take care of their taxes at the same time, WOW! Good luck to you

So exclusions to the income, can we talk about a few different ones?

Sure bankruptcy is one exclusion, if you’re filing bankruptcy; the other one is if the taxpayer is insolvent which essentially means that their liabilities exceed their assets. When you factor in assets you factor in retirement accounts and all that, its not that easy to fall under that one.

Oh so the value of my 401(k) goes into that on the other side of the balance sheet. So for the most part if you dont fall into one of these two youre going to try to rely on this new tax law to exclude some of the debt forgiven.

How long ago was that past? I am sorry I don’t remember, was that August of 2007? It’s called the mortgage forgiveness debt relief act of 2007 and it only applies to qualified principal residences. Is that ongoing? Is there a cap on the time?

Well originally it was set to expire at the end of 09. Then in 2008, since the economy kept getting worse they extended that another three years or so through 2012

Well we hope were all well through of this mess sooner and we won’t have to need this any longer after 2009. Actually I want it gone now… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com

Duration : 0:6:20

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: 1099c, advice, Attorney, bailout, bank, Bankruptcy, cancellation of debt, cpa, debt relief act, Expert, foreclosure, government, home, Income, Insolvency, irs, Lender, Loan, Loan-Modification, Loss-Mitigation, modification, Mortgage, mortgage forgiveness, on, real estate, recourse, Sale, short, Short-Sale, tax, taxes

This video is from the show Open House on CNN. Homeowners in trouble facing short sale or foreclosure should be careful when answering to unsolicited mail, phone calls or emails. A HUD representative and a legal services representatives explain what homeowners should watch out for and what to do.

More info at:

sccrealestateuncensored.com/2007/foreclosure-scam/

micasamidinero.com/2007/foreclosure-fraude/

Duration : 0:4:51

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: adam, advance, assistance, casa, caught, council, countrywide, credit, david, debt, dinero, estate, Expert, fee, fha, fhc, finance, financial, Florida, foreclosure, fraud, freeze, help, home, house, housing, jack, late, Legal, Loan, loans, Loss, management, mi, micasa, micasamidinero, midinero, Mitigation, modification, modifications, Mortgage, moussa, Negotiate, no, on, payments, prevention, proceedings, Programs:, rate, real, refinance, Sale, scam, sccrealestateuncensored, short, silverstone, skolnik, stop, subprime, tape, tax, TILA, uncensored

Mortgage Modification – Home Loan Modification Process – How to Plan for Federal Laws, Credit Rules and Hardship Letter Requirements — News and Help on Attorney Negotiated Bailout Package – Real Estate Foreclosure Scams and Bankruptcy Prevention – http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/loan-modification/home-owner-negotiated-loan-modifications-may-have-too-many-pitfalls/ – Home Owner Negotiated Loan Modifications may have too many pitfalls – RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 4 – Yes, I think that makes perfect sense, the only analogy that I can come up with is I could probably figure out how to change the oil in my car, but its not my expertise. Im certainly not going to take the time away from what I have expertise in in order to figure out how to do that, Im going to have a professional do that, and it is the same idea with when someone is considering a loan modification.

You can probably call up that loss mitigation department of that lending institution versus going through the legal department and try to work through that scenario. But you dont know what you dont know, and if you take that approach and make that attempt it could cost you money, it could cost you a higher interest rate, it could cost you something that you are not even aware of. Thats where your team and the loan modification professionals and this attorney network that you exclusively work with come into play.

Again you talk about choosing to not change your own oil, of course you could figure it out, you wouldnt operate on yourself, if you got yourself into some legal trouble and you were an attorney you wouldnt represent yourself. Even though you may know what to do and how to do it, you are just not going to do it because you need an unbiased, 3rd party that is truly going to fight for your rights.

And who has expertise in this particular area, specifically focused on working on the mortgage holders, the consumers best possible outcome.

Thats right and that is a great point, we have example after example of people who have tried to do the loan modification on their own and most of the time what we see is a situation that is best for the bank, a temporary fix, well people dont need a temporary fix.

Temporary being the key word there, well make it better for one year, three years, five years,
whatever it is, but we will tack it onto the life of the loan. One of our strategic partners was just sharing a story on the break about someone he knows personally that did this, they did this themselves without the benefit of an attorney and the end result was a temporary, short term fix today, all of the back interest, costs etc. were tacked on to the other side of the loan, of this Mortgage. That is not what you are after, with a Loan modification.

And when you think about it a temporary fix is what put most of these people in the situation to begin with it, were a temporary fix. Remember the billboards that said if your mortgage payment is only $500 a month you are payment too much, call us for a 1% interest rate. Give me a break, people fell for it, everybody fell for it, it was a disaster. You dont need a temporary fix you need a real fix.

A real fix that is going to meet your needs as a consumer, that is going to meet the needs of your family so you can stay within the home and thats going to meet the needs of your cash flow monthly, to get a reduced payment, whatever it is going to be for you and your family, that is the whole idea behind modifying your existing loan.

Another important item we hammer down on so many of these issues, a loan modification is not for somebody who doesnt care. This is if you care and it appears that you will be faced with foreclosure, if you are late on your mortgage, if it is getting ready to go up, any number of genuine true hardships financially that happen to you. Your main goal has to be that you want to stay in your house, keep your family in that house, you need to call, we are here to help, we are not salesmen.

If you are able to find another solution, you know what we are happy for you, the more people in my opinion that are affiliates of my firm that are out there to help us through this process the better off we all are, the sooner we get through this loan modification, these toxic mortgages, the sooner all things economic will recover. The housing market is the basis for this economic crisis and everybody knows that.

There is no question and a number of experts that have weighed in and who have credibility that I receive advice from in terms of helping my own clients, they talk about the stock market in terms of when does it improve and when do stocks get a foothold and go forward and the economy starts to rise and recession come to an end and all those things… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com

Duration : 0:6:24

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Attorney, Avoid, bailout, bank, Bankruptcy, estate, Expert, federal, financing, foreclosure, fraud, Hardship, home, home mortgage modification, Home-Loan-Modification, Insolvency, law, laws, Lender, letter, Loan, Loan-Modification, Loss, Mitigation, modification, Mortgage, Mortgage-Loan-Modification, Mortgage-Modification, Negotiate, negotiation, Package, prevention, Process, program, real, requirements, Sale, scam, Servicing, short, tax

http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/taxes/if-facing-financial-issues-make-sure-you-hire-qualified-help-mortgage-broker-financial-planner-cpa-and-attorney/ – If facing financial issues make sure you hire qualified help, Mortgage broker, financial planner, CPA and attorney –

Part 8 – So with the real estate market, we know here in Arizona, there are literally hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people that are confronted with a very difficult decision, declining home values, upside down in the home, the home value is worth much less than they actually owe, we need to give them options. If the option is foreclosure, short sale or loan modification, I would take the modification approach, most likely we would have to look at a person’s situation a little bit closely, but as I am going down some of the things that we have prepared for the show today, it looks like there are four main issues that people should know they need to consider, the cancellation of debt income, capital gains tax issue, the deficiency judgments side, and the credit report side and Mike, I know you can talk to some of these things.

But we brought up in the first segment what I think this might represent and then I think we started to talk about how Mike can help people minimize the impact of what that would look like on the tax return or eliminate based on the situation, so let’s make sure that the people know these four concerns are something they should consider as they seek advice.

Absolutely, and it’s really important that you talk to each arm of the team. You’re not going to be able to make all of these decisions just by talking to your tax guy, or your mortgage guy. They all need to be on the same page, because one of the decisions by one of the three is going to impact the other two aspects of the situation.

Mike, that’s a really good point. And thats one of the reasons why we work together, Brett and I are working together and you and Brett have been working together for years and the three of us have like ideals and also know for the most part what the ramifications are from any one of our decisions. And we make sure were able to do the very best for the homeowner every single time, whether it be tax, financial advice, or Loan modification, or even refinance.

People forget that we talk so much about loan modifications. It’s kind of nice because youre listening to all these lying ads about refinancing and other crap that’s gone on out there But the reality of it is there is still money out there to lent. Were still helping people out with refinancing and refinance is the first thing people should try to do with a bank thats licensed by the federal government to do these types of high loan to value FHA type loans.

You cant muddle through the tax issues without Mike Patenella working with you, and you sure should not be making huge financial decisions without Brett Fallon and his team. So we all work hard to make sure that your ultimate goal is in your best interest.

I know were getting up to the end of the hour the show is about to draw to a close, but to just give people a sense that what were talking about today is the ability to have your personal financial situation accessed. Were going to take a look at modification options or refinance options. If your mortgage is distressed were no longer suits your needs. You’re looking to move whatever it is. We will look at your tax ramifications and Mike Patenella will be happy to go through those issues with you step by step basis. And I would be happy to take a look at your overall financial picture and give you some guidance or suggestions on things that will improve the financial situations… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com

Duration : 0:6:50

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: 1099c, advice, Attorney, bailout, bank, Bankruptcy, cancellation of debt, cpa, debt relief act, Expert, foreclosure, government, home, Income, Insolvency, irs, Lender, Loan, Loan-Modification, Loss-Mitigation, modification, Mortgage, mortgage forgiveness, on, real estate, recourse, Sale, short, Short-Sale, tax, taxes

http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/loan-modification/world-wide-recession-caused-by-the-mortgage-melt-down-is-inflation-far-behind/ – World wide recession caused by the mortgage melt-down. Is inflation far behind? –

Part 6 – What their ratings were based on was simply that nobody thought real estate would go down again. They were just going to keep going up forever, doesn’t really matter if you call it AAA or BBB. Isnt going to matter if the note never gets called.

We certainly saw that for years in the mortgage industry. We would refinances somebody and a couple of years later they would call us up again and say hey my house went up $100,000 in value and I bought a car and a boat and my kids need to go to school and give me another hundred grand out of my property, and it just kept going up forever and ever and ever and as long as that was happening everything was just fine. But then as we know everything just stopped.

There’s only so much leverage that could exist out there and that is why the stop started if you will. Because as that leverage continued to balloon; how much more leverage can a Wall Street firm or a bank take on to buy up more Mortgage backed securities? Oh I know well carve out these tranches and well sell them off overseas. So that is where it ballooned, how wide reaching and impactful has it been?

Well we see it now it’s a global recession. It’s not a US recession for that reason. And that is starting to clean itself up, not only by the Fed aggressively here at home, by working with other developed nations around the world with their equivalents of the Fed in those countries they are doing the same thing. They are acting aggressively and that’s great for the short-term but that is like putting a band-aid on a carotid artery that has been severed, it doesn’t work. That is okay for today and tomorrow, long term there are bigger issues, bigger issues translate into inflation. Where I am going with this is the fact that right now with money being cheaper than it has been at any other time in the history of the United States.

That’s your motivation, if you’re looking for a loan, if you are looking to refinance a loan, if youre looking for a loan modification, whatever your circumstances are, this is your opportunity. I am of the opinion that five years from now we’ll look back on this time period and say, my gosh look at all the mistakes the Fed made.

One of the things I want to go back to is something you said earlier about how all these mortgage derivatives were broken up and put back together. And most of them certainly many of them got bought by hedge funds. A lot of them got bought up by foreign governments and whatever around the world. One of the things about where that’s coming in is it’s causing a massive structural problem, especially in the mortgage industry when it comes to the servicing aspect and a loan modification aspect.

These hedge funds are now coming along, and they are suing the servicers because the servicers are doing what they had a right to do under the contract that they signed with the hedge fund in the first place which was to modify these loans. While the hedge funds are saying if you’re going to modify the Loan we want all the money and the servicers or the bank or whatever is saying, no were not going to so now they are getting into a big fight and I have a feeling were going to see a lot of lawsuits, which is only going to hurt the American homeowner, because unfortunately it’s only going to delay a loan modification process.

But it’s also one more reason why you want to have an attorney on your side negotiating with the servicers, negotiating with the bank, maybe even negotiating with the hedge fund for all we know. But negotiating with somebody on your behalf, somebody with the legal power, negotiating for you so if they need to go after the bank for lack of standing, because maybe that’s what it takes to get their attention, go after them and prove they have a lack of standing and say, oh great now that I have your attention let’s do something to help the home owner… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com

Duration : 0:6:17

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: agreement, approval, assistance, Attorney, bailout, Bankruptcy, company, consultant, credit, definition, denied, effect, eligible, estate, Expert, foreclosure, fraud, guidelines, Hardship, help, home, impact, info, information, law, lawyer, Loan, Loss, Mitigation, Mod, modification, Mortgage, Negotiate, NEWS, option, plan, Process, program, real, requirements, rules, Sale, scam, service, short, SOLUTIONS, Specialist, tax, tips

http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/taxes/arizona-is-not-a-recourse-state-so-chances-are-you-will-not-owe-1099-c-income/ – Arizona is not a recourse state, so chances are you will not owe 1099 C Income –

Part 6 – In Arizona, typically its not a recourse state, so if they are telling you that theyre going to garnish your wages because you didnt pay back your entire mortgage, there is a local bank ,that was threatening a very good colleague of ours about a small second mortgage that person had taken out. Threatening to send it to collections and garnish her wages. It simply isn’t going to happen.

But nevertheless, there is still the tax implications that apply, if you need to navigate through this maze. There is a lot to it, you need to protect yourself. You talked about bankruptcy is one of those exclusions, right? One of the problems with bankruptcy is people dont understand the bankruptcy laws. They are so tight now and your feet are really held to the fire from the federal government right now. It’s not like you just didn’t make your mortgage payment, so you go file bankruptcy, it’s just not realistic. Assuming bankruptcy is the last resort option for everybody. And we certainly want to avoid that, it would not be sound financial advice from any credible source that I can think of.

Let’s walk through a case scenario, somebody who is listening to this broadcast, their head is spinning right now, they’re thinking, oh my gosh. I should have known about the tax implications, a short sale versus loan modification. Let’s start at the top and work through a quick scenario. And then we’ll point out the specifics of what they should be considering right now.

For example, we talk about this all the time and to your credit Michael Barnes and to Velocity Financials credit, you were early in bringing out the Loan modification for people who were in a distress situation regarding a mortgage, maintaining or keeping up with the mortgage payment. So you started going down the path where the refinance started to become a much more difficult option, with new constraints and all the other factors that led to part of this economic crisis, a loan modification has become a buzz topic today. Driving to the station today, driving down Camelback Road, I see a sign on the corner. You know, one of those stick in the ground, homemade jobs, that says don’t refi a Loan, modify, with some success rate and the phone number.

Hang on there I want you to say the success rate. The sign literally said, 99% success rate, and it goes back to the point that you made when they say that they can reduce your Mortgage principal by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, thats the absolute last resort for any lending institution. Thats not what this is about, so let’s start with that, then we will work on the tax ramifications of how that might work in the overall financial strategy.

I am familiar with the loan modification industry here in Arizona. There is no regulation, unfortunately. We at Velocity Financial work with a national network of attorneys, so if you’re the guy in El Centro California, or youre in Phoenix, or youre in Alaska it doesn’t matter where you’re at. We have someone who is an expert in that field in that state because the laws are different. But without the regulations some person with the ugly yellow sign on the side of the road says he has a 99% success rate, I don’t believe him it’s probably not using an attorney, who knows, dont buy into that garbage. Were going to tell you the truth, if we cant do a loan modification, we will tell you that we cant do it. And if a loan modification is not the best thing for you, you can find the some of these other options… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com

Duration : 0:5:19

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: 1099c, act, Attorney, Avoid, bailout, bank, Bankruptcy, broker, Cancellation, COD, congress, consequences, cpa, credit, debt, estate, Expert, fha, financial, foreclosure, fraud, government, implications, Income, Insolvency, insolvent, interest, irs, Lender, liability, Loan, Loss, meltdown, Mitigation, Mod, modification, Mortgage, Negotiate, Payment, planner, Process, program, ramifications, rate, real, recourse, reduction, relief, Sale, scam, Seller, Servicer, short, tax, taxes

Mortgage Modification – Home Loan Modification Process – How to Plan for Federal Laws, Credit Rules and Hardship Letter Requirements — News and Help on Attorney Negotiated Bailout Package – Real Estate Foreclosure Scams and Bankruptcy Prevention – http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/real-estate/congressman-barney-frank-is-calling-for-the-restructure-of-the-loan-servicing-business/ – Congressman Barney Frank is calling for the restructure of the loan servicing business – RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 2 – Well, in the past we have talked a lot about loan modifications and since the first time we started talking about loan modifications the whole space has changed. Everything about loan modifications since our very first broadcast talking about it, we don’t talk about it every week, but we do talk about it allot. It has changed so much, when we started anybody who had a significant hardship, or financial hardship, or had one of these toxic Mortgages, that had adjusted, would be able to qualify for a loan modification. These things have changed all of a sudden, and not all across the board. Brett you made a comment earlier that people are concerned that once these servicers do these modifications they could be subject to lawsuits right?

Yes, it is amazing how quickly things have changed over the course of the last couple of weeks, it seems this information, and this news is changing almost hour by hour, at this point one of the things that came out regarding this mortgage modification program is from Barney Frank, “Congress should act to restructure the servicing of home mortgages.” So the idea is that they are catching on to something that you and your team at velocity financial were ahead of the curve on in terms of loan modifications.

Knowing that those rules for a hardship and why you are entitled to one have definitely changed. Now it is more of a situation where in order to stop foreclosure, to stop the problems associated with this mass foreclosure market place, modifications are being talked about amongst the banks now. Barney Franks comments today, he stressed how these voluntary inducements to get these private entities to protect homeowners from the government has fallen short, and Hank Paulson has fallen short of putting their weight behind this concept.

Although I personally believe that is the next evolution of this. Loan Modifications are a critical step for people who are feeling this economic crisis, and for people who want to stay in a home, for people who need this type of assistance. The idea is you have a short window of opportunity here before something else significant changes where you may no longer be entitled to.

You heard Citigroup, you know this we talked about it, Citigroup came out and made the announcement that they were going to suspend their pursuit of foreclosures in certain areas of the country that have the highest unemployment rate, that was the caveat. We will see how big the scope of that gets, but the whole idea is for you as a mortgage owner, as a home owner with a mortgage, if you need to establish a modification to an existing loan, in order to have more favorable terms in interest, a more favorable monthly payment, a way to keep that home, you have to look at this option.

Yes, and I appreciate you saying that one of the things that Citigroup announced they were going to be doing was giving people teaser rates of 1%. Look anybody with a brain can realize that that is ludicrous. What got us into this situation in the first place was huge banks, just like that one, giving people toxic mortgages, with fake interest rates, and pick your own payment, do whatever the heck you want to. It is exactly what they are trying to do again.

Essentially what they are talking about is giving people a short window of a very low interest rate, but they are going to be back in the same situation in the future. That’s why the loan modifications that we do, that we hire on your behalf, the national network of attorney’s that we use. We go for the throat, we are not looking to get you a 1% interest rate for the next 12 months. We are looking to get you a lifelong, or for the term of the Loan if possible, the very lowest interest rate available, and fix it or extend the term so you can actually sustain that payment well beyond the short term.

One thing I want to point out before we have to go to a break, if you know of anyone out there, that has a GMAC mortgage, whether it be a GMAC first mortgage or second mortgage, you have got to tune in to the second segment you are not going to believe this scam that’s out there, going against people with these loans… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com

Duration : 0:5:49

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: agent, appraisal, Attorney, Avoid, bank, Bankruptcy, broker, Buyer, cash, Closing, cost, credit, down, escrow, estate, Expert, Fair, fha, financing, First, flipping, flow, foreclosure, fraud, home, Income, Insolvency, interest, investing, land, law, lease, Lender, Loan, Loss, market, Median, Mitigation, modification, Mortgage, Negotiate, negotiation, offer, Payment, price, program, property, purchase, rate, real, realtor, refinance, rent, rental, Sale, scam, Seller, Servicing, short, tax, Time, value

Mortgage Modification – Home Loan Modification Process – How to Plan for Federal Laws, Credit Rules and Hardship Letter Requirements — News and Help on Attorney Negotiated Bailout Package – Real Estate Foreclosure Scams and Bankruptcy Prevention – http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/real-estate/beware-of-phishing-schemes-and-bank-scams-gmacs-clients-hit-hard/ – Beware of phishing schemes and bank scams GMACs clients hit hard – RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 3 – As promised just before the break, I told you to, listen in if you know anyone who has a GMAC Mortgage, this is one of those too good to be true things. Heres the thing, I have no issues what-so-ever with GMAC, thats not what Im saying, what Im saying is there is a scam of sorts that is going around. A client of ours received a letter, we did a second Mortgage for this person a few years ago, they received a letter from GMAC, it looked like GMAC, it sounded like GMAC, and it said that we are willing to forgive your second mortgage of 200 and some thousand dollars in lieu of a one time payment, payable within the next 30 days, of say 20 thousand dollars.

I dont recall the exact amount or what it was. There is a phone number on there, it says loss mitigation department on it, a person assigned to this case. They called the phone number, they answered the phone as if you were calling into the loss mitigation department, and verified if you just send us this amount they will release the lien. Well it is completely false. It is absolutely not true.

These people are not going to seek you out on their own, now whether it be GMAC, today we have actually seen that one, there may be other ones out there. Folks, if you are getting stuff like this you need to verify it and you need to verify it by sources other than the information on the letter that you have received. If you get an email that says your bank account has been tapped into you need to check, chances are it is some kind of a phishing scam and this is no different.

We have gone back to identity theft through the mail and if you have been a party to this you need to verify and check into it, and you need to contact the authorities immediately for more information, if you need help with this sort of situation you are welcome to give us a call at 480 Velocity.

It is pretty amazing that that kind of thing still exists, and with the announcement by Paulson today that the fact is they are no longer willing to buy bad mortgages off the books of the banks. When you come across a phishing scam such as this one there is not a bank out there, I dont care what kind of trouble they are in, that is going to take $0.10 on the dollar to forgive a loan.

In a situation where things are going well, you are right in a situation where things are going well, and the status quo, they are going to be pursued by an attorney, that is entirely different, they are not just going to volunteer up and give you the money, its not going to happen.

Absolutely not and thats where we get back into what a loan modification is, who it benefits, and how it works and so forth, you are starting to see these wheels in motion amongst all of these banks. One of those wheels is certainly not well forgive $200,000 in debt if you write us a check for $20, 000.

And when we have talked about this Brett you and I have had many conversations in regard to what does it take? Can a person do this on their own, we will get to that a little later, but the answer is Yes. A consumer can actually do it on their own, up until very recently with the new announcements made from some of these major servicers and investors, up until then, a person trying to do it on their own would take days upon days and hours and hours on the phone not getting calls back trying to find time during the day while working to get this done and in many cases they are going to get a temporary fix.

The loss mitigation department for the bank that you have your mortgage with, their job is not to mitigate your loss its to mitigate their loss. They are out to protect the bank, thats why we use the national network of attorneys that we do, that are specialists, that have done thousands of these loan modifications, that go to bat for you. By the way folks, they are not going through the loss mitigation door that you would have to go through they are going right to the legal department, they are going to threaten suit if necessary, they are going to do discovery work, they are going to find out if there was anything that was misrepresented either by the bank or the broker and take that angle… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com

Duration : 0:5:36

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: agent, appraisal, Attorney, Avoid, bank, Bankruptcy, broker, Buyer, cash, Closing, cost, credit, down, escrow, estate, Expert, Fair, fha, financing, First, flipping, flow, foreclosure, fraud, home, Income, Insolvency, interest, investing, land, law, lease, Lender, Loan, Loss, market, Median, Mitigation, modification, Mortgage, Negotiate, negotiation, offer, Payment, price, program, property, purchase, rate, real, realtor, refinance, rent, rental, Sale, scam, Seller, Servicing, short, tax, Time, value