Category Archives: Foreclosure News

Pennsylvania eliminates foreclosure help programs

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If you’re a homeowner in Philadelphia who is facing foreclosure, your options for help have been reduced. The state budget cuts enacted last month killed the Homeowners Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program (HEMAP) which provided temporary loans to homeowners in default.

So what is a homeowner to do? When facing foreclosure, your options are:

Put my shortsale experience to work so you can avoid foreclosure and get a fresh start. Sell your home via shortsale and you may be eligible to receive up to $10,000 in moving assistance. Call me now at 215-335-6936. All calls are confidential.

Wells Fargo offers $3,000 for homeowners facing foreclosure

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If your mortgage is with Wells Fargo and you are facing foreclosure, you may be eligible to receive $3,000 when you sell your home via shortsale.

This incentive is available to all Wells Fargo homeowners who are still living in the property and sell their home via shortsale to avoid foreclosure via the HAFA program.

Call me for details at 215-335-6936. All calls are confidential.

The irony of negotiating shortsales with Saxon

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Today I discovered that there is only one feeling that is worse than having a shortsale denied and the property taken back by the bank. It’s the feeling of finding out that the bank has decided to relist the property as an REO with another agent in your own office. Saxon Mortgage really sucks on this one.

I’m now curious to see what price the property will be listed at. I had another experience on a shortsale where the bank (Litton Loan Servicing) wouldn’t accept a shortsale offer because of a $3,000 difference. They ended up selling the property at auction for over $10,000 less than the cash offer that they denied before foreclosing. Gotta love their cost-benefit analysis skills.

Litton Loan Servicing is the worst mortgage servicing company ever

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I am now convinced that Litton Loan Servicing is the worst mortgage servicing company ever. This statement is not based on what I’ve heard, but on what my client has experienced.

I have a client who has been trying to modify the loan on one of his property with LLS since November 2010. After multiple phone calls and faxed to provide all of the details they require, they still have not made a decision. In fact, every time we’ve called for an update on the status of the loan modification approval, they give a standard answer of “it’s still in review, call next week for another update”. The call-next-week routine has been in effect since January of this year!

They refuse to escalate the file to have it reviewed by someone who can actually make a decision, and they refuse to provide a timeline as to when they’ll have an answer for the borrower.

Of the short list I have of mortgage lenders and servicers that are the worst, Litton Loan Servicing is now moving to the top.

Diary of a shortsale – Part 2: Banks are good at being inefficient

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I had to get an attorney involved with this deal because it’s getting sticky. The seller has a mortgage and a HELOC on the property, both with the same lender. However, the lender is requiring that the shortsale for each loan be handled in different departments. That’s right, same lender, two loans, two departments. Just to be sure, I’ve called negotiators at both departments multiple times to confirm they are working together, but they are not. They each confirmed that neither knows what the other is doing.

But that’s not the worst part: they’re email communications are even worse. Instead of just sending an email with a message in the body, they send an email with an attachment. The attachment has a special link I have to click to access the message on the lender’s website. Then I have to enter a username and password to read and respond to messages. And yes, each department is using this method to send messages, and neither knows what messages the other is sending.

Thankfully, my client is understanding of how inefficient this lender is, and has been very patient so far. Now if only our lawmakers would read this blog (and many others like it), they’d understand why there’s such a foreclosure crisis. Banks are not interested in being efficient at disposing of bad mortgages. Based on their behavior and systems, it seems their only interest is to waste time.

Philadelphia Foreclosure Sheriff Sales are resuming

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The Mayor and Sheriff’s Office of Philadelphia have finally signed a deal that will allow the Sheriff’s office to resume the monthly auction sale of foreclosure properties. The monthly sheriff sales had been postponed since the resignation of Sheriff John Green in January, and scandal of missing funds that he left behind. View the full article here: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/03/15/mayor-sheriffs-office-sign-deal-to-resume-foreclosed-home-sales/

So if your home is facing foreclosure, you need to act quickly to get it sold before the bank takes it from you. I am a shortsale expert and my team includes an experienced attorney who will provide free legal advice to you.

Call me today at 215-335-6936, or send me an email by clicking here. All contact is strictly confidential.

Diary of a shortsale – Part 1: Getting all the documents together

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A shortsale is an event when a bank will accept less than what it is owed on a property in order for it to sell. The seller cannot receive any proceeds from the sale, and they must prove why they have to sell the property for less than what is owed. The process involves providing extensive documentation about the seller’s income and assets, and explanations about why they cannot pay the mortgage off.

In addition to the personal financial documents, banks also require other documents to consider a shortsale. One those is always a preliminary HUD-1 settlement statement. The HUD-1 is what details exactly who will be getting paid what in the transaction. And for this transaction, just getting a HUD-1 is proving to be problematic.

The title company for the buyer of this property is preparing the preliminary HUD-1, and they can’t even get the property address correct. They sent the first draft last Thursday night. When I called on Friday with the corrections, I was told they were busy and couldn’t get me a revised HUD-1 until yesterday (Tuesday) because of the holiday. I had to call three times yesterday and it still has the wrong address. I decided to call the buyer’s agent to get her involved (since her brokerage owns the title company, I figured she had some clout with them and could light a fire under their butts). The title clerk sent me another email last night and forgot the attachment. I have to followup again this morning.

One of the reasons shortsales take so long is because the information that needs to be provided to the bank has to come from different people, and it can get hard to corral everyone to sumbit their information on time. I’m about to make a fourth call to a title company tomorrow just to get a HUD-1. Can you image what it would be like if I had to call everyone in the transaction three or four times?

So today should be an interesting day. My hope is to have the HUD-1 so I can submit the last piece the bank needs to start considering the shortsale for this property.

My new reality TV addiction: Million Dollar Listing

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I am soooo hooked on this show! It’s refreshing to see that no matter what price market an agent works in, they will always need to address the most common problems and concerns for their clients:

  • Sellers being realistic about what their home is really worth
  • Buyers being realistic about what they can really afford
  • Renters being realistic about how much space they can get for their money
  • Foreclosures happen to people in all income levels

Whether the house is in a $50,000 neighborhood, or a $5,000,000 neighborhood, the principles of selling, buying and renting remain the same. A property is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

If you need to sell, just call Raquel! (And call if you’re looking to buy or rent too!)

Real estate agents: I can buy your shortsale listings

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If you are a real estate agent with shortsale listings, I may be able to help your sellers get their properties sold. I specialize in buying properties facing foreclosure by taking over the mortgage payments.

If this is something you believe would help your client, call me at 267-918-3691. You can get your client’s home sold quickly, and still get paid a commission to boot!