Foreclosure, Short Sale in your Credit Report? When can you buy?

Are you a homeowner with a short sale, deed in lieu, or foreclosure in your past?  Are you wondering if you can EVER buy another home again?
If you have a foreclosure in your record, there is a seven year waiting period before you can purchase another property.  BUT there is a three year waiting period if there are extenuating circumstances.  Interesting huh?
If you have a deed in lieu or short sale in your credit report, the waiting period could be at least 2 years if you can put 20% downpayment on your purchase.  WOW!!!  Please read the above articles I have scanned for further information provided by United Lending.
Here is the good news, if you are facing foreclosure, wouldn't it be more sensible to go thru Short sales?  This way, you can purchase a home again in as little as 2 years?  After all, it will be a minimum of two years to probably repair your credit AND save for the downpayment to purchase a home.  So if you are in this situation, PLEASE give me a call and let me see if you are a short sale candidate.  Please call me at (512)786-7355 to see if a foreclosure can be avoided thru short sale.

Lousianna Crawfish Festival in Buda

It was a hot day this past Saturday, April 9th, 2010 BUT it was a great day to go to the Louisianna Crawfish Festival in Buda's City Park.  My family and I went for our first time.  The tickets cost each of us including my ten year old, $20 each to get in.  We immediately went to the Crawfish booth to get our plate of these tiny delicious creatures.  The line was VERY long.  While the boys waited, we found a spot under the tree, unfolded our chairs and waited.  Once the boys got closer, we took our spot on the line and claimed our crawfish plate including my ten year old who never ate one.  We enjoyed picking our plateful of crawfish under the tree, each with bottled water as it was very spicy.  Umm, I guess that is where the Louisianna part came from.  After an hour or so, we all got cleaned up and checked out all the vendor booths and food booths.  The food booths sold items such as funnell cakes, chicken fried bacon, pork chips, smoothies, old fashioned sodas, ice cones, cajun turkey leg, shrimp cooked in many ways, alligator on a stick, hot dogs, corn dogs and more crawfish. 
To boot, we were full and enjoyed our 4 hours at the park.  Will we come back next year? Absolutely, with a blanket and more chairs!

Homestead Exemptions are due soon!

Attention homeowners who purchased a home in 2010.  You have until the end of April to file your Homestead Exemption form in TX.  If you are a TX homeowner and your home is your homestead or primary dwelling, you can save money on your property taxes on your home by filing this form.  You must have purchased the property before January 1, 2011 in order to qualify.

Each County has a their own form and you must read the instructions carefully.  If you have a disability, 65 years old or older, OR a 100% disabled veteran, you may also qualify for further savings.  Please beware that a form similiar to this may have been mailed to you.  These are from companies who also solicit a fee for filing this form.  This form is FREE and there is no cost to file this with your County.  Here are the respective forms for each of the following County's.

Travis County
Hays County
Williamson County

I am here to help you save money on your property taxes.  If you wish to save more on your next purchase, please let me know.

Foreclosure information from Realty Trac

I attended a webinar today given by Realty Trac.  I jotted down some very good information that I would like to share in this blog:

• Foreclosure activity may peak in 2011.  The levels continue to rise from the past three years.  REO inventories will stay at high levels through 2013.
• There is a massive "shadow inventory" that will slow down the housing market recovery.  There are about 1.0 REOs and 700,000 are not listed for sale.  1.2 million homes are currently in foreclosure.  Over 5 million loans are in some stage of delinquency.
• Distressed Properties are in High Demand.
• 60% of homebuyers are actively looking for foreclosure and bank-owned properties
• 25-30% of all residential home sales in 2010 were foreclosures or bank-owned homes.
• Nationwide, homebuyers saved an average of 30% when purchasing a foreclosure property.  Short sales averaged a 19% savings; REO sales averaged over 37% savings.

I am guessing that the reason why banks are slowly releasing their REO inventory is that they would not want to flood the market with foreclosures, thus, bringing the values of comparables even lower.  That's smart of the banks, to think of us.

Are you a buyer?  You are probably wondering where you can get a copy of this list.  I have 2 pages in my website that have these foreclosure list.  One is in the MLS or one is with RealtyTrac.  These are FREE to use.  You may also enter the area or zip code and a list of homes will be returned.  If you need further assistance, please give me a call.

I made someone's problem go away thru Short Sales

After my sellers signed the closing paperwork today, the husband (the seller) said the most touching words during my career in real estate.  He said (from what I recall) "Miss Pearl, we love our house very much from the time we bought it and moved in. But lately, this house has been a problem and YOU Miss Pearl made those problems go away.  We appreciate you very much in helping us get out of this problem."

The problem he was referring to, was his inability to pay his mortgage due to the decrease of his income.  I was able to short sale his home successfully, which made his problems go away.

I want you to know that if you are in a situation where you have missed a payment in your home, or close to missing a payment in your home, and you have a hardship, whether it be a divorce, illness, death of spouse, loss of job or decrease in salary, or other reasons, please call me as I may be able to help you.
All it takes is 15 minutes on the phone.  Call me at (512)786-7355.  I am a short sale specialist in Austin (Cedar Park, Manor, Kyle, Buda, Georgetown, Round Rock, Lakeway, Spicewood, Bee Caves, Pflugerville) and have completed many short sale transactions in the past 3 years.

February 2011 Real Estate in Austin

In Austin, TX, residential sales (units) for single family homes were down 4% in February compared to last February (2010).  The above charts were supplied by Alamo Title of Austin, TX.

January real estate in Austin lookin' good!

Alamo Title of Austin has graciously provided us, Realtors, with statistics monthly.  And we are very greatful for your efforts in informing us and the public regarding our real estate market.  It appears from the first picture that our sales in January 2011 for single family residential homes have been higher that the past 2 Januarys.  That is a 13% increase in units sold.  That is just awesome.  We are seeing more activity in our market center and ad calls. 

If you wish more information on our real estate, please give me a call today at (512)786-SELL/7355.