In just three weeks, this Swift Creek, Niceville Florida short sale is now under contract!  1306 Limestone Creek Cv. was well-maintained with fresh paint and meticulous care. The home had a huge back yard, enormous Trex deck and terrific landscaping.  The owners did a lot of prep work, based on my recommendations, to get the home ready for sale. Some of these included pressure washing and removing extra items from the home, like furniture pieces, that would have to be packed and shipped anyway.  This made the home show off its bones and let a new buyer imagine the possibilities.

This Swift Creek home is now in the short sale process with Bank of America.  It is pre-approved for the HAFA program, which is the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program. That is offered through mortgage servicers with suggested guidelines from the U.S. Treasure Department. Some of the benefits of a HAFA short sale are that you will get a waiver of deficiency and may also get a cash incentive at closing. HAFA is available if your lender participates and you meet the following qualifications, from the HAFA website:

• You have a documented financial hardship.
• You have not purchased a new house within the last 12 months.
• Your first mortgage is less than $729,750.
• You obtained your mortgage on or before January 1, 2009.
• You must not have been convicted within the last 10 years of felony larceny, theft, fraud, forgery, money laundering or tax evasion in connection with a mortgage or real estate transaction.

If you are considering a short sale for your Swift Creek, Niceville Florida home,contact me to explore your options.

Wendy Rulnick, Broker, Rulnick Realty, Inc.

Call toll-free 1-877-487-9639 or local 850-650-7883 ext 204
Email Wendy: itswendy@rulnickrealty.com

SHOULD YOU SHORT SALE OR STAY CALCULATOR

Niceville Florida Short Sale Help

Wendy Rulnick, Broker, is a short sale and pre-foreclosure specialist and has been featured in “Kiplinger Personal Finance Magazine” and “Florida Realtor Magazine”. She has successfully helped hundreds of families avoid foreclosure through short sale along the Emerald Coast of Florida. Wendy Rulnick is knowledgeable in all aspects of short sale, including VA Compromise Sale, FHA HUD pre-foreclosure sale, military PCS, HAFA, Bank of America Coop program and more.  She is also co-founder of www.ShortSaleSuperstars.com and short sale instructor to agents across the United States. Wendy Rulnick sells real estate in Destin, Santa Rosa Beach, Fort Walton Beach, Niceville, Bluewater Bay, Navarre, Seagrove Beach, Watercolor, Sandestin, Seaside, Crestview, Rosemary Beach, Mary Esther, Shalimar, Panama City Beach, Eglin AFB, Hurlburt Field.

The post Swift Creek Home Under Contract – 1306 Limestone Creek Cv. first appeared on Rulnick Realty.

This short sale home at 1243 Ego Dr. in Countryview Estates, Crestview Florida just sold using the HAFA program.  What is HAFA? It is the “Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives” Program that is sponsored by the Treasury Department to help homeowners who cannot make their mortgage payments, need to sell and don’t have enough equity to cover the mortgage balance.

ARE YOU ELIGIBLE? You might be eligible for HAFA if your lender participates in the Home Affordable Modification Program (or your mortgage is underwritten by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac which have slightly different qualifications).  HAMP offers you the opportunity for assistance by lowering your payments or delaying payments to keep you in your home.  You must meet the HAMP requirements as follows, to be part of HAFA, whether or not you choose a modification.  These qualifications are:

1) You have missed payments or are about to default

2) The home is or was your primary residence

3) You got your primary mortgage before Jan. 1, 2009 and your balance is less than $729,750 (higher balance on 2-4 unit properties)

4) Your property can be vacant or rented up to 12 months prior to the Short Sale Agreement (SSA), as long as you can prove the property was the primary residence and have not purchased another home in the last 12 months.

5) You must not have been convicted within the last 10 years of felony larceny, theft, fraud or forgery, money laundering or tax evasion, in connection with a mortgage or real estate transaction.

The senior mortgage holder for this Crestview home was Bank of America. They outsourced their HAFA processing to a company called UTLS, but also use other vendors.  The junior lien holder was HSBC. The short sale was approved in 90 days, and the sellers received a $3000 relocation credit.  One of the other advantages of HAFA is that there is full waiver of deficiency.

1243 Ego Dr., Crestview Florida sold for $149,900

If you need a HAFA agent to help you with your Crestview Florida short sale, give me a call!  

It’s Wendy!  Wendy Rulnick, Broker/Owner Rulnick Realty, Inc.

itswendy@rulnickrealty.com

850-650-7883

The post Crestview Florida HAFA Home Sold in Countryview Estates first appeared on Rulnick Realty.

1.  The first story is a Happy Short Sale Saga.  One of my Destin Florida sellers regained employment, so did not have to sell the home he and his family desperately loved!  I gladly withdrew the property from the market.  Specializing in short sales is often more than closing the sale.
2.  HAP – The Homeowner Assistance Program (HAP) is a government program expanded to help our military members who have orders to relocate from bases such as Eglin Air Force Base and Hurlburt Field.  Many of these servicemen are upside-down in their mortgages, and HAP is supposed to cover 90% of their loss so they can avoid foreclosure.  HAP has not helped many yet and is flooded with applications. The good news is that they are improving their information and refining their system, so hopefully more of our military will be helped in 2010. 

3.  HAFA – The Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative Program is supposed to get short sale lenders/servicers on board to speed up approvals for homeowners of primary residences.  It offers guidelines and incentives to pre-approve short sales and forgive deficiencies.  We’ll watch carefully in the spring to report on HAFA progress- or not.
4.  Short Sale Training – My first short sale webinar marked the beginning of my business partnership with Bryant Tutas.  I prepared for the webinar with nervous trepidation, but ended up loving doing these classes! Simply put, it was a blast!  Not only did Bryant and I educate others, it helped me grow personally. We have since incorporated as REGrow, LLC.  Expect more good things in 2010. 

5. www.ShortSaleSuperstars.com  is the community Bryant Tutas and I founded to help short sale agents across the country “Learn, Know and Grow”.  In little over five months, our group is now almost 750 members strong.  Here, short sale professionals jump in to share secrets and information about every and any lender or short sale situation you can imagine.  Here, they are unlocking the knowledge to save more homeowners from foreclosure and do it at the highest levels.  This is a tight community of giving short sale leaders that is open for membership. If you have not yet joined – we welcome you to come with us on this exciting adventure.

As a final note, for 2010, I hope we all find greater solutions to the foreclosure and home ownership crisis that is touching the lives of every one of us.

It’s Wendy!

Wendy Rulnick, Broker, CRP, CRS, GRI, ABR     Rulnick Realty, Inc.

Destin FL Real Estate

Destin Short Sales & Pre Foreclosure Help.

Read Wendy’s Destin Real Estate Blog

www.ShortSaleSuperstars.com for agents

Call toll-free 1-877-ITS-WNDY (1-877-487-9639) or local 850-650-7883 ext 204

Email Wendy: itswendy@rulnickrealty.com

The post TOP SHORT SALE STORIES OF THE YEAR first appeared on Rulnick Realty.

What Treasury is trying to do is help streamline the short sale process by suggesting guidelines to the participating lenders.  That’s “suggestions” and “guidelines”.  That does not equal “requirements” in the way I read it.

Here is a summary of the proposed short sale changes, who is eligible, and what you might expect to change if you do qualify for the HAFA program. Remember, I am condensing here and pointing out what might be important to you, the homeowner, as it relates to short sales.  There are many details, requirements and forms that make up this new program.

ARE YOU ELIGIBLE?

You might be eligible for HAFA if your lender participates in the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), and your mortgage is not underwritten by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.  HAMP offers you the opportunity for assistance by lowering your payments or delaying payments to keep you in your home.  You must meet the HAMP requirements as follows, to be part of HAFA, whether or not you choose a modification.  These qualifications are:

1) You have missed payments or are about to default

2) The home is your primary residence

3) You got your primary mortgage before Jan. 1, 2009 and your balance is less than $729,750

4) Your monthly mortgage payment is greater than 31% of your gross income

The HAFA Supplemental Directive states that the servicers (your lenders) have the “option to determine the extent to which short sales or deeds-in-lieu will be offered”.  So this does not look like a slam dunk, guys! 

Expanding on that, HAFA states that a participating lender must follow its investor guidelines to create their own policy, with criteria for your eligibility to include: how cooperative and “motivated” you are, the amount of the loss on your mortgage, and local market conditions, among other things.  In addition, HAFA states that it is up to the servicer and investor to decide if allowing you to be in this special short sale program is in their best interest.  That tells me they have a lot of leeway in deciding if you will benefit from HAFA at all.

THE GOOD NEWS if you get a short sale through this program, there can be no deficiency judgment later!  That will help many leery Bank of America short sale sellers, whose approval letters reference the right to seek a deficiency in the future. More good news- your lender may not ask you for a promissory note or a cash contribution if they participate in HAFA and you do a short sale.  More “positives”…

POSITIVE: If you are eligible for this program, and your lender participates, you must be given the chance to do a short sale or deed-in-lieu prior to the lender foreclosing.

POSITIVE:  The program says you do not have to resubmit your financial paperwork for the short sale (a big pain for many short sale sellers) after you have already provided it for HAMP.

POSITIVE: Your lender will determine the acceptable net from your anticipated short sale prior to you participating in the program.  This should save time versus a typical short sale, where the lender determines if a contract is acceptable after it is submitted for consideration.  The minimum proceeds will be stated in terms of actual dollar amount, percentage of market value or percentage of your list price.

POSITIVE:  Your lender will state what closing costs they will pay for the sale in advance.  This will save contracts where the buyer asks for too much in closing costs- no wasted negotiating.

POSITIVE: You will receive $1500 relocation incentive upon closing your short sale.

*** OTHER THINGS you need to know:

You cannot remain in the home as a tenant after closing.

You must not be related to the buyer (arms length).

You cannot earn a real estate commission if you are a licensee and sell the home yourself.

You may be required to make payments deemed “affordable” by HAFA until your property is sold.  This is based on a calculation of your income and expenses.

You must maintain the property and pay association dues until it is sold.

The servicer will pay your junior lienholder up to $3000 (or 3% of the junior balance) to complete the short sale, but YOU must take care of other impediments to selling, for example, an IRS tax lien or a judgment which might affect your sale.  Your senior lienholder gets a monetary incentive when your junior lienholder waives the right to a future deficiency.  This part of the program “may” inspire better terms from your second mortgage holder. NOTE: HAFA does not state this as a requirement, though, so you may still have a responsibility to pay your junior lienholder cash or a promissory note if they agree to the short sale!

If you have mortgage insurance (MI) on your note, the MI company must agree to waive its right to a cash contribution from you or note or you won’t qualify for HAFA.

MORE PROCEDURES:  When you receive an offer on your property, you will have three business days, with your Realtor’s assistance, to get a copy of the contract, buyer pre-approval, and junior lien documentation to your lender.   If you are using the standard HAFA program with a pre-approved net price (SSA), you should receive an approval or rejection with 10 business days, or about three weeks of receipt.  However, if you have not gone through the HAMP modification program and standard SSA (sorry I am throwing in acronyms again), then your approval time will be lengthened.  In this situation (alternate RASS), the program requires 14 more days to allow you to decide if you want a modification (well, of course at this point you don’t or you would have already done so, right), and for you to provide all the financial documentation necessary.

Finally, don’t expect to get off the hook with credit reporting or tax obligations from your short sale.  Even with HAFA, your short sale will be reported “account paid in full for less than full balance” and you should consult with an accountant to determine any tax liabilities from your cancelled debt. 

There is a lot to this new HAFA program, which officially starts on April 5, 2010 (although your lender may participate sooner).  How many people it will actually help is questionable.  If it does work, it will speed up your short sale.  If it does not, there are still many options available to you.

It’s Wendy!

Wendy Rulnick, Broker, CRP, CRS, GRI, ABR     Rulnick Realty, Inc.

Search All Destin Florida Real Estate

Destin Short Sales & Pre Foreclosure Help.

Read Destin Real Estate Blog

Call toll-free 1-877-ITS-WNDY (1-877-487-9639) or local 850-650-7883 ext 204

Email Wendy to sell your home or buy a home: itswendy@rulnickrealty.com

The post HAFA SHORT SALES – HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU? first appeared on Rulnick Realty.