For my 200th blog posting (!!) -I was prompted to write this after someone pointed out a mistake I made but did so without being nasty. This occurred early in my career when I worked in Rochester with my old college rommate Kevin and his father Paul at their company. Both trained me in the business, and I owe my career to them.

Paul was the broker and owner of the company (he still is) and operated out of a converted house in a commercial zone on a busy street on the border of a residential neighborhood. The house needed painting, and Paul decided on a beautiful shade of burgundy. It was a similar shade to brick. However, the entire building had to be primed and, Rochester being the place that it is, it rained for 4 consecutive days after the priming.

Oh, and the primer was a Pepto-Bismal shade of pink.

Because of the weather and a weekend, we had a pink mess for 7 days or so. One morning we retrieved a very nasty anonymous voicemail. The caller was spitting venom but didn’t have the guts to leave a name. The guy must have assumed that the primer was the building’s permanent color, because he was complaining about how the house didn’t fit in with the neighborhood, and called the building a “pink flamingo.”

My broker was bemused by the message, and replayed it for me a number of times with that one eyebrow up like he was Spock. “Come on Phil, we’re going out shopping.”

So we hopped into his car and went to every department store in town. We cleaned the entire stock of plastic pink flamingos on the west side of Rochester completely out. Then, this crazy guy and his loyal page spent the bulk of the afternoon placing plastic pink flamingos in the front yard of the office. We put them in lines, made families of several little ones following a big one, one “speaking” in front of 4 others, you name it. There were probably 40 plastic flamingos in the front yard.

And they stayed there for weeks while we all giggled about the aneurysm the anonymous curmudgeon must have been having over the look of the place now. “That’ll send him straight over the edge,” smiled Paul. He’d adjust the little buggers every morning when he arrived too.

Instead of a week of pink at most, our anonymous complainer got about a solid month of a large pink monstrosity with a flock of 40 plastic flamingos nesting every time he drove by.

If anything, business improved. It got people talking, and those that knew Paul knew he was up to something. The next time I’m in Rochester visiting I think I’ll bring a few plastic birds back with me. You never know when you’ll need some.

 Search the MLS like an agent here. New York’s Premier Short Sale REALTOR. Read my short sale bog here. See the New York Photo blog here. J. Philip Serves Briarcliff Manor, Ossining, the River Towns, Westchester County, and the bedroom counties of New York City.

I had a choice Tuesday night after wrapping up my last co op showing in Kew Gardens, Queens. I could go home and help put my children to bed, or I could attend the tail end of a small get together in Manhattan. I was invited by Michael Daly, who is my main contact at Redfin, and it was in Greenwich Village, so why not. 

I’m glad I showed up. One fellow late arrival was Glen Kelman, CEO of Redfin. Even though not everyone present was in real estate, the group was fascinated by what he had to say. I was very interested to hear his thoughts as well, because I am a referral agent for them here in Westchester County. 

The thing that impressed me the most was his commitment to transparency. He truly belives that the best way to conduct business is with as much disclosure as possible, with little to nothing concealed from the consumer. There were many components, but one example was that they survey everyone who deals with one of their agents and they publish the results publicly. 

Would you feel comfortable with that? 

What a lightning rod idea. Even people from other industries were open mouthed at the idea. What about hard to please, unrealistic clients? Irate malcontents? We all have stories of people for whom we bent over backwards for, went above and beyond on behalf of, who still complained? 

Well, the upshot is that thus far, it works. The agents they hire directly are vetted carefully, and they survey their past year of business, and all business they do going forward is surveyed. I had to submit to the same as a referral agent. Most of the bad surveys, I am told, say more about the complainer than the agent (I agree). It is scary to have that kind of disclosure. I had over 45 transactions last year. Some were rough, and even though I was not responsible for crummy lawyers, failed banks, fickle buyers and asbestos, I bore the brunt sometimes. 

Interestingly, the statistics are that only 20% of those surveyed typically respond. Mine came back 5/5 on all that came back, and for that I am grateful, but I have to wonder how some of our esteemed colleagues and competitors would perform if they knew that the world was watching. In the information age, they will be, and it will be a higher standard than the past. 

Adapt or go extinct! 

“Are you busy?” I get asked rather often this spring, and I am indeed busy. How busy? Well, I watched the “Wizard of Oz” earlier in an attempt to relax. A few observations which depart from my childhood memories of the film:

1. Upon seeing a munchkin emerge from a manhole cover, I note that homes in Muchkinland are obviously not on spetic systems. 
2. The HOA restrictions in the Emerald City must be utterly draconian. 
3. The Wicked Witch’s castle would be a tough place to comp out. Worse, in observing the chase inside, there is a need for more handrails on the stairs. No fire extinguishers either, another code issue. 

Read my short sale bog here. See the New York Photo blog here. Send J. Philip Your New York Referral!

Imagine you are selling something-anything-on the open market. If we broke down the walls of time and space and put everyone who might be interested in what you are selling into one big room, it is obvious that the more people there are in that room, the better chance you have of not just selling, but selling at a good price. The fewer the people exposed to your product, the longer the odds of a favorable sale. 

Now imagine that you are selling the very same thing on a desolate roadside where only a few passers by will ever see you. Anyone who stops and looks has enormous leverage. If you don’t sell to them at the price they offer, you have no other options. It’s them or the highway. They’ve got you. 

Putting a home on the Multiple Listing Service puts your home in the proverbial crowded room. The MLS is, in a very real sense, THE market. It absolutely dwarfs the number of people who might casually pick up a supermarket home magazine, get their fingers dirty perusing the classifieds, or those who might happen to stroll by your home and see the sign. If you don’t think the MLS is THE market, just try convincing an asset manager at a bank to not multiple list a foreclosure to get it sold. Or find me a divorce decree that mandates selling a home that forbids listing it with one of those useless, overpaid brokers. Both the judge and asset manager would agree that if the home isn’t listed, it isn’t truly for sale. 

Now…even though 99.9% of brokers would agree with what I have just written, there are some brokers & agents, many of whom are here in the New York area, who would try and convince you that keeping it off the MLS is in the seller’s best interest. These agents are trying for something we call in the industry a pocket listing. A pocket listing is the agent’s little secret, and their agenda is one thing, and one thing alone: to sell the property to their own buyer and avoid splitting their commission with a cooperating broker. The metaphor is perfect: instead of your home being openly displayed “on the shelf,” it is in the agent’s pocket (think of a shady guy opening his coat, displaying cheap watches), hidden from public view, and only shown to someone who isn’t working with another broker. Pocket listings are sometimes called a “office exclusives.” The name is prettier, but the intent is the same. The object isn’t exposure, but secrecy. Secret houses don’t sell very well. 

There is no scenario I know of where a a pocket listing is in the seller’s interest. Exposure is limited, cooperation from brokers who might have a buyer is cut off, and possibilities are diminished. I have had instances where sellers have asked me to keep their home off the MLS because they only wanted me to handle the perspective buyers, but that thinking is mistaken. Committed buyers often have their own agent. Even those that don’t have a buyer agent may know full well that I work for the seller and be unwilling to have me handle both sides of the transaction. It doesn’t work. 

The benefit of a pocket listing to the listing agent is twofold. If they do find a buyer, they don’t have to split the commission. Is that buyer the best one? Who knows? Why should they care? If it closes, they made a double commission. They also have an opportunity to use the listing to pull buyers in that they’ll sell another house to. They put an ad on Craigslist, jettison the buyers with agents, tell inquiring agents it is sold or off market now, and solicit all the other phone calls from uncommitted buyers to use them when buying a home if the pocket listing isn’t to their liking. A wise seller would never allow their home to be used like this. There is nothing wrong with picking up buyers from a listing, but only if the agent has made a 100% effort to sell the listing first. There is nothing 100% about a pocket listing. 

Buyers should also beware of a pocket listing. You are dealing with an unscrupulous agent whose motivation is money only, you have no agent representing your interests, and there may be less recourse if you have a problem or complaint with that agent. Practice business in the sunlight, and avoid the dark alley of a pocket listing no matter what side of the transaction you are on. 

Search the MLS like an agent here. New York’s Premier Short Sale REALTOR. Read my short sale bog here. See the New York Photo blog here. J. Philip Serves Briarcliff Manor, Ossining, the River Towns, Westchester County, and the bedroom counties of New York City.

Paul Krugman is a lauded economist, but he leverages that credential to preach to the echo chamber that is the New York Times readership. In today’s screed, Krugman makes a big fat lie in his assertion that Ronald Reagan is to blame for our current economic problems. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion; they are not entitled to their own facts. My comment is as follows:

 As a real estate broker, I find the following quote problematic:

“Reagan-era legislative changes essentially ended New Deal restrictions on mortgage lending — restrictions that, in particular, limited the ability of families to buy homes without putting a significant amount of money down.”

This is disturbingly untrue. The New Deal introduced the FHA and the FHA-Insured mortgage program, which is the grandadaddy of all low down payment (3% in New York) mortgages. It is a good program, and its neglect during the Bush years created a vacuum in the market that was filled by the sub prime catastrophe.

Before the FHA, there were no mortgages that didn’t require a significant downpayment. FHA solved that and helped tens of millions into ownership responsibly. It was part of the solution.

It always disturbs my when Dr. Krugman leverages his credentials to make unsustantiated assertions to sate his hatred of Reagan, who chose not to keep him on the presidential advisory team in 1983.

I do not feel further elaboration is required. He lied. 

 Search the MLS like an agent here. New York’s Premier Short Sale REALTOR. Read my short sale bog here. See the New York Photo blog here. J. Philip Serves Briarcliff Manor, Ossining, the River Towns, Westchester County, and the bedroom counties of New York City.

Imagine that you are meeting a prospective client for the first time. You set everything up, leave early to meet them, have the address in the GPS, and set out. For some reason, however, the GPS fails you. An urban street ends due to a new pedestrian walkway. A new townhouse community stands in the way of a left turn. Perhaps the GPS doesn’t have the exact address. Somewhere between panic and concern, you look at the listing sheet for a cross street or other directions, and you see one discouraging word: Mapquest. At best, you are late. In some cases, you blow an opportunity to pick up a buyer. I’ve had cases where I call a buyer to tell them I am 2 minutes away and am told they don’t like the location and will be moving on. *click*

The practice of replacing directions to a property with the phrase “mapquest” has reached epidemic proportions in some parts of New York. When you consider what procuring a listing entails, it boggles my mind why an agent would do this, considering that it can sabatoge the mutual effort to get a buyer into the home. People don’t even print out directions anymore since GPS systems have come into play. Moreover, with the boom in development this past decade, even in mature areas, map information can be unreliable.

I have blacked out certain parts to protect the guilty, but this ia fairly typical in some parts of New York: “Penalizing” buyer agents with no offer of a commission, outdated open house information, and that damnable mapquest instead of directions or a cross street. This agent should be ashamed.

Here’s another rocket scientist’s work of salemanship:

If you are the listing agent, you need to look out for your clients and ensure that cooperating agents know the cross street at the very least. Act like the fiduciary that you are.

 Search the MLS like an agent here. New York’s Premier Short Sale REALTOR. Read my short sale bog here. See the New York Photo blog here. J. Philip Serves Briarcliff Manor, Ossining, the River Towns, Westchester County, and the bedroom counties of New York City. 

I have been contacted by an investment group that showed interest in a short sale listing. They claim to be cash buyers, but have not shown proof of funds. They also want an incredible amount of information on the property and sellers so they can “evaluate” whether or not to go forward. I probably should have kicked them to the curb in the beginning, but thought it best to err on the side of giving them a chance to redeem themselves. 

After giving my agent a form to fill out on the property and mortgage, I contacted them and explained why we cannot disclose certain things. Moreover, I told her, we know nothing of your ability to perform. This went back and forth a few times via email, and the more I delved into it the more I knew my initial instincts were correct. They had their own team of “negotiators” to do the workout instead of myself and the seller’s attorney. After reading email replies with flowery wording reminiscent of the Nigerian Scam,  and dotted with terms like “full disclosure,” I told the seller to forget these people. He agreed. At best, these are well-meaning people who are amateurs trying to follow some bologna class or program they got into. At worst, they are con artists. 

I there are some scenarios where it might be OK for a buyer to be an authorized 3rd party to negotiate with the seller’s lender, but that should be done over extremely controlled circumstances and after enormous due diligence. The buyer might be a licensee with experience, an attorney with expertise in workouts, or some other credible scenario where checks and balances exist. It should not be granted lightly. In this case, where the buyer is shady, vague, and evasive, it should be avoided at all costs. 

“We’ll be paying in cash.” “We won’t require a mortgage. We have the funds.”

The perception that cash buyers are afforded courtesies, discounts and red carpet treatment has caused some out there to represent themselves as such. The only problem is that they are not cash buyers. Some are just confident that they can get a mortgage, and a few are flat out scammers. Moreover, all cash buyers in this economy seldom have the sort of advantage that some think they have. Cash breaks a tie or overcomes perhaps a 1% difference in price in my experience selling Westchester County Real Estate, but that is about it. Anything to the contrary is anecdotal and not something I can model my brokerage practice on.

I know cash buyers. I have worked with one in particlular since 1996 and dozens of others as both investors and owner occupants. I know the rules of engagement in this industry and what constitutes good faith. The one thing that all cash buyers have demonstrated since day one has been the ability and willingness to furnish proof of funds. I don’t need to see it either; so long as the seller’s attorney is satisfied, so am I.

What I will not do is jump through hoops for someone claiming to be a cash buyer who gets cute about verifying their funds, who among their party actually has the money, who their attorney is, or diverts from the common practice of good faith. Mystery and real estate don’t mix. In our local market, offers are submitted with basic information on the buyer, their pre-approval or proof of funds, and attorney contact information. If a buyer is unwilling to conform to those basic points, they are acting suspiciously. It costs nothing to go over to Staples and photocopy a bank statement or print something up online.

In God We Trust. All other are required to show proof of funds before we start bending over backwards.

Search the MLS like an agent here. New York’s Premier Short Sale REALTOR. Read my short sale bog here. See the New York Photo blog here. J. Philip Serves Briarcliff Manor, Ossining, the River Towns, Westchester County, and the bedroom counties of New York City.

Dear <agent>

Search the MLS like an agent here. New York’s Premier Short Sale REALTOR. Read my short sale bog here. See the New York Photo blog here. J. Philip Serves Briarcliff Manor, Ossining, the River Towns, Westchester County, and the bedroom counties of New York City.

An appraiser in nearby Rockland County has done an analysis on the price changes to a typical raised ranch in his town from 1965-2008. You can see the results here on the board’s online newsletter. Once you hit the link, scroll down to page 5. The results are very instructive. In the last bust (1987 correction, Savings & Loan crisis, stock market crash of 1987, early 90’s recession), it took until 1998 for prices to get back to the prior peak of 1986. Prices declined for 5 years, then rose nil to very little for another 6 years.

This Great Correction is a doozy compared to those times. The drop of prices from 2007-2008 of 11% is historically unprecedented, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see another decade of malaise. It is irresponsible to believe that things will be better in 18 months; we still have billions if not trillions of bad debt to wring out of this economy. New York Home sellers need to understand that they are competing with short sales, bank-owned foreclosures and other distressed situations and that their best chance of selling is to price their home as competitively and aggressively as possible. 

I saw today that a listing that expired and did not renew with me has re-listed with another broker for $50,000 less. Now, as a guy who specializes in expired listings, I have to admit that I usually am on the other side of this; by the time people get me as their agent, they are, shall we say, educated. This particular seller was a tough case. A contractor, he bought the house at the height of the market, made improvements and wanted every cent back + $100,000 in under 4 years of owning the place. 

The home was just across a county line, so their post office and school district were in different counties, making the home very difficult to be “found.” Worse, they were incredibly un-savvy when it came to the Internet and appreciating my marketing. What made this a bigger issue was their dippy daughter who (no kidding) would put their address in the URL window of Internet explorer and flame me for not being what appeared on the screen afterward. When I brought them to my office and explained how people search for homes online, they were skeptical- who wants to go through all those steps? My answer: over 80% of home buyers and growing. 

Why did I take an overpriced listing to begin with? 2 reasons: first, I didn’t promise them their price. I agreed to start out at their number with the proviso that we’d adjust as the market indicated. On this, they reneged. I also bet that their desire to be close to their grandchildren would overtake their desire for an unrealistic profit. I lost that gamble too. 

SO…when they told me that they were giving up on selling and choosing to remain in the home, I took them at their word. Not so. I primed the pump for another agent. I did a good job- they whacked the price 50 grand, probably because they want to live closer to those grandkids. 

That’s baseball!

I won’t say when or where this happened; suffice to say somewhere in New York. A buyer contacted me to show what appeared to be a short sale listing that had already been approved. The approval was for a previous buyer that walked away from the deal, so the window of time was narrow. It was a vacant condominium, and we saw it on a weeknight. We took a 2nd look that weekend, and it was there that the listing agent informed me that the “nuance” of the deal was that the “approved” price was actually $20,000 lower than the MLS list price. 

Where was the other $20,000 going? The seller. The seller wanted to be greased $20,000 to sell his pre-foreclosure in a short sale. I have been involved with short sales where the seller has been forced to sell appliances and furniture just to raise the money to move. In some cases, the buyer of the home bought the chattle, and that was legitimate- nothing precludes people from selling their belongings. There wasn’t anything in the apartment to buy to give the money a justification. Nothing. Not even a folding chair. 

Aside from the obvious bank fraud I was confronted with, what was particularly disturbing was the brazen stupidity of the listing agent, who so unapologetically continued to lobby for the side deal. He didn’t know me from Adam; I could have been a mole for the Department of State for all he knew. 

I advised my buyer client to stay away. I have 4 children to feed and a company to run. I am not going to lose my livelihood over a brokerage fee. I’m not morally superior. I’m just not stupid.   

Zillow used to be on my last nerve. It seemed that no matter how compelling my rationale was for pricing, a seller would claim that Zillow had their house at $50,000 higher or a buyer would lament that the value of the home they were buying was $50,000 lower. It was maddening. Zillow seemed arrogantly unapologetic about the dreaded “zestimate,” which no doubt killed more than it’s share of deals. 

However, over time, Zillow seemed to become more agent-friendly. Their responses on blogs like Sellsius seemed to be less defiant. They syndicated listings. They created profiles for agents,  and indexed us by locale and even specialties. Moreover, they have become far more transparent in the accuracy of their property value estimates. 

Good stuff, huh? I even posted a link to my Zillow profile in my Sidebar. 

Then, things started to creep away from the warm fuzzies again. An Inman News article expressed dismay that aggregates like Zillow and Trulia hijacked the SEO of individual brokers.  Not the end of the world, but food for thought. Or so I thought. 

This past week, I got a call from Amanda at Zillow. This wasn’t your garden variety solicitation for a banner ad. The upshot is that they want to position agent ads so that people searching for properties will call the agent who bought the zip code and not the listing agent. The extortion selling point was that I should buy my zip code before someone else does. 

How galling.  No content from agents like me, and Zillow is out of business. Why do I have to buy the privilege of getting the call on my own listing? It is MY content! I already paid for the right to market it with my blood sweat and tears. 

I’m not so jazzed about syndicating my listings to Zillow anymore. I am all for Zillow making money, but not by sandbagging me or hijacking my listings. They can do whatever they wish; So can I. I’ll consider unchecking them in my syndication options. 

No, not my brother Tom Faranda, but the Tom Faranda he was named after. 

Whatever you are doing right now, you are doing it free from fear and confident in your future. You have much to look forward to. And for that, you owe a debt of gratitude to a US soldier. 

Tom Faranda was my father’s cousin, who was part of the invasion of Normandy in 1944. He perished in the assault of the beach, and  his remains were never found. He was in an amphibious tank which was hit and never made land (I asked my brother if there is a remote chance that he somehow crawled to shore and was nursed to health by some Mademoiselle and lived out his days with a beret sipping wine, to which my brother responded “on Omaha Beach?”). My brother Tom found out what division he was in once, and maybe he’ll post that. But the first Tom Faranda gave his life in the liberation of France and the defeat of the Nazis. He died for his country and the liberty of man. 

Tom Faranda. Now you know his name. 

Withheld. 

This is what sometimes appears as the name when sellers of a home instruct their agent that they wish to remain anonymous. I can understand the sentiment, but in this age of information, home owners should think long and hard before engaging in this practice. Other markets outside of New York may be different, but here in Westchester County and the surrounding areas the connotation of “Withheld” may be counterproductive. 

Over the years, homes sold by a withheld owner were often under distress. REO brokers often use this, and traditionally homes marketed as pre foreclosures would withhold the owner name to help them avoid embarrassment. That worked far better in 1997 than 2009 for reasons related to technology. Unlike 1997, public records with the owner of record’s name are a click away, rendering privacy a moot point.  

Other reasons for wanting to have the seller name withheld has been privacy concerns. This is the predominant reason why a non-distressed seller would not disclose their name. However, it backfires all too often.

Privacy should not trump the suggestion of distress. If a listing unintentionally hints a distress sale, the seller’s posture is more vulnerable- that can cost them serious money when an offer arrives. And once a buyer believes the seller is in a bind, no amount of denying it will completely eradicate doubt in the buyer’s mind. 

There have been times that it helps to know the name of the owner of a sold home when advising clients in pricing their home, and if “Withheld” supplants a last name when trying to ascertain the exact identity of a recent nearby sale, the practice becomes a counterproductive nuisance. 

I think that in most cases people who withhold their name are doing more harm than good. I recall selling a listing right next door to Supermodel Heidi Klum’s home, which was also for sale. Now, if anyone would want to withhold their name, it would be a supermodel. Ms. Klum’s listing disclosed a corporate owner. She had her anonymity without the “Withheld” moniker. 

Search the MLS like an agent here. New York’s Premier Short Sale REALTOR. Read my short sale bog here. See the New York Photo blog here. J. Philip Serves Briarcliff Manor, Ossining, the River Towns, Westchester County, and the bedroom counties of New York City. 

The fact pattern:

1. Total time on market: 18 Months. Time with my company: 120 days
2. Original Price with prior broker: $629,000
3. Original means of pricing home: oldest son’s date of birth (6/29)
4. Current price: $489,000
5. Number of offers before yesterday: 0
6. Current offer: $420,000
7. Number of competing home for sale: 40
8. Number of comparable sales: 4
9. CMA value: $440,000
10. Counter offer to yesterday’s offer: $465,000. 

I have blogged previously on things a buyer should know before they buy a bank-owned foreclosure. Home values in Westchester have come down quite a bit since the “Great Correction,” which has brought out many people who wouldn’t have been candidates for ownership when prices in New York were unsustainably high. Foreclosures contribute to that pricing change very impactfully. Since a number of buyers I am now working with are seeking to buy an REO in earnest (and who can blame them? “Affordable home” and “Westchester County” are seldom uttered in the same sentence), I have a few observations. 

1. Lowball offers won’t work with aggressively priced REOs. It wasn’t long ago that you couldn’t find a decent house in Yonkers for under $400,000. Then, the line was lowered to $300,000. We now have bank-owned foreclosures priced in the $80,000-$130,000 range. The interest level in these properties is enormous, as those prices are less than that of a vacant lot. Making a $100,000 offer on a $125,000 listing which whill probably end up selling for $140,000 in a bidding war is a big waste of your time and your agent’s time. One buyer I worked with in the last 2 weeks realized this on her own; her agent was appreciative. 
2. Pre-approvals aren’t optional. Once a house is on the market, the asset manager at the bank wants it gone yesterday. They won’t tie  up the house under contract with a an unqualified buyer who can’t close. The people at the bank don’t know you; the only way they’ll have any assurance that you’ll perform is a pre approval. They simply won’t take an offer without a preapproval seriously, and many REO brokers cannot even upload the offer to the bank without one. 
3. The lawyer you get for free through your job or union probably isn’t the best one to use. I think it is great that your union or employer will help you set up your will and a number of other low-impact legal services for no or low cost. However, a real estate transaction, especially the purchase of an REO, is a high-impact legal service that requires proactive advocacy. Your job-related attorney isn’t set up for that. Let me make myself perfectly clear: If you are going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, why would you scrimp $1000 on the attorney? If you use an attorney that won’t return calls until Friday (or at all), and other acts of indifference, it will sabotage the transaction. You need a lawyer versed in foreclosures the same way you need a dentist for your teeth. They are specialists. 
4. The bank will not consider a contingent offer. The bank will not consider a contingent offer. A mortgage contingency is OK; selling the home you currently own isn’t. Sell your current home or rent it, but you can’t make that a contingency of the purchase. There are no exceptions. None. Ever.
5. “As is” means “as is.” Other than egregious environmental problems like a bad oil tank, you can’t get anything fixed. 
6. 203(k) loans don’t happen overnight. 203k and other rehabilitation loans for buying a home in need of rehabilitation are great, but they require enormous red tape and paperwork. They take longer. Take nothing for granted. If the loan officer wants something, get it to him or her immediately. If you go past deadlines, you may not get an extension and you may lose your deposit. 

People that want to buy a foreclosure often want a bargain but too often don’t understand that what they save in price is paid for in other ways by bureaucracy, bank regulations, and other forms of red tape. Banks are not typical sellers. They are enormous monolithic institutions that don’t make exceptions for circumstantial requests. Understanding this will help you going in to avoid additional stress. Forewarned is forearmed!

Listening to NPR the other day, the commentators were wondering what to call the current economic crisis. It isn’t a garden variety recession; it isn’t just the Credit Crisis, the Sub-prime Meltdown, or the failure of Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae. They mentioned that people are now texting the letters “ITE” to shorten “in this economy” the way they abbreviate IMO for “in my opinion.” Recession is too weak. It isn’t a depression. What are we in? 

Well, the Dow has corrected to around 8,000 from a high of 14,000. Home prices have corrected to about 20-30% lower in most places. The prior highs of price and value for property and securities were often labled unsustainably high and have corrected. I would therefore humbly suggest that we call the current economic condition that we are going through the Great Correction. It is a little ironic, a play on words, and certainly an apt term. 

Use it with my permission. 😉

Hopefully, growth going forward will be sustainable, realistic, and devoid of irrational exuberance & poor judgment.