U.S. Plan Will Help Homeowners Avoid Foreclosure

Homeowners across the United States who are undergoing financial hardship could avoid foreclosure under a plan announced on Nov. 30 by the U.S. Treasury Department. Under the plan, millions of at-risk homeowners could be free of mortgage debt without going through foreclosure, and given $1,500 for relocation.

The Treasury plan, which potentially applies to 75 percent of the mortgages in the U.S., including those backed by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae (those two organizations are currently devising guidelines), provides incentives for lenders and homeowners for completing Short Sales – transactions in which the lender agrees to a sale price that’s less than the borrower owes on the mortgage. Short Sales are preferred to foreclosure because homeowners take less of a hit on their credit and lenders realize a smaller loss.

However, Short Sales often get bogged down because of the complicated nature of the transaction. Deals can fall through because they take too long.

The official effective date of the plan is April 5, 2010, but participating mortgage servicers can begin operating under the terms of the program before then if they are ready to meet all reporting requirements.

Under the plan, which speeds up and simplifies the Short Sale process, mortgage servicers have 10 days to approve or reject a request for a Short Sale. And when the sale is done, the borrower must be fully released from the debt.

California tax law unsettled on home sellers’ short sales

Sacramento-area accountants say rising numbers of taxpayers who did short sales or received loan modifications in 2009 now fear they’ll be walloped anew by a cash-starved state government intent on taxing their forgiven debt.

It’s impossible to ease the fears or specifically answer many questions, these accountants say.

“We’ve had quite a few clients fall into that category,” said Jennifer Neronde, office manager at Rocklin-based Cramer and Associates CPA.

Uncertainty reigns with less than six weeks before the April 15 filing deadline because the forgiven debt question has gotten caught up in a larger tussle over business taxes between the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It’s headed for a Capitol showdown next week.

Monday, the Assembly is scheduled to vote on SB32 X8, a bill by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, that would ban the state from taxing mortgage debt forgiven in 2009.

But Schwarzenegger is threatening to veto the bill over an obscure clause opposed by business groups. That clause establishes new tax penalties on firms that file unfounded claims for refunds. Business associations believe it will unfairly punish them for tax withholding decisions they claim are difficult to calculate. The clause, along with forgiven mortgage debt, is among dozens in the bill to align California’s tax codes with federal codes.

The governor wants the business penalty provisions stripped from the bill, said his spokesman Mike Naple.

“The governor would prefer that the provision be taken out of the bill and addressed in separate legislation,” Naple said.

The state gave homeowners who occupied their homes a pass on forgiven mortgage debt in 2007 and 2008. The federal government, meanwhile, has backed off on taxing forgiven mortgage debt through the end of 2012. In the past, both branches of government treated forgiven debt as taxable income.

In a short sale, for instance, a lender might accept a sales price of $200,000 on a home where it’s owed $325,000. The $125,000 left unpaid is classified as forgiven debt, which used to qualify as new taxable income. The Bush administration, backed by the real estate industry, blocked the IRS from taxing forgiven debt in 2007. It’s a temporary measure to encourage borrowers to call lenders and negotiate alternatives to foreclosure.

In many cases, borrowers try short sales after they fail to get loan modifications, say real estate agents like Larry Henderson, of Prudential Norcal Realty in Carmichael. He said he gets frequent questions about the complicated tax implications of short sales.

“I make it clear to my clients they should talk with a lawyer or a CPA,” he said.

Sacramento home prices lag behind state gains

The median price of a single-family home in the greater Sacramento region rose 3 percent in January compared with the same month a year ago, far below a 15 percent statewide gain reported Tuesday by the California Association of Realtors.

The association said the Sacramento region’s median home price last month was $174,830, up from $169,670 in January last year but down from $189,140, or 7.6 percent, in December.

Statewide, the median single-family home price in January was $287,440, up from $249,960 in the year-ago period, but down 6.3 percent from $306,820 in December.

The association also said January sales in the Sacramento region were down 24.9 percent compared with January 2009 and off by 29.5 percent compared with December. The respective statewide sales declines were 10.6 percent and 3 percent.

Hundreds seek mortgage relief at workshop

Hundreds of area homeowners poured into the Sacramento Convention Center on Friday with tales of financial distress, worry, fear and anger.

They were looking for hope at an eight-hour foreclosure prevention workshop matching up borrowers with more than a dozen mortgage lenders and nonprofit home loan counselors.

About 300 people were in line when the doors opened at 12:45 p.m. Some cradled stacks of home and loan documents in their arms; others dragged small carry-on bags behind them.

One of those in line, Peggy Tripp, said, “I just don’t know who else to turn to. Nobody else will talk with me. So I’m hoping I can get some satisfaction here today.”

Tripp, a mother of three, said she has no financial reserves remaining to save her home.

Mary Pendleton, who said she lives in the Rosemont area east of downtown Sacramento, said she has been struggling to make a $2,200-a-month payment “for a long time, long before all this began. We don’t have any savings left.”

Bob Tull of the El Dorado County community of Cool said he was hoping to get his nearly $3,000-a-month payment modified, having “burned through about all I have.” Tull said he worked more than 30 years as a contractor, and now he’s delivering mail to help out.

Several attendees openly expressed anger.

One man randomly told passers-by that he had been “scammed” by his bank. Another carried a small, handmade sign that read, “Why bail out banks when they won’t bail out us?”

Lenders attending Friday’s gathering included Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citi, GMAC, HomEq, PNC, Select Portfolio, Saxon, Suntrust and Ocwen.

Workshop organizers said lenders mailed invitations to borrowers, but Jonelle Smith of Sacramento said she showed up with home loan documents “because a friend of mine told me this was going on. … I’m hoping to get some help from somebody, anybody.”

A couple of hours later, a disconsolate Smith walked away, saying, “I couldn’t get help today.”

The workshop was a repeat of a December 2008 convention center event that attracted more than 1,000 area borrowers to visit with representatives of 19 lenders. Back then, some borrowers reported help on the spot and others remained frustrated.

Friday’s event was a collaboration that included the U.S. Treasury, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable program, the Hope Now Alliance and NeighborWorks America.

The Hope Now Alliance includes counselors, mortgage companies, investors and other mortgage market participants that help homeowners who may not be able to pay their mortgages. NeighborWorks America is a national nonprofit organization created by Congress to provide financial support, technical assistance and training for community-based revitalization efforts. Both are based in Washington, D.C.

Andrea Risotto, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Treasury Homeownership Preservation Office, said she was hopeful some attendees could get loan modifications on-site or within a short amount of time.

“It’s also important that they’ve come here to get help … bring their paperwork and start that process,” she added. “I know that some (attendees) have not talked to their lender … so just getting their foot in the door is a start.”

Risotto said some homeowners who attended Friday’s workshop but need follow-up visits with paperwork or other issues will be asked to return today for additional help.

Eric Selk, director of outreach with the Hope Now Alliance, said organizers also were warning homeowners to avoid people seeking payment to rework loans or modify foreclosures.

“We know that’s been happening in California,” he said. “… There are unscrupulous operators out there. The (services) here are free.”

Friday’s workshop commenced amid some progress.

The U.S. Treasury said mortgage lenders permanently modified 116,297 home loans nationwide in January, far exceeding 66,465 in December and 31,382 in November. About 20 percent of the January modifications were in California.

The federal government and various agencies are encouraging lenders to reach out to distressed homeowners, particularly in California, where the real estate crisis has had a profound impact.

The California Association of Realtors said this week that 67 percent of all home sellers in California in 2009 did so as a result of difficulties related to meeting their mortgage obligations.

OneWest Bank accused of pushing home loan borrowers into foreclosure

Nineteen months after the catastrophic failure of one of Sacramento’s top lenders, Pasadena-based IndyMac Bank, a flurry of local lawsuits alleges that the bank’s successor – OneWest Bank – is systematically working to push home loan borrowers into foreclosure.

The allegations filed in the Eastern District of U.S. Bankruptcy Court claim that OneWest can make more money by foreclosing than by keeping borrowers in their homes. That’s due to its so-called “shared-loss” agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., at least 10 local lawsuits allege.

A video made in Fairfield and circulating widely on the Internet also alleges that OneWest stands to earn millions from taxpayers by foreclosing on borrowers as a result of its shared-loss agreement with the FDIC.

The FDIC declined to comment on the Sacramento lawsuits, but it recently denounced the video’s “blatantly false claims.” The agency told The Bee that its agreement with OneWest contains provisions to make sure the lender is taking adequate steps to modify loans.

OneWest declined to comment on either the lawsuits or the video.

The FDIC, which seized IndyMac in July 2008, sold the failed institution to Pasadena-based OneWest in March 2009.

As part of the deal, the FDIC agreed to absorb some losses from the troubled loan portfolio. That’s after OneWest absorbs the first $2.5 billion in losses, the FDIC said.

But Sacramento bankruptcy lawyer Peter Macaluso claims the shared-loss agreement will reward OneWest for foreclosing on homes. Here’s how, he said: The company bought IndyMac’s troubled portfolio at a 30 percent discount. It can count on the FDIC eventually reimbursing 80 percent or more of its losses – and also can keep proceeds from the foreclosure sales.

“They’re deliberately blowing people out in a systematic pattern,” said Macaluso.

He has filed eight lawsuits in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on behalf of area IndyMac borrowers who have filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection.

Macaluso alleges that OneWest improperly boosted his clients’ monthly loan payments – sometimes by more than $1,000 – by doing a new escrow analysis after they had filed for bankruptcy protection. He said his clients can’t afford the increases and are in danger of losing their homes.

On Friday, he said OneWest has since rescinded the extra payments in three cases.

Elk Grove bankruptcy attorney Mark Wolff makes similar allegations in two lawsuits in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

“We made the allegations that it’s a systematic approach they’ve employed, and it’s a violation of bankruptcy code,” said Wolff. He said he previously filed similar actions against Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. His clients also are still in their homes.

A third attorney, Sean Gjerde of Elk Grove, recently filed a civil suit against OneWest in Sacramento Superior Court. It alleges violations of the Truth In Lending Act, claiming that OneWest is unresponsive to attempts to modify an Elk Grove client’s IndyMac mortgage.

“As soon as OneWest took over, the communication stopped,” Gjerde said. “My client has been in default for a long time and it’s been like heck to even get them to talk to me.”

The local lawsuits represent another messy aftermath of IndyMac’s implosion in July 2008, a development that added to fears of an imminent U.S. financial collapse.

IndyMac was a leading Sacramento lender, ranking 10th in loan volume during the riskiest part of the housing market: mid-2005 to mid-2007. Statistics from researcher MDA DataQuick show IndyMac made 5,312 home loans worth $1.4 billion during this period in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba counties.

A Treasury Department performance report last week showed that OneWest has temporarily or permanently modified 25 percent of its loans that are 60 days or more late. Twelve lenders reported higher modification rates and nine reported worse rates. The report said OneWest had permanently modified 3,087 of its 112,000 delinquent loans by the end of January.

Sacramento-area home sales were terrible in January

The new year in home sales opened with a thud.

January sales fell to their lowest point in almost two years across the capital region, San Diego researcher MDA DataQuick reported Thursday. The firm counted just 2,428 closed January escrows on new and existing houses in Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties.

The tally was well below 2,806 sales in January 2009 – and the lowest since March 2008.

“I think people are just scared,” said Larry Henderson, a real estate agent with Prudential Norcal Realty in Carmichael. “I think they’re still afraid houses are going to go down.” He said his bigger fear, however, is that interest rates will climb to 6 percent this year and freeze out his clients who are first-time buyers.

January’s weak sales numbers imitated a pattern seen statewide, where the month is always one of the year’s slowest for sales. DataQuick analysts said January is a poor month to chart emerging trends, and cautioned against seeing weak numbers as “substantial lasting changes in the market.”

Despite fewer sales, year-over-year prices for new and existing homes combined continued to hold steady. They ranged from flat in Sacramento County to 4 percent and 5 percent annual declines elsewhere.

But median prices for existing homes in Sacramento County, the largest sector of the real estate market, fell from $178,000 in December to $166,000 as lower-end homes gained more market share.

“January closings really skewed toward foreclosure resales,” said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage. He said bank repos were 52.7 percent of the county’s sales, the highest since September.

Many of these repos were scooped up by investors who shopped aggressively during the holidays and accounted for 28 percent of January sales in Sacramento County. That is the highest monthly investor share since 2000. DataQuick said 31.8 percent of buyers in Sacramento paid cash, continuing a yearlong pattern that has frozen out scores of first-time buyers.

Henderson called the climate “brutal” for buyers trying to purchase their first home.

Home sales registered the sharpest drops from January 2009 in Sacramento, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba counties. A year ago in those counties, cheap bank repos accounted for as many as seven in 10 sales. That buying frenzy has since slowed.

Sales rose from January 2009 in the more affluent suburban, rural and resort counties: Placer, El Dorado, Nevada and Amador. They had few bank repo sales early last year, making their low 2009 tallies easy to beat, LePage said.

Regionally, January marked a seventh straight month of sales numbers that failed to beat those of the same time a year earlier. That pattern follows 14 months of year-over-year sales gains that ran from April 2008 to June 2009. Many of those gains overlapped with a buying frenzy ignited by banks dumping thousands of discounted repo properties onto the market.

LePage said January’s higher percentage of foreclosure resales “is more cleanup of a mess we already know about.” He said there are still no indicators of another massive wave of repo listings.

“If there’s going to be a new wave of foreclosures we’re going to see those first in notices of default (the first step of the foreclosure process), and we haven’t seen that. They’re elevated but it hasn’t taken off.”

Home Front: Foreclosures’ collateral damage widespread

If you’re among the thousands of Sacramento-area homeowners who played it conservative during the housing boom, who didn’t refinance or flip to a bigger house, everyone else’s foreclosures reached out and smacked you anyway.

Sales prices are lower. There’s less home equity to tap into. Local services have been shredded by falling property tax revenue.

Such repo collateral damage is why so many owners who pay their mortgages on time are so grouchy.

Rob Wassmer hasn’t been affected so much. Fourteen years ago he bought an east Sacramento house – in the Fab 40s – cheaply at the very bottom of the last housing bust. His older neighborhood has largely escaped the brunt of 52,000 foreclosures across the Sacramento region since 2007.

But Wassmer knows the financial whipping people have taken in Lincoln, Elk Grove, North Highlands and Yuba City. Being an academic, he knew there had to be a number for the carnage.

“I knew this kind of research had been done. I wanted to do a study of Sacramento,” said Wassmer, chairman of California State University, Sacramento’s department of public policy and administration.

Wassmer analyzed $9 billion in sales prices from 36,822 home sales in Sacramento, Yolo, Yuba, Sutter, Placer and El Dorado counties between January 2008 and June 2009. Almost half were homes sold by banks. The other half were sold by regular folks.

He concluded that the foreclosed homes cost this one region of America $2.7 billion in price cuts and lost equity over just 18 months.

• The repos sold for $659 million less simply because they were bank-owned and differed from normal sales. They took $1 billion more in price cuts because they were near other repos.

• Both reductions then stripped $1 billion from sale prices of nearby homes never in foreclosure danger.

Collectively, these foreclosures cost local governments $27.1 million in property taxes. Reassessments will likely take more.

Said Wassmer, “This is a call for regulation.” He suggests a federal law to make lenders and borrowers meet in “structured mediation” at least once before foreclosure.

Few ideas have proved so far to be the solution. See the research directly at: >www.csus.edu/indiv/w/wassmerr/ResForeclosure.pdf

State tax credit confusion

Tax preparation season is already disappointing some 2009 California home buyers who aren’t getting a full three-year, $10,000 tax credit for buying a new home.

A Lincoln buyer called Home Front saying his 2009 credit will be about $300 – well short of the $3,333 he’d expected to get for each of the next three years.

Spokeswoman Brenda Voet of the California Franchise Tax Board told Home Front that the size of the credit depends on the buyer’s specific tax situation. “It’s a dollar for dollar credit for taxes owed,” she said.

That means if you owe $300 in state taxes you get a credit for the $300 and don’t owe it. If you owe $4,000 in state taxes you get a credit for $3,333 and pay $667.

No one gets money from the state above what they owe, Voet said.

Investors plunking down cash for homes

Investors paying cash for houses accounted for one in four home sales during the past year in Sacramento County and West Sacramento, becoming dominating players in a distressed market and squeezing out scores of first-time buyers, 2009 statistics now show.

Many of these cash buyers are from the Bay Area. They’ve re-established that region’s traditional link to Sacramento real estate and are scoring houses at up to 10 percent off listing prices, local market participants say.

Buying with cash, says local broker associate Jim Swanson, is another Sacramento “gold rush.”

Carey Covey, a Cook Realty agent in Sacramento, said he recently sold a bank repo to a Sunnyvale investor by phone.

“I never met him. He never saw the property,” Covey said.

He paid $55,000 – in cash.

Cash buys suggest there’s still plenty of money out there despite the bad economy. And it’s flowing into a market where repo prices in 2009 often remained well below $100,000 or even $70,000.

“There are some people who have money in a 401(k) and want to find better use for it,” said Swanson of Prudential California Realty. “I have clients taking cash out of properties they already own and using that money to buy real estate. I have one cash buyer who planned to use loans, but he had plenty of savings.”

Cash buyers can obtain discounts not available to others, and their purchases seldom fall out of escrow. They have pushed aside first-time buyers who can’t compete.

“I have lists and lists and lists of houses I have looked at and put offers on. Everything has been investors, investors, investors,” said Kimii Carter, a city employee in West Sacramento. Carter said she made offers on 30 houses south of downtown Sacramento, including a $145,000 bid on a $114,000 listing she wanted for herself and two daughters.

“They said, ‘We already have a cash offer,’ ” Carter said.

“All the buyers will agree. This is what I’m hearing every day,” said Barbara Rohwer Harsch, president of the Sacramento Association of Realtors.

For months, first-time buyers have complained of losing bidding wars to investors often paying with cash. But now a year of data prove the pattern. Cash buyers were 26.7 percent of January sales in Sacramento County and West Sacramento, according to SAR.

In every month of 2009, cash buyers ranged from 23.7 percent to 27.7 percent of closed escrows, SAR reported. Researchers at La Jolla-based MDA DataQuick, which counts more sales than SAR, says the Sacramento County cash-buy percentage is even higher.

“It’s been in the 27 percent to 32 percent range for the past year,” company analyst Andrew LePage said.

Swanson, researching data from Sacramento’s MetroList Services, said cash buyers accounted for 60 percent of January sales under $100,000 in Sacramento County.

“One of my clients bought five or six last year. Another bought two,” he said. Many are in areas devastated by risky adjustable-rate loans: North and south Sacramento, Del Paso Heights, North Highlands and Rancho Cordova.

Swanson, too, made a cash buy in 2008, paying $38,000 for a two-bedroom, one-bath home in Del Paso Heights. He spent $14,000 on repairs and then rented it out.

Sacramento general contractor Bruce Morse said he bought four houses and a duplex with cash the past two years. Prices ranged from $50,000 to $120,000. Morse repairs, rents and holds, saying, “This is my retirement plan.

“I had cash from a home equity loan and my aunt lent me some money. My dad lent me a little money,” he said.

Morse said paying cash makes it “a little easier dealing with banks. “They just know it’s cash and they don’t have to worry about too much else.”

Analysts have long said banks prefer cash as a quick and easy way to shore up their bottom lines, eroded by defaults across the United States, and particularly in California. Twelve percent of mortgages in Sacramento, Placer, Yolo and El Dorado counties are 90 days behind on payments, somewhere in the foreclosure process or related to a bank repo with a for-sale sign out front, says Orange County analyst First American Core- Logic.

But those not suffering such privations still have plenty of cash, especially in the Bay Area, said Matthew Anderson, partner at Oakland-based Foresight Analytics, a real estate consulting firm.

“In California, 12 percent unemployment means there’s still 88 percent of the work force that have jobs and incomes, and a lot of people still have quite decent incomes,” he said.

A DataQuick survey of second-home purchases by Bay Area investors last July, August and September ranked Sacramento as their top target. Elk Grove ranked 10th behind Las Vegas, Stockton and other Central Valley markets.

Mike Lyon, head of Sacramento’s Lyon Real Estate, estimates that two-thirds of the Sacramento region’s cash buyers are Bay Area investors.

Anderson said investors see this as an “attractive time to be buying, especially if you’re going to turn around and leverage (borrow against) the investment. It’s a cheap time to be borrowing money.”

But that kind of finance is little comfort to buyers like Carter. She’s in escrow on her first house, but it’s smaller than she hoped and not exactly what she wanted.

“I felt I had to take it. It’s my only option,” she said, recounting her many losing bids since November. “It’s really discouraging for somebody trying to buy their first house. It shouldn’t be like this, but it is.”

Watch Out For Negative Equity

Do you own a home which has negative equity and are wondering how this occurred? The answer is simple. Negative equity occurs when you purchase a home using a home loan and the home prices begin to decline due to economic slowdown. The home value now decreases below the value principally on mortgage. This condition is called negative equity. It can be calculated by taking the value of the home, less the balance on the remaining loan.
An important aspect in the performance of home loans in the third quarter of 2009 was the high resale of foreclosures. This came up to one fifth of the total home sales in the real estate market. Also 26.5% of homes were sold for prices lower than what the original owner had paid.
Year after year, the prices of homes are declining. The recent fall was recorded at 6.9% reaching $194,000. The percentage of homes in negative equity was read to 21% in the third quarter, unlike 23% in the second quarter. It was when home values stabilized that many homes were also foreclosed in the same period. The third quarter readings show a dramatic decline in the negative equity conditions. This decrease in the percentage of home owners with negative equity is a positive sign to the economy. This is directly related to the stabilization of home prices in the next two quarters. This also indicates the percentage of home owners who have lost their homes to foreclosures in the second and first quarters.
The following months are expected to be crucial for the real estate industry. The winter analysis had predicted a rise in the percentage of foreclosed homes in the slow market, leading to a decline in the prices. But now with the extension of the tax credit period and sanction of $8000 tax credit for first time home buyers and $6,500 tax credit for repeat buyers, there could be an increase in the demand for homes that would lower the percentage of foreclosed homes. This is likely to bring stability in the prices of homes all through the state. But the major question is how long this stability will last after the tax credit period expires? This is likely to create a demand that would be weaker than the normal demand.
The recent survey on negative equity had the following statements to make:
· As on September 30th 2009, negative equity indicated that present home prices are lower than the original credit.
· Foreclosed homes that were resold were mostly homes foreclosed by banks in the previous year.
When facing negative equity, you can approach realtors and mortgage professionals, who will help you to recover from negative equity.

For additional resources and information please visit the following sites.

Resource Links:
http://www.gmacrealestate.com
Bill Fields All Star Coaching Program: http://www.AllStarCoaching.net
GreatWest GMAC Search all MLS Listings: http://www.LocalHomeLink.com
GreatWest GMAC Consumer Buyer/Seller Blog: http://www.GreatWestBlog.com
T. Sami Siddiqui (Broker/ Owner) Buzz About Sacramento Blog: http://www.samisiddiquiblog.com
Brodie Stephens (Executive Vice President) One Stop Blog: http://www.brodiestephensblog.com
GreatWest Podcasts- Weekly Updates on new REO, Short Sale, Bank Owned Foreclosure Listings: http://www.HouseTalkOnline.com
GreatWest Videos: http://www.youtube.com/brodiestephens
Facebook Brodie Stephens Profile Page: http://www.facebook.com/brodiestephens
Facebook GreatWest Profile Page: http://www.facebook.com/searchmlshomesforsale
MySpace Brodie Stephens Blog: http://www.myspace.com/brodiestephens
MySpace GreatWest Blog: http://www.myspace.com/greatwest
Picasa Web Album: http://picasaweb.google.com/brodiestephens
GreatWest Real Estate Careers- GMAC is looking for Professional Realtors to Join Us: http://www.CareersWithUs.com
Global Employee Relocation: http://www.employeerelocation.blogspot.com
Apply for a Loan: http://www.choice1funding.com
ActiveRain Blog Brodie http://activerain.com/blogs/brodiestephens
ActiveRain Blog Company http://activerain.com/blogs/greatwestgmac
Sacbee http://www.sacbee.com
Company WordPress Site http://www.thehomeholders.com
Real Living http://www.realliving.com

Trends in Real Estate

Recession has had its impact on real estate too. The real estate market is now struggling in many areas of the country. The real estate agents and brokers have realized the importance of being a financial planner in accord to being a sales person. Traditional approaches to the current market do not have its stand in the global real estate market. With real estate transactions going online, agents are seeing themselves in new levels with professionalism and customer service. In such a situation, real estate agents are to be high on heels with technology.

The easy access to information on the internet with increasing computer usage from clients and agents is now the pushing force affecting the changing real estate market trends. 80% of the country’s population now shops for homes on the internet. All potential buyers have the real estate knowledge at their fingertips. This has decreased the tolerance of buyers as they want their agents to give them all the information now!

Also, the current real estate market has seen a lot of foreign buyers investing in the American real estate market. These foreign investors look at investments in America for either vocation homes or good investments. The vocation homes that are purchased by these foreign buyers are mainly the condominiums. With such extensive real estate activity, some real estate agents fear facing the foreign investors due to the raising nationalism and the United State’s approach to fight terrorism.

The mortgage market is yet to recover from recession. However, the property market has made a small improvement in making good investments. But still many are concerned about the scarcity of debt and good properties to invest on. This calls for a need to foresee the future trends in real estate.

The redundancies in financial services, property and investment lead to creating redundant office spaces. Real estate companies tied up to long term leases are now subletting their office space to be more entrepreneurial during recession and create income opportunities. They are adopting to operate from smaller office places that can accommodate a real estate team.

The property market is expected to go quiet with the business going on the internet. Technology and construction techniques are being used in clean, eco friendly and energy efficient green homes. The global environment consciousness will see filtering through financiers to decide upon sustainable development, investment, management and occupation practices in real estate.

For additional resources and information please visit the following sites.

Resource Links:

http://www.gmacrealestate.com

Bill Fields All Star Coaching Program: http://www.AllStarCoaching.net
GreatWest GMAC Search all MLS Listings: http://www.LocalHomeLink.com
GreatWest GMAC Consumer Buyer/Seller Blog: http://www.GreatWestBlog.com

T. Sami Siddiqui (Broker/ Owner) Buzz About Sacramento Blog: http://www.samisiddiquiblog.com
Brodie Stephens (Executive Vice President) One Stop Blog: http://www.brodiestephensblog.com
GreatWest Podcasts- Weekly Updates on new REO, Short Sale, Bank Owned Foreclosure Listings: http://www.HouseTalkOnline.com
GreatWest Videos: http://www.youtube.com/brodiestephens
Facebook Brodie Stephens Profile Page: http://www.facebook.com/brodiestephens
Facebook GreatWest Profile Page: http://www.facebook.com/searchmlshomesforsale
MySpace Brodie Stephens Blog: http://www.myspace.com/brodiestephens
MySpace GreatWest Blog: http://www.myspace.com/greatwest
Picasa Web Album: http://picasaweb.google.com/brodiestephens

GreatWest Real Estate Careers- GMAC is looking for Professional Realtors to Join Us: http://www.CareersWithUs.com
Global Employee Relocation: http://www.employeerelocation.blogspot.com
Apply for a Loan: http://www.choice1funding.com

ActiveRain Blog Brodie: http://activerain.com/blogs/brodiestephens

ActiveRain Blog Company:http://activerain.com/blogs/greatwestgmac

Sacbee:http://www.sacbee.com

Company WordPress Site:http://www.thehomeholders.com

Real Living:http://www.realliving.com