Prize: $100 Haitian Victim Relief Donation.
Create a Quip Contest! Choose One of the Perils and Create a Quip Contest.
Pick a Peril from the list below, create a quip and post it as a comment below. We will take a community vote at the end of the month.
The winner will have a $100.00 donation made, in their name, to their favorite charity helping the Haitian earthquake victims!
David Letterman announced where donations can be made directly.
You can text to 90999 and enter Haiti to make a $10 donationtoo.
2 silly Contest Examples:
Why do transactions fail?
8. Applicant makes large purchase on credit before closing.
Quip: At least the store was still open.
9. Illness, injury, divorce or other financial setback during escrow.
Quip: You should know better! Mom warned you about escrowing!
Help others! Choose one of the 88 snags -below the video – and create a quip then post it in the comment section below. It’s Easy and will help someone in need. Do It Now! Please.
Pick Your comment to create a quip… Read the rest of this entry »
The Haitian earthquake reminded me of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and how hard it hit Los Gatos. I was lucky no one I knew was hurt. I only had to fix a cracked coupling on my grandmothers gas pipe in the Carlton Meadows neighborhood where she lived.
Think ahead!
I added a couple of links below this post to help you obtain the items discussed here.
‘Safe Up’ your home by addressing these 10 things.
- Make sure shelves are fastened securely to the walls.
- Place large, heavy objects on lower shelves or on the floor. They might Read the rest of this entry »
Los Gatos Home sales totaled 341 homes in the Los Gatos Real Estate market Last Year. We have a long way to go with only one sale closing escrow this past week. It was on Tait Avenue though! RARE!
The median Los Gatos Home price is over $2.6mil!
9 Properties in Los Gatos that are available are short sales
6 Los Gatos Homes are listed, for sale, as foreclosures
CLICK IMAGE below to see the only home that closed this month
Tait Ave Home Sold In Los Gatos
You can do a detailed search for homes available for sale in the the Los Gatos Real Estate market here.
The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts, myself included, now contend it has done more harm than good.
If you have been reading my Los Gatos Real Estate musings you already know that since the program was announced in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people, but has largely failed to provide lasting relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes.
As a result, desperate homeowners have sent payments to banks in often-futile efforts to keep their homes, which some see as wasting dollars they could have saved in preparation for moving to cheaper rental residences. Some borrowers have seen their credit tarnished while falsely assuming that loan modifications involved no negative reports to credit agencies.
This fact that credit scores are affected by modifications boils my brain! The program was meant to help! In fact, it is hurting too many people. How are you going Read the rest of this entry »
California Price Shows Year-To-Year Gain for First Time in Two Years
By: Robert A. Kleinhenz , Ph.D., Deputy Chief Economist
The median price of a home in California experienced its first year-to-year gain in over two years during the month of November, as the California housing market continued recent trends in terms of prices, supply, and sales. The monthly median price crossed the $300,000 threshold in November with a median of $304,520, up 2.4 percent from the October median price of $297,500 and up 5.8 percent from $287,880 a year earlier. The situation has improved greatly from a year ago during the worst of the financial crisis, when the median price had registered 41.3 percent year-to-year decline.
This supports the conclusion
After a 59 percent peak-to-trough decline, the California median Read the rest of this entry »
Short Sales are proving to become the market leader. Many homeowners are confronted with the fact their home is worth less than their mortgage. Most investors who are confronted with non-performing assets…cut their losses and sell them.
In Real Estate we call it a Short Sale. Alternatives are bankruptcy, foreclosure or granting a deed in lieu of foreclosure. I prefer a mortgage short sale.
Does your home resemble a non-performing asset?
The Basic steps you will need to accomplish The Short Sale process Start here. Execute these simple steps and successful negotiations will follow.
First what is a short sale? Here is the short sale definition:
In ”short”, a shortsale is when the lender agrees to settle the debt owed on the property for less than the full amount of the debt. In most cases “Settled” means the lender writes off the debt. You usually will receive a 1099 after a short sale for the amount of debt forgiven. The bank is agreeing not to go after you for the money they lost by filing a deficiency judgment in the future. The exception is the HELOC loan where they reserve the right to file a default judgment.
Step 1
Contact your mortgage lender. Don’t just call or email customer service or the “loan work out” department. You need to speak with the manager of the problem loan department or another individual who has the authority to approve a short sale request.
While mortgage lenders can be sympathetic to these problems, they are never Read the rest of this entry »
You can now do a short sale on your home and buy a new home without waiting three years. Prior to the new guidelines you were unable to buy a home with a FHA insured mortgage following a short sale of your primary residence. download FHA Guideline PDF
If you were current when your short sale is made you have every chance of buying a new home according to the new guidelines from the Department of Housing
from FHA guideline-
Borrowers are considered eligible for a new FHA-insured mortgage if, from the date of loan application for the new mortgage
- All mortgage payments due on the prior mortgage were made within the month due for the 12 month period preceding the short sale, and
- All installment debt payments for the same time period were also made within the month due.
Lenders are not allowed to approve a new home purchase if… Read the rest of this entry »
Guest Review by Tara-Nicholle Nelson
A) We all know that pricing is the most important part of marketing your home for sale.