Posts Tagged ‘Freddie Mac’
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011
Last week, Freddie Mac started a sales promotion to possibly increase the sales of their foreclosed home inventory. Calling it the Winter Sales Promotion, and limiting the availability to owner-occupant purchasers, the benefits include:
- 3% of the final sales price for closing costs. Offers must be received by January 31, 2012 and close by March 15, 2012.
- $1000 selling agent bonus for those same offers available in 28 states (Indiana-yes, Florida-no)
- Two year home warranty covering major mechanical items and appliances plus a 30% discount on the purchase of appliances.
All the fine print for the Winter Sales Promotion is available at the Freddie Mac HomeSteps website.
Tags: Freddie Mac, HomeSteps, Wilmoth, Wilmoth Group
Posted in Default, Financing, Freddie Mac, HomeSteps, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
The Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) offered by FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Authority), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was originally projected to help several million borrowers by allowing them to refinance into lower interest rate loans. The two big qualifiers were that their existing loan to value ratio could not exceed 125% (so their home that is now valued at $100,000, could be refinanced if the loan balance was not in excess of $125,000) and they needed to be current on their existing payments. Since the program was created in 2009, it has reached 894,000 borrowers, well short of its goals.
So, a new version is being introduced later this month that will eliminate the loan to value limitation. The borrower will not be prevented from entering the program if their value has severely fallen as long as they are current, and their loan is owned by Fannie or Freddie. It is projected that this will allow the original number of borrowers anticipated to be served to now be able to utilize this program. With lower payments, or the possibility of making similar payments and paying their loan off sooner, it is hoped that more homeowners will ultimately save their homes.
The details and fact sheet make for some interesting reading. If you are in a qualifying situation, it would make sense to contact your servicer (who you make payments to) in a few weeks.
Tags: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HAMP, Wilmoth Group
Posted in Default, Fannie Mae, Financing, Foreclosure Prevention, Freddie Mac, Help | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
Another interesting move from the GSE’s occurred last week, further affirming their commitment to significantly prioritize the sale of foreclosed properties to owner-occupants or investors with a strategy other than flipping. In a letter to approved bulk purchaser buyers, obtained by American Banker, Freddie Mac informs these investors that significant discounts will not be available on bulk sale packages.
In the letter Freddie Mac states:
“We want to work with investors in our market areas; however, we have found most are interested in purchasing at 40 – 60 cents on the dollar below current list price. We are not considering any such significant discount pricing. We are extremely mindful of the impact in our approaches to pricing and how it affects the values of neighborhoods should a discounted sale occur.”
With so much discussion of the government utilizing bulk sales to investors who then commit to a rental program for the properties, I wonder how this statement will be viewed. To incent a bulk buyer to obtain properties that often require quite a bit of repair to become habitable, the discount is the incentive. Rental income rarely supports the return the investor needs.
My hope would be that the recognition that providing these discounts on bulk sales significantly slows utilization of that strategy by the GSE’s. If you want to preserve communities, as these properties are returned to the housing market, then the retail approach must be used. It is more time consuming to sell them one at a time, but it will bring the best results for connecting with local people who desire to make good in their purchases. It will also bring a higher net per property. The bulk strategy many times ends up with a buyer who is not local, and never visits the property. We frequently, receive inquiries on properties we had listed a year or more ago, that were sold in bulk. Neighbors and interested parties inquire as to who the owner is as the property continues to sit vacant and appears abandoned.
So, if Freddie Mac’s intent is to discourage bulk sales, we applaud them for taking this action.
Tags: bulk sales, Foreclosures, Freddie Mac, REO, Wilmoth Group
Posted in Bulk, Buyers, Default, Foreclosure News, Freddie Mac, GSE's, Issues | No Comments »
Monday, August 22nd, 2011
If you have any interest in identifying areas with large concentrations of government owned residential properties, the new mapping tool from HUD is going to be a great research tool. HUD is calling this mapping tool the “REO Portal”, which is a little funny since we are not allowed, as listing brokers, to call HUD homes REO! Oh well…I think this makes the point better than the vernacular we usually use. The system is to assist neighborhood groups in identifying concentrations of government owned properties. That’s right..this mapping system covers properties owned by the big three-HUD, Fannie and Freddie. The objective, from the site, is to:
support more efficient disposition of REO properties to support the stabilization of neighborhoods and recovery of local housing markets by enabling a neighborhood-focused strategic approach to acquisition. Users employing HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) or other resources in the targeted acquisition, rehabilitation and/or demolition of REO properties can use the REO Portal to define target geographies and receive recent listings from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA.
To use the system you must register at the top where you will see the “sign up” button. It took me a minute on a 22 inch screen to figure out that the sign up was not a new window or page, but an overlay under the U.S. map that required scrolling to find. Creating an account was simple after that.
The “Select A State” function is not working this morning but I was able to just enter a city name and have the map zoom to the city. It took some playing around to understand, and it takes the map a little while to load, but notice the icons on top to distinguish the different types of owners and click the zom button to level 12 or higher. It takes some getting use to but there is a couple of links you will want to be familiar with that took me a few minutes to discover. In the upper left hand corner..the Map Options: Clear and Reset allow you to start your search over again! There is also a cool “View Data” option that will provide data for a housing tract such as number of vacant homes as reported by the postal service!
An interesting tool to have available for investors interested in working with the government to liquidate foreclosed properties. One more note…this map only shows homes that are currently on the market. That means they should be vacant and ready for resale. We all know there is a lot more inventory out there that is not going to show up on this map.
Tags: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD
Posted in Buyers, Fannie Mae, FHA, Freddie Mac, HUD, HUD, Statistics | No Comments »
Friday, July 22nd, 2011
As many homeowners as we see who seem to walk away from their homes, I wonder if they have explored all the options available to them before making this crucial decision. Starting with the free counselors available on the HUD website, struggling homeowners should talk to a professional counselor first before making any decisions. These counselors know about more than just HUD programs. They can also help a homeowner with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and what local agencies are offering also.
A new program is being introduced next month that is directed to homeowners with FHA loans who are experiencing unemployment or underemployment. This program will provide, through FHA, a break on part or all of the borrower’s mortgage for a period of up to 12 months. The borrower will need to be 90 days delinquent in order to qualify.
Instead of making the devastating decision to walk away from your home, start with a counselor and review your options. It is entirely possible that there is assistance to get you through this rough spot.
Tags: Fannie Mae, Foreclosure Prevention, Freddie Mac, HUD, Wilmoth, Wilmoth Group
Posted in Default, Foreclosure Prevention, Hope Hotline, Hope Now, HUD, Mediation, Modifications, News and Statistics, Settlement Conferences, Special Programs | No Comments »
Thursday, December 9th, 2010
For lots of reasons, foreclosure properties have gotten a bum rap with owner-occupant buyers and their agents. Much of the problem stems from the non-traditional sales process. Some of the issue is related to property condition. It is also fair to state that buyers agents have contributed to the problem by refusing to work in the parameters of the industry while cursing the process and the properties to their clients.
The times are changing and rather significantly. Agents who trash working with a bank owned property may be doing their owner-occupant client a disservice. Granted, the robo-signing fiasco added more fuel to the fire of these agents and buyers while setting back the confidence of potential purchasers. I think all of that aside, 2011 is going to be the best year ever for owner-occupant buyers who chose to buy a foreclosure.
Here are some of the reasons why:
Preferences. The three major servicers of foreclosed properties are HUD, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. All three are government owned and all three have placed sales to owner-occupants front and center. HUD provides a 30 day bidding preference for owner-occupants under their new program for foreclosure sales. Additionally, there is much needed transparency available to agents and buyers at the new site HUDHomeStore.com to assess a property’s condition before deciding to physically inspect it . Fannie Mae’s HomePath program offers the best financing in the industry through participating lenders. This very aggressive program offers 3% down payments, no mortgage insurance, no appraisal requirement, and frequent incentives for buyers and agents. Freddie Mac through its HomeStepsprogram is offering a SmartBuy Purchase Program that offers 2-year home warranty protection and other incentives for owner-occupant purchasers.
Condition: You have to have a history working with foreclosed homes to realize how far the industry has come in regard to what shape these homes are shown in. It was only a few years ago when we had clients that actually tried to sell homes without a trash out having occurred. Overgrown lawns, broken windows, the list of community eyesores was lengthy. There is no doubt that the entire industry seemed focused on keeping losses at a minimum with total disregard to how properties would likely only appeal to the investor buyer. In hindsight we can now see how all of that spun out of control and actually caused more foreclosures. Today, homes are cleaned out and secure. Regular property inspections by the brokers and field service companies are mandated. There is also a healthy discussion within the industry as to how much rehabilitation and staging should be invested by the servicer/owner to make the home more appealing.
Offer Process: This process scared many agents away. It was very time consuming and little status information could be obtained. Selling agents would look to the listing agents and we had no news and no way to really provide a timeline when a response might occur. A couple of things are happening to change this and make it more friendly to the selling agents. First, more and more the selling agents are going to be able to enter their offers on-line and have them directly submitted to the lender. The HUD system is what I would consider the template for others. An agent registers at HUDHomeStore.com, enters an offer while affirming an actual Purchase Offer signed by the buyer exists. Then an email is sent if their offer is accepted or they can log into their account and see that an offer was rejected. Fannie Mae is also testing an on-line offer system in select markets. I project in 2011 these systems will become much more common as they eliminate one of the ongoing concerns expressed by agents…”did my offer really get presented?”
So, as you consider purchasing a home, or representing an owner-occupant buyer, consider giving the foreclosed property market a new try. It is evolving and the changes, while brought on due to necessity, will allow us to leave the questions caused by the fall’s “robo-signing” fiasco in the long ago forgotten memory.
Tags: buyers agents, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD, owner occupants
Posted in Buyers, Buyers Agents, Foreclosure, HomePath, HUD, HUDHomeStore.com, Offers, Selling Process | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
I tweeted the news last Wednesday afternoon. Call it the Thanksgiving surprise (a coincidence that the orders came shortly before the start of a four day weekend?). The freeze on properties, most specifically those we manage and market for the GSE’s Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was over. In this case I must admit I was wrong as I had anticipated a trickle of releases..not a bulk drop. To say that reactivating all of these properties created pure chaos is an understatement. Yet, it has been accomplished.
Now, since my job on this blog is to mostly inform and not opine, I will stay with the facts. The reason I believed that these properties would slowly be released as each file was cleared is that I felt there was a file by file review taking place to make sure the affidavits of foreclosure had been correctly prepared and filed. Additionally, most statements from the large banks indicated this process would take until the end of the first quarter 2011.
Apparently, a lot has changed. It has been determined that there is no evidence of improper foreclosures. So, the GSE’s are getting the properties back on the market and hoping the former turned away buyers will return and complete sales. We would like to hear from you if you were interested, or represented a buyer who was interested, in a property that went under the freeze back in September. The most important point to make in all of this is the buyers will receive clean title and title insurance to protect them from any future issues or claims.
So..my message today. Please jump back in. The water is fine!
Tags: Bank REO, Buyers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, REO, Wilmoth, Wilmoth Group
Posted in Buyers, Buyers Agents, Foreclosre News, Foreclosure, Freeze, Selling Process | No Comments »
Monday, September 20th, 2010
Last Friday, September 17, Freddie Mac began offering owner occupant purchasers and select not-for-profits an exclusive opportunity to purchase their foreclosed properties, branded as HomeSteps homes. During the first 15 days of a listing of a HomeSteps home, no investors will offers will be considered from investor purchasers.
First Look programs have been used for some time by Fannie Mae and HUD. The opportunity is helpful for potential owner occupant purchasers who likely are not cash buyers, and need to coordinate an offer with a lender. It makes sense that Freddie would offer a similar program.
More information and FAQ’s are posted at the Wilmoth Group website Freddie Mac page.
Tags: Bank Owned, Bank REO, Buyers, First Look, Freddie Mac, REO, Wilmoth
Posted in Buyers Agents, First Look, Selling Process | No Comments »
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
When the original government sponsored short sale program, known as HAFA, was released there was no such program for Fannie or Freddie. Considering the volume of loans owned or serviced by these entities, there was a collective groan from the masses wondering when the government’s own agencies would release a program that was being encouraged on private entities. This week, that day came. As one of the most knowledgeable people in America on short sales, Tim Burrell has written an excellent piece describing the good and bad of these programs. As I have said before, any organized program is better than no program. Only time will tell if people struggling to make a mortgage payment feel a short sale offered un this manner provided a way out of their personal difficulties.
If you are so inclined, I am also posting the Fannie and Freddie short sale guidelines for your more in-depth review. If you have a short sale that you would like to discuss, contact me at joel@wilmothgroup.com.
Tags: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HAFA, short sales
Posted in Default, HAFA, Short Sales, Uncategorized | No Comments »
