There are many reasons in today’s economy that Ventura County home owners are falling behind on their mortgage or are no longer able to continue paying their monthly mortgage payment.  Once a home owner is unable to make further mortgage payments, short sale might be the key to help both the home owner and their lender.

Definition Of Short Sale

Short sale is the term used to describe an arrangement between the home owner and their lender in which the home owner pays back less than what they owe to their lender.  In a short sale the home owner owes more on their property than their home can sell for in the current market.  In such cases the lender agrees to the sale of the house at a price that is less than what the home owner owes them.

Most home owners believe that they have to be behind on their mortgage payment in order to be a short sale candidate.  However, if you have a valid reason why you may no longer afford to pay your mortgage, most lenders will allow you to short sale your home.  Yet, after 3 missed payments your lender will send you a notice of default (NOD).  Short sales after an NOD is really the first step in the foreclosure process.

Documents Required For A Short Sale

Your Realtor can help you with preparing the documents your lender requires to review before they approve your short sale.  Most lenders will require that you send them:

• Last 2 year tax returns, W-2’s, and any tax schedules
• Last 2 months pay stubs
• Last 2 months bank statements (all accounts)
• Copy of mortgage note and dead of trust
• A hardship letter in which you explain why you are unable to make any more mortgage payments.

You also need to submit to your lender all contact information for your Realtor in a document referred to as “Borrower’s Authorization” .  Once the lender receives this information your Realtor has permission to contact your lender and take care of the short sale on your behalf.

Who Qualifies for a Short Sale?

In order for your lender to consent to a short sale you need to prove to your lender that due to financial hardship you no longer can continue paying your mortgage.  Financial hardship are, but not limited, to a loss of job, divorce, death, illness, or job related moves.

If a Ventura County home owner has missed payments then they are a short sale candidate.  However, you do not have to have missed a payment in order to qualify for a short sale.

How Does A Short Sale Work?

Every lender has their own procedures and approach for dealing with short sales.  Also, every Ventura County home owner’s situation differs from another.  Therefore, there are no solid protocols for a short sale, but here are a few common traits.

In general, your lender will not look at your short sale file until an offer has been submitted by a potential home buyer.  Even after the review of your short sale file the lender has to calculate the advantage of selling your home as a short sale.

Due to all the required documents in a short sale process a successful short sale could be lengthy and overwhelming.  However, a short sale would look much better on your credit history than a foreclosure.

If you need any help or advice on Short Sale in Ventura County please don’t hesitate to call me, Mana Tulberg, (805) 443-8898.

Economically, 2008 was a year most of us would not like to repeat again in our life time.  2008 will go down in history as a year in which many Americans’ dreams were shattered.  Too many of us in Ventura County said goodbye to our wonderful neighbors and friends as they moved away.

Ventura County witnessed many of its well-known establishments close their doors.  No longer was the state of the economy blamed only on the sub-prime mortgages.

Ventura County’s unemployment rate reached 7.4% in November 2008. (Source: California Employment Development Department).  Meanwhile, RealtyTec reports that in 2008, 3,244 homes were foreclosed in Ventura County.

Month-by-month in Ventura County 2008 grew more and more challenging for home owners and anyone needing home equity.  However, as home prices in Ventura County fell significantly in 2008 and continue to fall, home buyers began to return and in fact, the number of homes selling each month rose significantly during 2008.

Below is a summary of Ventura County’s real estate in 2008.

Source: Ventura County Regional Data Share

The date above indicate that in 2008 the median price of homes in Ventura County decreased by 30% while the number of homes sold in Ventura County increased by 132% in the same period of time.

The significant drop in home prices has increased the housing affordability in Ventura County.  However, with tighter restriction on home loans and county’s rise in unemployment, most Ventura County residents are unable to purchase a home.  Then again, some are taking advantage of the low home prices and low interest rates available to home buyers.

If you need any help with buying or selling your Ventura County home, please don’t hesitate to contact me, ManaTulberg, 805-443-8898.

For as long as I can remember McDonald has been a prominent fast-food restaurant and feature at at the Oaks Mall in Thousand Oaks, Ventura County.

On December of 2008, the McDonald located at the upper west end level of the Oaks Mall stopped serving the mall goers permanently.  The high cost of rent and drop in sales were some of the explanations given to the Oaks Mall shoppers.  Apparently, the long lines at this McDonald location were getting shorter and shorter as Ventura County residents were becoming less and less certain about the state of the country’s economy.

What do you think, mis-management or signs of bad economy?

If you are a renter of a home in Ventura County that is facing foreclosure, Fannie Mae has some good news for you.  Many of the homes in Ventura County that are facing foreclosure are income properties.  This means that even though the tenet is paying their rent, the monthly mortgage on the property is not paid or not paid consistently.  As a result many Ventura County renters were evicted due to their landlord’s home being foreclosed.

Fannie Mae has announced that renters of foreclosed properties (owned by Fannie Mae) will have the option to pay Fannie Mae the current local market’s rent rate during their landlord’s foreclosure process.

During the foreclosure process, the renters are given the option to remain in the property on a month-to-month lease basis from Fannie Mae.  If the renters decide to move from the foreclosed property, Fannie Mae is willing to give the renters some financial help with finding a new home.

“Renters in foreclosed properties have often been a casualty of the foreclosure crisis the country is facing,” said Michael Williams, chief operating officer of Fannie Mae. “This policy will allow qualified renters to remain in Fannie Mae-owned properties should they choose to do so, mitigate the disruption of personal lives that foreclosures can cause, and help bring a measure of stability to communities impacted by high foreclosure rates.”

Who Is Eligible For Fannie Mae’s Foreclosure Rental Policy?

• Renters of single family detached homes, 2-4 unit properties, condominiums, co-ops, and manufactured homes.

• The foreclosed home has to be owned by Fannie Mae.

• Renters have to be qualified and able to make the monthly rent.

Ventura County renters are the forgotten victims of the foreclosure mess.  In many instances the landlords are in such desperate financial straits and are so desperate for their tenants’ rent that they do not give enough notice to their tenants prior to foreclosure.

With Fannie Mae’s new National Real Estate Owned (REO) Rental Policy, Ventura County renters can breathe easier knowing that they will not be given an eviction notice just because of a foreclosure proceeding.

If you need any more information regarding Fannie Mae’s National REO Rental Policy please don’t hesitate to contact me, Mana Tulberg, (805) 443-8898.

In October 2008, the Housing Rescue Bill, also known as the HOPE For Home Owners Act, was put into effect.  The HOPE for Home Owners Act offers home owners who are at the risk of loosing their home a means to refinance their existing loan to a 30-year-fixed FHA insured mortgage.  The Act does require the home owner’s current lender to voluntary write-down the home owners outstanding mortgage balance for less than the home’s current appraised market value.  So far a limited number of lenders have participated.  Then again, not many home owners have embraced the HOPE for Home Owners Act.  The Act requires that home owners share 50% of any appreciation with the FHA when they resell their home.

The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Steve Preston, has even announced that the Federal’s governments effort to help struggling home owners has been a failure.

“The three-year program was supposed to help 400,000 borrowers avoid foreclosure.  But it has attracted only 312 applications since its October launch because it is too expensive and onerous for lenders and borrowers alike, Preston said in an interview.”

Source: Washingtonpost

Given this assessment, it’s no surprise that many home owners and their lenders have found Mortgage Modification much more useful.

It is in the lender’s interest to keep the borrower’s (home owner’s) loan rather than selling the loan to the Federal Housing Administration.  In a mortgage modification the lender may surrender some of the original loan principle or agree to different terms, but the home owner/borrower will continue paying the lender with the interest due on the remaining balance of the loan.

How Is Mortgage Modification Different From The HOPE For Home Owners Act

• In a mortgage modification the home owner still deals with their own lender.

• In a mortgage modification the home owner does not have to share any profit they may make as a result of the sale of their home with the Federal Government.

• In a mortgage modification home owners may modify the loan of their residential, income, vacation, or secondary properties.

• In a loan modification home owners do not have to pay the Loan origination fees and appraisal fess associated with HOPE for Home Owners Act.

• In a loan modification process the home owner will have to pay for the fees of the company they have hired to modify their loan.  The fees associated with the HOPE for Home Owners Act process will be absorbed by the home owner’s lender.

Loan modification or HOPE for Home Owners ACT are some of the programs available to current home owners in need of help in order to keep their home.

Whereas, loan modification might be the right answer for some home owners, for others the HOPE for Home Owners Act may be the only way to save their home.  In both cases please study your options carefully and keep in mind that if your first try does not produce any results, don’t give up.

If you are interested in learning more about loan modification or HOPE for Home Owners ACT please don’t hesitate to call me, Mana Tulberg, (805) 443-8898.

During the second week of 2009 I was notified that the offers my clients (two different Ventura County home buyers) had submitted on two different Short Sale homes had finally been considered by the lenders (two different lenders).

You see, in September and then in October of 2008, my clients placed an offer on two different properties in Oxnard, Ventura County, California.  At the time that my clients placed their offers on these two homes, our offers were the best and highest offers.

For many weeks, my clients waited patiently for the lenders to study the short sale file and the associated offers.  Meanwhile, I recommended to my buyers that we continue looking at more properties until we received news of confirmation from the lenders.

Finally, the lenders came back with the price at which they are willing to short sale these homes.

In both cases my clients’ offers were very close to the price the lenders were willing to short sell these properties.  However, both of my clients choose not to buy these homes they had once fallen in love with and were willing to call home just two – three months earlier!!!!

Why you may ask?

Since the time of my clients’ offer the average home prices in Oxnard have fallen by 15.7%.

The amount of time it takes for lenders to:

1. Respond to a short sale request from the home owner.
2. Review and accept (or counter) any offer from a home buyer  (2-3 months)
3. More recently, The reduction of home prices in the interim

has turned off many buyers from purchasing a short sale.  The continued, appreciable decline in home prices from the time of the home buyer’s initial offer to the time the lender comes back with an answer is moving this well beyond an issue of patience and tenacity to one of fiscal common-sense.  Most home buyers understand that there is some risk of future home price reduction, but these long delays turn that future concern into a real-time reality and has become another factor causing home buyers to Not Look at short sales.

I understand that lenders have their own protocols and systems of dealing with short sales.  I also understand that lenders do not want to lose a significant amount of money by agreeing to short sale a property.   However, it does not take a rocket scientist to calculate that lenders are losing a great deal of money by not moving faster on short sales.

When a short sale is not successful the home eventually goes through the foreclosure process and becomes the lender’s property.  The foreclosure process itself is a rather lengthy and costly process.  In a majority of these cases the lender ends up placing the home on the market again; usually for a lot less.

I am not trying to discourage you from purchasing a short sale home in Ventura County.  I am merely trying to point out the facts associated with purchasing a short sale home in Ventura County.

Not all short sales are this lengthy.  As a matter of fact, I have closed short sale deals for clients where the lender got back to us in 2 weeks, and 30 days after that my clients had keys to their new home.

It is very important that your Realtor discovers where the home seller is in the short sale process and keeps you appraised of any updates or changes.  Also, it is very important for you, the home buyer, to be patient and keep your options open.

If you need any further information with purchasing a short sale home in Ventura County please don’t hesitate to contact me, Mana Tulberg, your Ventura County Realtor.

After watching the video below if you feel that you are ready to look for that “Dream Home” anywhere in Ventura County, please don’t hesitate to contact me, Mana Tulberg, your Ventura County Realtor. :0)

Residents of Ventura County have not been immune from the worsening economic conditions of our country.  Unfortunately, the economists foresee additional job losses in Ventura County’s future.   As jobs are lost, mortgages are not paid and as a result, the number of short sales and bank owned homes/REOs increase.  What most home owners do not realize is that they can save their homes even before they miss a payment.

Ventura County Home Owners Who Have Missed a Payment:

If you have missed a payment on your home’s mortgage it is important for you to know that you have choices.  Many home owners in Ventura County who are in distress are under the impression that their only alternative is to short sale their home.

Short sale is the term that refers to the process in which a home owner’s lender agrees to the sale of the property for a price that is less than what the home owner owes on the loan.

However, If you wish to keep your home you do have another choice, and that is to modify your loan.  Loan Modification gives Ventura County home owners a chance to change the terms of their loan and continue staying in their property.  Loan modifications are suitable for home owners that would like to lower their monthly payment, the principal balance, or change the terms of their mortgage.

Ventura County Home Owners Who Have Not Missed a Payment:

If you have not missed a payment on your home’s mortgage you still have the same options as the home owners mentioned above.  In order for a lender to approve a short sale the home owner has to prove that they are no longer able to make the payments on their loan.  The reasons, stated in the home owner’s hardship letter to their lender, can be loss of a job, death, divorce, illness, or other hardship.

Many home owners who have not missed a payment believe that they do not qualify for a loan modification.  It is very important for you to know that you may qualify for a loan modification as long as:

• Your mortgage balance is more than what your home is worth,
• Your mortgage rate is adjustable,
• You have a negatively amortized mortgage,
• You can not afford to pay your mortgage

Again, loan modification is only an alternative for those home owners who wish to remain home owners and are able to make payments on their mortgage even after their loan has been modified.

Loan modifications are not only for those home owners who have missed a mortgage payment.  You do not have to be behind on your mortgage to apply for a loan modification.  Remember missing payments on your mortgage does affect your credit record, whereas loan modification (if you have not missed a payment)  does not have an affect on your credit score.

Loan modification has been a great alternative for many Ventura County home owners who wish to continue living where they live and continue calling their property, “Home”.

If you have any further questions or concerns regarding Mortgage Modification or Short Sales, please don’t hesitate to contact me, Mana Tulberg: (805) 443-8898.

As the number of bank owned homes, also known as Real Estate Owned or REO, have increased in Ventura County, home buyers are slowly learning the trials and tribulations involved with buying bank owned homes.

Every bank that owns real estate has its own rules and regulations.  However, as banks are selling more homes, the bank’s policies and expectations are becoming better known to Realtors.

Bank owned homes in Ventura County move a lot faster than all other type of real estate sales.  Ventura County home buyers need to be fast and prepared in order to successfully purchase an REO home.

Factors to Know About Bank Owned Homes:

• Bank owned homes are sold in “As-Is” condition.  Banks will not perform any repairs on the property unless the repairs are mandatory by the State of California and/or County of Ventura.

• Bank owned homes are sold with no disclosures.  Since the bank has never actually lived in the property no disclosures regarding the home will be given to the home buyer.

When submitting an offer to a bank you are required to provide:

• Pre-approval letter from the bank’s in-house lender.
• Copy of your FICO score
• Proof of funds for closing. This means a copy of your most recent bank statement.
• Copy of your good-faith deposit check

Once the bank accepts your offer they require that the home buyer signs a set of the bank’s own documents (bank’s counter offer).  These documents are bank’s version of a purchase agreement in which the bank informs the home buyer of the “As-Is” clause and the no disclosure factor.

Also, a majority of banks ask that the home buyer’s good faith deposit to be mailed to the bank in the form of a cashiers check.

In order to open escrow, it is very important that Ventura County home buyers move fast on all the bank’s necessary requirements.  In Ventura County, usually there is more than one offer on a bank owned home.  Usually banks counter-offer the highest and best offers.  If there are more than one highest and best offer, the home buyer that moves the fastest to provide the bank all the documents gets to open escrow with the bank.

Buying a bank owned home/REO in Ventura County is not as complicated as it sounds.  However, it is very important that you have a knowledgeable and diligent Realtor on your side.

If you are interested in buying a home anywhere in Ventura County feel free to contact me, Mana Tulberg, your Ventura County Realtor: (805) 443-8898.