Follow Me on Twitter

Report Shows Fraud in Short-Sales Cost Lenders $310 Million Annually

Dennis Norman

A report just released by CoreLogic estimate the financial impact of short-sale fraud to be $310 million annually. It is estimated there is fraud in one in every 53 short sale transactions resulting in an unnecessary loss to the lender of $41,000 per transaction on average.

Tweet This Post

Nearly 233,000 Foreclosure and Bank-Owned Homes Sold in First Quarter

Dennis Norman

Average discount on Foreclosure and Bank-Owned Homes is 27 Percent

This morning RealtyTrac released a report stating that 31 percent of all residential sales in the first quarter of 2010 were foreclosure homes or bank-owned homes. They are reporting 233,000 foreclosure and bank-owned homes sold during first quarter 2010 at an average price [...]

National Campaign Launched to Combat Loan Mod Scams

Dennis Norman

I don’t think I need to tell real estate investors about the record foreclosure rates we have seen as well as the unprecedented number of people that are struggling to make their house payments.  As a result, there are many good opportunities out there for real estate investors to acquire property at good [...]

Fannie Mae Issues Guidelines For HAFA Short-Sales and Deed-in-Lieu

UPDATE- June 2, 2010: The National Association of REALTORS obtained answers from the Treasury Department on 3 common questions about HAFA:

agents are not permitted to rebate a portion of their commission to the buyer,
sellers who are real estate agents must list their home for sale with another broker, [...]

Record Short Sales and Foreclosures Here to Stay

Over 11 million homeowners in the US have Negative Equity

Dennis Norman

According to a report released by First American CoreLogic estimating that the typical U.S. homeowner whis is currently in a negative equity position will not see positive equity in their homes until late 2015 to 2016.  Furthermore, in some depressed markets, the underwater homeowner [...]

Short Sales – Kiss Those Options Goodbye!

Dennis Norman

Back in early December I did a post on a different blog about a new program that was announced in November, the Home Affordable Foreclosures Alternative (HAFA) Program which is scheduled to go into effect April 5, 2010.  HAFA is a program to help provide alternatives to homeowners that are facing foreclosure.  The [...]

Short Sales increase 45 percent in 2nd quarter; Foreclosures up by 23 percent

Dennis Norman

Many investors see short-sales and foreclosures as opportunities to make money in this challenging real estate market.  If you are one of them, or agree, rest assured, there are plenty more “opportunities” coming.

According to a report just released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the number of short sales and foreclosures continue to increase.

[...]

Are home sale-leasebacks opportunities for real estate investors?

Dennis Norman

I was at a real estate industry function last night and, while talking with Dave, a commercial real estate broker, an interesting topic came up.  We were discussing the residential market and potential buying opportunities, concerns about an oversupply of rental property, etc.  Dave then asked if I thought sale-leasebacks would be a good approach?  Sale-leasebacks [...]

What do title companies think of Option Short Sale Flip deals?

Dennis Norman

I have written a couple of previous posts about a practice that has gained popularity over the past couple of years: the use of an option contract to “buy” a property on a short sale and, assuming the investorcan find a buyer, flipping the property to a new buyer on the same day the option [...]

More on Short Sale Option Deals

Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

This past Monday I did a post on short sales where I addressed the use of option contracts by investors on short sales.  Since then I have spent a lot of time discussing and researching this approach to short sales.

I always try to keep an open mind when I look at [...]

Foreclosures and Short-Sales on the rise

By: Dennis Norman

Today the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of the Thrift Supervision (OTS) released their mortgage metrics report for 1st quarter 2009.  

The report shows foreclosures continued to increase during the first quarter of this year.  However the report also shows a significant increase in short-sales which I discussed yesterday [...]

Are options a good way to profit from short sales?

Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

A recent study shows that 20% of homeowners owe more on their mortgage than their homes are worth.  This, coupled with the challenged market we have been in the last year and a half or so, has led to a record number of “short-sales”.

A short-sale is something that was relatively unheard of [...]