Where are we going?

Happy New Year! Here we are at the final day in 2008 and looking forward to the hope of a new year. Whatever your plans are for this evening, be careful on the roads, last night was super foggy here in the Roseville area and will most like not be much better tonight.

There were some great times and occurrences this past year but it was also one of the most difficult years I have had in real estate. There were plenty of clients but getting transactions completed was more difficult than in years past and much more difficult than they should have been. Check out my weekly column over at Rocklin & Roseville Today, “Sacramento Real Estate: Where are we going?” and see where I think our Sacramento real estate market is headed in 2009.

Let's Say Thanks

Take a minute during this busy holiday season to recognize our U.S. Troops stationed overseas. Go to www.LetsSayThanks.com, where you can pick out a thank-you card. Xerox and the Let’s Say Thank organization will print and send it.

All you have to do is click on your favorite design and either select a message or draft a personal note. The postcards are then printed by Xerox and mailed in care packages by military support organization Give2TheTroops®.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Whether you are for or against the war, our soldiers over there need to know we are behind them. This takes less than a minute and here is an example reply from one Soldier:

Thank you so much for the post card. It is so nice to receive things in the mail
here. Some would not believe it but the simple good feeling of going to the
company mail room and the clerk saying "Yes, you have mail" is an uplifting
experience. Even if it’s just a letter saying "hi" makes our day! Thanks
again for your thoughts and prayers.

Please take the time and please take the time to pass it on for others to do. We can never say enough thank you's. Thanks for taking to time to support our military!

Rant: Service is key to short sale

In today’s competitive real estate services industry there is nothing more important than client service. I am referring to what may be called Realtor helpers such as title/escrow companies, home inspectors, lenders and others who help us get our transactions completed.

It is this group of professionals who can make closing a sale easy or a nightmare. Over the past two plus years we have been working with a number of clients who would like to avoid foreclosure/bankruptcy by having us negotiate a short sale with their lenders. Trust me when I say, this is not as easy as it sounds. It takes experience, time, sustained effort and on occasion some luck to get all the parties to the sale in agreement. Just this week we had all our “ducks in a row” on a short sale we have been working on for months and want to close this year so our clients can get on with their lives. Out of the blue, our escrow officer went lame on us! She told us something we have been doing for over two years with another escrow company is illegal and if she did it, she would be fired.

Believing we were not crazy, we checked with the other escrow/title company we do business with. They laughed and said showing the additional payment to the second lien holder contributed by the agents from their commission was a no problem. We immediately requested the transfer of the escrow.

The first escrow officer who said she would be fired, but wanting to keep the escrow, sent off estimated settlement sheets to the lenders and got approval. How could we go from “illegal…I’ll be fired” to “…we got approval?”

I love the people in the industry who work with me and make my job easier, provide top notch service to my clients but there is no reason to use those who insist on operating with a “my way or the highway attitude.” In today’s market you don’t get a second chance.

Can housing lead the way toward recovery?

If it was housing that led the economy to where it is today, “the tank,” then it only stands to reason, housing can be the way to recovery. Sure there are other elements of the National economy that need tending but until we have some stability in housing the economy is not going to improve dramatically. Check out my column, “Next Steps Toward Recovery,” over at Rocklin & Roseville Today.

Update on my last column, Sacramento Short Sale Tales: Although we have not closed this transaction, we did escalate our request and rational to the executive offices at Bank of America and this morning we got what we hope will be the approval that will allow our clients to complete their short sale and avoid foreclosure and bankruptcy.

You won't believe this!

A good portion of the business we do at MagnumOne Realty is helping financially struggling Sacramento area homeowners avoid foreclosures by helping them qualify and negotiate with their lenders to accept less than they are owed by accepting a short sale. Lenders tend to treat us as the enemy even though we are helping them and the entire process can be long and arduous but we are good at them and there is a good deal of satisfaction when we complete a short sale and our clients can step away from payments they can no longer afford to pay and a debt that was greater than the value of the house they owned.

My column today over at Rocklin & Roseville Today, “Sacramento Short Sale Tales” is about a current deal we are working on with both Wells Fargo and Bank of America and will give you a flavor of what we have to deal with to complete one of these transactions.

They are the Worst!

I started to write a short rant about how difficult it is to deal with Countrywide when you are representing sellers who would like to avoid foreclosure and complete a short sale. My frustration with them got the better of me and the rant became an article, “Countrywide Sucks!” which I have posted on my real estate news page at jalone.com. If you have had a different experience or have any suggestions on how to complete a transaction with CW, please let me know.

Other Item: Just a reminder as we enter the heart of the holiday season, the first installment of your 2008-2009 property tax is due tomorrow, December 10th. The penalty for late payments is stiff so if you pay your own taxes make sure you get them into the mail ASAP.

Are we going to lose our home?

Just when I thought we might start seeing a decline in the number of homeowners who are facing foreclosure the next wave came crashing in. The new wave is a combination of more homeowners who have experienced a financial setback such as a lost job or reduced income combined with continuing declines in home values. A married couple with two incomes making their payments all of a sudden are struggling to when one of them loses their job have lost their option to sell their house, pay down credit card debt and move to more affordable housing because their home is worth less than they owe. Check out my weekly column, Sacramento Short Sales, over at Rocklin & Roseville Today for some of the reasons these homeowners and others should consider a short sale as an alternative to foreclosure.