HomeRun Homes Rent to Own Homes Blog

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HomeRun Homes is a centralized marketplace which helps people Find or Sell a Rent to Own Home, both Nationwide and Globally to the thriving Rent to Own Market. http://www.lease2buy.com
Showing posts with label foreclosures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foreclosures. Show all posts

January 5, 2012

3 Tips for Sellers of Real Estate in 2012

Hi Folks,
   Hope all is well so far in this shiny new year!

   If you were waiting for the Holiday season to end before selling your home, there are some tips you can follow that will help you during the new world order of the 2012 Housing Market. To be exact, we have highlighted 3 tips just for you, and hopefully, these will be very helpful for you.

Tip #1: Price Flexibility. Make sure either you or your agent have all of the local sales, including those of short sales and foreclosures, so you can see what they sold at vs what they were asking, writes Steve McLinden in an article on Bankrate.com

Tip #2: Clean up. Neaten up. Paint, etc. Neglecting even the cheapest repairs can turn a buyer off. You want to make sure that you have dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" when it comes to curb appeal. It's more important than ever before, it seems (due to the over-abundance of homes on the market to choose from).

Tip #3: "Trump your techno-fears", writes McLinden, and suggests hiring a listing agent "steeped in mobile platforms", and mentions Facebook and other social media. He even eludes to a trend where Some owners are even making YouTube videos to showcase their homes, and thus, "making it easier to quickly link to potential buyers via email"

McLinden listed a total of 12 Tips in his story, but I feel that these 3 tips (not in the same order as his story) will be the dominant factors to help sell your home in 2012. What do you think?

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Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog: http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Websites: http://www.lease2buy.com and http://www.homerunhomes.com

TAGS: #SellRealEstate #HousingMarket #shortsales #foreclosures #listingagent #mobileplatforms #Facebook #YouTube #video #socialmedia

January 3, 2012

Happy Flipping New Year !

Hi Everyone,
   Welcome back to our first business day of the New Year!

   Back in 2010, the FHA, a major insurer of mortgages, issued a waiver in 2010 that permitted "Flipping", which is buying a home for a low/cheap price, and then resell them for a profit, and all within 90 days. This measure was taken to provide stability, primarily in the low-income communities, which have been overloaded with foreclosures.

   The waiver was set to expire, however, the FHA has extended their "anti-flipping regulations" through 2012, per Les Christie for a recent CNN Money article titled, "FHA says: Flip that house". Acting FHA Boss Carol Galante said that this was extended in order to help "accelerate the resale of foreclosed properties in neighborhoods struggling to overcome the possible effects of abandonment and blight". With foreclosed homes, property values drop, which can have a domino effect with even worse consequences for these communities. When the "Flippers" come in, they usually rehab the homes, which helps them sell the home, and improves the "conditions for neighborhoods", per Christie.

   Flipping was not always the Golden Child, and that is the reason originally for these anti-flipping rules (There was predatory flipping, which took advantage of "unsuspecting borrowers").

   To qualify for this waiver, the sale must be an "Arms length" transaction between a seller and buyer with no relationship between them, and there are certain other requirements that need to be met if the new sale price is 20% or more above the previous selling price.

   Christie writes that since the waiver went into effect in early 2010, the FHA insured in excess of 42,000 loans to buy homes that were being resold within 90 days, for a total of over $7 billion in mortgage principal.

   Have you taken advantage of the FHA Waiver in any of your transactions? Can you share your experience with us? We'd love to hear from you.

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Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog: http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Websites: http://www.lease2buy.com and http://www.homerunhomes.com

TAGS: #FHA #Flipping #foreclosures #waiver #properties #rehab #predatoryflipping #armslength

December 5, 2011

Property Managers Thrive as Rentals Soar

Hi Folks,

   Hope you all had a great weekend, whether you were doing Holiday shopping or anything else to relax this past weekend.

   For quite some time, many honest and hard working Property Managers were being grouped into the same category as some bad apples in their field. However, since people are having difficulties purchasing homes due to mortgage rules, etc, rentals are soaring, and in conjunction, Property Managers are flourishing.

   If you are not sure of what the functions of a Rental Property Manager are, they "handle such tasks as screening tenants, helping landlords set rents, resolving disputes and ensuring lawns get mowed. They charge homeowners about 8 percent to 14 percent of the monthly rent, depending on the manager and city", as told by Hui-yong Yu on businessweek.com.

   Time for some hard facts from Yu in the article, "Once ‘Ugly’ Property Management Grows as U.S. Home Rentals Surge", Renter household formation "surpassed new owner-occupied homes in 2007 for the first time since 1985 and has held the lead since", per the U.S. Census Bureau data". Additionally, U.S. apartment vacancies fell to a five-year low in the third quarter, according to Reis Inc., a New York-based real estate research company. Supply and Demand - less vacancies means less apartments available, and thus, higher rents. Diane Castanes, a partner at Phillips Real Estate Services in Seattle, mentioned that “When rents go up, that gives people enough cash flow to hire professional management,”

   “There has been a dramatic shift toward renting,” Chris Herbert, research director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, and as Yu said, services for rental properties are thriving "following a surge in foreclosures and stiffening of mortgage standards". This led to an explosion in membership in the National Association of Residential Property Managers over the past five years, according to the Chesapeake, Virginia-based trade group".

   This is where this story becomes extremely interesting.

   "Property management may have a role to play in fixing the housing crisis", said Reggie Brown, chief executive officer of All Property Management LLC, a Seattle-based Web service, in a segment of Yu's article. A few months back, the FHFA, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was looking for ideas on "handling foreclosed homes held by the government", to the tune of about 248,000 as of June.

   Brown "filed a suggestion with the FHFA that the homes be put up for rent with property managers hired to oversee them", which was a fantastic idea. "What’s going to change is the percentage of U.S. households that are rental versus owner-occupied,” he said. “It’s now almost 40 percent, but that number is definitely going to grow.”

   From our standpoint, this is a great idea on many levels. With the proposal from Brown, coupled with our proposal to Rent to Own these homes (to generate immediate revenue), I definitely feel this would make a large impact on the Housing Market.

What are your thoughts on this?

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Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog: http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Websites: http://www.lease2buy.com and http://www.homerunhomes.com

TAGS: #PropertyManager #rentalproperties #foreclosures #RenttoOwn #screeningtenants #homeowners #owneroccupiedhomes #apartmentvacancies #FHFA #Rentals #mortgagerules

July 24, 2011

Real Estate Is Still Our Sweetheart

Hi Folks,

   Let me start out by saying this: I am done with summer. The heat, the humidity, the sweat, and the drivers. The drivers? Yes, the people driving on the road with their windows open when the temps are 100 or above. Why? To save a negligible amount of money on gas? The problem with driving with your windows open with unbearable Dew Points is that people drive erratically. The humidity and the heat fry their brains, and they are all over the road. It's along the same lines as cell phones while driving, but it's just a different form of distraction (heat exhaustion), and wiping sweat off constantly. My rant is as follows: New laws for Driving While Sweating (DWS) - when temps are above 85 degrees, your windows must be closed. Tickets from the Police, unless you can prove your A/C doesn't work. OK, I had to share that.

   Now, let's discuss our topic; "Real Estate Is Still Our Sweetheart".

   For those of you aware of the website, Zillow.com, you might have heard that they just released an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the stock market last week. In a story from the Associated Press that was featured on Boston.com, Zillow was described as a company founded in 2004, and "provides online listings for more than 100 million homes that are either for sale or for rent."

   The interesting thing in this story ("Real estate site Zillow jumps on IPO"), is that Zillow "has never made a profit". Adding to the story, it says that "Americans are buying homes at the weakest pace in 14 years".

   However, "Zillow’s shares tripled in their trading debut on the Nasdaq stock market.", the story says, and summarizes the event as follows: "The weak housing market did not hurt Zillow’s initial public offering.", adding that, "Investors set aside housing market doldrums and rushed to grab shares".

   So why is it our sweetheart? I'm not referring to myself, HomeRun Homes, or anyone specifically. I am referring to the collective market. Regardless of what has happened with Real Estate and the underwater mortgages and foreclosures, people are still "Bullish" on Real Estate. Perhaps it is buying on Emotion vs. Fundamentals? Either way, it is good news for Real estate and for our country.

   I know, as for myself, it makes me wonder if HomeRun Homes should go Public one day. For now, let us just focus on doing what we've been doing for the past 9 years.

   What do you think? Was this Real Estate IPO explosion just a wild aberration?

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Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog: http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Websites: http://www.lease2buy.com and http://www.homerunhomes.com

TAGS: #realestate #zillow #IPO #homesforsale #homesforrent

April 22, 2011

Surprises in New Residential vs. Existing Homes?

Hi Everyone,
   All is well in your world, I hope!

   Well, this week, the numbers were posted for both New Residential Construction and Existing Home Sales.

   For New Residential Construction, Building Permits and Housing Starts were up, but Housing Completions were down for the period of Feb 2011 - Mar 2011, however, from Mar 2010 - Mar 2011, all 3 components were down dramatically

   In terms of Existing Home Sales, the numbers trended up from February to March, but down from March 2010 through March 2011.

   "I wasn't surprised by the recent the recent increase in new home construction, and existing home sales for three reasons", says Derek Morton, of Mountain View Title and Escrow. The first reason Morton gives is that, "People that lost their home to short-sale at the beginning of the downturn, are able to begin jump back into the market place if their credit is sufficient.". Morton names the second reason in relation to "fear", saying that, "As the economy begins to improve there is less fear about losing your job, so people are more willing to purchase a home." The third reason that Morton cites is that, "The price of land has dropped to a point that builders can now begin to compete with the price of foreclosures and shortsales.

   Jared Martin, who is the CEO of Keystone Funding, a mortgage company helping providing pre-approvals so potential buyers can begin the home shopping process, says he was not surprised, and that they began, "seeing an enormous number of requests starting in January. So a lot of people starting the process, just not yet pulled the trigger. I think well see an even bigger increase in April....and again in May."Similar to what Morton mentioned above, Martin says that, "Were also not seeing the same worries we saw last year about employment. Most people seem more confident now in the stability of their job"

   Steven, of Sophic, Inc., is also, "not surprised" by these figures, and he says that, "More and more people are taking a serious look at traditional homes and rethinking what their home should be.

   What are your thoughts...were you surprised?


REMINDER - I'm on the Radio Again !
Tomorrow (Saturday Morning), April 23rd, at 8:30AM ET


I will be interviewed live on a local Cleveland (Ohio) radio station (1330 AM WELW), and the interview will also be streamed live at http://www.welw.com/programming/webcast.html. The broadcast is on this Saturday Morning (tomorrow), April 23rd, at 8:30AM ET. I'll be discussing Rent to Own Homes, along with the pro's and con's for both the Buyer and the Seller. The program is titled, "The Home Tool Box", and I am slated for some point during the broadcast (close to the beginning), I believe. As always, be sure to listen in for some great tips, and thanks for your support !

   A Safe and Happy Easter and Happy Passover to those of you observing these Holidays

Have a Great Weekend, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com

February 4, 2011

Real Estate Market Forecast For 2011

Hi Folks,

   Happy Friday. How was your week? Did you meet all of your goals?

   The question for today is: "Where Do You See The Real Estate Market Headed in 2011 ?" In order for us to gain the proper perspective, we spoke with professionals from 3 pieces of the Real Estate "Pie": A Real Estate Advisor, A Real Estate Investor, and A Real Estate Attorney.

   The Real Estate Advisor that we spoke with is John Rymer, of Rymer Strategies in Tampa. Rymer discusses the continuous, "downward pressure in the form of added supply from foreclosures and banks finally disposing of long-distressed condominiums in many sunbelt locations", as well as the, "tightening of credit standards" from the, "GSE's (Freddie and Fannie) and overly zealous overlays from the major mortgage banks that have made mortgage approval the most difficult in generations."

   Rymer tells us that, "As any renter will tell you, patience has been well rewarded in this downturn and strategic buyers who jumped in during 2008 - 2009 have been penalized are now gun shy about putting more money, or recommending to other to put money into real estate.". In addition, Rymer reminds us that the, "affordability of homeownership is at a 50 year record.", and warns that, "Sooner or later greed always overcomes fear". "Will 2011 be the year that we see a significant uptick in housing?", questions Rymer, rhetorically, "and replies, "Perhaps not until late in the year, but headlines seem to focus on the negative, so look for any good news to be buried on page 6."

   For the perspective from a Real Estate Investor, we spoke with Marc Sherby, the "Sheriff Sale Guru", who believes that foreclosures will continue to be one of the, "hottest segments of the market in 2011, in spite of the robo-signing incident." Sherby has seen a drop-off in foreclosures at the end of Q4 in 2010 due to banks, "checking and rechecking their paperwork.", but says that, "as the lenders get their paperwork houses in order and as the continued sales are carried out, and as new properties are coming up for sale there will most likely be a deluge of housing on the market. That is why I see the market headed to another record year in foreclosures, as do most experts."

   Sherby says that for those who are educated in purchasing foreclosures, "the buys will be extremely good to great as banks chop prices even further to move product from their non-performing assets inventory.", and says that while retail prices are still dropping in some markets, some others are stabilizing.

   Troy Doucet a Real Estate Attorney, provides our Real Estate Attorney perspective, and says that he sees the Real Estate market, "continuing to stagnate this year into next.", and states that, "as the pressure of debt continues to grow on state and local governments, we will begin to see interest rates rise. As interest rates rise in the bond markets, rates will rise for homebuyers, meaning buying a home will become more expensive and will discourage buyers." Just as our other commentators have said in this article, Doucet also points to the number of foreclosures and the, "lender's shadow inventories of homes" as major contributors to the, "market's stagnation."

   How about your point of view? What do you think about the 2011 Real Estate Market? We'd love to hear your comments.

Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com
 

TAGS: #realestate #foreclosure # shortsale
 
 

November 24, 2010

Do the Housing Numbers Make You Dizzy?

Hi Folks,


   Hope you've had a great short week, and you're ready for the Feast !

   As we discussed on Monday, there were quite a bit of pivotal numbers coming out, and I wanted to take a look at them together with you. Whether this will aid in your digestion tomorrow will remain to be seen.

   New Residential Sales: October came in at 8.1% below September and 28.5% below October 2009, and compared to the same numbers released last month, which showed a 6.6 percent short term increase, but was also substantially below the previous year (21.5 percent decrease). What happened to another short-term increase? Where did that go?

   Existing-Home Sales: The figures for October came in 2.2% below September, and 25.9% below October 2009, reflecting, of course, the tax credit frenzy during that period of time.

   FHFA Quarterly Index: This purchase-only FHFA house price index showed a 1.6% drop from the 2nd Quarter to the 3rd Quarter, and a 3.2% drop from the same period in 2009. The biggest movers were the Mountain Division of the US, which was down 4%, while the New England Division rose 0.9%

   We still have a long way to go until we start seeing rock-solid numbers coming out with every new release, and it certainly will, as we cannot create more land, just more houses!

   As a final note, we will be doing a very informative piece on Friday, which will cover the topic of Bank REOs and Foreclosures, so be sure to tune-in (and digest).

Have a Safe and Happy Thanksgiving
...and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com

July 30, 2010

Will the Housing Market Recover?

Welcome to Friday!


   Can it possibly be August? It certainly is, and folks, we are still in the midst of a housing crisis. Yes, I used the word, "crisis". There are definitely markets showing signs of recovery, as we have discussed in a previous post (http://www.blogging.lease2buy.com/2010/06/foreclosure-preventionimproved-housing.html), however, the rest of the market is struggling.

   An article recently cited the "6 Reasons the Housing Market Hasn't Recovered" (with credit to Luke Mullins of U.S. News and World Report), and the reasons were:

1) Labor market
2) Household formation
3) Foreclosures
4) Tight credit
5) Falling home prices
6) Selling your other home

   Two of these I found very interesting, and the first being "Household Formation". This is an angle that I personally have never thought about before, and might I add that it is a very good observation. What the author is saying is that basically, people cannot afford to branch out and purchase a home. People have fallen on hard times, and some have moved in with friends and family. Some couples who are looking to get married and purchase a home are perhaps holding off and staying in their rented apartment until things recover. Overall, a very good observation.

   The other point was that of, "Selling your other home". This has always been a problem, but is amplified during a market with falling housing prices, coupled with falling credit scores and income (or lack thereof). When you need to sell your home before you are able to purchase a new home, this takes it's toll. People are always looking to up size, downsize, or need to sell since they are moving. As we are seeing creative real estate options becoming more mainstream, such as Rent to Own (See our recent Blog post on this: http://www.blogging.lease2buy.com/2010/06/rent-to-own-transactions-move-into.html ), this will hopefully mitigate this factor from inhibiting our recovery.

   In keeping with our discussion, next week, there will be some important numbers released, which are the Construction Spending figures on Monday, and the Pending Home Sales Index numbers on Tuesday. Let's keep any eye on these together.

   Do you have any gripes about this market? What are your thoughts?

Have a Great Weekend, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !

July 28, 2010

Toxic Asset Fraud...Does it Upset You?

Good Morning Everyone,


   I hope you're having a great week ! Thank you for your comments on our 3-part series on the home-building process, and to those of you who have asked about turning a pre-built home into a Rent to Own arrangement, we mentioned in our last part of the series that, "...there are many builders who build homes and will then Rent them with an Option to Buy (Rent to Own Homes), so it requires a little bit of homework on your end to find these builders." It will be on a hit and miss basis, but for those builders that read our Blog, please feel free to raise your hand if you would be amenable to a Rent to Own on your properties.

   The other day, I heard an insane story on NPR (Public Radio), about an investigation that was done by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, where they looked at 19 Million Real Estate Transactions in Florida and found that, "...more than 50,000 Florida properties flipped under suspicious circumstances from 2000 through 2008", and they commented that, "Those flips artificially drove up housing prices and tax bills and contributed to the crush of foreclosures".

   NPR took a closer look at this investigation and purchased a piece of the bonds that are backed by these "toxic assets", and with the help of the Herald-Tribune (and reporter Michael Braga), they were able to see some of the people behind their toxic purchase (as part of those 50,000+ suspicious deals). This massive amount of suspicious deals included one attorney who defaulted on 5 loans totaling 3.6 Million dollars! Additionally, some of the other loans were tied into a group of investors who lied to banks to get loans. Overall, it was a frightening glimpse of what was going on under our noses.

   Can this happen again? We certainly hope not. But mankind is funny; there is good and bad. The bad are always finding new loopholes and ways to get around the rules. So it takes diligence and we need to always keep fresh in our memory the disaster these people have caused, the homes that have been lost, the livelihoods that have been lost. This has changed the Socio-Economic landscape for everyone for a long time to come. OK, time for the punishment to be be handed out ! We welcome your comments and thoughts, since this is a hot-button topic that irritates a lot of people (like myself)...

   Side Note: The full copy of our past few months of Blog Posts is available to download for Free ! You can use the following link (CLICK HERE) to download and save your copy today (it is in .pdf format). Enjoy !

Have a Great Day, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !