{"id":345,"date":"2013-06-07T10:10:31","date_gmt":"2013-06-07T14:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realestatejunkie.com\/blog\/?p=345"},"modified":"2013-06-07T10:11:46","modified_gmt":"2013-06-07T14:11:46","slug":"playing-hide-and-seek-with-lenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realestatejunkie.com\/blog\/playing-hide-and-seek-with-lenders\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing Hide and Seek with Lenders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lenders<\/a>Working an effective short sale can seem impossible if your Seller is not providing you with accurate information.\u00a0 The very first thing I require from all Sellers is a \u2018complete\u2019 Seller Information Sheet.\u00a0 My Seller Information Sheet is customized to specifically catch every pertinent fact about the Seller and the house.<\/p>\n

Below are several things that I need in order to review the deal and determine my exit strategy as an Investor and\/or Realtor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Seller(s) name, phone number, email address.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Property Address.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Their estimated value and how they came up with that figure.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Their asking price and how they can up with that figure.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0 Is the property listed or has it ever been listed?<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Is the home vacant or occupied by the Seller or a Tenant?<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 If Tenant occupied, I request the terms of the lease, rent amount and security deposit.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0 Information about the house \u2013 beds, baths, square feet, lot size\/location, garage, construction – brick\/stucco, pool \u2013 operative or not, date purchased and amount owed.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0 Lenders\/liens on the property, amount owed, adjustable or fixed, interest rate, monthly payment and does it include taxes and insurance.<\/p>\n

10.\u00a0 Is there a Homeowners Association and if so how much?\u00a0 Yearly, Quarterly, Monthly.\u00a0 Are they current or behind and how much in arrears.<\/p>\n

11.\u00a0 Name of the Homeowners Association.<\/p>\n

12.\u00a0 If they pay their own taxes, how much is it and are they current or behind?<\/p>\n

13.\u00a0 What type of mortgage do they have on their home?\u00a0 FHA, VA, Conventional\u00a0 80\/20 loan?<\/p>\n

14.\u00a0 Will they sell the house for what they owe?\u00a0 If yes and it is upside down, then it has to be a short sale.\u00a0 If no, then after all the debt is paid off including closing costs, how much do they want in their pocket?\u00a0 Once they give me that amount, I ask them if that is the best they can do?\u00a0 Believe it or not, they drop it even more.<\/p>\n

15.\u00a0 What are they going to do if they can\u2019t sell the house?<\/p>\n

16.\u00a0 Do they own any other houses?<\/p>\n

17.\u00a0 I will also need to know what the values are on the home.\u00a0 I use my MLS, ReiFax, Zillow and Trulia<\/strong> for sold comps.\u00a0 When looking at the values, you should only go back 90 days.<\/p>\n

Only after I have all this information am I properly equipped to structure a successful and profitable deal.\u00a0 You skip these questions and you are asking for trouble down the road that will kill your deal, maybe even at the closing table.\u00a0 If your Seller is not willing to provide you with the above information, then they are not as motivated as you thought.\u00a0 Most of my Sellers initially tell me that they are working on a loan modification or they have hired an attorney to represent them in the foreclosure action.\u00a0 Understanding what the Sellers want will assist you in making your deal happen.\u00a0 When they are attempting a loan modification, I ask they what they want from the bank.\u00a0 Is it a reduction of the principal or a change in their monthly payment?\u00a0 I will walk them thru why a loan modification may or may not work for them.\u00a0 If they have an attorney involved, I ask \u201cWhat is the attorney doing for you?\u00a0 Are they doing a forensic exam to dispute the paperwork or are they stalling to either get a loan modification or get you more time in the home?<\/strong>\u201d\u00a0 Understanding their expectations of the attorney will help you construct your deal.<\/p>\n

Many loans have been sold off multiple times which may require you to do some investigation as to who is holding the loan that we are attempting to short sale.\u00a0 I am currently working a deal wherein the Sellers had two loans on the property.\u00a0 Both were with Countrywide and then bought by Bank of America.\u00a0 The short sale lenders that we deal with are typically the servicers on the loan, so many times we are not dealing directly with the investors of the money.\u00a0 Many people don\u2019t understand this practice.\u00a0 The money was loaned by a group of investors, which could be REITs or Trusts.\u00a0 Then they give the money to the banks, who are servicers for their money, who in turn loan the money to the Sellers.\u00a0 The first loan on this deal went back to Bank of America who has no knowledge that there is a second on the property as the servicers don\u2019t pull title work.\u00a0 And if you are not pulling title work well in advance of closing your deals, then you can expect some harsh last minute surprises.\u00a0 Please be proactive on this, I want to see you closing deals, not losing deals! The second loan was given to Litton Loans but is no longer active and was given to a collection agency.\u00a0 That is where the trail goes cold.\u00a0 I have sent an authorization to the collection agency and they are going to research who has the loan.<\/p>\n

Do you remember when 60 minutes had busted the banks for Robo signing of documents?\u00a0 If not, you need to google www.60minutesovertime.com<\/a> and look up Robo signing.\u00a0 Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS)<\/b> is an American privately held company that operates an electronic registry designed to track servicing rights and ownership of mortgage loans in the United States.\u00a0 When a lender assigns their rights to MERS, no information is given to the public as to who now owns the loan.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0However, you are able to find out who is the servicer just by going to www.mersinc.org<\/a> and click on \u00a0\u201cinformation for homeowner\u201d and then \u201cmy mortgage info.\u201d\u00a0 Then click the \u201conline\u201d link and you have several options to locate which lender is servicing the loan.\u00a0 I would recommend that you put in the MIN number which you can find on the front page of the mortgage or use the sellers name, social security number and zip code of property.\u00a0 With the help of MERS I was able to find that the second mortgage is with Ocwen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a worst case scenario, if it\u2019s not a MERS loan and the seller has been out of the property for over a year, you can have them submit a new change of address with the post office which only lasts for 1 year.\u00a0 That way, all communication from the unknown party(ies) will come to them again.<\/p>\n

Again, you must always, always have title work pulled first thing on your short sale deals.\u00a0 This tells you upfront if you are going to have any challenges with additional liens.\u00a0 The title company will conduct a search going back 40 years to expose any liens or encumbrances.\u00a0 They also conduct a name search.\u00a0 The name search will pull up any outstanding credit card judgments, civil judgments (child support liens) or any other liens.\u00a0 On my particular deal, there was a child support lien.\u00a0 Although the names were similar, in this case, the lien did not belong to my Seller.\u00a0 If it did, I would have had to also short sale that lien.<\/p>\n

The best advice that I can give you on any deal is to have your team player ready that will work with you and do whatever is necessary to close this deal.\u00a0 In this case, it is my Title Company.\u00a0 I would also recommend having a relationship with more than one Title Company, as their rules and regulations change.<\/p>\n

I look forward to providing you with future tips so stay tuned or join me at my next boot camp.<\/p>\n

Happy Negotiating!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kimberlee Frank<\/strong><\/p>\n

www.SellFastRealty.com<\/a><\/p>\n

www.ForeclosuresGonewild.com<\/a><\/p>\n

www.RealEstateJunkie.com<\/a><\/p>\n

www.ShortSaleNegotiating.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Like me on www.facebook.com\/foreclosuresgonewild<\/a><\/p>\n

Like me on www.facebook.com\/sellfastrealty<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Working an effective short sale can seem impossible if your Seller is not providing you with accurate information.\u00a0 The very first thing I require from all Sellers is a \u2018complete\u2019 Seller Information Sheet.\u00a0 My Seller Information Sheet is customized to specifically catch every pertinent fact about the Seller and the house. Below are several things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-guru","category-free-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realestatejunkie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realestatejunkie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realestatejunkie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realestatejunkie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realestatejunkie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.realestatejunkie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realestatejunkie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realestatejunkie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realestatejunkie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}