Jose Lopez

A short sale is the best way for a homeowner to get the Gorilla off their back. I say Gorilla because it is a big problem. A house that is sitting on the market for a couple of years with no offers and a declining market can wreac havoc on people.

I just talked recently with an old friend that has just become separated. They were the nicest couple and could light up a room upon entering. They were easy to be with and always a great laugh. But like many others, they go caught up in the real estate frenzy, bought one too many properties, and hit bottom. But they did not stop there, there were marital problems, and then separation. Let's hope that it ends the right way, them getting back together again. But this is representative of what can happen to people in this type of situation. Foreclosures can be devastating to a family and relationship.

Short sales can be the best answer out of the housing debt. You just have to find a knowledgeable real estate agent that can help you navigate the complex and tedious process. It has many pitfalls but winning at the end can be a great experience. It does not matter how much money you make, or what you do for a living. I am currently working a short sale where the owner is an attorney. He bought his condo for $460k in 2006, and the purchase contract is for $165k. That's right, a $300k loss. Ouch!

My advise to anyone looking at doing a short sale is to first find the best real estate agent to help you. By best agent, I do not mean the biggest name in town, I mean the agent with the most experience in doing short sales. Be careful, many agents are running away from short sales because of the amount of work involved. Pick the right agent and they will take you to the promised land!!

Jose Lopez
I specialize in Sarasota Florida Foreclosures and Bradenton Foreclosures

This is something that all agents should become educated on. Please read if you sell newer homes. Chinese Drywall is causing a lot of headaches, literally for homeowners, developers, and now real estate agents. This is a big one people, and I am just learning about it.

Air conditioner coils that should last 10 years are failing after just one year, electrical wires are turning black, the copper pipping is corroding, the smell is like rotten eggs or vinegar. The health effects are yet unkown, but if it turns wire black, corrodes pipes and causes A/C coils to fail, how it the world could people be asked to live in such homes?? Would you trust your family to live in such a home?? Hell NO.

It seems that the manufacturing process used to make the boards is being questioned. With all the tainted products from China lately, it is no wonder that Chinese drywall is coming into question. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The fix would involve replacing the drywall in the entire house, walls and ceilings!! But if you do that, you have to remove the kitchen cabinets, tear up the bathrooms, replace all the carpeting, replace trim, replace electrical wiring, replace copper piping, repaint the entire house, replace a/c units, WOW!!!!! It is basically taking the house down to the framing stage. With the real estate depressed and declining, who is going to foot the bill for this?? The homeowners are not able to sell the home, and if it goes to short sale, then the bank is not going to get offers. So the homeowners are destined for foreclosure, and even then the bank will not get a decent offer on the property. Unless, you have an agent that is not familiar with this issue and does not disclose this to their buyer.

I think all agents should become familiar with this issue. It is too important to pass by. I am interest to hear back from other agents across the country as to their local experiences on this issue.

Here is the story in our local Sarasota Florida newspaper.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090115/ARTICLE/901150362/2055/NEWS?Title=Ground_zero_in_drywall_dispute

Here is a video of a local Sarasota Florida homeowner detailing her problems.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090113/VIDEO01/901130392/2055&template=video

Jean Considine had a great post about chinese drywall back in December.
http://activerain.com/blogsview/856724/BEWARE-OF-CHINESE-DRYWALL

Jose Lopez
I specialize in Sarasota Florida Foreclosures and Bradenton Foreclosures

I went to Alexa to see how ActiveRain ranked and where traffic is coming from. The United States is responsible for about 90% of the traffic. But I was surprised to see that India is responsible for about 8%. INDIA? Are they really login into ActiveRain to learn what we do about real estate? No and Nope.

India is a place that I definetely will visit before I die. It is high tech, misterious, fund and inspiring. I think India will be one of those countries that will be leading the way in many fields in the near future. Specially medicine, since it seems that every other doctor in my area is from India. I often use India based web designers for my website work.

But why ActiveRain. SEO, that is why. I was pleasantly surprised to see that ActiveRain has a Google page rank of 6. 6! Wow, and the best part is that we get to post at our hearts delight. There are many SEO based companies in India, and they take advantage of places like ActiveRain to post articles for the websites that they are doing SEO on.

So post, post, post early and often. You do not get to post in a PR 6 site everyday. But you do here. Use your keywords and get them out there to the web. And welcome to all our India friends.

Jose Lopez
I specialize in Sarasota Florida Foreclosures and Bradenton Foreclosures

I hope everyone saw that my last post was entirely for fun. I would never advocate taking a bulldozer to expired listings. Hey, my own home recently expired. It was all meant as sarcasm since the so-called experts were saying that might be the only way to clear out the inventory.

I can only speak for what I see in the Sarasota Florida area. The foreclosures seem to be very steady, however, there is a moratorium in place by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. There is also a lot of talk about the pending legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to rewrite the terms of a loan and reduce the principal. The questions is, how will this help the market? Will it drive more and more people to seek the bankruptcy path to try to get the judge to side in their favor? Or will it finally get lenders to understand that a short sale is better for them than a foreclosures? Hopefully, it is the latter.

Once the lenders realize that it is to their benefit to try to work something out with the homeowner, the first thing that should happen is for them to shorten the review period. I have always said that lenders are shooting themselves in the foot by not reviewing short sales in a reasonable amount of time. With the inventory at an all time high, what buyer would be dumb enough to wait 6-8 weeks for a response on a short sale, when they can go after a foreclosure and get a quick answer? The lenders are driving people to foreclosure by their ignorance of this issue. Or am I being too harsh on the lender? Maybe if they can get their heads out of their butts they will see what is going on.

But lets get back to the bankruptcy judges being able to re-write loans. This should scare the living poop out of the lenders. Imagine if there is a short sale that the lender has been playing hard ball with, and then a foreclosure judge learns that the lender rejected an offer that was reasonable given the market? Or that the lender had an offer in place, and took so long that the buyer walked away? The judge will have a field day with these. I think this will reduce the number of Sarasota Florida Foreclosures by forcing lenders to take a closer look at things and to get off their thrones. You will start seeing more short sales being approved and the review time will be weeks and not months.

So things are looking brighter and better for 2009. What a GREAT market we are in!!!!

Jose Lopez
I specialize in Sarasota Florida Foreclosures and Bradenton Foreclosures

Ok, there is yet another expert on TV today saying that housing prices COULD drop another 20%. They listed primarily the amount of inventory on the market. Saying that this inventory will continue to drive pricing down and the only way to avoid it is to bulldoze some houses down. Now if you were a buyer, would that make you run out and buy???? NOOOOO.

AHHH, there is the answer, a few good BULLDOZERS. Why did we not think about this earlier!! What a great way to get rid of the excess inventory, BULLDOZE THE BABIES DOWN!! This way they are guaranteed not to come back on the market. Don't laugh now, there are enough of us on ActiveRain that if we all get together and bulldoze a few here and there, we can make a real impact on turning the market around.

The first thing to do is choose which ones have to go after. So let's see...Hmmm... Expired Listings!! Yeah, hey they had a chance to sell, the last thing you want is for these overpriced dinosaurs to come back on the market. So BULLDOZE THOSE BABIES. An exception can be provided to any expired listing, that is willing to relist at 50% price reduction, AND, throw in a toaster too. If not, they go down!! What else.... Overpriced listings, yeah!! They get a choice, re-price at least 10% below market, or you get a visit from us. They get a letter in the mail and have 10 days to reprice, or else!!! What else.... Wimpy Agents that are willing to take those overpriced listings, yeah!! But how do we get them to stand in front of the Bulldozer?? I guess the last thing is finding Bulldozers, but I see plenty of them in my travels around the new home communities collecting dust.

So who is with me?? We need a code name, any ideas?? How about REAL, Realtors Empowered And Losing it?? Hmmm... it has a nice ring to it.

Jose Lopez
I specialize in Sarasota Florida Foreclosures and Bradenton Foreclosures