Rhode Island Real Estate, Buyers Agents, Paul Silver

I wanted to take a moment to welcome Nancy Rosedale aboard to our real estate firm. She comes to us with 18 yrs experience as a mortgage loan originator, now affiliated with Shamrock Mortgage, with many years of experience as a property investor, owning a number of multi unit apartment buildings, and with great experience in real estate sales.

Nancy will be working the Northern Rhode Island region, from Providence North, and the Southeastern Massachusetts region, including Bristol County and the Cape. She will be working with buyers, listings, and of course, investors. She has been doing a large number of BPOs for foreclosed properties as well, and will continue to do so. Welcome Aboard Nancy!

We also want to welcome Glenn Russell to the world of brokers in RI... Glenn has been a Broker with us in Massachusetts for several years now, and just received his Rhode Island Brokers license this week. Congratulations Glenn on a job well done. Glenn is also a practicing attorney in MA, and has been handling a variety of property related cases there, including a land related suit that is precedent setting. We expect to hear about Glenn's work in this regard in the local and perhaps national media over the next few weeks.

Below is a news brief published by Busines Week Magazine today. My question is, if the banks make it harder to obtain a short sale, will this adversely affect the rate of foreclosures? Perhaps an "unintended Consequence" of making short sales tougher to gain permission on will result in an increase in foreclosures, which will then drive home prices down further, resulting in even more strategic defaults, and a viscious cycle of downward spiraling values, sales.

What is your opinion? How would you recommend banks handle this sort of thing so that there is less negative impact?

From Business Week today, as quoted at Realtor.org:

Banks are backing away from short sales, forcing sellers to pay extra at closing or demanding a promissory note for the amount due. One-third of borrowers owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth, according First American CoreLogic.

When their situations were really tough, most banks preferred short sales because they were their best opportunity to get the most money back. But with an improving economy, and because the losses on many of these properties have already been written off the books, banks are increasingly reluctant to negotiate a short sale.

Today, banks demand 9.5 weeks to respond to a short-sale request, compared to 4.5 weeks a year ago, according to research firm Campbell Communications. Their reluctance is frequently stymieing sales and frustrating real estate practitioners.

"It drives me up a wall," says Robert G. Hertzog of Summit Home Consultants in Phoenix. "[The bank is] holding my client hostage."

Source: BusinessWeek, Christopher Palmeri (10/09/2009)

We have need of a quote for complete demolition of a 2 family house in East Providence... we are hoping to get this ASAP... anyone have a recommended vendor for this sort of thing?

It appears that the house is rotten in structurally important areas, perhaps even termite infested... the structure was built c. 1920... We are seeking to get a quote for demolition of the building as soon as possible.

If you know of a good demolition crew that you have actually used before, please either pass their info on to me, or have them call us at my direct line 401-293-0131

Time is of the essence on this, so please bear that in mind...

The vendor will also be asked to quote design build services, if they provide such services, at the same time...

We are seeking to recruit motivated buyer and listing agents for Southern RI (Westerly area and West Greenwich) and Kent County RI. We are also seeking agents in Bristol County MA and the Cape. Compensation plan is very competitive, no desk fees, free website, well established lead generation system, no charge for leads.

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I thought I had heard it all, but it seems I have not: we are trying to show a house to a buyer, and in the comments the MLS listing indicates that unless the buyer agrees to allow the seller to live in the house for 3 months after closing, they wont be allowed to see the house. Now you all may correct me if I am wrong, but this means that the buyer would have to go with investment property lending, as they would not be able to call the house "owner Occupied" when applying for the loan. Most likely the lender would not grant the buyer this concession. Also, because of this, the buyer would forgo the $8K tax credit, if they are first time buyers. After all, it would not be an owner occupied house.

Note that this house is listed at market value, without a discount for the rent!

Of course, we have seen deals go through that allowed the seller to stay, at a low rent, until such time as they found a place to move to, say, a month after closing. But again, all of the above applies, and at least in those cases the seller was willing to pay rent.

This seller wants to live rent free for three months AFTER Closing... not 3 months from today, but so much after the closing, rent free.

Other than a very generous investor, who is paying cash for the house, the house becomes essentially unsellable with these conditions.

Question: Have you seen such conditions on a sale? Should this house be permitted into MLS, since the conditions are prohibitive? What would you say to such a condition? Would you list such a house? Would you advise a buyer to take the deal?