Ron Tarvin, REMAX, WHP Katy/Cypress TX Luxury Homes for Sale, Family homes too

I recieved a call from a potential client recently who was considering their options on a short sale in Katy Texas. Of course, that is one my specialties, but some of his concerns and questions really got me thinking about the short sale process and what a pain it can be.

So how can you know that the agent you hire is the right one? The short answer is that it's very difficult to know. The interview process is key and yet most do not really know the questions to ask to get the information needed. The interview process for a real estate agent who sells in your neighborhood is actually quite different from the interview process for a short sale agent.

1. How many short sales have you conducted? This doesn't HAVE to be a high number, but it should certainly be SOME. It should also be RECENT. The rules change on a regular basis on how these are handled and it's important to be up to date on how the negotiations are handled today!

2. How many different banks have you been able to negotiate short sales with? This is important only from the stand point that different banks operate and negotiate differently. It can be an important factor if you have someone who claims lots of short sale experience but only with one particular bank and it's not YOUR bank.

3. Have you been on both sides of a short sale transaction? If the agent (or agent team) has not also represented a buyer in a short sale transaction, it can be difficult for them to understand the process from the buyer's point of view. That is important because the negotiation process can take time and days seem like weeks to the buyer who wants to buy and close. It's important to understand HOW to keep the short sale transaction together as it moves through the process. Nothing worse than getting a short sale negotated out, coming out the other end ready to go to closing and the buyer has moved on.

4. How many short sales have you worked on that were unable to close? This is a key question. Just because an agent has worked a short sale, doesn't mean they were successful. As I told this seller that called me, I have had ONE short sale that I worked on that I was unable to close. Every other one that I've worked on, I've been able to get to closing! It's not about whether you can work a short sale but rather can you get it CLOSED?

Quite honestly, question number 1 and 2 will eliminate many agents that you would talk to. As I told the potential seller that I talked with recently, there are only about 3 or 4 agents in the West Houston area that I feel KNOW how to handle these short sales. If this particular person selects one of those agents, I will know they are still in good hands, even though I would have loved to earn their business. Outside of those few agents, I would worry for their success.

Please give us a call if you are looking to buy or sell a home in the West Houston and Katy Texas area! We are area specialists who guarantee our results!

Call the team that knows Katy at 281-935-7255 or our Toll Free information line (anytime)

Call (877)472-5390 and use the code to hear about the guarantee:

Easy Exit Listing Guarantee Code: 7003

$5000 Buyer Guarantee, Code: 7004

Here is the freebee you've been waiting for...ok, maybe not really, but you can get a free Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast on Tuesday 2/3/09 from 6am to 2pm !

I know of two Denny's in Katy: One by Katy Mills Mall just off of I-10 and one over near Seven Meadows off of Fry and HWY 99. I'm sure I'll be at one or the other!

THe disclaimer is worth a good laugh though...This offer is good at every Denny's in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico EXCEPT the one at 350 Baker BLVD Baker CA!

DENNY'S FREE BREAKFAST OFFER

Please give us a call if you are looking to buy or sell a home in the West Houston and Katy Texas area! We are area specialists who guarantee our results!

Call Ron, 281-935-7152 or our Toll Free information line

Call (877)472-5390 and use the code to hear about the guarantee:

Easy Exit Listing Guarantee Code: 7003

$5000 Buyer Guarantee, Code: 7004

Short Sales in Katy Texas...

A short sale is when the bank or lender holding the note on a home allows the seller, who has gotten behind on their payments, to sell their house for less than they owe on the note. Not all banks or lenders will participate in a short sale and certainly not ever real estate agent in capable of conducting a short sale. It takes a lot of work on the part of your agent to successfully market, sell and close a short sale, but if the agent knows what they are doing, it can be done, thus saving the home seller from a foreclosure on their record. This helps the homeowner to again, someday down the road when things have turned around for the homeowner to buy another home.

Many times people think that short sales are only for "starter" homes. In Katy, one of the fastest growing sources of short sale home is in the second/moved up home area. Prices on these homes are generally above the "median" Katy sales price of $172,000. We've handed short sales for homes in many price ranges and in many different Katy area neighborhoods. Short sales in Katy have come to us from Grand Lakes, Cinco Ranch, Seven Meadows, Govenors Place, and Cimarron just to name a few south Katy subdivisions. They have also come to us from the North side of Katy in places like Lakes of Bridgewater, Windstone Colony, Westfield and many others.

Because of recent legislation, most homeowners may also be exempt from paying taxes on the difference between what they owe and what they sell for. Before the legislation, the bank or lender issued a form 1099 to the homeowner and the IRS counted that at INCOME for the seller. However, with the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, that is not the case anymore. The seller can actually get out from the loan they have gotten behind on and start over.

If you are having trouble with your home loan either because of an adjustable rate mortgage that has adjusted or you are falling behind on your mortgage payments, PLEASE do not sit and do nothing. This requires ACTION. Please give us a call and allow us to meet with you, talk with your note holder and see if we can qualify you for a short sale so that you do not have to go through the foreclosure process that wreaks havok on your credit scores for 10 years!

Only an agent who understands (and is EXPERIENCED) the short sale process should be hired to do this for you as it is very demanding work and not every agent understands HOW to do these processes properly. We average closing one short sale a month in Katy Texas with many different circumstances. We have successfully helped homeowners through these situations in the past, and we may be able to help you too...but we can not help if you do not call us and as us to help!

We look forward to helping you with your home sale, regardless of the situation!

Please give us a call if you are looking to buy or sell a home in the West Houston and Katy Texas area! We are area specialists who guarantee our results!

Call Ron, 281-935-7152 or our Toll Free information line

Call (877)472-5390 and use the code to hear about the guarantee:

Easy Exit Listing Guarantee Code: 7003

$5000 Buyer Guarantee, Code: 7004

There has been a lot of talk about how the Down Payment Assistance programs may be coming back in a modified form before too long.

I spoke with a lady last night who is TRULY who the DPA programs were developed to help. This lady has been working and trying to get her credit and debt in line so that she can qualify to buy a home. HOWEVER, on her income as a teacher, it's very difficult to save up the amounts of cash needed to put the down payment down AND the costs associated with closing.

A single mom with a daughter, she would like to buy a home but felt that the door was closed on her, just as she was "prepared" to purchase the home when the DPA programs, like Nehemiah and Ameridream went away. This lady called me last night, from another city in Texas to discuss some of my comments about down payment assistance. So I've had some time to think about how the DPAs afffect the home market.

I have not always supported the DPA programs but have to admit that as a stimulus goes, reinstating the DPA programs, either with or without the fico score requirements, would do just that! Here is why:

1. With rates as low as they have ever been, people are EAGER to purchase a home. These are people who can and would buy RIGHT now, but for the costs associated with CLOSING. Most people do not realize that they are going to have to come up with about 3% for closing costs and another 3.5% (new FHA regulations) for down payment.

2. These companies that do the DPAs are HUGE organizations that are making LOTS of money on these programs. Ameridream, for instance says these programs help 300,000 people become home owners each year. That's 300,000 buyers a year that MAY not be able to purchase homes this year because this program has gone away.

3. If you take 300,000 buyers out of the market, that means that you have to leave 300,000 homes on the market that are not selling. This in turn creates hardships for families that HAVE to sell for whatever reason. It creates longer days on market times AND leads to more foreclosures.

4. If you take these 300,000 buyers out of the market and it leads to more inventory on the market and more foreclosures, then you are also saturating the market with homes for sale. This in turn drives prices down and perpetuates the downward spiral. You HAVE to get home out of the market in order for supply/demand to stay in check and keep prices stable. While we all like escalating prices for our homes, the truth of the matter is that slow and steady wins the race when it comes to home prices...a small increase each year is better than HUGE increases (leading to inflated markets) or in huge drops (leading to owners who are upside down in their homes).

5. JOBS! Again, with these companies that do 300,000 DPA gifts a year, there are jobs lost when those companies were not deemed useful to the process. You reinstate DPA programs and immediately those people that had worked at these companies get to go back to work. NOW! That's over 200,000 jobs created to run these companies that handle the DPA programs...it's over $100 MILLION a year industry, or at least it was before October 2008 when the program ceased.

6. JOBS! Again, putting DPAs back into circulation helps on the job front with all the people who do jobs associated with DPAs. You know, mortgage people, real estate people, title company people, insurance people, home inspectors...all the people who are associated with buying and selling homes from the beginning to the end! You may be talking at least another 200,000 jobs created by reinstating DPAs.

7. Subsequent spending=more jobs and money flowing. People buy houses and then they want to buy home goods...things like furniture and rugs and pottery and kitchen equipment and home improvement supplies and wow, the jobs you add with that could be huge! What if that is another 100,000 jobs created by DPA as a side factor.

8. Here is the key to the entire thing...we just passed a $700 BILLION bailout with more being spent everyday and yet, this solution actually GENERATES money, not costs money! What if FHA or the federal treasury got a small portion of each of the fees associated with DPAs and you could take, say $50 per transaction out for guaranteeing the loans made this way or to go into stimulating the economy...that would be $15 MILLION generated (the DPA industry generates over $120 Million a year as it was using their figures (300,000 home owners helped x $400 fee for processing= $120 Million!)

So while I did argue for a while that down payment assistance programs were like laundering money, if they are re-implemented correctly and responsibly, then they could be just the ticket to stimulating the real estate market. And in this country, the economy STARTS with the housing industry!

This bill that has been stuck in Congress since September has been reintroduced. It is time to put it into action as a new President steps into office with challenges that we can't even imagine, this one solution at least seems like a no brainer!

"H.R. 6694, sponsored by Congressman Al Green (TX-9), would reinstate FHA seller downpayment assistance for persons with certain credit scores. H.R. 6694 is co-sponsored by 25 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle and was passed by voice vote in September by the House Committee on Financial Services. The legislation is supported by the National Association of Realtors, the National Association of Home Builders, the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, the Christian Community Development Association, the National Organization of African Americans in Housing, U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, National Caucus of Hispanic State Legislators, U.S. Conference of Mayors, U.S. Conference of Black Mayors, National Association of Black Mortgage Brokers, the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus."

I was just browsing through the MLS, looking for some of the "best" deals that I could find for buyers and investors that we are working with right now when I stumbled on a great deal in a very nice neighborhood.

This home was listed as "SHORT SALE" meaning that the owners are selling for less than they owe on it. It's becoming more common in our markets as banks seek to cut losses and not compete in the foreclosure market.

So I start looking and upon researching, I find a couple of interesting things.

1. It is listed with a company that is known for being a "discount" firm with also lower service (we get calls all the time to come list after this particular company and we do well with what they were unable to move).

2. It has been on the market a LONG time.

3. This home is not being very well distributed online (exposure is VERY limited, another thing that we have come to see from lower service companies).

4. This home is in a market area that is doing well right now.

5. This home is in a price range where we are seeing the MOST buyer activity ($200,000-$300,000)!

In a SHORT SALE, time is of the essence...if something is not working, you have to do something else. Now I know that sometimes the lender can hold things up when processing an acceptable offer, but that is not the case with this property...they simply do not have an agressive enough agent or a visible enough agency to get the job done.

Anyway, since the very nature of the SHORT SALE is that the owner's are selling for less than they owe in most cases, they are not usually on the hook for the REALTOR® comission...so why would you skimp and hire a less experienced or less capable agent to work your short sale?

My dad used to always tell me "if you don't know then you don't know" and I think that's applicable now. People DO know they need the best to handle a critical situation like a short sale to avoid foreclosure! What they DON'T know is that they CAN have the best handle it...

In short sales, EXPERIENCE is the name of the game. At ANY price...

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, ESPECIALLY WHEN TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!

Call Ron-- 281-935-7152 Direct or our Toll Free information line

Call (877)472-5390 and use the code to hear about our guarantees and to hear about our SHORT SALE programs:

SHORT SALE INFORMATION: Code 7002

Easy Exit Listing Guarantee Code: 7003

$5000 Buyer Guarantee, Code: 7004

Your Home Sold in 29 Days GUARANTEED, Code: 7005