Michael Urbinato

Recently I had the express pleasure of working out a rather large and complicated deficiency with TWO lien holders on TWO properties, same seller, same bank, and .. same buyer. Orginally my seller (whom the bank refers to in thier approval letters as the Borrower) was repsonsible for over 780 THOUSAND dollars as per the original note agreement. At frist the first lien holder wanted him to sign off on a letter that indicated that the agreement was for the release of lien ONLY and that the seller would remain liable for the balance of the ORIGINAL loan as per the note agreement.

NOT so wonderful! and NO my seller was NOT happy with it. He told me he would NOT sign it and quite frankly I didnt blame him. I was willing to go to the mat for him and thats exactly what I did.

This is NOT why I develop rapport ( or at least try to) with the negotiators at my sellers lenders, but it just might have helped. I called the negotiator and asked if there was any way we could have an approval letter that would put my seller in the clear from having to worry about a defiency judgement in the future. The response was of course the repsonse he is trained to give...that "they only have two letters, one for recourse states like Florida and one for non recourse states like California" Without getting into the specifics of what I did or did not say, lets say I asked the negotiator to go back to his superiors (whom I had also spoken with and had GREAT conversations with) and see if they could, maybe, perhaps, just by chance, make a third letter. Even if it was just for me and my seller only and only just this once.

Well a week later I got my sellers new approval letters. Of course I sent them to my attorney to review and his opinon seemed to be the same of the sellers attorney ( in this case my seller had his own attorney and chose not to retain any of the ones in Lee county FL who I normally reccomend to folks. ( SIDE NOTE - I do have ONE who I think is the smartest and most experienced whom I reccomend most highly, just to be fair I will give my customers a few names and numbers of attorneys to talk to and to choose from but this one fella is practicing longer than I've been alive and he's the one in my book, he's who I have work on my things and address "specalized issues")

Legally I cant give legal advice and I cant give interpretations or projections of the implications of what is contained in an approval letter. This is what I have my team in place for. When I do a short sale, my sellers have access to an attorney for at the very least reviewing these approval letters and explaining the potential ups and downs of them.

We just got another one done that leaves nothing to the imagination. Different seller, different scenario. This one was a homeowner who was facing foreclosure. The second lien holder FLATLY refused to accept anything less than XYZ dollars. This amount was OVER the maximum allowable for the first lien holder to approve the short sale under their HAFA guidelines. Rather than play chicken, what we did was drop the HAFA, sweep the moving allowance to the the frist liens proceeds of sale and wait for thier approval letter. AGAIN we had to ask for a modification to it.. and this is an exact copy paste of one of the paragraphs in the letter we recieved today.

Sometimes you dont need a lawyer to tell you what something means...and isn't that wonderful?? Nonetheless I have my sellers review these letters with an attorney, just to be on the safe side!

"Further, upon receipt and clearance of the Lien Release Amount, borrower shall be deemed released and forever discharged from any and all liability of any kind whatsoever, arising out of, associated with, or related to, any obligations of the underlying debt agreement or promissory note, related to the above reference including loan, but not limited to, pursuit of any deficiency amount thereunder."

This was FANSTASTIC, my seller (the banks borrower) was THRILLED!!! I welcome the chance to speak with anyone in need of a guideance in these senarios and as always my team stands by ready to advise and assist you in matters of legal and tax advice.

3 weeks ago I receieved a call from an agent from MA who owns a home here in Lehigh and who's Mom wanted to buy a home in Whiskey Creek. He said he was calling around to listing agents getting prices, doing drive bys...

I offered to partner up with him and help them scour the market. Told him I would be happy to show him everything in Whiskey Creek to find her the right home. We all met later that afternoon and looked at 3 homes. I brought a CMA showing everything in the development. Over the next few days we tore the entire neighborhood apart. We looked at everything in there that had the size and the pool. We wrote a few offers. We found one that was quite nice....Nice cabinets..nice counters...bathrooms nice...living area all tiled...split floor plan..AWESOME pool w/ hot tub, FIREPLACE.....SWEET house.

As an agent you know once you see xyz houses when you find a diamond.

Educating buyers on market value is critical if they are to make informed decisions. We went over 6 months of sales data to come up with the dollars per square foot on average that homes sell for in that neighborhood. Then we compared the value in condition of the subject compared to the rest of the listings we had looked at.

My customer got the diamond.

When got the short sale approval letter from the sellers agent we ordered the home inspection. I met the inspector and my buyer at the home. She was excited...told me she didnt remember it being this nice.

I met my customer at the property this morning to "deliver" the home to her I dont think she could have been happier. She insisted we take a picture together of me handing her the keys. First time for that. I didn't remind her but of course didn't protest. We took two pictures...she's such a nice lady..I am glad she got the awesome house and loves it.

I love the feeling of a job well done. NOTHING makes me happier than a happy customer. I made a new friend and a client for life.

Big thanks and huge hugs to, if you are reading this: The listing agent ...Tina you were great about keeping in contact and helping get the addendums done fast, it's wonderful to work with another professional who is dedicated and easy to communicate with. My trusted attorney Jack who represented my buyer in this transaction, my buyer told me how impressed she was on the depth of your research and how you worked out some issues you found on the name search......the former tenant who was so gracious about the showing the inspection and safekeeping my customers camera she left behind when we did the inspection....Christian first time working with you as an inspector, great job! Last but not least the Sellers title company who did a great job of working with my buyers attorney and coordinating all the details.

I get at least a call or two a day from people asking if one of our listings is available for rent.

More on the weekends. Yesterday I had to turn down three different people looking for a 3/2 for rent somewhere in Cape Coral.

The rental market here is booming and I'm almost out of inventory to show!

Let my problem be your solution!!! We're offering both tenant placement service as well in house professional property management for those landlords who want the rental income with out the hassle of being a landlord.

There has never been a better time to become an investor, rental properites at todays prices will be cash flow positive month after month after month.

Call or email me today if you have income properties you need rented or managed.

If you're intersted in acquiring foreclosure or short sale properties at rock bottom prices and building a cash flow positive investment portfolio with substantial upside potential, you've come to the right place!!

Call me now!


-Mike Urbinato
Gulf Gateway Realty Inc
1326 SE 47th Street
Cape Coral, FL 33904

239-200-5742 Cell
239-443-2520 Direct

Active Contingent means they have offers in on them which have not yet been accepted by the seller.

When the status is marked Active Contingent Short Sale, it means they have offers on the property, signed by the seller and sent to the lender for approval.

Normally this means your offer would be a back up.

If the selling agents are being ethical they'll give the 1^st buyer to put in an offer the chance to meet the banks counter offer before moving on to other buyers who put in offers after the first one.

So ideally you want to make your offers on Active properties if you can.

HOWEVER

Buyers fall out for all kinds of reasons. If it' a property you like, make an offer...get it in the hopper!

I recently closed a great deal on a house for a couple moving here from Ohio, our offer was in as a back up and the first buyers walked!!! We replaced thier contract with the lender and were ready to close in a week!

Someone sent me a question on Facebook about renting to own. I do have a friend who like many other people got caught up in some nonsense with a "rent to own" here in Cape Coral and wound up losing a tremendous amount of money. He hadn't come to me to review the paperwork first. Had he engaged a Realtor to represent him in the transaction which I would have done at no cost to the seller since he had already established a relationship with her she might have thought twice about selling the house out from under him and stealing his money.

Anyway heres the question and the answer I wrote back. If you use facebook and want to connect iwth me there, send me a request. Anyone seeking advice is always welcome to call on me.

-Mike Urbinato

Hi,

I was wondering if you do any rent to own type thing? My husband and my credit isn't great or even good. We want to buy a house of our own but no one is wanting to work with us. I was just wondering if you do rent to owns or know anyone who is not going to really screw us around that does? Please email me back and let me know!

Thank you
Karen

Dear Karen,

Thank you for asking, I consider it an honor when someone calls on me for advice.

I get alot of inquires about leasing to own them and not so many from people who've already heard that they are indeed very sticky, and you can get caught out there unless the whole thing is handled correctly.

So being as I'm a Realtor and it's my job to help and protect people with thier real estate needs I advise people looking to become homeowners thru unconventional means. I've allied with professionals in credit repair, financial planning, private lending and law to bring try to bring it all together for people.

If you're interested in sitting down with someone to discuss getting your situation to where you could get a conventional loan within 1.5 to 3 years we can meet in my office.

Feel free to call me or email me if you have questions or would like to set something up. My cell is 239-200-5742 email is MikeUrbinato@gmail.com

Thank you for the inquiry and I look forward to helping you!

-Mike