Rachel Zeppinick Woodland Hills Real Estate

Woodland Hills California Real Estate - Warner Center Park Summer Will be Jamming

Living in San Fernando Valley your summers are filled with music people from through out the San Fernando Valley enjoy Sunday in harmony with nature. Every year the Valley Cultural Center is preparing what we call The summer concert series. This years concert lineup includes the returned or the popular Playboy Jazz Festival Community Concert on June 1st , preforming in the series for the first time, 1980 New Wave rocker Howard Jones on July 13th. There will be the annual July 4th extravaganza with a fireworks display sponsored by one of Los Angeles Councilman, accompanied by the Woodland Hills California Pierce Collage Symphonic Winds.

Other concerts are:

June 8 - The third Marine Aircraft Wing Band
June 15 Horace Heidt Big Band
June 22 Berlin, as part of the Woodland Hills-Tarzana Chamber of Commerce Family Festival
June 29 Preservation Hall Jazz Band
July 20 Beatles tribute band Ticket to Ride
July 27 Steely Dan tribute group Pretzel Logic
Aug. 3 Sheila E.
Aug. 10 B. J. Thomas, as part of the Winnetka Neighborhood Council Earth Day Festival
Aug. 17 The Knack

Aug 24 Starship, staring Micky Thomas

This year the park is going to have 16 food vendors in the food court.

The Children's Play Zone will include a bounce slide, clowns, face painting and balloon artists.

The concerts start at 6:00 P.M with a few exceptions, June 1st Playboy Festival will start at 2 p.m, June 22, The Family Festival will start at 2 p.m, Aug. 10 Earth Day will will start at 2p.m

All concerts and festivals are free.

So get your calender out and make a date with some family and friends and enjoy what the park has to offer.

Copyright© Rachel Zeppinick 2008 All Rights Reserved Woodland Hills California Real Estate - Warner Center Park Summer Will be Jamming Contact Rachel Zeppinick for customized listing packages.

Woodland Hills California Real Estate - Falling Home Prices

Well, it is the first day of spring in Woodland Hills California, usually its time for families who want to move in the summer time, to put their home on the market. I was just checking the MLS for listings for Woodland Hill California and saw a home that have been reduced in price by more than $100,000 dollars. At one time the home was listed for slightly more than $780,000 when it went on the market 217 days ago and is now listed for $605,000. I am watching it now to see how many days it remains on the market. It is a short sale, and the lender approved it as such, some of the banks have figured out if they make the price low enough they can get multiple offers and get more than they ask for it.

Some sellers still can not see what is happening in the market and are pricing themselves out of the market, basing their asking price on how much they paid for the home, or how much they owe on it, or how much equity they need to get out of the home so they can move up to a bigger home they want to buy. The sad truth is that buyers don't care how much sellers want for their home, they are looking for bargains and finding them.

Copyright© Rachel Zeppinick 2008 All Rights Reserved Woodland Hills California Real Estate - Falling home Prices. Contact Rachel Zeppinick for customized listing packages.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in San Fernando Valley California make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sales, call @ 818.288.7255

Woodland Hills California Real Estate Information - Short Sales Part 3

The Short Sales in Woodland Hills Ca is a series of articles for sellers and buyers to be better informed what a short sale is and how to advance with closing with a short sale. In order to surmise where we are at in the series please read part 1 and part 2.

Now that you know what a short sale is and you have passed the entitled tests as set out in the above posts you are now ready to put your short sales package together for your agent and your lender.

Before you even call your agent to list your property you should have your short sale package put together. This way your agent will be able to facilitate the short sale process. Once an offer is made on your property your short sale package must have all associated documents with that offer. You will be delaying the process and possibly lose the buyer if you are waiting until you get an offer before you gather up all your documents for your short sale package. There is no deviation to this process that I have heard about or experienced.

The very first thing that you need to do is call your lender, tell them you are intending to put your house up for sale and confirm that the lender still the note holder. or servicer. We just went through sending out a short sale package for one of our sellers only to find out that the note was sold to another lender. We had to start the process all over again. You may be able to save some time by confirming your lender.

The next thing you will need to do is write an authorization letter for your agent to discuss your loan standing, details and short sale offers with your lender. This letter must have the name of the person the loan is under and the loan number must be on the letter along with the name and company of your agent. Please date the letter. Most lenders have a period of time in for which the authorization letter is good for and after that time it expires you will need to write another authorization letter.

Here is the list of all the documents you may be required to submit. If you put together a package and then you find out they don't need one of these documents then just take it out of the package. It is better to be prepared and find out you did more than required than to submit an incomplete package. Your agent should be checking the package to make sure there is nothing missing. The lenders receive so many files each day that they can not even look at the uncompleted packages.

• Your authorization letter as stated above.

• A handwritten hardship letter explaining your hardship. This hardship letter needs to explain why you need to sell your property as a short sale. Please refer to my previous posts regarding the letter.

• A completed financial statement that your Realtor® has received from your lender. We have found through our experience that each lender has their own financial statement that they provide. It is not difficult to fill out. It is in form format with fill in the blanks. There is an asset column and a debt column and they will have a place to write in your income and your expenses. This is where it is important that you told the truth on your loan application.

• The last 2 pay stubs for all the signers on the mortgage.

• The last 2 years of tax returns for all the signers on the mortgage.

• A copy of your listing agreement with your Realtor®; your agent will provide that.

Put all these documents together and give them to your Realtor® so that he/she can get to work on your short sale package and make all the proper notations. Each document will have to have your loan number written on it.

After you get an offer you and your agent will have to put together the rest of the package and that includes:

• A fully executed offer of sale and purchase agreement.

• The prequalification letter for the new buyer. A copy of a deposit check

• A HUD1 settlement statement from the title company with all the fees listed correctly. The lender will need to approve the expenses prior to accepting the buyer's offer.

Your agent should put together a sales package along with the short sale package. He/she should have your current market value paperwork and evidence showing the offer is reasonable. We also put newspaper articles in the package showing our current market conditions. Documentation beats conversation. This is one of those times you can take all the bad news and work it in your favor. We make a very though and compelling argument and we have met with good responses going the extra mile with the lenders.

Stay tuned for part 4 of our Short Sales, In the Series as we discuss what happens after the short sale package and offer is sent in to the lender. If you are interested in buying a short sale property understanding what happens after the lender receives your offer will be benefit you.

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be or to provide legal advice. We recommend that you speak to your attorney and your tax accountant regarding specifics and to find out if this is the best option for you in your situation.

Copyright© Rachel Zeppinick 2008 All Rights Reserved Woodland Hills California Real Estate information - Short Sales part 3 . Contact Rachel Zeppinick for customized listing packages

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Woodland Hills California make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 818 – 288-7255 to find out more.

Woodland Hills California Real Estate Information - Short Sales part # 2

Welcome to part 2 of our series, 'Short Sales In Woodland Hills California- What You Need To Know. If you have not read Short sales In Woodland Hills Ca. part #1 then please take a moment to read the first in this series.

Just because you own a house in Woodland Hills California and you have found out that you owe your lender more money than what a buyer is willing to pay for it, does not mean you are going to be able to` sell your house for less than what you owe your lender.

You must pass the Hardship Test. There must be a good and undoubted reason why you can not keep your home any longer.

The Distress Test: Ask yourself these questions and look at your situation to see if it will pass the distress test.

• Did you loose your job since you bought the house?

• Did you have a bad accident or illness in which you got hurt and could not work?

• Do you have large new medical bills that you incurred since buying the house?

• Have you been relocated to another city or state?

• Has your interest rate gone up so much that it is now a hardship for you to pay your mortgage?

Now each short sale request is looked at independently. Each situation is different. But you must be able to prove there is clearly a hardship.

What is NOT a hardship?

If you have used your house as you ATM machine and took all your equity out of your house and are now in debt, well, that is a hardship that is going to have a tough time being accepted. I would suggest that you do what you have to do to keep your house.

If you bought your house on the tip of the market and now it is worth less than what you paid for it, that is not a hardship and not a reason to sell your house as a short sale in Woodland Hills.

The Asset Test: Do you have assets that you can liquidate to bring to closing when you sell your house short of what you owe your lender?

• Do you have money in CD's and Savings Accounts?

• Do you have equity in other properties?

• Do you have stocks and bonds?

If you have assets your lender is not going to take all the loss and not have you bring some money to the closing table. They will only accept the short sale if you are contributing as well to the loss. You may be able to negotiate the loss with your lender.

The Fraud Test: Did you commit fraud when you applied for your loan for this property? This means did you lie about anything on your loan application such as:

• How much money were you making?

• Place of work?

• What were your assets?

Any of these untruths or lies, whatever you want to call them is going to be checked out by the lender. They will match up what you are saying now to what your application said when you applied for the loan. If there are significant difference between your loan application, and the short sale application than there better be an explanation of why the difference, losing a job is obviously a reason for a drastic change in income.

We will not list your property as a Short Sale in Woodland Hills if you committed fraud, you will be required to turn in a short sale package which we will help you put together and send to the lender along with an offer and then you are exposing the fraud and that can have serious ramifications to you.

The next post in this series of Short Sales In Woodland Hills California will cover the documents that you are required to put together in the short sale package. So stay tuned for Part 3

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be or to provide legal advice. We recommend that you speak to your attorney and your tax accountant regarding specifics and to find out if this is the best option for you in your situation.

Copyright© Rachel Zeppinick 2008 All Rights Reserved Woodland Hills California Real Estate information - Short Sales part 2 . Contact Rachel Zeppinick for customized listing packages

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Woodland Hills California make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 818 – 288-7255 to find out more.

Woodland Hills California Real Estate - Short Sales Part 1

If you pay attention to what’s going on in the Real Estate Market (who is not) you most likely have heard of short sales in San Fernando Valley California .

You may have heard about them all over the news, from your friend or a neighbor down the street, perhaps one of your family members. We will go through important information that you need to know before you buy or sell as a short sale in this series. This is part 1 of the series.

We will be going through some important processes regarding short sales in San Fernando Valley California that you should understand whether you are buying a short sale or selling a short sale. In both situations, you must have patience, lots of it.

What is a short sale? A short sale is when you own real estate and you owe more to the lender than the market value of the property. For example: You have a loan on your house for $650,000 but in today's market a buyer will only pay $500,000 based on the last properties that sold in this neighborhood. ,No buyer will pay $650,000 for this house so the seller will have to ask his lender if they will take less for the note that he owes to them. If the lender( some time its more than one lender) agrees, than that is a short sale.

Just as there are many different lenders there are many different policies governing the short sale procedures. The lenders all have their own principals of what short sales they will accept. Just because your property falls in this category does not mean that every property will be approved for a short sale.

The important thing to understand and remember for both sellers and buyers is that a short sale takes time.

We had some short sales in San Fernando Valley California that have taken as short as one month to others that have been taking over 3 months to just get to the right person at the lender who can make that decision. It is not as simple as just sending some documents and that is it. There are formulas that lenders use and different lenders use different procedures or equations.

Some lenders are using out side services for their short sales , companies that are qualified in the business of negotiating short sales. In these situations the lender gives the company a bottom line that they will accept, basically that is how much they are willing to lose on the property to do the short sale.

And if you have mortgage insurance on your loan then, the mortgage insurance company will also have to approve the short sale. What happens in this situation is that the mortgage insurance company will pay the lender the difference in the loss. Please be aware that many times the mortgage insurance company will want the seller to take back a note for some of the loss and pay some of that loss back to the mortgage insurance company.

The lender who you are sending your house payment to every month may own the note or they may just be servicing the note for the lender. If they are servicing the loan there is an additional amount of time in the short sale process since there is yet another entity with whom the short sale will need to be approved by. This happens a lot in situations where your note has been sold several times in a short period of time or when the lender holding the note is an investor. The investors must approve the short sale in this situation.

If you have a first mortgage and a second mortgage with different lenders that will certainly entangle matters more and puts an other ampere into getting the short sale approved since the second note holder will want something to accept the short sale and usually the first note holder offers a mere trace to the second note holder however, you will need the approval of both lenders in order to close and pass a clean title to a buyer. Sometimes the second note holder will accept the sale if the seller agrees to owe a note to them and pay for some of the loss.

Why would a lender want to do a short sale in San Fernando Valley California in the first place? Sometimes the loss they will accept on a short sale is less of a loss than if they foreclose on the property. Foreclosing is not a cheap process and in California it is time consuming. Most homeowners can ward off the lender for months and sometimes over a year. Sometimes the lender feels it is better for their bottom line to accept a short sale.

Not every homeowner is qualified to do a short sale in San Fernando Valley California and we will cover the criteria in the next post in this series: Short Sales In San Fernando Valley California. So stay tuned...

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be or to provide legal advice. We recommend that you speak to your attorney and your tax accountant regarding specifics and to find out if this is the best option for you in your situation.

Copyright© Rachel Zeppinick 2008 All Rights Reserved Woodland Hills California Real Estate Information - Short Sales part 1 . Contact Rachel Zeppinick for customized listing packages.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in San Fernando Valley California make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sales, call @ 818.288.7255