About Chelan County, WA

Loan Modification Chelan, Bridgeport, Coulee City, Washington

Chelan, Bridgeport, and Coulee City, Washington homeowners have witnessed the value of their homes fall lower than the amount they owe on their mortgage loans. Moreover, the average income has shrunk to make mortgage payments often impossible to afford for homeowners facing other financial hardships. As interest rates rise with adjustable rates jump to high fixed rates, and home values plummeting, refinancing is no longer a sound option, leaving the necessity for a home loan modification.

Most Washington homeowners now qualify for hundreds of dollars in monthly savings with a loan modification under President Obama’s “Making Home Affordable” plan. Obama's HAMP program demands that a homeowner’s mortgage payment cannot exceed 31% of their gross income. Since most home loans exceed 31%, the majority of borrowers are now technically eligible for HAMP assistance.

Homeowners can immediately determine what your current mortgage debt-to-income is and how much your monthly payment may be reduced if you qualify for Obama's Loan Modification Program.

A loan modification is something a growing number of Washington homeowners are exploring in order to save their homes from foreclosure. Sadly, a growing number of borrowers who gave up completely and let their homes go into foreclosure are now regretting it.

Loan Modification:

• Lowers the homeowner's monthly payments;
• Lowers the loan's interest rate;
• Swaps a rising adjustable rate for an affordable fixed rate;
• Reduces the principle balance of the property;
• Corrects payment delinquencies and defaults;
• Adjusts the length of the loan terms

Often times, it is better for the borrower to default on their loan payments and credit cards than to go into foreclosure. When a borrower has let their home go into foreclosure, it can take at least 10 years for them to recover financially. For many who are now unable to buy anything on credit for a decade, this has become one of the worst financial decisions of their life. Even after the foreclosure is removed from their financial history, borrowers acquiring an affordable rate will be even more difficult.

Eligible Chelan, Bridgeport, and Coulee City, WA homeowners now enduring financial hardships such as credit card debts, loss in income, unemployment, a bad mortgage, or other financial circumstances, can get approved for a 4% mortgage refinancing and modification plan under President Obama’s “Making Home Affordable” plan.

Keeping all of this in mind, homeowners are scrambling to avoid foreclosure with the help of a modified home loan. Home loan modification allows you to lower your monthly payments, lower your interest, lower your principal, adjust the term of the loan, or any combination of these. Your home is the greatest financial commitment you are going to make in your life, and acquiring secure and successful loan modification.

Mortgage mitigation and lowered interest rates can prevent homeowners from being foreclosed on, help homeowners who are in the foreclosure process, and prevent mortgage defaults, by saving hundreds of dollars per month on your home loan payments.

Chelan, Bridgeport, and Coulee City, Washington homeowners will be able to save millions by getting a home loan modification or mortgage refinance using President Obama’s “Making Home Affordable” plan. Even borrowers who have been denied a refinancing or loan modify in the past have been having success with Obama’s mortgage refinance bailout plan.

The latest Building Industry Association of Washington newsletter has statistics of building permit activity in 2009. Brett Lamar, of Lake Chelan Building Supply, pointed out some of the information you might find most interesting:

I got my latest copy of the BIAW news letter today. In the very back they have the updated residential building permits for the year compared to last year....it's required reading for me as a lumber dealer. It's a lagging indicator, but interesting none the least. YTD through July the state has 54% less permits issued then 2008, which was quite a bit lower then 2007. Chelan and Douglas county held up better then the state did, we're only off 43% from 2008. Here's the kicker....by far the most permits are issued in King county.....they are 7X what any other county issues, they are off 75%! 7002 permits in 2008 vs. 1816 in 2009. WOW! Those are BIG numbers.

Thanks Brett!

For the third quarter, 52 homes were sold in the Lake Chelan area as compared with 35 in 2008. That is still well below the levels of 2005 to 2007 which were all around 75 transactions for the third quarter. But, things really ground to a halt in the fall of 2008 so I will go out on a limb and say I expect the fourth quarter this year will be stronger than last year's.

Have a look at the Lake Chelan Real Estate Residential Sales Summary. In it you can see that the 4th quarter of last year was the worst quarter since we have been able to get data with only 12 sales total. So, I would take the bet that home sales in Lake Chelan for the rest of the year should be above last year's levels.

Both July and September also exceeded last year in sales. September saw 15 sales close, as compared to 9 in 2008. Average sale price was up in September, probably due to some waterfront closings, to $548,460. For the year, the average sale price is so far is $437,918 and is below 2008. The third quarter still shows pricing below last year's, but with improved volume of sales. Inventory is still high and prices should not increase until much of that inventory is worked off.

Lake Chelan waterfront homes continue outselling last year's pace with 13 sales compared to 8 last year. The average sale price on waterfront homes is now $1,102,730 as compared with $1,862,056 through September last year.

From a real estate sales perspective, things are looking up at Lake Chelan!

The IRS will no longer allow a property owner to deduct the value of a building donated to the fire department for training. Such donations have been a common way for the fire districts in the Lake Chelan area to train their firefighters. This removes any financial incentive for those donations.

For the full story, go to the Lake Chelan Real Estate Blog

I spent some time on spreadsheets today looking at waterfront home sales. If you are a buyer of waterfront property at Lake Chelan, you could make it easier to tell what is going on. Buy MORE waterfront property and buy things similar to what was bought last year

The low number of sales and variety of properties on Lake Chelan make any sort of comparable analysis difficult. Not only can't I find a statistically significant number of similar properties to compare, I can't find a single sale of very similar homes or land from 2008 to 2009. Going back any further really doesn't make any sense in this market. There are some properties for sale that are similar to properties that sold last year. But, unless someone buys them, they won't help us compare sales. If you're a buyer, I can direct you to those properties if you want, or to the waterfront property you actually like!

Accurate valuation is pretty much not mathematically possible with the limited amount of current data that is available in this report. It would be required to go back further in history to come up with enough comparables for most properties, or the properties used might not be what you and I would call very similar. Having said that, by breaking things down further and estimating a value for homes versus land, making corrections for age, for floorplans and other adjustments might provide a bit more consistency and you might be able to compare 3 or more properties to the property in question. I am pleased to leave that dance for your appraisor or the assessor's office.

These sales are water frontage, on Lake Chelan only, excluding things like Harris Marina boat slips and things that are not typical residential properties.

If you are a waterfront property owner, you might like to look at the Lake Chelan Waterfront sales analysis and see how the value of your property might compare by the latest, if imprecise, market data. The statistical summaries don't have enough samples to be signficant, so just consider them fun numbers and draw your own conclusions. Let me know if you have questions.