Hillary has sent me another informative post, this time about short sales. Her last post was on what your options are if you are having trouble meeting your mortgage payments. As always, if you have questions for Hillary, ask them through our “Contact Us” page.
Major banks may be forced to let severely delinquent homeowners sell their houses for less than the loan amounts owed as part of a broad settlement of federal and state investigations into botched foreclosure paperwork, according to government officials involved in the negotiations. A short-sale is when the mortgage holder allows the home owner to sell the property for less than that which is owed on the mortgage. Thus the lender takes a loss and the seller receives a partial forgiveness of his debt. **There are tax implications, so make sure to speak to a tax professional.
The requirement to allow short sales would be in addition to forcing mortgage servicers to reduce the amount some homeowners owe on their loans. The goal of short sales would be twofold: provide a quicker and more economical way for banks to dispose of distressed real estate and to help stabilize the real estate market by clearing out a backlog of defaulted mortgages that are poised for foreclosure. They would be used in situations in which borrowers were so underwater that the more costly and time-consuming process of foreclosure would seem to be the only option.
Short sales just command a better premium than foreclosures. Foreclosures continue to drive down housing values, with prices in 20 major U.S. cities down an average of 3.1% in January compared with the same month a year ago, according to new data from a Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index. The latest proposal is among those to be discussed when executives from the top five mortgage servicers meet Wednesday in Washington with state and federal officials working on a settlement that could range from $5 billion to $25 billion.
Those servicers are Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc.
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