Archive for the News category.
Here’s some breaking news for you guys- as of yesterday, the Gov has released the ‘No Flipping Rule’ on FHAs! Yup- that’s right! In order to spur more buying activity and property values, they are allowing investors to purchase foreclosed homes and flip them immediately! This will be in effect for 1 year. The previous ruling from 2003 said if you purchased a foreclosed home, you had to wait 90 days before securing it with FHA financing. Not anymore- they’re trying to get the glut of inventory sucked up and off the market now. Here’s the article from CNN.
Well, today is the big day for the auction, or is it? For those of you who really care, Jackson has worked out an arrangement with BofA to bump the foreclosure sale to May 14th. From what I understand, he owes $24Mil in arrears on a $273Mil note for the place. Either some rich psycho-fan will pony up the money, or he’ll end up losing it to the foreclosure sale. I just want to see what BofA ends up doing with the place. I mean really, what is Bank of America going to do with Neverland Ranch? How much are they going to sell it for as an REO?
I’m sure that’s some valuable land it’s sitting on- maybe a commercial developer will come along and do something with it. We’ll see. Here’s a great clip from TMZ on the thing- it’s the most entertaining clip I could find.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid353549946/bctid1460812952
Just saw a quick blurb on this- HUD raised the FHA loan limits to $346,250 in Maricopa and Pinal Counties. This should help out our mortgage situations somewhat. I’ll try to find an article to back this up later…
One Family- $346,250
Two Family- $443,250
Three Family- $535,800
Four Family- $665,850
I’m not going to say much, as you can read the article yourself. However, CNN.com is now jumping on board with the same mentality that most intelligent investors have had for months now. It’s a GREAT time to be buying property, especially investment property. It’s about time the media starts cluing in to reality. If you’re one of the ones who are ‘waiting for the bottom’ before jumping in, I can guarantee that you’re going to miss the best deals. Then, your excuse will have to be something else. The early bird gets the deals. Read for yourself and let me know your thoughts…
I meant to post this weeks ago, but got really sick and forgot all about it. Inside sources tell me that the lenders are going to be freezing your lines of credit. What this mean is, if you have a HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit) or any other LOC (Line of Credit), whatever balance you have open now will become the MAX you can access. So, if you have a $100k HELOC, and have only tapped $10k, the rest of the $90k will now become unavailable. This is obviously an attempt to keep the lenders from being over leveraged on properties. What I’m advising people to do is to yank out as much as you can NOW, and then use it to capitalize on our strong buyer’s market. You can easily get a great return on that money, and it’s powerful to use for purchasing property! Countrywide has already frozen all of their LOCs- and I’m sure the rest will follow suit. Will you take advantage of the opportunities here???
I heard about this a few days ago, but now the media has picked up on it. Randall Martin Homes, a smaller sized builder has announced that it is letting the lender take back the remaining of their vacant lots in certain communities. Surprise’s Marley Park, Avondale’s Roosevelt Park, Chandler’s Dobson Crossing and Gilbert’s Higley Park are the communities effected by this decision. Obviously, they couldn’t make their payments in the Valley’s Housing Market downturn.
Existing homeowners will not be affected, other than having a number of vacant lots throughout their neighborhoods. Randall Martin has committed to finishing any existing contracts with homes under construction, but will not be starting any new ones in those areas.
Two other builders, Turner-Dunn in Pinal County and Trend Homes Inc. in Gilbert, have had similar problems in the past two years. A private equity company purchased Trend last month and is sending it through bankruptcy reorganization. Turner-Dunn walked away from 200 unfinished homes in 2006.
- Cathryn Creno, azcentral.com
My take on this? I’m sure another builder is already in negotiations with the lender to purchase the lots at an AMAZING price. This happened out in Queen Creek a year or two ago. A number of lots we sold at pennies on the dollar from a builder who just couldn’t financially compete with the market. The result was 3,000-4,000 sq ft homes, fully loaded with every upgrade you can imagine, being offered at $250,000 starting price. Yeah, I wish I would’ve jumped on THAT opportunity! It’ll be interesting to see over the next year who capitalizes on the situation, and at what price they release the new homes. I also anticipate at minimum of 2 other builders doing the same thing this year.
Here’s another article on it.
Breaking news from TMZ.com reports that Michael Jackson has found himself in the same situation as the rest of the country- in foreclosure. According to the article, Financial Title Company filed a Notice of Trustee’s sale on Neverland Ranch. We’ve been hearing for a while no
w that he’s in financial trouble- and that’s backed up by the sudden re-release of his ‘Greatest Hits’ on a new album only found on late night television commercials. The report says that he owes $24,525,906.61, but I have a feeling that figure is the original principle balance of the note, not his back payments owed. They also gave a sale date of March 19th. It’ll be interesting to see how this one turns out in the end. I could see some foreign ‘collector’ buying the thing and setting up shop as a museum of sorts. I wonder where MJ will move to? Do you think the bank will issue some ‘Cash for Keys’? Anyone want to buy this thing? I’m sure we could pick it up at about 40% and then flip it for 60%- not a bad pay day…
If you haven’t heard it by now- the Fed has cut rates from 4.25% down to 3.50% this morning. This is during the global stock sell off going on. Read more about it here. Still not convinced it’s the time to pick up investment property? Foreclosures are at an all time high. Banks are realizing it’s time to get lean and mean with their inventories, and are being very aggressive with REOs and Short Sales. Now, our interest rates are dropping even lower than ever before. In fact, I think it might be time for me to refi some of my own properties, now that I think of it…
Well, let’s get this white elephant out of the living room. Bank of America agrees to buy Countrywide Financial for $4 Billion in stock. Wasn’t is just a few months ago B of A infused $2 billion into Countrywide as a "line of Credit’ Loan? huh- seems like we, the public, were led astray to avoid the panic from setting in. So, essentially, they just paid $6 billion to take down the company. As one of the Nation’s top tier lenders, you would think they could get the beast under control. Yet, I’m still seeing most of their foreclosures get taken back as REO at the foreclosure auctions here in Phoenix. I’m seeing most of their short sales go unapproved when they have solid, ready to close buyers at nearly full price. They’re taking back the majority of their foreclosures without addressing the internal problems of loss mitigation. You would think they saw this coming, and would’ve made corrections long ago. I’m not too surprised at all. They needed to completely revamp their lending standards, as well as their loss mitigation standards. Loosen up their regulations, and start dealing more freely with buyers/sellers before they take back the REOs.
My prediction is that there’s going to be a large surge of REO inventory within the next 6-12 months, banks finally realizing they need to dump their properties and get them off the books. REOs will be picked up for pennies on the dollar (more so than they are now). It’ll be interesting to see how B of A handles their inventory of non-performing notes and REOs as well. Maybe they have figured out how to deal with the current problem, and start pushing deals out for the investors to enjoy. At the same time the Fed is cutting rates and pushing money back into the economy. So if B of A loosens up their lending standards somewhat, we’ll have a stronger buyer’s demand, as well as strong supply. Watch this to get an idea of how the Federal Reserve works.
I’d really like to see the numbers of outstanding liens/debts they have on the books now- see how much of a bargain Bank of America walked into for their $6 Bill. If they know how to deal with loss mit and REO’s properly, they can easily turn this nightmare around and take in some very large profits. My guess is that is exactly what they’re thinking, and changes are hitting the cubicles of loss mit reps’ desks already. The next few months will be very interesting. Are you ready to pick up more REOs? Contact me ASAP to find the best deals!
The Phoenix Business Journal has an article that the office inventory in Downtown Phoenix is expected to grow by 42% by 2011, as reported by Integra Realty Resources.
Current inventory sits at 4.94 million square feet, with another 2.05 million feet expected to be built between 2008 and 2011, according to the company’s "IRR Viewpoint 2008."
That number puts Phoenix 11th among U.S. cities for downtown construction, which is expected to total 88.5 million square feet nationwide over the four-year period.
The article goes on to day that the current vacancy rate is at 8.5% in Downtown Phoenix, compared to 11.1% for the National Average. This goes right in line with the previous reports of expected job and population growths for Arizona as a whole. Anyone who has a concern about the future of the Arizona Real Estate market really needs to dig into the research and see for themselves. It’s picking up this year, and will continue to rise until our next boom/bust in 15-20 years…
