We have to be out of our mobile home here at the Surf and Sand by the end of the month, so needless to say I am seriously looking for a new home. This is what I have run into.

One of the first listings I called about tells me to call the number with an extension number to find out more information (like the price of the property). The way these work is I call the number, a pleasant recorded voice tells me all about the listing, and the agent captures my phone number to call me back, which she did. Even though she had the extension number I had called, she had no clue what property it went to and was asking me what property I had called on.

Hey, I’m like most buyers. By the time she called me back I had called on a few properties. I didn’t know which one she was calling me back on. If she has my number from a particular extension, she should be able to tell right away and have all pertenant information before she even calls me. She sounded like an idiot, and if I had everything set to go today, she would have lost the sale. What really surprised me is she is part of an office of a really well known broker. I was appalled at the lack of professionalism.

I called on another listing I’m very interested in. It turned out to be a lender advertising the listing. The ad says to call his number for information, which I did. He had no information, said he would try to find an agent for me and call me back. So what happened with him? I told him I had not qualified with a lender. He never got an agent to give me information concerning the listing evidently, as he never called me back. Not only am I not interested in the listing any longer, but if there was a loan, he lost it.

If I was a real estate trainer training a class of real estate agents, and happened to call these two listings as examples, the classes would be laughing their butts off right now as what is so obvious not to do.

With the competition of the internet and so many real estate agents trying to make a living in a slow market, service should be their first priority. If you have to chase an agent to get information on a listing, chances are you will have to do the same if you have them represent you in a transaction.

Private Transfer Fees are the fees a builder/developer puts on a property usually through the CC & R’s that pays the original builder/developer a fee in the future every time the property sells. In Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area where real estate is rather expensive, these fees can be substantial even at just 1%. Being aware of whether or not the property you’re purchasing has a clause like that could make a difference to the new home buyer when negotiating the price. In the future depending on how much appreciation the home gained when you go to sell, it could actually break a deal.

Just recently the Governor of Minnesota signed a law prohibiting such fees, as have 9 other states. Two more are considering a ban. In California though, Private Transfer Fees are still legal. There have been some adjustments to the law making disclosure of the fees more prominent. Yet there are many exemptions, just like any other property transfer disclosure, such as if you buy your newly built residence from a bank who had taken the property back in foreclosure.

Anytime you buy a property and hopefully are going through an escrow, you should receive a preliminary title report. In that report are “exceptions” to the coverage. Its these exceptions you should be interested in and where you will likely find any PTFs, or Private Transfer Fees that go along with the property.

If you have had any experiences with this kind of fee, feel free to tell your story below. New home buyers really do need to be aware of PTFs that could effect their property forever.

Looking for a home?

Everyone’s aware of the first time home buyer tax credit of $8000.00  and the existing home owner buyer tax credit of $6500.00, but are you aware of a very small window of opportunity where you could actually take advantage of a possible $18000.00 in tax credits?

If you’re looking to buy a home, especially if it’s for the tax write off because you have nothing to protect your earnings from Uncle Sam, this may be a great opportunity for you.  It’s good even if you already own a home, but if you’re a first time home buyer that has been sitting on the fence thinking about purchasing, it’s even better for you. The thing is though, you have to move quickly.

If you have been thinking about buying a home and have been watching the market for any time at all, then you should know the first thing to do is go get pre-approved for a loan by a lender.  If you have no idea which lender to go to, ask friends that own homes for referrals. Just remember, if you go to your bank, they have the strictest guidelines. If you go to a credit union, they are next, and the last but not least would be a mortgage broker or mortgage banker as they have many sources to find the loan that is right for you, and a lot more flexibility. You do not want to get “Pre-Qualified”. You want to get “Pre-approved”. If you find the house you want, especially if it’s a bargain basement house, you want to have an advantage to being able to purchase it.

We all knew about the federal tax credits, but under a newly enacted California law, you may be eligible to receive an extra $10,000.00 in tax credits if you are a first time home buyer or if you are a current homeowner purchasing a brand new home never lived in before. (Obviously trying to help out all the building contractors going under).

The basic guidelines are the same. You have to have a house under contract by April 30th and close by June 30th. (There is a little discrepancy in that the state law is May 1, but if you wait until then, you may lose the federal credits).

I am not an accountant, and there is no way I could possibly know a “blanket policy” when it comes to everyone’s tax situation, so you definitely need to consult your CPA or tax attorney.  If you are looking to buy a home, live in it for 5 years or more, this may be a great opportunity for you. If you’re buying a home thinking you’ll own it for a year, sell it and get rich, not so much.

For a ton of free information on buying or selling your home, be sure and visit my website at Silicon Valley Real Estate Online. If you’re a homeowner in trouble, feel free to contact me as I have “been there done that”, and I can help. If the governments going to give it, take advantage of the $18000.00 Tax Credit possible loophole. Why not us!

March 31, 2010   6:00 PM  West Valley Branch Library                                             1243 San Thomas Aquino Rd.  San Jose 95117

Show up to learn about:

• Loan Modification/Loss Mitigation Options
• How to talk to your lender
• How to prepare all your documents
• What steps to take to receive help from a HUD approved counselor

To Register for the seminar call: 408-279-2600  ext. 229

If you need help before then, there is a place called “Foreclosure Help Center” in San Jose that is open Mon-Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. These services also are free. The program is manned almost completely by volunteers, and they will help you get all your documents together and go over them with you. Then they will turn you over to the proper channel to get you the help you need. Just call them for an appointment. The phone number is:  408-794-1242 You can visit their website at http://www.foreclosurehelpscc.org and get more information about their services.

If you’re looking to buy a home, the tax credit is supposed to run out again. The rules this time are that you must be in contract to buy a residence by April 30, 2010 and close by June 2010. I have not heard any rumblings yet as to whether there will be another extension, but I rather doubt it. If you’re anxious to take advantage of the credit, I wouldn’t wait around to see how it goes.

If you are a homeowner in trouble, or know you will be the next adjustment to your loan, please, don’t sit and do nothing. Take advantage of all the services that are there to help you. This is just scratching the surface. There’s even more help for distressed homeowners. All you have to do is ask.

When applying for a mortgage, the lender you have chosen will take many factors into account. These factors not only influence what type of loans you can qualify for at what interest rate,  but also what your monthly payments will be and how many years you will take to pay the loan off completely.

Knowing these factors and doing what you can to improve them all can make a tremendous difference when you go and see your lender and start the process that will get you your new property.

Some of the basic factors apply for just about any loan but are especially important if you are trying to get a mortgage. The big one is, yep, credit.

How good is your credit? Get copies of all of your credit reports from the 3 major consumer reporting companies and check each one for errors. Some companies will give you all three in one spot for one price. You want to be sure and get copies that include your “credit score“.

Many times they have errors that can be corrected in just a few weeks and that helps boost your score. If you have credit cards, pay them off as well as any other outstanding bills.

A nice large down payment will always improve your chances of being approved. If your credit isn’t completely top notch, the bigger the down payment, the more likely you may get approved. Now adays, what used to be a great credit score is only marginal, so it’s important to know what you are facing. If your credit is great, you can still put down as much as possible to lower the monthly payments or decrease the total loan time.

Above all else, don’t lie to your lender. If you tell them you are a supervisor of a power plant and they find out you are a UPS man who has only had the job for 6 months, you will be totally screwed. Be honest and your lender will do their best to work with you. Make sure you have w-2′s, tax returns, a list of your current bills and balances. All these go together in figuring out what the lender thinks you can afford.

For more information whether you are buying or selling a home, be sure and visit my website at http://www.SiliconValleyRealEstateOnline.com Feel free to leave any comments or questions you may have below.

What the heck?

It’s pretty scary times for real estate out there, and I don’t just mean because of foreclosures and big drops in value causing people to lose all their equity. It’s scary because on one side you have people who still think like it’s 2005, on the other side you have “real estate gurus” coming out of the woodwork teaching creative financing and doing deals like they did 30 yrs. ago, and then in the middle you have the government relaxing standards and doing the same kind of loans that got us here in the first place.

Then I see a question posted in one of the Real Estate forums from someone wanting to know about hiring a Realtor or a real estate attorney to help with the paperwork on a piece of property she’s buying. One of the answers she got was from someone saying to let the other agent do the paperwork, and the title company handle everything. That’s how they bought theirs and there was never a problem. While I concede that there are many deals between people that didn’t use either a Realtor or an attorney that turned out OK, there are many that turned into nightmares. In a transaction described like the one above, who is looking out for her interest? What recourse is she going to have against the seller if she has the seller’s agent write up the contract? Do you think that agent is going to worry as much about taking care of her as he is the person that actually hired him and is paying him? I don’t think so. While we have a code of ethics that states we have to be “fair and honest” in all our dealings, do you think everyone really is?

Then we have the ads on Craig’s List where investors love to advertise to buy homes. One I read yesterday specifically said “No Realtors or attorneys”. Now why do you think that is? I understand they want to save on costs so they don’t want to pay commissions, or a lawyer a fee for looking over the paper work, but do you think it might be also because all their contracts, etc. may be geared their way with no concern for the seller, or buyer, whichever the case may be?

Remember the old saying “Desperate times call for desperate measures”? Don’t be so desperate you make your situation worse instead of better. If you’re in a situation where you need some help with a contract most Realtors will look it over for you for free (like me. LOL) in the hopes of either getting your business in the future or a recommendation to your friends on what a nice person they were. Take advantage of the service.

I have a buyer that has a friend whose a Realtor, but until I came along no one ever went through the contract with him and his wife to know what they were signing. It’s like hiring a stock broker. No one is going to watch out for your money with the same love and care that you are, and the same is true when it comes to getting involved with buying or selling real estate. It’s your job to make sure you are protected. No one is going to cry with you when you get yourself into a mess. All the courts care about is what you signed your name to. It’s up to you to make sure it’s something you can “live” with.

If I can help with any of your real estate needs, please feel free to contact me by phone, email, or leave a comment below. I’d be honored to help in any way I can. Like I said, it’s pretty scary times in real estate right now.

I am always ready to learn new things that I can use to help my clients where ever they come from, be they a renter wanting to buy their first home, an investor buying several homes, or a seller needing to get out of a bad mortgage in a hurry. I thought this would be a prime time to learn a little from the expert, Mr. Trump, even if it wasn’t him but one of his students doing the seminar. I thought there would be some really new innovative techniques for this market that I hadn’t heard yet or that I could incorporate. I’m so sorry to say that wasn’t the case.

Granted I did not learn everything they have to teach in a 90 minute seminar, which is why they have a 3 day workshop for $1495., but I did here enough to know 1) it was the same information I had learned 25 yrs. ago when I started out in real estate as a buyer and watched the late night infomercials on TV 2) that many of the techniques I as a Realtor cannot use as they are illegal when you are licensed in California 3) If anyone practiced what this gentleman did teach in the order he said to use it, they are looking at a possible lawsuit also.

I’m sure he just got the order of a couple things wrong due to trying to pack so much information into a 90 minute seminar, but… how much wrong information do they pack into 3 days?

This is a fabulous market if you’re just starting out and buying your first home or you’re an investor buying homes for your portfolio, but please people, be sure what you are learning or who you are learning it from is telling you things that pertain to your particular state and their laws. Also make sure  they are telling you all the downside that can go with what you’re doing, as well as dangling all the cash you can make before your eyes.

If you have any questions about different types of transactions, or something you’re about to do, please feel free to leave a comment below or email me direct. I’d be happy to help.

Second, I would like to thank President Obama for the shot in the real estate arm by signing the extension on the higher loan limits for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA. Anyone who knows anything about real estate in the Silicon Valley knows we needed this. Until this crisis happened, the loan limits on FHA loans were so low they were almost useless. The only homes they were good for were the lowest priced homes in San Jose and the surrounding areas, and even then the buyer would have to either bring a lot of cash to the table  or do a lot of fix up. The very buyer they were supposed to be helping, the ones on the lower end of the affordability scale, couldn’t afford to go with FHA financing because they didn’t have the extra cash.

Now the next “good news” in real estate is that it looks like the bill to extend the First Time Buyer Tax Credit is going to pass through Congress also. Not only that, but they are going to extend it to current homeowners also. It is not as good a bill as we would have hoped for, but it’s something. It’s unfortunate the the bill is pretty restrictive when it comes to current homeowners and comes in at a whopping $6,500.00. I’m not really sure myself if that would be enough to make me want to move.

Another “thank you” to the Obama Administration’s announced move to provide support to housing finance agencies across the nation. This action will help restart the housing market for low to moderate income first-time homebuyers, including in California, which has been among the hardest hit by the real estate crisis. These loans in California are known as the CalHFA, which had suspended their programs due to all the finance mess in the market. Supposedly this will be a new and better CalHFA.

Last but not least, I would like to render my opinion about all the hype in the news. First I think the news media is getting their numbers and stats from somewhere different than I do. Second, I wouldn’t be singing la, la, la, la, la just yet. I still don’t think we’ve felt the commercial real estate crash in all it’s glory yet, and that also will affect the housing market. Have we seen the bottom of the housing market and bounced back yet? I’m not so sure.

We’ve moved into the fall and holiday season of the year. This is the time of year when kids are back in school and traditionally the buying season has basically ended for real estate. Even when mortgage rates are already low, they tend to dip a little more this time of year, trying to entise buyers to keep purchasing. Statistics already show a decline in purchases for August compared to July, and Sept. will be lower than August. The one thing that may present a difference is the first-time buyer tax credit due to expire next month, but many buying Silicon Valley real estate feel the $8000.00 is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to cost.

The National Association of Realtors are fighting hard to get Congress to not only extend the deadline, but to expand it to include anyone buying a home and raising the credit itself. Time will tell if Congress will pay attention or not.

I have a story I would like to share about a recent experience I had as a representative of a buyer and hope as a home seller you don’t see yourself in it.

My clients put in an offer on a house priced over a million dollars. The offer was approximately $65000.00 under the listing price, but by my estimations very generous as I figured the house to be almost $100,000.00 over priced. The sellers (heirs of an estate) were interested in a counter offer coming down in price by on $10,000.00. One of the sellers had read in the media how homes were selling and (at least temporarily) prices were going up.

The prices in this particular area had decline 3.2 percent in the last month. Even so, against my advice on value,  my clients were willing to hit the million dollar mark but not take any money out of their pocket if the house didn’t appraise. The sellers still would not accept.

Now it is a month later, housing prices again declined in that area by 3.4 percent which means the property actually declined basically over $71000.00 and some change in the 2 months we had been fiddling with this property.

In my professional opinion:

1. The property will never appraise for the asking price or even close to it
2. We’ve moved into the slow season. The seller will be lucky to see another offer for a while.

There is no mortgage to pay off on this house. The home is vacant.

While looking at a comparative market analysis given to you free by any Realtor is a fine place to start, you also need to pay attention to the other statistics in your market to decide what the true selling price of your house should be. It won’t do you any good to get an offer on your overpriced house and it doesn’t appraise, and then the buyer can’t obtain a loan. Have you ever heard the expression “stepping over dollars to pick up dimes”?

The second time I sort of paid attention to them was when they started backing homeowners and telling them not to leave their homes even though they had been foreclosed on.

Then the last time I heard of them was when I was taking a class for Realtors on all the new financing programs available for buyers, a few months ago. I remember in the midst of all the places for buyers to get assistance, when the narrator of the class mentioned Acorn, the Realtor next to me and I just looked at each other and said “Acorn?” in unison.

Personally I have no qualms of getting in bed with the Mafia or anyone else that could have saved my home, but when I called Acorn at our local office I couldn’t even get a call back. They give an address here in San Jose, but I could never get anyone to answer their phones, why would I go to their office?

Supposedly anyone who’s anyone basically knew what this group was. Long before these videos showed up, Congress was worried about how to structure a bill for housing funds so that it couldn’t be used by Acorn for the political agenda.

Some are saying these videos were done unfairly.  Acorn employees were tricked, set up, filmed under false pretenses. As far as I am concerned, it seems if you’re not doing anything wrong, it doesn’t matter when anyone films you or your organization. If these guys are operating by the book, there would be no sordid story to tell.

Acorn offers free homebuyer counseling, helps homeowners with loan modifications, and more. For these supposed charitable efforts, they have received $36 million in federal money from HUD alone — your taxpayer dollars — since 2006. What I’m curious about is since we’re in one of the worst foreclosure markets in history, why do they only boast helping 9000 (give or take a few) homeowners stay in their homes? Supposedly they have helped 50,000 buyers buy new homes since their inception.

Supposedly the RNLA’s expert investigators have uncovered the fact that ACORN is not just one group but a shell for over 200 separate organization names — many residing at the same New Orleans address. Evidently the group has been denied any more federal funds for the census, but no one has said anything about not giving them any more money for their help housing lower income families.

They have quite a long list of banks and lenders they work with to get loans through that normally wouldn’t pass, and for working loan modifications for people in trouble with their mortgages. I know if I was losing my house and they had the answer and the people to help me for free, I must say it may look pretty attractive.

Are you familiar with Acorn? Have they helped you in any way? Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts with the rest of us.