Category — Arizona Real Estate Stats

Bank of America/Countrywide/BAC short sale process

A lot of real estate industry professionals including attorneys & real estate agents have been following the blog lately and I’ve received emails from them asking about how to get a Bank of America/Countrywide deal through.

Well, it definitely helps to have some upper level contacts however I don’t use them unless absolutely necessary. I’d love to be able to just send each file right to their desk where I know it would get done however if I did that too many times eventually they wouldn’t do it at all anymore. I save them for absolute emergency situations.

My best advice is to send in complete packages and follow up, follow up, follow up. Daily if you have to but no less than once a week. If you don’t have time to do it at least once a week then you aren’t doing your client any service and you are better off referring it out to someone else.

Bank of America & Countrywide have made the entire short sale process their own game and to be honest they don’t really care if they do the short sale or not. They don’t really care if the client goes to foreclosure, they don’t care if they would net $50,000 more by doing the short sale, they just really don’t care.

This is hard for people to swallow and even though it really doesn’t make sense the numbers behind the scenes do.

We’ll go into that in another post. For now, if you have a Bank of America or Countrywide loan and you want to do a short sale you better make sure of the following:

1. The short sale Package had better be clean, complete, and in perfect order.
2. Your hardship better be justifiable, legitimate, and strong enough to make the loss mitigators take notice.
3. The file needs to be diligently followed up on at least weekly if not 2-4 times per week.
4. Your agent better have short sale experience or you can forget it.
5. Your buyer better have patience because a 6 month from contract to close is not unheard of, even with the best short sale agents.

Short Sale closings are increasing as banks become more lenient and realize that approving a short sale is better than taking the hit with a foreclosure.

Az short sale stats are as follows:

1st Quarter 2009 – 1,585 Arizona Short Sales Closed
2nd Quarter 2009 – 2,890 Arizona Short Sales Closed
3rd Quarter 2009 – 3,172 Arizona short sales closed as of 9/12/2009 and we still have 18 more days left in the quarter!

As you can see, numbers have increased tremendously. This is fantastic news for those of you who are upside down in your home as your chances of getting your short sale approved have increased dramatically.

With the repeal of SB 1271 now even investors have the opportunity to short sell their Arizona homes before any new anti-deficiency legislature takes place.

The more properties that we can short sell and keep from foreclosure the quicker we’ll see an Arizona real estate market recovery and soon be back on our way to appreciating values in a stable marketplace.

For more Az Short Sale information visit our website at http://www.AzHomeHelp.com or give us a call 7 days a week from 8am – 8pm at (480) 241-4406.

In July, 2009 Las Vegas led the country in foreclosures.  Over two thirds of Las Vegas homeowners are upside-down in their property, or owe more than their home is worth.

In Arizona, the stats I have seen state that about 1 out 3 Arizona homeowners are in a negative equity situation.  I really question that statistic though because in the last 3 months alone (yes, I’ve been keeping track!!) I have only spoken to ONE family that has equity in their property.  Just one family that could potentially sell their property and actually walk away  with cash and NOT have to do a short sale.

Now, the point I’m making is not that they are the only people I know with any equity nor am I saying that everyone is upside-down.  The point is that those who have equity in their property don’t really seem to want to sell right now unless they have to.

The people that are contacting us about short selling their homes are people who want to take advantage of Arizona’s anti-deficiency law, the Mortgage Debt Relief Act, and can’t  or aren’t willing to continue paying their mortgage.

Nevada is “just up the street” from Arizona and considering that the two states were neck and neck over the past years as the number 1 & 2 growing states in the United States I think we are seeing a certain pattern here.  Las Vegas continues to be a wonderful place to live & work and so does the greater Phoenix/Scottsdale area.

Once we can find a “base” in these states we’ll start to see the overall real estate economy nationwide begin to thrive again.

Az Short Sales Stats update for 8/1/09

There are currently 31, 444 active homes on the Arizona Regional MLS.  of those 31, 444 homes about 7,300 are short sale listings or about 23%.  These short sale stats have not changed very much in the last week.

There are only 11,874 pendings though and we were showing over 13,000 at last look so more properties have been added to the market than the number of closed properties.

Phoenix Short Sales stats show about 7,077 total actives with 1,867 or 26% being short sales which is a decrease of 1% from last week.

Scottsdale short sales stats show 4,282 total actives with 659 Scottsdale short sale listings (15%) – no change from last week.

Paradise Valley short sales stats show 503 active Paradise Valley homes active with 42 of those being short sales (8%) – a 1% drop from last week.

The numbers haven’t moved much and the market continues to slide downwards.  We’ll have full July stats in the next few days.

Yes, there IS activity in the Az real estate market!  It amazes me how much the media can scare people into thinking there is nothing gone on out there when we sold over 9,000 homes last month!!   That’s a lot of property changing hands for a market that people are calling stagnant!