Cecala of Inside Mortgage Finance said he wonders whether lenders are making big payments on properties with underlying title problems. Evan Berlin, managing partner of Berlin Patten, a real estate law firm in Sarasota, Florida, said representatives of a large bank told him the incentives are primarily given to borrowers when it doesn’t have the proper paperwork needed to win its foreclosure case. He declined to name the bank for publication.
Prashant Gopal-
Banks, accelerating efforts to move troubled mortgages off their books, are offering as much as $35,000 or more in cash to delinquent homeowners to sell their properties for less than they owe.
Lenders have routinely delayed or blocked such transactions, known as short sales, in which they accept less from a buyer than the seller’s outstanding loan. Now banks have decided the deals are faster and less costly than foreclosures, which have slowed in response to regulatory probes of abusive practices. Banks are nudging potential sellers by pre-approving deals, streamlining the closing process, forgoing their right to pursue unpaid debt and in some cases providing large cash incentives, said Bill Fricke, senior credit officer for Moody’s Investors Service in New York.
Losses for lenders are about 15 percent lower on the sales than on foreclosures, which can take years to complete while taxes and legal, maintenance and other costs accumulate, according to Moody’s. The deals accounted for 33 percent of financially distressed transactions in November, up from 24 percent a year earlier, said CoreLogic Inc., a Santa Ana, California-based real estate information company.
Karen Farley hadn’t made a mortgage payment in a year when she got what looked like a form letter from her lender.
“You could sell your home, owe nothing more on your mortgage and get $30,000,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) said in the Aug. 17 letter obtained by Bloomberg News.
“We’re going to do everything possible to liquidate property prior to foreclosure,” Vernon said. “REO will still be available, but we will do everything we can to do short sales.” Vernon said the goal is to get as close to market value as possible, or even over market value. “Short sales is not an investment strategy to get homes on the cheap,” he said.
He added that agents who want a part of that market need to make short sales a major part of their business strategy through 2010 and into 2011.
Does he even have the slightest clue as to what these short sales have done to many agents? Well let me explain in one word…FORECLOSURE!
Why? You may ask. Simply because BOF like many others took their sweet ole, no good, money hungry ass time, I mean 6-12 months to get approvals and by this time anxious buyers lost their financing not once but maybe 3-4 times.
Are banks growing desperate and concerned that if people begin to walk a way, this will turn them into toast? I’m afraid so.
Well to make another point. A friend of mine in New York got this letter (below) from Wells Fargo asking them if they want to leave their existing mortgage behind? In return Wells with their “direct transfer option” will let you walk a way with $10,000.00! Basically sign, transfer over the title.
Only there is 34 problems, you see there is a video going around that shows how to Cash Out Before You Dash Out…34 ways to make $39K before giving back the house!
I think Wells Fargo needs to step it up a little. Perhaps they lost your note!
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