Murfreesboro Information and Resources

In this edition Joe explains the relief offered during the holiday season on foreclosures.  As wells as explains how you need to be vigilant while dealing with a possible foreclosure.

JOE:  Hey, Joe Hafner here with another episode of Inside Distressed Property.  I want to talk to you today, folks that are facing foreclosure, there’s some things that you need to know.  You know, every week in America, there’s 89,000 foreclosure auctions scheduled on average.  That’s according to RealtyTrac, and several of the big players in the mortgage market have announced a freeze on foreclosures through the holidays. 

So December 19 through January 2, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are both postponing any foreclosures.  December 22 to January 2, Chase is stopping and Wells Fargo is stopping them.  Bank of America says they’re going to try to “avoid them” during thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays, but here’s what you need to know.  Even though they’re putting a freeze on them, they’re still doing paperwork and moving towards foreclosure.

You’re getting a couple week reprieve.  You can’t rely on this as a plan for getting out of foreclosure.  Something to keep in mind, Wells Fargo, they’re only freezing foreclosures on loans that they own.  So they service a lot of loans for other investors.  So all those are still in play and could be foreclosed if the investor wants them foreclosed.  So real quick, if you want to find out if Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac owns your loan, go to FannieMae.com and on the right side of the screen it says, “The Fannie Mae loan lookup tool.”

And if you go to FreddieMac.com on the bottom right there’s a little box that says, “Do we own your mortgage?”  Click on those and you can find out if Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac owns your mortgage.  Even if you’re with a bank, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not going to be the people you pay your mortgage to.  They are an investor.  You could be with any bank paying your mortgage to them and Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac could own that loan.

But here’s the bottom line.  If you get a reprieve during the holidays, that’s great news.  But you need to do something.  You can’t sit back and wait.  You need to find an expert who knows how the foreclosure process works.  And as these banks develop their foreclosure short sale processes, it becomes more important than ever to have an agent who knows how the process works.  If you have an agent who doesn’t know how it works, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble.

So take your reprieve if you get it, but get in touch with somebody.  Even during the holidays, you can call us.  We’ll help you.  We’ll talk you through it.  But find someone who knows what they’re doing; learn about the process; learn what your options are.  You probably have more options than you realize.  And start the new year by attacking this problem instead of avoiding it.  And who knows?  You may be able to get out of this without losing your home to foreclosure.

We’d love to help you, and we’ll see you next time.  Merry Christmas.

A Christmas greeting from John to you and your family.

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones, Tuesday Morning Coffee, Christmas edition.  I’ve got my gifts out here.  Guys, I just want to take a second to wish everybody a Merry Christmas.  I hope that everybody has just a special time this weekend with their families and friends.  For all those traveling, be safe.  Come back to us safe.  And let us not forget the reason for this day is the birth of our savior Jesus Christ.  And I just want everybody to just have a wonderful, wonderful Christmas season.

Thank you so much.  If we can ever help you in any way, 867-3020.

Here are some things to remember when buying a Foreclosure in the great state of Tennessee.

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones, Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Going to talk to you real quick today about foreclosures.  I get a lot of questions every day.  What is a foreclosure?  How do you buy them?  What do you do?  What’s a HUD home?  All these things.  So real quick, I’m going to give you the really quick definition of buying foreclosure in Tennessee.  We are a substitute trustee state, which means all foreclosures to first to be foreclosed on have to be sold at the courthouse steps. 

Ninety percent, probably 95% of every home sold at the courthouse steps is usually going to end up back in the bank with a lender.  But you as an individual can go up there and bid on these homes.  Typically, the benefits are you can buy a home quickly right there.  The downfall is you have to have to have money cash that day and you very rarely have a good chance to inspect the house before you buy it, and there could be delays sometimes in receiving your deed.

The other foreclosures that aren’t bought or aren’t purchased on the courthouse steps end up going back to the lender who at that point will disperse them out to REO companies (real estate owned companies) to help them get rid of their assets.  They’re basically going to end up with a local realtor in your area.  A HUD home, everybody asks me about a HUD home, all a HUD home is is an FHA loan that was foreclosed on.  So it’s a foreclosure too.  It was just an FHA loan.

Those are also sold through a local realtor.  A little bit different scenario.  It’s a bid process in buying those, but they are also going to be on your MLS at some point.  And the best way to find any of these foreclosures is just find a good realtor.  They have access to all the MLS information, and they can find any foreclosure for you that is on the market. 

Things to remember.  Usually, these homes are going to be sold as is.  So know that going in when you make your bid that banks typically aren’t going to do any work to them if you find something.  There are also sometimes charges.  If you want to have the home inspected, definitely have the home inspected.  But if you have the home inspected, sometimes they may charge you to have someone come out there and turn on the utilities, dewinterize the property.  Know that going in.  Usually, it’s a couple hundred bucks.

Generally, these homes are going to need a little TLC.  I’m not saying every one of them, but I would say 80 to 90% of them are probably going to need paint and probably going to need some flooring done.  So of course you’re going to see the home.  Those are things to also consider when you make your offer.  The last thing I want to mention about buying a home from a bank is banks are very inhuman, so don’t be real sensitive about the negotiation or anything like that.

You’re dealing with an asset manager who probably has another thousand homes on his desk that he is trying to get rid of, so everything is done via e-mail, computers.  It’s a very inhuman experience.  So don’t get sensitive if they seem a little bit direct or harsh sometimes.  That’s about it.  If you have any more questions about foreclosures or anything in regards to real estate, call us at John Jones Real Estate, 867-3020.  Thank you.

The market update for November 2011 is showing some positive trends. Watch John below and learn about these positive trends.

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Today, we’re going to be talking about November statistics in Rutherford County.  And once again, they’re quite good.  We are 35% up over last November in single-family home sales, 238 units this month compared to 176 last November.  Our pendings are also up 25%, 235 over 187 from last November.  Our inventory keeps creeping down.  Currently, year to date, our inventory is down 13% over this time last year, and our average sales price for 2011 is at 158,479 and that is down 4% over last year, which was at 164,942.

So we still this last quarter every month we’ve been bannering ourselves over the last quarter of last year, and it looks like it’s going to continue in December based on the pendings.  So I think we’re going to wind up for the year, we’re still off the mark just a hair.  We’re down about 7.5% year to date on closed sales, but I think we’ll cut that number down to probably somewhere around 5%, 4 to 5% when it’s all said and done if we have a better December like I anticipate.

So there has been really good activity in the market the last few weeks, which is kind of different for this time of year.  So that’s a good sign.  Rates are still incredibly low, and unemployment’s down.  It’s the lowest I’ve seen in Rutherford County for about the past four or five years, or at least the last four years.  And then of course there’s some good news on the horizon that Nissan is adding some jobs and going to three shifts.  The Amazon distribution center that is coming here supposedly, that’s exciting.  That’s going to add jobs.

So as we get more job creation, things are going to get better.  And hopefully we don’t lose any jobs.  So anyway, things look positive and we’ll see you next week.  Call us if we can help you with anything, 867-3020.

In this episode of Tuesday Morning Coffee John tells us what escrow is, and how it is beneficial to the home owner as well as the lender.

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving.  Guys, today what we’re going to talk about is escrow and what does that term mean.  It’s a pretty general term, but mainly around here we use it when we’re talking about our insurance and taxes being paid to the bank every month into an escrow account.  Out on the West Coast, they use the term more so you hear about it whenever they have a pending closing, they say it’s closing in escrow.

But really the best definition I could give for escrow or the best maybe analogy I can give is when a third party holds the money until something is resolved.  In other words, if you had a bet with a friend and you wanted somebody to hold that money until that wager is resolved.  That’s kind of what an escrow account does or an escrow agent.  So in terms of the way we use it the most is escrow in taxes and insurance.  Why does a lender want that to happen?

Well, the lender wants to know that those items are always current and being paid on time.  That protects the lender.  They want to know if insurance is always on that house so if that home catches fire, the lender is protected.  They want to make sure the taxes are always current so there’s not a tax sale on the property and the lender gets kind of held out in the cold on that.  So it protects the lender. 

How does it benefit to the homeowner?  Well, it a benefit in the fact that it’s something the homeowner can budget every month.  They can spread their taxes over 12 months.  So each month they pay 1/12 taxes, 1/12 insurance.  It’s in their payment.  They can budget for it and they also have the peace of mind knowing that those items are always taken care of instead of receiving a big tax bill at the end of the year along with all the other obligations you have at the end of the year.

So I hope that helps clarify what escrow is.  If you should have any questions about escrow or any other real estate related matters, please give us a call.  We’re always here to try to help you, 867-3020.

We would like to say happy Thanksgiving to all of our past, present, and future clients.

John goes over the details of a poll the NAR conducted with buyers across the nation.

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  As I speak to you today, NAR (National Association of Realtors) have just wound down their big annual conference in Anaheim.  Every year, an interesting report comes out of that conference.  It’s a survey that NAR does on homebuyers and home sellers for that previous 12 months.

They survey over 5,000 people all across the nation.  I wanted to share with you a few interesting facts from that survey.  Seventy percent of the buyers surveyed this past year still think real estate is a good investment.  Forty-five percent of those buyers think that real estate is a better investment than stocks.  The median buyer this past year was 31 years of age and had a median income of $62,400, which is up slightly from 2010.

Buyers search on the median of 12 weeks, and they visit 12 homes during the process.  More than half the buyers that were surveyed did consider buying a foreclosure but did not for some reason.  Twenty-nine percent cited they just could not find the right home that worked for them.  And 15% of those polled cited poor condition of the home or the difficult process.  To find a home, 88% of buyers used the Internet during their process.  Eighty-seven percent use real estate agents.

Fifty-five percent still drove through neighborhoods and looked for yard signs.  Forty-five percent of those polled did visit open houses, and 30% said they did look through newspaper ads.  For sale by owners accounted for 10% of all homes sold last year, according to this survey.  That’s up 1 percentage point over 2010, which was a record low of 9%.  I thought this was interesting.  When asked where they first learned about the home they ended up purchasing, 40% said the Internet; 35% said from their realtor; 11% said from a yard sign; 6% from a friend or family member; 2% came from the newspaper; and 1% came from a monthly home magazine.

I hope these facts were as interesting to you as they were to me.  If we can help you with any of your real estate needs, please give us a call at John Jones Real Estate, 867-3020.  Thank you.

 In this edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee John presents the official MLS statistics from October 2011 vs October 2010 for Single Family Home sales in Rutherford County to help give you an idea of what is happening in the local marketplace right now.

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here, Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Thanks for tuning in.  We’re going to go over the market stats for 2011 for October.  October 2011, we were up 18% in closed sales over 2010 October.  Our pendings—and this is pretty neat—our pendings are up 30% over 2010 October.  Our inventory is down.  Homes on the market is down 12.7%.  Our average closed price for the month over this time last year is almost dead even at 161,000.

And our year to date we’re still down 9% on closed sales year to date, but we’re catching up every month the last few months, so that number is going to tighten up for the next two months.  So we’ll see how that turns out here at the end of December.  The market overall does seem to be improving.  We still have a decline in prices.  A lot of that is due to we still do have an inventory that’s probably seven to eight months, and also the foreclosures and short sales are definitely affecting our pricing.

But this will be the first year where we haven’t declined that much in the sales over the past year.  Rates are incredible.  They’re in the threes.  We got a client at 30-year fixed FHA rate this week for 3.75.  So any of you guys sitting out there sitting on the fence, take advantage of these rates.  Also, maybe you’re thinking about refinancing.  That might be an option too.  Please give us a call if we can help you in any way, 867-3020.  Thank you.

John goes over the new incredible rates in this episode of Tuesday Morning Coffee.

iPhone/iPad Here

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Today’s topic is the incredibly low rates we’re seeing in the marketplace.  Just when you didn’t think they could get any lower, they have.  We’re seeing rates going in the threes right now, and I’m talking about 30-year and 15-year fixed rates that you can get under 4%.  Currently, right now we’re seeing 15-year rates around 3.375.  Some of that does depend on your credit score.  We’re seeing FHA rates dip below 4%.

We saw someone lock into 3.875 last week.  Just an incredible time to either buy a home if you’ve been thinking about that or refinance your home.  Think about it guys, rates are one of the few things in this world that are recession proof.  If you get a 30-year fixed rate, it is going to be that rate.  It is going to be that payment, that principal and interest payment for the next 30 years.  It won’t go up.  It can’t go up.

The only thing that can go up is your taxes and insurance.  Everything around us will probably go up.  Taxes will go up.  Gasoline’s going to go up.  Milk’s going to go up.  Our incomes are going to go up.  But rates will not go up if you lock in.  So they’re incredibly important if you’re buying a home.  An incredibly important factor to think of is rates.  I have some clients that are still sitting on the sidelines, some buyers still thinking prices are going to go down, and they may go down.

But what you’ve got to be careful of if they go down and it takes a year for you to jump on it, what’s that rate going to be at that time?  If that rate bumps up another point, point and a half, have you really gained any ground?  So if you have to borrow money and you’re thinking about buying a home, right now is a beautiful time.  Refinancing.  My rule of thumb on that is I want to see you know for a fact you’re going to stay in that house for another three to five years, and I want to see the rate almost 1-1/2 to 2% difference in the rate you have now before it to make sense.

There is a cost associated with it, and you just have to do the break even.  How many months at the new rate will it take me to break even on the cost of actually refinancing.  By using that scenario and then knowing how long you’re probably going to be in that house, you can probably answer that question.  If you need any names and numbers of reputable lenders, please call us.  We know a bunch.  867-3020.  Please call us if we can help you in any way.  Thank you.