Please share this link with your friends and family.  This is a great home that must be sold.  HUGE price reduction to $129,950.  Here’s the property website and info.  Thanks for helping this family!

You can contact me at suegibsonrealtor@gmail.com or 916-870-5931.

Did you know that National Park Week starts tomorrow? April 16-24th. For the next 7 days you can take your kids to ANY national park for FREE! So pack up the car, grab all the kids you can and head to one of California’s beautiful national parks! To see a list of all of California’s National parks, click here.

Looks like principal reduction as a solution to the underwater housing crisis might be right around the corner.  Click here to read more.

It’s been my opinion for 3 years now that reducing the principal and allowing the homeowner to keep the property would have put everything back on course a long time ago.

It’s never made sense to me that a short sale or foreclosure that lets a new buyer take over a property at a significantly lower price than the original homeowner was paying was a better option than reducing the principal so they can stay.  The numbers are the same except the bank would save all the expense of short sale or foreclosure processing.

Too bad it took so long but glad to see it may be on the horizon.  What do you think?

As always, I’m here to help if you or anyone you know needs advice about short sales or real estate in general.  916-870-5931 or suegibsonrealtor@gmail.com

Foreign investors see value in U.S. real estate.  Click here.  What are your thoughts?

Good news for the economy!  Home Depot is hiring 60,000 workers.  Reading between the lines, it sounds like they expect quite a bit of spending to be happening around the house this year.  Good news!!

Yep, it turns out the non-judicial foreclosure states (like California) may have some “robo-signing” issues with the Notices of Default process that could cause the same issues (and possible foreclosure halts) that the judicial foreclosure states faced last fall.  Here’s the scoop.

Does this mean we’re in for more foreclosure halts in the non-judicial states?   Lawsuits have been filed, so it’s anybody’s guess at this point.  I’ll keep you up-to-date as I learn more.

What new scheme (scam?) do you think the banks are going to come up with next?  Post below.

FYI: Banks have their own policies but most wait until a borrower is at least 3 months behind in payments before they issue a Notice of Default.  This document is a formal request for back payments and lets the borrower know they have 90 days (in CA) to “cure” the back payments or a Trustee Sale date can be set (21 days after the 90 days are up).  These are minimum times, many banks are so overwhelmed that it’s taking much longer.  Here’s a timeline of the 111-day process in California.

As always, I’m here to help with any questions you might have about real estate, foreclosures, short sales.  916-870-5931 or suegibsonrealtor@gmail.com.

When will we say “NO MORE!”?

These banks got greedy, made tons of money, paid goodness-knows-how-much in executive bonuses, then cried “poor me”, got bailed out and now we’re paying their legal fees?

Check it out.  Make sure you’re sitting down.

Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll confirm that for at least 2 years I’ve been an advocate of principal reduction to end this economic mess.

Here’s what I don’t understand: a distressed homeowner can have a perfect payment record with their bank but be so underwater that it no longer makes sense for them to keep the property (job loss, rate reset, etc.).  So they go to the bank and ask for a principal reduction.  Bank says no, we’ll reduce the interest rate short term.  Great, payment is lower but property is still underwater.

Bank doesn’t want to take the hit on “forgiving” a portion of the loan.  So they foreclose and the house sits vacant for up to a year before it goes on the market.  In the meantime, the yards have died, maintenance hasn’t been done, etc.

The bank finally sells to a new buyer for substantially less than the original owner would have taken on a principal reduction.

Makes no sense.  Banks average $80,000 loss on every foreclosure.  Seriously.  How does not reducing the principal make sense?

OK, almost off the soapbox.

If principal reduction had been an option from the beginning, I’m guessing that at least 80% of homeowners would have stayed in their homes.  Their payment would have been lower, giving them disposable income.  That means more jobs.  Amazing – crisis over.

After 3 years of this mess, it looks like the “experts” are finally coming around to my way of thinking.  Check out this article on Principal Reduction gaining traction.

As always, I’m here for you and anyone you know that needs help with short sales, foreclosure activity, house hunting, all things real estate. 916-870-5931 or suegibsonrealtor@gmail.com