Welcome to the "Z" Team!

From faxing on-the-go to creating property “reminder” tours, several new applications for smartphones aim to help improve your efficiency while away from your office and impress clients.

James Dwiggins, chief strategy officer with Realty World Northern California and Nevada, provided dozens of mobile application and Web site ideas to attendees at Inman News’ Agent Reboot on Wednesday in San Diego. Agent Reboot is a series of one-day conferences nationwide that highlight the latest marketing and technology trends.

Among some of the apps Dwiggins highlighted included:

1. Gist: Pull together all your contacts from your address book, inboxes, and social networks to access all in one place. The app also pulls in your contacts’ status updates from their social networking pages, blog posts, and news to create an up-to-date business profile for all of your contacts. iPhone and Android. Free.

2. RECalc: Figure monthly payments, interest rates, and loan amounts with this mortgage calculator app. It also allows you to add in annual property tax and home owners’ insurance to give a snapshot to your clients about what they can expect to pay. iPhone. $1.99. For Android users, try Karl’s Mortgage Calculator. Free.

3. Expensify: Keep tabs on your expenses and get rid of the hoards of paper receipts. Take a photo of paper receipts with your phone’s camera and the receipts will be stored online digitally. This app also allows you an easier way to keep track of your mileage when driving clients around for tax purposes later on. iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Palm, PC, and Mac. Two accounts are free, $5 per account after.

4. Mobile Phax: Take a photo of any letter-sized document or page and this app will allow you to then send it as a PDF to any e-mail address. You can also send the document directly to a fax machine using eFax, fax(.com), send2fax, and other compatible fax programs. iPhone and Blackberry. $4.99 (plus packs available for additional monthly faxes).

5. Tour Narrator: Capture your customers feedback while they tour homes by using your phone to snap photos, take notes, and record audio. The information you gather can then be used to create a sales presentation that can be converted into a PDF with a URL that you can later send to clients. They’ll be able to browse through the properties and see the notes, photos, and listen to the audio as reminders of what they liked and disliked about the homes they toured. iPhone. $1.99.

6. Realtor.com: Access millions of listings with photos and property details, open house information, and map searches. You can also share listings via social networks. iPhone. Free.

7. Vlingo: Talk to your phone and tell it what to do. You can send text messages and e-mails by speaking your message. The phone will transcribe it to text and send, offeringa safer way to text and e-mail while driving. iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. $10.

Also, read about the Center for REALTOR® Technology’s new iPhone app, PlaceTags, and additional information about mobile real estate apps.

–By Melissa Dittmann Tracey for REALTOR® Magazine online

Since the start of the housing downturn, the number of Web sites and foreclosure-prevention companies claiming to offer help to struggling borrowers has greatly increased. While some of the businesses are legitimate, others are fraudulent and offer services that consumers may be eligible to receive “free of charge”.

KEEP THIS IN MIND

• This month, Fannie Mae – the government-sponsored entity that helps set lending standards for most mortgages—started a Web site, KnowYourOptions.com. The site contains elements distinguishing it from those aiming to prevent foreclosure. All of the information on the site is available in Spanish or English.

• KnowYourOptions.com provides video explanations of what users might accomplish in each of the tabbed section of the site. In the “Take Action” section, for example,” struggling homeowners are advised that the first step to take in seeking help with their mortgage is to contact their mortgage company.

• Other features of the site include contact information for mortgage companies and loan counselors, calculators to determine if the borrower is eligible for assistance, and information on commencing short sales or deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure.

• Another helpful Web site for consumers is Hope LoanPort, which allows struggling homeowners and housing counselors to submit financial documents to mortgage companies and track the status of their efforts to avoid foreclosure. Hope LoanPort was created by Hope Now, a consortium of 12 mortgage companies and 250 counseling agencies. 

To read the full story, please click here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/realestate/22mort.html?_r=1&ref=realestate

The Federal Reserve Board is proposing enhanced consumer protections and disclosures for home mortgage transactions.  Changes proposed include significant changes to Regulation Z (Truth in Lending).  The latest proposal would:

Improve the disclosures consumers receive for reverse mortgages and impose rules for reverse-mortgage advertising to ensure advertisements contain accurate and balanced information;

Prohibit certain unfair practices in the sale of financial products with reverse mortgages; 

Improve the disclosures that explain a consumer’s right to rescind certain mortgage transactions and clarify the responsibilities of the creditor if a consumer exercises the right; and

Ensure that consumers receive new disclosures when the parties agree to modify the key terms of an existing closed-end mortgage loan.  

The comment period ends 90 days after publication of the proposal in the Federal Register, which is expected shortly.

More info. http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20100816e.htm

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) announced last week it is pushing back the implementation date for new premium structures on FHA-insured mortgages to Oct. 4 from the original date of Sept. 7. 

Following FHA Commissioner David Stevens’ recent announcement that up-front premiums for FHA-insured mortgages would be reduced beginning Sept. 7 from 2.25 percent to 1 percent, lenders expressed concerns that they would need more than five weeks to update loan disclosures and computer systems.

FHA previously raised up-front premiums from 1.75 percent to 2.25 percent in April to cope with rising losses on FHA-guaranteed loans. The Obama administration promised to reduce up-front premiums if Congress gave it the authority to raise annual premiums beyond their statutory limit of 0.55 percent.  HR 5981, legislation raising the statutory limit on annual premiums to 1.55 percent, was approved by lawmakers on Aug. 4 and has been signed by President Obama. 

More information at:  http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page/portal/ver-1/HUD/federal_housing_administration/docs/BottStatementPremiumChanges.pdf

Is your home dressed to sell?

Staging the interior.

Clear all unnecessary objects from furniture throughout the house. Keep decorative objects on the furniture restricted to groups of 1, 3, or 5 items. In general, a sparsely decorated home helps the buyer mentally ‘move in’ with their own things.

Rearrange or remove some of the furniture in your home, if necessary. Many times home owners have too much furniture in a room. When it comes to selling your home, thin out overcrowded rooms to make the rooms appear larger.

 Clear all unnecessary objects from the kitchen countertops. If it hasn’t been used for three months…put it away! Clear refrigerator fronts of messages, magnets, pictures, etc.

 In the bathroom, remove any unnecessary items from the countertops, tub, shower stall and commode top. Keep only the most necessary cosmetics, brushes, perfumes, etc., in one small group on the counter. Coordinate towels in one or two colors only.

 Take down, reduce, or rearrange pictures and objects on walls. Patch and paint all walls, if necessary.

 Review the house interior, room by room, and:

1. Paint any room needing paint.

2. Clean carpet and draperies that need it.

3. Clean windows.

 If you need room to store extra possessions use the garage or rent a storage unit.

 Leave on certain lights during the day (your agent will show you which ones). During showings turn on ALL lights and lamps.

Staging the exterior.

Go around the perimeter of the house and move all garbage cans, discarded wood scraps, extra building materials, etc., to the garage or, if applicable, take them to the dump.

Check gutters and roof for dry rot and moss. Make sure they are swept & cleaned.

 Look at all plants. Plants are like children…they grow so fast. Prune bushes and trees. Keep plants from blocking windows: “You can’t sell a house if you can’t see it!”

 Remove any dead plants, weed all planting areas and put down fresh mulching material.

 Keep your lawn freshly cut, edged and fertilized during the growing season.

 Clear patios or decks of all small items, such as little planters, flower pots, charcoal, barbeques, toys, etc.

 Check the condition of the paint on your home, especially the trim and the front door. The first

impression, or ‘curb appeal,’ is very important.

Try to look at your house “through a buyer’s eyes,” as though you’ve never seen it before. This exercise will help you see what needs to be done. Any time and money invested on these items will usually bring you the return of more money and a quicker sale.  For additional staging ideas or if you are in the market for a professional home stager, give us a call, we would be glad  to help.

Have interest rates hit bottom? Or do you expect them to go up? Has your credit score improved enough so that you might be eligible for a lower-rate mortgage? Would you like to switch into a different type of mortgage?

The answers to these questions will influence your decision to refinance your mortgage. But before deciding, you need to understand all that refinancing involves. Your home may be your most valuable financial asset, so you want to be careful when choosing a lender or broker and specific mortgage terms. Remember that, along with the potential benefits to refinancing, there are also costs.

When you refinance, you pay off your existing mortgage and create a new one. You may even decide to combine both a primary mortgage and a second mortgage into a new loan. Refinancing may remind you of what you went through in obtaining your original mortgage, since you may encounter many of the same procedures–and the same types of costs–the second time around. 

More information at: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/refinancings/default.htm

Despite massive amounts of taxpayer bailout money being spent on modifying delinquent loans, the inventory of lender foreclosed homes, called REOs, has been increasing. Currently there are 166 REOs listings in El Dorado County. El Dorado Hills has 25 REOs listed in the MLS, Cameron Park/Shingle Springs 29, Placerville/Diamond Springs/El Dorado 29 and there are 33 REO listed above Camino. The other 50 REO listings are scattered around the county from Fairplay to Georgetown.

REO sales make up one of every four county home sales. That’s not surprising when comparing prices of REO and non-REO properties. The average selling price of a county REO home is $253,000 while non-REOs sales average $397,000. REO sales typically take 49 days to attract an offer which is usually at or slightly above the listed price. The non-REOs home will typically take 79 days to and attract offers at 95 percent of the current listed price.

There is some evidence the number of new loan defaults is decreasing. Notices of Default, the first step in the foreclosure process, edged up slightly from May to June but according to ForeclosureRadar, decreased 45 percent from June of 2009.  That’s a good signal the worst is probably over. If so, it’s about time. The excessive number of foreclosures has decimated property values and erodes confidence in the housing market.     

Information provided by Ken Calhoon, Broker, Placerville, CA.

A 1031 exchange is a great tool for investors who want to avoid paying tax on the gain from the sale of real estate; however, in order to completely defer the tax, an investor must 1) find one or more “like-kind” replacement properties with a total fair market value that equals or exceeds what is being sold, 2) invest all the cash from the existing property (“relinquished property”) in the new property; and 3) acquire debt on the replacement property equal to or greater than the debt on the relinquished property, unless cash is added to offset the debt.

Many experienced real estate investors who are familiar with 1031 exchanges don’t realize that a build-to-suit exchange can give them more flexibility in structuring their transactions to meet these requirements and more ability to take advantage of opportunities in today’s market.

The build-to-suit exchange allows an owner to use the proceeds from the sale of the relinquished property not only to acquire replacement property, but also to make improvements to the property. For example, in a typical forward exchange, if an investor sells relinquished property with a fair market value of $800,000, debt of $200,000 and equity of $600,000, he must acquire a property equal to at least $800,000 and must invest at least $600,000 into that property. In a build-to-suit exchange, however, the investor could acquire property worth only $200,000 and have $600,000 in improvements made to the property by using the remaining $400,000 in exchange proceeds and by borrowing $200,000. This would use up the remaining cash and increase the fair market value of the replacement property to $800,000, resulting in a fully tax deferred exchange. A build-to-suit exchange can be a great tool in this market for investors looking to buy and improve distressed assets; however, investors should consult with their legal/tax advisors to ensure that they properly structure their transaction.

Part of the financial reform bill signed into law by President Obama includes the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will write new rules and monitor problems and abuses in areas such as residential real estate settlements, credit scores, “truth in lending,” and equal credit opportunity. 

KEEP THIS IN MIND

• Before the Bureau can begin implementing new laws to assist consumers, the president must nominate a director for the Bureau and the Senate must confirm the nominee. While this may take time, mortgage industry leaders say some of the core changes promised by the legislation either already are in effect or should be soon.

• Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has until Sept. 19 to designate a transfer date when key legal and regulator authorities shift from agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), to the new consumer bureau. Once that takes place, the Bureau will begin implementing the new laws.

• One of the earliest and most widely anticipated changes expected to take effect impact home appraisals. By law, the agency must create new interim rules on appraisal accuracy and independence to replace the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) rules imposed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2009. Many in the real estate industry, as well as home buyers and sellers, report HVCC standards led to low home valuations that, in some instances, derailed home sales transactions.

• A national hotline system also will be developed that will allow aggrieved mortgage borrowers and others to issue complaints and alert the Bureau to unfair and deceptive practices.

• Rules requiring mortgage loan officers to verify mortgage applicants possess the ability to repay the loans they’re seeking also is high on the list.

To read the full story, please click here:

http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-0801-harney-20100801,0,821975.story   

·         The “upfront” MI (the amount added to the loan amount at closing) is being reduced from the current 2.25% to 1.0% – that’s good news.  Means the client will be starting out with a lower loan balance. 

·         Bad news is that the MONTHLY MI will be going up from the current .55% per year to .85% to .90% per year.  On a $250,000 purchase price, this means approximately $55 per month in higher MI payment.

Implementation date is estimated to be September 7th, meaning all case #’s drawn after this date will have the new MI structure.  So if we have a house identified and it looks like the offer will most likely be accepted, you might want to get a case # on that house for that client and lock into the existing MI structure.  Some clients may opt for the lower up front cost and take the higher monthly payment.