Team Reba Real Estate

Excellent article about “green’s” low hanging fruit in New York Times

Filed under: Uncategorized — Reba Haas @ 12:38 pm

A good friend of mine alerted me to this wonderful article about how to find and implement the “low hanging fruit” of being green. There are some excellent resources throughout the article and within the comments. Be sure to read through them as there are links to websites with more details on programs available to the public.

In particular, there is a guy who even gives his thoughts of the small steps he could take (and did) while being a renter. You don’t have to own to help make your home more efficient. In fact, in many cases it will be to your benefit since many landlords have the tenants paying for their own utilities.

Comments (0)

Distressed Property Consultant law gets modified…. finally!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Reba Haas @ 6:24 pm

A lot of people got bent out of shape back in June of 2008 when a new law aimed at stopping equity skimming on foreclosures went into effect. The initial premise of stopping others from scamming people in financial distress was good, in theory, but the actual law that went into effect was a far cry from what the Attorney General’s office had put forward.

Today, we learn that the law has been modified via HB 1132 to better qualify what constitutes a distressed property under the law, and what specific elements must be present in the transaction to make it fit, or not fit, the definition. It’s even nicer that the update will go into effect immediately and there is no waiting period.

I don’t want to get too excited just yet as this only just passed the House and it will be going to the Senate soon under SB 5221. Let’s hope the same unanimous vote occurs within the state Senate!

Comments Off

Need a copy of an oil tank decommissioning report?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Reba Haas @ 11:58 am

Since there is an abundance of older housing stock in the City of Seattle, it’s not uncommon to have the question of whether or not an oil tank is on a property. To determine if a tank has been decommissioned it is possible to contact the local Fire Department and have them look up the address to the property and see if one has been filed. In this case I called the Fire Marshall’s office for the City of Seattle.

The Seattle Fire Marshal’s Office is located at:

220 3rd Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98104-2608

Phone: 206-386-1450
fax: 206-386-1348

Business hours are:

Monday through Friday
8:00 AM to 4:30 PM.

Most decommissioning reports have only been in place for roughly the past 10 years so if it was done earlier you may not have a record available to you. I’ve found that most municipalities are similar in process to this method of investigation so depending on where you live, you’ll want to contact the fire department responsible for your area whether in city limits or in an unincorporated area.

Most reports are faxed and not emailed, so be sure you can provide a fax number to whomever you speak to. Some lenders require a copy of decommissioning reports so be prepared to give a copy to your mortgage company/broker/lender, escrow and other parties as necessary.

Comments (0)

A small bit of good news for homeowners selling in short sale position

Filed under: Uncategorized — Reba Haas @ 11:24 am

Congress has amended The Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007 to The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act and Debt Cancellation. The amended act contains expanded coverage and an extended deadline to 2012.

http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=179414,00.html

The MFDRA does not cover properties that are considered vacation homes or investments. Homeowners need to be sure and fill out the correct forms as it’s not an automatic situation, be sure to read the IRS details via the link to learn more.

Comments (1)

Are we getting the whole story about this condo purchase gone bad?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Reba Haas @ 11:57 am

In the Feb 20th Seattle Times edition there is a story about 6 immigrants that are suing because of what they believe to be bad behavior on the part of the preferred lender and the developer of a Bellevue condo project. Just reading the headline got me on edge. Here’s why…

We start out with being notified this immigrant buyer was attempting to purchase a $1.5M condo on a $20k a year annual salary. WHAT? You’ve got to be kidding me. Even just hearing those two numbers in the same sentence regarding a purchase already smacks of seemingly ridiculous hopes of someone thinking they won the Lotto. There is NO WAY that someone at that income level would be able to afford or qualify for a condo or home at that price point. I’m annoyed that an agent was involved in recommending (or say they say) that this person buy a condo - not because I don’t believe in people having the joy of homeownership - but because the agent most likely is aware that this person was putting in an offer on a property that they could not afford. In my initial consults with new clients we discuss their income levels and seek out pre-approval status prior to looking at any properties.

Here are some of the additional items of concern for me about how the buyer behaved:

Borrowing $75,000 for earnest money - was the lender made aware that this was his source of funds? Most lenders I know REQUIRE knowing where the funds are coming from, especially if they are borrowed, and there is usually a seasoning requirement of up to 60 days, if not longer. In this scenario it is very likely the friend is expecting an interest return when the money is repaid so this must be evaluated by the lender as well. The lender must assess all debt-to-income ratios and borrowed EM or down payment funds would qualify under this definition. They didn’t say this money was a “gift” but that it was borrowed. HUGE red flag.

There are over 400 posts of comments on this story and several of them reference publicly found information about these so called targeted and taken advantage of immigrants. Some of those items found are that the individuals in this story have been party to several purchases of property over the past 5-7 years and that they have also been the subject of at least 2 foreclosure processes on recent purchases. Hmmmmm…. smells like speculative investing to me.

My business partner and I walked away from a whole lot of these in the past several years because in many cases outright fraud was happening. Did you know that lying on a mortgage application is mortgage fraud and is a felony? Many people we spoke to in first consults would tell us that they’d be letting their lender know that they intended to purchase as owner-occupied while knowing that they had no intention of ever residing on the premises. You wouldn’t believe how many people were amazed to hear they were committing a felony by doing this. I would tell them that we weren’t interested in doing business with anyone who would be involved in this kind of practice and if they were set on this being their method of writing up contracts they’d have to find another agent to do it as I wasn’t interested in losing my business (which is what would happen because I’d lose my license permanently if involved in this kind of fraud) just to help them make an additional $5k on a single deal. Many people went and found other agents to work with, so I can sleep at night knowing I work with ethical clients. The thing is, these people who were lying were just hoping to save a 1/4 to 1/2 percentage point on the loan’s interest rate or to by-pass the investor ceiling limit put in place by the developer.

Most builders were putting in anywhere from 5-20% maximum investor purchases in their projects. Why would a builder put in these restrictions? Numerous reasons.

1. to keep from having to compete against investors in the resale of product.

2. to keep the values of the development up.

3. limit risk of the project.

4. to meet lending guidelines for the development.

In fact, some builders went so far as to start putting into their contracts language that limited the ability of purchasers to sell their properties within the first 1-3 years of ownership or they’d have to forfeit any gain on the property. Kudos to those that did and some of these developers actually had to take some sellers to court - and won. The agent’s involved in those transactions also had to give back their commissions earned as those funds came from the gain on the property value.

You see, most developments have phases built in to them and builders don’t want to see investors buying up in the lower cost early phases only to turn around and be reselling as they are continuing to try and sell their additional phases. If the investor has reasonable gain then they might be willing to sacrifice pricing to turn around the property and that hurts the overall neighborhood values. Much like what bank owned and short sale homes are doing to neighborhoods all over the country right now - depressing values.

It’s a shame that the Seattle Times didn’t do better research on the supposed “victims” in this story. My guess is that it was a strong headline grabber and it followed closely on the heels of Danny Westneat’s story of a man who lost his $14,000 earnest money to VEER Lofts. But in that case, I do feel somewhat sorry for that man as lending standards changed and he was most likely a realistic candidate for purchasing back then. VEER is one of the least expensive developments that Vulcan is building so I know that the prices aren’t that high. Most are around $250k - $400k and I’ve looked at them for clients of mine that qualify for that kind of lending amount. Follow up on his story showed many feeling sorry for the man and believing the developer should return the lost earnest money.

It seems that the comments for the $1.5M condo story are weighting much more on the side of people realizing that there is likely greed at play in this scenario and no one is feeling sorry for these folks. Many still blame the business people involved and I also believe that they’ve done a shoddy job, but when you have a buyer who is likely lying to start out with, no one is going to get it right. Methinks the couple shown in the story and their friends may want to be aware that it’s possible they will have legal action taken against them for mortgage fraud or at least that will be the defense of the developer if this goes to court.

Comments Off

Did you know that spot approvals can be used for FHA financing on condos?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Reba Haas @ 3:06 pm

If you’re in the market for a condo in the Seattle area and currently only qualify for FHA financing, it’s possible that your search may not turn up many places if your criteria in the MLS search tool marks FHA only as a parameter. It’s worth it to expand your search and to determine if a property that might otherwise only be considered under conventional financing might fit by getting a spot approval completed.

Here are some of the typical items found on those checklists:

Legal docs of the HOA cannot contain first refusal or restrictive covenants.

The Master Association must be complete and no additional phases or annexation is pending.

Common areas must be under control of the HOA for at least 1 year.

At least 51% of units must be owner occupied.

90% of the units must be sold (if new or conversion).

No single person or entity can own more than 10% of the units, unless building has fewer than 10 units.

There are at least 8 more questions on a list that I had looked over for a past client’s sale of a condo unit but I won’t put them all down here. Most lenders who work with FHA loans should have access to the specific list that they need for their underwriting guidelines.

Happy condo hunting!

Comments (1)

Can a tent city be bad for selling real estate? Knowledge can help dampen fears.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Reba Haas @ 12:24 pm

A current listing of mine is located near a church with a large, level field sitting right across the street from it. I just got word on Thursday that there is a high likelihood that a tent city will be moving into the church’s field starting in early March. The expectation of time that the encampment will be there is roughly 3 months. We are not thrilled, not because of what tent city is, but because it will unfortunately most likely impact our ability to sell this house for our client during the period of time they are set up there. In a weird twist of irony, our client is a supporter of Habitat for Humanity, so providing low cost housing opportunities for people is in their area of personal interests.

I am personally a supporter of the folks living in these types of shelter because many of them are people who would otherwise be split up if they tried to go to more traditional shelters. When I was living in Phinney Ridge I spent time talking to the people who lived in the tent city that was temporarily located at a church on the corner of 75th and Greenwood. I’d stopped by while walking my dog and asked if there were items that they needed and was told that clothing, such as heavy duty jeans (of all sizes), were useful in helping provide sturdy clothing to their population.

So, when I returned with many pairs of jeans purchased at the local Value Village, I started asking other questions. The folks living here are more than happy to have the opportunity to talk about who they are and what they are doing so that there is more understanding and less fear when they move into a neighborhood.

I learned that traditional shelters usually break up families into male and female designated shelters so couples cannot stay together. For some, this is why they choose to use the tent city as their shelter of choice and I can certainly understand why. Shelters most often don’t allow pets either so some people had their dogs with them. Members of the group also told me that there are rules of the camp and those that do not follow them are subject to being ousted, depending on the offense. No alcohol is allowed in the camps and there are also individuals chosen to provide security detail and also mediation teams to handle any squabbles that may come up among members of the group. It’s generally a peaceful enough existence.

Some folks hold down jobs while living in tent city. The ability to be at a location where shower facilities are available can make a huge difference. Many churches use the period of time that they host the group to provide other services and/or assistance, whether it be food, clothing drives, or otherwise. We’ll see what happens over the course of the next few weeks, but my guess is that buyers will be turned off even though this is only a temporary encampment and that’s too bad.

Comments (0)

Seattle Times highlights a Team Reba buyer client!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Reba Haas @ 8:15 pm

Back in December or so I was contacted by a freelance writer about an article she was putting together where she wanted to highlight how buyers in today’s real estate market were becoming successful at submitting lower offers to sellers and getting homes. At the outset she was hoping to speak with one of my active buyers but as I questioned her about timing the article to meet a buyer’s purchase (because you never know when that will happen) we narrowed down that perhaps a recent buyer closing would be more appropriate.

That’s when I introduced her to Zach and Beth Drummond, clients of mine who completed their home purchase in Mercer Island in November. Here is the link to the story and the tips that I provided buyers for handling similar offer situations. This ended up being the front page story of the Sunday real estate section of the Seattle Times, which was pretty cool. I hope you all enjoy Carol Tice’s piece.

Comments Off

And just a little more food for green thoughts…

Filed under: Uncategorized — Reba Haas @ 2:54 pm

Just after writing some of this last post I was on my Twitter account and found another article, this time with a focus on the pending stimulus package, that also discusses how green may become more prominent with it having funding through this mechanism.

Comments Off

Another story about homes going Green all over the nation

Filed under: Uncategorized — Reba Haas @ 2:40 pm

So, one of my clients sent me an article about how the market is making the adjustment to greener homes. Her email was a response to my article a few days ago about Seattle potentially making energy audits a requirement on resale (not new) homes in the city. She was pretty ticked off that this might become a requirement and thought that the free market should decide what would happen to updates on energy efficiency.

While I agreed with her that a free market for this would be nice, it won’t help us meet certain timelines for initiatives in reducing carbon emissions. This article that she supplied mostly comes at this from a new construction home standpoint and new construction is already waaaaayyy better than the older housing stock in terms of energy efficiency - especially in regulation happy Seattle. We have some of the most strict standards in the USA from what members of the local Master Builder’s Association and the commercial building sector tell me and other areas usually lag behind us so much that our minimum requirements help many buildings here meet energy standards that are extras in other parts of the country.

The article does mention that some companies are seeing opportunities to go into older building stock to do retrofits but it isn’t an issue unless a homeowner decides they want to cut their utility bills. I will agree with another notation in the article about consumers not asking about the utility usage of homes for many years. Only in the past 12-14 months have I ever been asked what the utilities look like on a home that a buyer is considering purchasing.

Comments (0)

February 25, 2009

Excellent article about “green’s” low hanging fruit in New York Times

February 23, 2009

Distressed Property Consultant law gets modified…. finally!

Need a copy of an oil tank decommissioning report?

A small bit of good news for homeowners selling in short sale position

February 21, 2009

Are we getting the whole story about this condo purchase gone bad?

February 20, 2009

Did you know that spot approvals can be used for FHA financing on condos?

Can a tent city be bad for selling real estate? Knowledge can help dampen fears.

February 19, 2009

Seattle Times highlights a Team Reba buyer client!

February 13, 2009

And just a little more food for green thoughts…

Another story about homes going Green all over the nation

Twitter Updates