All Forum Posts by: Marian Smith

What a story. It aught to be on "Sixty Minutes" to demostrate a need to change the laws. But media coverage would likely just educate a new rash of squatters.

Our county clerks office seems to be pretty prompt about getting digital images online of records that have been filed. I don't know if title companies rely on the same digital images we see on the county web site or if they go to the clerk's office and check physical files???
But I am curious about what experiences anyone has had with liens on properties purchased at auction. Are they negotiable? If it is for a 2k water softener can you just say come and get it? One frequent auction buyer bought a house with a lien for the pool. He can't tell the lien holder, "Come and get it." Will he rent the property until the pool builder goes out of business or the statute of limitations runs out (if it ever does). I am sure it wasn't a mistake, this guy is too experienced.
Another curious item. Another house he bought at auction has a lis pendes filed on it by the foreclosed upon ex-owner. Evidently they are protesting the foreclosure. I understand that is a cloud on title, but will it prevent the sheriff from evicting them?

I have viewed a couple of auctions but have never tried to figure out whether there was a rhyme or reason to the process. My question: Do loans held by Fannie or Freddie open at the loan value every time? Or do they appear to use a BPO prior to the sale to set a price?
An FHA or VA insured loan would be auctioned at loan value for obvious reasons. The banks, for the most part,either open at loan value (or loan value plus fees etc) or they get a BPO and price it for something like "market value minus 10-25% fix up and 6% realtor fees and holding estimates." That must be why you see a 22 year old 4 bedroom that has been a rental for 4 years with an out of state owner with a starting bid of 30-40k under market.
Do the banks try to open at loan value to be sure someone's relatives don't loan them the money to buy back their house at a steep discount?
Anyone willing to share? I just want to know if it is worth the trouble to research a Fannie Mae property if it is going to automatically open too high to warrant a bid. (They never have enough equity.)

What is unethical is to paint every room a different color, let your dogs pee on all the carpet, and move out leaving filth everywhere-- letting the lender foreclose.
Also consider the area of the country--someone who moved to Phoenix and bought at the dizzing height created by liar loans and lying appraisers may not feel particularly guilty letting WaMu (whoever they are now) have their colateral back.
Home equity loans are a different ball of wax. Texas' constitution barred them until a decade or so ago to protect the ranch from the poker table. Not a bad idea in hindsight.

Q. When do I repay the full credit?

A. Here are the conditions when you must repay the full amount of the credit:

You sold your main home to a related person or entity.
Your home is destroyed, condemned or disposed of under threat of condemnation and you do not purchase or rebuild a replacement home within two years.
You converted the entire home to a rental or business property.
You converted the home to a vacation or second home.
You no longer live in the home for the greater number of nights in a year.
Q. When do I repay all or a part of the credit?

A. Here are the conditions under which you repay all or a part of the credit:

You sold your main home to a non-related person or entity. You repay the remaining amount of the credit limited to the amount of your gain. Note: when calculating gain or loss on your main home, you reduce your basis by the amount of the credit you received that you have not previously repaid. See Publication 551, Basis of Assets, for more information.

You lost your home in a foreclosure. You must repay the credit only up to the amount of gain.

For example, you purchased a principal residence for $95,000 on April 30, 2010, and took the $8,000 credit. You sell your principal residence to an unrelated person for $90,000 on Feb. 14, 2012. To determine if you must repay any amount of credit, you must adjust the basis of the property by $8,000, which is the amount of the credit you received. The revised basis is $87,000 ($95,000 minus $8,000). The gain on the sale is $3,000, which is the amount of credit that you must repay with the tax return for the year of the sale of the principal residence.

Ditto. They're not asking to harbor an 80 lb dog. Just put a couple of holes in the drywall. Spackle and get a matched paint color sample from Home Depot for 3 bucks. I personally wouldn't even charge them. It seems reasonable to me--to make the place fit their needs--and they asked, which shows decency.

I see foreclosures in the Austin area owned by out of state landlords all the time. We have several realtors that made some serious cash by holding seminars in California to sell homes in new masterplanned neighborhoods to investors. Investors paid too much, underestimated property taxes (some areas over 3%), overestimated rents, and forgot to hold reserves for events like a washing machine overflowing and ruining all the floors (that was in a newspaper article about Cal. investors going bust). Then there was the drought last year and the east half of the city is built on expansive clay soils so now there are a smattering of damaged foundations. And Austin is big. We have the 20 year olds on cell phones and laptops at the courthouse auctions buying 5 or 10 properties a month. So, out-of-towners, invest at your own peril. There are no dollar bills laying in the street.

It is indeed expensive to buy MLS access. I agree that all of the information needed for shopping is available free. Except days on market, but I have even seen that. If you want to make an offer you need sales information off the MLS to be sure you are not overpaying or to justify your offer price. However, I believe you can get this from real estate agents pretty easily. Just ask. Call the listing office of a house for sale in the neighborhood you are looking at and ask for a print out of all the solds in the last 6 months for that neighborhood(s)--and tell them you are researching what houses in that neighborhood sell for because you're looking at buying or selling. They will send it to you just to get your email address. And they will be helpful because you are a lead! Printing and emailing that list just takes a few moments and you can get a ballpark idea--which is all you need as all houses, buyers and sellers, as well as time-frames are different. Note: just as realtors can choose the properties to use in a CMA, they can remove solds from a list. Not saying they would, just could.

I like the large lots for resale. I think some, not all, buyers like a large yard for a variety of reasons and they are not making subdivisions with large lots here anymore.
However, I always have a fear that no one will want to rent my place because who wants to mow the landlord's big lawn? Has not been a problem thus far.

I haven't yet because I have only screened for tenants a few times and the tenants I rented to printed their reports off annualcreditreport.com. They told me they had bad credit and why--divorce/ex-wife etc. One, that I didn't rent to, had not 1 but 2 judgments against them from previous landlords on their report. (They were so nice, too.)