Wells Fargo May Still Be Practicing Robo-signing Even After the Foreclosure Settlement

It appears that Wells Fargo just doesn’t get it.  A little over a year ago, action was taken agains 8 of the largest mortgage loan servicers for “unsafe and unsound” (is that a nice way to say “fraudulent”?) foreclosure practices.  Wells Fargo was one of the  mortgage servicers who were participating in these “unsafe foreclosure actions” otherwise known as the “robo-signing scandal”.

Banks Agree to Pay $25 Billion in Foreclosure Settlement

Just a few weeks ago, a judge ruled in favor of a $25 billion dollar foreclosure settlement against the banks who were participating in these practices.  The banks who agreed to the settlement were Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citibank, and Ally Financial Inc.

The Wells Fargo Foreclosure Factory…

 MSNBC.com recently reported that Wells Fargo’s foreclosure department in Charlotte, NC were still practicing robo-signing with entry level employees signing off as VP’s.  Really, Wells Fargo???  I never recommend Wells Fargo for my homebuyer’s mortgage company, and now you’ve given me an even better reason to stay far, far away.  Read the entire article below.
Wells Fargo’s Foreclosure Factory Signing Docs as VP’s

Search Winston-Salem Foreclosures

As bad as robo-signing is, it’s a fact that many folks have lost their homes over the last few years.  Many of those homes are now bank owned REO’s and are listed on the local Triad MLS.  If you are looking for a foreclosure deal in the Winston-Salem area, look no further.  You can find them at the link below.

Search Winston-Salem Bank Owned REO Foreclosures on the MLS

I’m here to help you with buying Winston-Salem foreclosures whether you’re a first time home buyer, move up buyer or real estate investor.  I promise to work hard for you and keep your best interests first.  Don’t hesitate to contact me when you’re ready to buy a great deal on a Winston-Salem bank owned REO property.  You can call/text me at 336.287.4423.  I’ve helped hundreds of people by foreclosure properties, and I look forward to helping you too!

Winston Salem: A Top Market for Real Estate Investors

Winston Salem Homes Blog reported today that Inman News announced their ”10 Best Markets for Real Estate Investors” report today, and Winston-Salem was listed as the 10th best market. You can read their entire post at the link below.

Winston Salem, NC: A Top Market for Real Estate Investors

Let us help you increase your real estate investment portfolio with our FREE Foreclosure HOT List.  Click the link below to fill out the request form.

Free Winston Salem Foreclosure HOT List

This home is currently listed for $84,900.  It’s a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath brick ranch on .31 acre lot.  It has 2 fireplaces, hardwood floors and a basement.  The estimated repairs for a flip would be $20k, and the after repair value is $125,000.  The home is in good enough condition that someone could move in for less than $5000 in repairs.  It’s a nice quiet cul-de-sac street.  It would make a nice residence for an owner occupant or a nice real estate investment for rental or to flip. There is a comp currently under contract listed at $131,000. Call/text me if you have any interest or questions.  336.287.4423.

The past three years have been hard on the real estate market.  Foreclosures are at an all time high. Not since the Great Depression have so many people lost their home. This has created one of the most incredible buying opportunities in real estate in many, many years.   Foreclosures are a great opportunity for home owners to obtain “INSTANT EQUITY”.  Though most foreclosures are distressed, they do offer a chance to “BUY LOW & SELL HIGH”. As a Realtor specializing in foreclosure properties, I help investors, first time home buyers or folks just wanting to move up to a bigger & better home find GREAT DEALS in foreclosures.  Search Winston-Salem Bank Owned REO Foreclosure Homes for Sale NOW!

Foreclosures Can Be A Great Deal for "Instant Equity"

I will briefly describe how the process works. Once a home owner goes into default on his mortgage, the property is sold at the local courthouse. If the high bid is not acceptable, the property reverts back to the bank and becomes an REO (Real Estate Owned by the bank). Once the bank has reclaimed the home, they usually hire a real estate agent to help them market & sell the property.

Most foreclosures are sold BELOW MARKET VALUE, because they are sold “AS IS”. They can go for LESS than list price and often do, but the LONGER the property has been on the market, the BETTER chance you have of getting a GREAT DEAL. Because most REO properties are distressed, the buyer, in most cases, must have a vision of what the home can potentially become. The worse condition, the better opportunity for “BUY LOW & SELL HIGH”

Here are a 5 steps you should take to find awesome foreclosure deals.

1. YOU MUST BE PRE-QUALIFIED FOR A LOAN OR HAVE PROOF OF FUNDS if you plan to make a CASH offer. To get your PRE-QUAL letter you will need a few things
* W-2 forms full 1040 tax forms if self employed).
* Paystub’s to cover a full one-month period.
* Your most current bank statements for 2 consecutive months.
* Signed application forms and credit report authorization.

From my experience, banks are more likely to accept a CASH offer, even if it is SLIGHTLY LOWER than a FINANCED OFFER.

2. FIND A GOOD LENDER .  As I mentioned earlier, most foreclosures are distressed, so if you are financing your purchase, your lender must know you are buying a foreclosure ESPECIALLY IF THE HOME IS DISTRESSED. BANKS, MORTGAGE BROKERS, PRIVATE FUNDS or even HARD MONEY LENDERS can be sources of capital.

3. FIND A REALTOR WHO SPECIALIZES IN FORECLOSURE LISTINGS. Buying a foreclosure can be a little tricky. If you get in a multiple bid situation and your Realtor is NOT familiar with the process, you could miss out on a great deal. A Realtor in the know, can provide invaluable tips to help you GET THE PROPERTY YOU WANT AT THE PRICE YOU WANT. He or she should have FORECLOSURE LISTS, which they can provide by EMAIL. This will SAVE YOU GREAT DEALS OF TIME instead of doing manual searches. He/She should know the local market and be able to provide recently SOLD COMPS or RENTAL ESTIMATES.

4. BE ABLE TO CLOSE FAST! Banks like for you to get things done quick (though they don’t always return the favor!). If you can close in 15 days instead of 30, you stand a better chance of getting your GREAT DEAL. Once your offer is ACCEPTED, there is a minimum EARNEST MONEY DEPOSIT (EMD) of $500. You must have a copy of your EMD check to make the offer, and once it is accepted you have 3 banking days to deposit with whoever plans to hold it. Most of the time the CLOSING ATTORNEY or LIST AGENT will hold the EMD.

5. DEVELOP A LIST OF CONTRACTORS WHO CAN PROVIDE INSPECTIONS/REPAIR ESTIMATES. Most contractors will provide a FREE REPAIR ESTIMATE, which can help you determine your OFFER PRICE. If you don’t know honest, respectable contractors, you can find most of what you need at ANGIE’S LIST  www.angieslist.com). This site provides reviews from people who have actually used the contractor, so you can have peace of mind knowing the person/company is good to deal with or not.  A good Realtor® should be able to provide a list of contractors to you as well.

Once your offer has been accepted, the bank will have an addendum to the “Offer to Purchase” contract.  I would suggest a real estate attorney look this over and explain any “gotchas”.  If you agree to “close” with the attorney, most will do this for no additional charge.

After both parties have signed the “Offer to Purchase” and Addendum, it becomes a binding contract.  In most cases, you will now have a 10-15 day INSPECTION PERIOD, which is basically a “FREE LOOK”.  During this time  you can have an INSPECTION done on the property to see if you really want to purchase it.  ALWAYS have a LICENSED HOME INSPECTOR complete an inspection during this time to find out if there are any serious issues with the home.  As I said earlier, most foreclosures are “AS IS”, so the bank does not do any repairs.  However, if you find something that is wrong during the inspection, you can make a repair request.  If the bank does not agree to do the repair, you can terminate the contract, and get your EARNEST MONEY DEPOSIT back.

There can be other issues to buying a foreclosure, but this will give you a foundation on how the process works.

Click Here for Our FREE Foreclosure by email HOT List! or Search Winston-Salem Bank Owned REO Foreclosure Homes for Sale NOW!

 About.com also has a good article on 8 Tips for Getting Your REO Bank Owned Foreclosure Offer Accepted

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tony Green is an experienced Realtor® specializing in Bank Foreclosures. Visit www.TriadNCHomesForSale.com and request to be added to his FREE email list of local REO properties in the Piedmont Triad of NC. He can also be reached at (336) 462-9544.

Realty Trac reports that North Carolina Foreclosure Filings were up over 26% from April, 2009.  The report also states that the number of filings was up over 9% from March 2010.  The Winston-Salem area (Davie, Forsyth, Stokes and Yadkin Counties) had 319 filings in April, which was up 9.6% from last year, but down 22.8% in March.  You can read the entire article from JournalNow.com at the link below.

North Carolina Foreclosure Filings Up in April, 2010

Looking for below market deals on bank owned properties in the Winston-Salem Triad area?  Click the link below.

Sign up for our FREE Winston-Salem Foreclosure HOT List!

Alternatives to Foreclosure
Stop Foreclosure! (Foreclosure Options)

If you have experienced increased expenses, reduced income, or other hardship and are having trouble making your mortgage payment, you are not necessarily doomed to the devastation of foreclosure. Here are six options you may have to keep your house, if you cannot make your current mortgage payments, are about to default on your mortgage, or feel like you are going into “pre-foreclosure” status:

1. Refinance: You simply get a new mortgage loan and pay off your old (unaffordable) loan with the new one.

2. Repayment Plan: You work with your lender on structuring a repayment plan you can live with – one that lets you catch up on your missed payments by paying more than one full payment per month until you are current on your mortgage.

3. Forbearance Program: You work with your lender to delay or to suspend all (or a part) of your normal monthly payment for an agreed-upon period of time. You may roll the “suspended” payments into the existing mortgage loan, or you may make those payments as part of a repayment plan or loan modification, as agreed between you and your bank(s).

4. Loan Modification: You work with your lender to change the original terms of your mortgage loan. You may be able to change your interest rate, the duration of the loan, or the amount of the loan (adjusted by the amount that you are behind in paying).

5. Short Refinance: You work with your lender to obtain an adjustment or “forgiveness” of the actual principal portion of the balance. This may be used with Forbearance and Repayment Plans.

6. Short Sale: Simply put, it is when a lender will agree to accept an amount which is less than what is actually owed on the property. A short sale is a normal (actually nothing “normal” about a short sale) purchase and sale transaction, however the lender is receiving a payoff which is “short” of the total amount owed. Hence, the term “short sale.”

7. Bankruptcy: You may change your original terms of your mortgage loan as part of a bankruptcy filing, order, reorganization, or repayment plan.

All of these methods require you to be able to make a payment that the Bank agrees with and to make it on-time every month.

If you have encountered a hardship, income reduction, or increase in expenses that prohibits you from participating successfully in any of these programs or that will simply delay the inevitability of foreclosure because you’re actually unable to make acceptable payments, even under modification or other attempt to adjust your mortgage burden, you may need to consider a Short Sale to escape foreclosure and its devastating effects on your life.

For more information on what a Short Sale is and how it can help you or other foreclosure options, please feel free to call (336) 462-9544 for a free consultation or email: info@exitelitenc.com

Tony Green, Realtor and Broker/Owner of EXIT Realty Elite in Winston Salem, NC has helped several home owners avoid foreclosure through the options listed above.

Foreclosures are still high in our area, and Winston Salem and Forsyth County want to do something to help potential home buyers. City and county housing officials are working with local real-estate agents, financial institutions and the Center for HomeOwnership to help families or individuals buy foreclosed houses for less than their appraised value. This should be a win-win for buyers and the local real estate market. The program will help home owners by allowing them to buy a home under market value, and it should help stabilize the real estate market by lowering the amount of foreclosure (REO) inventory.

Through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, eligible buyers can receive a deferred forgivable loan of up to $20,000 for a down payment on a foreclosed home if the mortgage holder will sell the home for less than its appraised value. Additional assistance may be available for renovations. The foreclosed home must be in a census tract which has incurred or is projected to incur a high rate of foreclosure. The program is open to first-time home buyers and those who have not owned a home for at least three years. The loan would not have to be repaid if the buyer owns and lives in the house for at least 20 years. Eligible buyers must have a house under contract by July 18, 2010, to participate in the program.

The Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which Congress approved in 2008 to assist communities with high rates of foreclosure, has given Winston-Salem and Forsyth County $2.625 million for the program. This program, , which is being funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development through the N.C. Department of Commerce.

Read the entire article at DigTriad.com

If you are a first time home buyer looking to buy a foreclosure in the Winston Salem area, give me a call/text (336-287-4423) or email and request my Free Foreclosure HOT List with ALL of the freshest foreclosure listings for sale.  It would be a privilege for me to help you fulfill your dream of owning a home.

Buena Vista Foreclosure 843 Wellington, Winston Salem, NC 27106

Buena Vista is one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Winston Salem. You don’t get an opportunity to buy a foreclosure in this neighborhood very often (currently the only foreclosure).  This home has a totally re-modeled kitchen with new cabinets and granite counter tops, and is near move in ready. (Kicking all the spiders to the curb is job one! Ha! Spiders love an empty home).  The home has plenty of room with over 3000′ of heatable space. There are 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, .57 acre, finished basement, and lovely hard wood floors.  This REO (bank owned) property has been recently reduced $20,000.  It’s priced at $329,900 and is over $50,000 below tax value.

There are currently 87 listings in Buena Vista with a median price of $425,000.  16 homes have sold here in the last 6 months with a median sales price of $317,500 and an average “days on market” of 87 days.  Give me a call if you need a buyers agent and would like to view this property.  Call/text me at 336-287-4423.

Google Map (with street view) of 843 Wellington, Winston Salem in Buena Vista

Realty Trac reported that foreclosure activity in May, 2009 was down 16% from April, 2009 and down 35% from May 2008.  North Carolina ranked 26th in the country for foreclosures in May.  Five counties were responsible for 68% of the activity with Guilford County and Forsyth County being ranked 3rd and 4th respectively in the state.  Guilford County had 284 foreclosure filings and Forsyth County had 229 properties with foreclosure filings.  On the Triad MLS, there are currently 188 active REO’s in Guilford County, and 156 active bank-owned, REO, foreclosure listings in Forsyth County.  This would include Greensboro, High Point, Winston Salem, Kernersville, Clemmons, Lewisville, Pfafftown, Walkertown, and other communities in these counties.

Read the entire report at the link below
 http://www.realtytrac.com/ContentManagem…

As always, if you have any interest in foreclosure properties in the Winston Salem and Triad areas or other properties in the Triad, please give Tony Green, Realtor a call at 336-287-4423 or shoot him an email (listed on primary website).

The list price for 5478 Kingsbridge in Winston Salem has just been dropped $10,000 to $219,900.  This 4 bedroom home has plenty of room and is in a great school district.  This brick home was built in 1989, is on .35 of an acre, and over 3200′.  The home does need some work, however comparable homes in the neighborhood are worth $250k – $275k. Call Tony at 336-287-4423 if you would like to see it.