The feeling that foreclosure is looming over you, clouds everything in your life. About 25 percent of homeowners in this country have found themselves facing a foreclosure as an alternative to unmanageable mortgage debt.

An estimated one fourth of the all U.S. homeowners are upside down on their mortgage – meaning they owe more on their home than they could sell it for in today’s market. Often times, the best solution for a homeowner in this type of situation is what we call a short sale. As short sale is when a bank agrees to accept less than what is currently owed on the mortgage.

I am distinctly qualifed to help navigage the entire landscape of foreclosure-avoidance solutions. If you are ready for a fresh start and determined to avoid scams, I invite you to e-mail me at John@bendallgroup.com and we can help you like the many we have help over the last 5 years.

Don’t wait – now is the time to point your future towards blue skies!

John Bendall

Broker/Owner

RE/MAX Classic Group

908-231-0700

Inman News, the leader in real estate and technology news, has selected RE/MAX founder Dave Liniger as the People’s Choice Most Influential Real Estate Leader in 2011.

Liniger, 66, who co-founded RE/MAX with wife Gail in 1973, serves as chairman of the board for the global franchisor. Liniger oversaw the expansion of RE/MAX global franchise operations to eight additional countries in 2011 – there is now a brand presence in nearly every country in Central America and South America, and the franchisor has almost 90,000 affiliated real estate sales professionals in more than 80 countries.

“Our knowledgeable Inman News readers cast their votes for a true visionary of our industry,” says Tim G. Smith, CEO of Inman News. “We are honored to include Dave Liniger among our list of influential past winners.”

Liniger was also selected to the annual Inman 100 list of Most Influential Real Estate Leaders for 2011 — that list is separate and distinct from the individual People’s Choice recognition, and is based on a reader nomination process and an in-house review and selection process by Inman News.

Recent studies show us that people on the Internet do not read. According to social media website Mashable, users read 20 percent of a webpage before moving on. “We spend 15-20 seconds on a webpage before we move on. We are a global planet of fruit flies.”

There are plenty of buyers and sellers online looking for a reliable realtor to help them sell their home in a turbulent market or find that perfect house in an uncertain economy. How do we distinguish ourselves from the thousands of real estate professionals with an online presence?

The answer is social media. PR professional Steve Rubel suggests being “a source of knowledge” through social media. If your friends, followers, and readers know that you’re in-tune with the industry, then they’re more likely to turn to you when they need real estate advice. If your ‘fans’ see that you’re constantly updating your online presence with more information and content, they’ll be more likely to think of you when they decide to invest in a property. 

RE/MAX of New Jersey Associates get the chance to listen to social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk guide them through the steps to establishing an online presence and reaching a new audience. The Tech Rally on September 15th is exclusive to the RE/MAX of NJ Associates and features Vaynerchuk, real estate coach Tom Ferry and an afternoon session with Google. More information on this event is available at www.remax-nj.net/techrally. 

As of 2010, 90 percent of buyers and sellers were online while more are following in the same footsteps. We can’t afford not to be there for them.

 The customers have spoken!  I’m pleased to announce that buyers and sellers realize what we have always known, RE/MAX agents are the ones that consumers trust most when it comes to navigating a sometimes challenging real estate market. In the 2011 J.D. Power and Associates Home Buyer/Seller Study released Wednesday, buyers and sellers award RE/MAX the highest rankings in customer satisfaction. 

View the buyer survey results

View the seller survey results 

“I want to personally thank and congratulate every one of you for contributing to this prestigious recognition,” says RE/MAX Chairman and Co-Founder Dave Liniger. “It truly reflects your professional excellence, your enthusiasm for education, your commitment to distressed sellers, your individual drive, and many other qualities that serve the interests of your clients. Your efforts change lives, and those people have spoken.”

Obviously Dave Liniger is very proud of our associates and I am too.  Thank you to our RE/MAX agents for your hard work and dedication to the highest level of customer satisfaction.  As well, thank you to the hundreds of cooperating agents we do business with regularly.  Without the continued teamwork of all the great agents in the marketplace we could never continue to achieve all of our dreams, aspirations, and lofty goals.  Thank you!

Due to the sun finally showing itself the construction of the 1st ever RE/MAX Classic ARK has been postponed.  The Ark which was started yesterday afternoon as a means of getting to Toms River was 10% complete when the rain finally stopped. We had just gotten a pair of cats to add to the Llamas and Giraffe that were dropped off yesterday. ”We were ready to go,” said RE/MAX Classic owner John Bendall. “Getting that Giraffe back off the Ark turned out to be a bigger challenge than we anticipated”.

Long necky

 Is it a good time to refi????

Despite doom-and-gloom reporting, not every homeowner in the U.S. has negative equity right now. And with interest rates still hovering near record lows, those with equity are likely asking themselves whether it’s a good time to refinance. Well, is it? Let’s take a look:

• Average interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell to 4.51% a week ago (according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest survey), the lowest level since last fall.
• The average outstanding home loan carries an interest rate of about 6% (Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist Frank Nothaft told The New York Times last week).

So if you took advantage of low rates last fall or in 2009, you probably won’t see much savings by refinancing now. But if you haven’t yet refinanced since 2008, you might want to check in and see what kind of savings refinancing might afford you.
 
Cashing out: What’s enough equity?
 
Refinancing used to almost always mean the owner was taking some cash out in the process. That’s because values had climbed pretty steadily (and steeply in many areas) for several years in a row – so most homeowners could afford to cash out to maybe send their kid to college, work on a new addition to the house or remodel. But today, the story is much different.
 
Even if you have equity, it may not have climbed enough for cashing out to make sense. In fact, the NYT reports that some owners are even putting cash in to up the equity on their homes.
 
So what’s enough equity by today’s standards? Times have changed and 20% is once again a magic number. Many lenders aren’t even going to allow you to cash out if it means dipping below that.
 
Refinance options for the equity starved
 
OK, but what if  you have less than that? Can you still refinance to take advantage of low rates?
 
The good news is that there are some programs out there that may make this possible. If you have little or no equity, you can ask your lender about the Home Affordable Refinance Program. If you have an FHA loan, you can check out FHA Streamline Finance, which may make sense for you.
 
So even if your equity is pretty low, there are options. Point is, with rates this low, it’s a good time to sit down and discuss whether refinancing would improve your loan situation. We all know that rates are fleeting and what’s here today may be gone tomorrow.

The economy is improving overall and, as a result, some bright spots are showing up in the real-estate market. However, the foreclosure spike, which began around the same time the recession did, isn’t a distant memory just yet. In many areas, foreclosures are still happening; in some areas, those numbers have increased.

This “second wave” of foreclosures – combined with the fact that many people’s 401(k)s have bounced back with the stock market, and most economists agree that the bottom of the recession has hit – means that competition for these foreclosed homes is, in many cases, fierce. There’s a renewed, final dash to get in on what some perceive as the best real-estate deals they’ll get in awhile. But how do you know which foreclosure is a good buy, and which to walk by? Here are some tips to help guide your clients:

Find a Pro- When looking for foreclosure properties find a Realtor who know the market, the inventory and has some experience in dealing with foreclosures. Having the right Realtor means everything!

Don’t abandon common real-estate logic. Too many people, when shopping for a foreclosure, abandon their real-estate sense and focus on price alone. Remember, things like a sub-par location, poor light, terrible view, below-average school district, high local crime rate and other negatives might be part of the reason why a home went into foreclosure in the first place. Don’t assume that financial problems of the previous owner are the main reason for every foreclosure. The last owner may have bought the home ignoring some of the aforementioned problems, and seen value sink because of them. Don’t ignore those problems, especially if your client is considering selling in the next 5 to 10 years. When we get calls from someone who is looking for a foreclosure the question I most ask is “are you looking for a foreclosure or are you looking for a good deal”. Sometime we find a better deal and fit for our client that is not a foreclosure, right now the market is filled with really good deals and do not forget the low interest rate which is icing on the cake.

Skip – or, at least, very strongly rethink – the flip. “House-flipping,” i.e., buying at bargain-basement pricing, updating, then selling for much higher – is very 2006… and hasn’t exactly been hot since. Even if a house looks like an incredible flipping opportunity, beware of this temptation unless thats what you do for a living. You also better have cash,  there are rules and regulations that the government and most lenders have that prohbits flipping a home with in a 2 year time period.

Go over the budget. A fixer-upper means nothing if you can’t afford to fix it up – and that’s especially true for foreclosures, where those fixes can cost a pretty penny. Before buying, make sure you have an ample budget to do all the repairs needed, after truly taking stock (with the help of a home inspector) of what those needs are.

Do your homework on lenders. Fewer people are getting financing for home-buying than they did before the recession, but good financing is luckily still available to many qualified buyers. Just make sure, as with regular home buying, that you enlist a reputable lender. A good lender will take the time to do a review of your client’s financial life and long- and short-term goals, to truly pick the best solution for them, rather than just spitting out options. Also ask about hidden costs, rate locks, prepayment penalties, origination fees and whether underwriting is done in-house. If you are with a good Realtor they usually have a group of lenders that they know and trust to get the job done, listen to them.

Sales of new U.S. homes fell in January 2011, almost completely retracing the strong gain seen in December, the Commerce Department recently estimated.

Sales dropped 12.6% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 284,000. Economists had been expecting a pace of 300,000.

For December, sales were up a revised 15.7% to a 325,000 level, compared with the previous estimate of a 17.5% rise to 329,000.

Economists had been leery of the initially reported surge, attributing much of December’s gain to home buyers who rushed to take advantage of a tax break in California that expired at the end of 2010.

The less volatile three-month average edged up to 297,000 from 295,000.

In the West, sales pulled back in January, falling 36.5% to 66,000 units after a 62.5% jump in December. Sales also fell 12.8% in the South to a record low 143,000. Analysts were expecting weak sales in the region due to several severe winter storms during the month. Those declines were partially offset by a 54.5% rise in the Northeast and a 17.1% gain in the Midwest.

Compared with January 2010, last month’s sales were down 18.6%. Economists say new-home sales have remained in a relatively narrow range for months. Activity is expected to pick up this spring, but economists see no early hints of a pickup in activity.

In January, the number of unsold new homes on the market slipped 0.5% to 188,000, the fewest since December 1967. That represented a 7.9-month supply at the January sales pace, up from 7.0 in December.

The inventory of completed-but-unsold homes fell to 78,000, down about 21.2% in the past year.

The median sales price of $230,600 in January was up 5.7% compared with a year earlier.

New-home sales are reported when a contract is signed, not at the closing of the sale.

The government cautions that its housing data are subject to large sampling and other statistical errors. Large revisions are common.

The National Association of REALTORS® recently reported that sales of existing U.S. homes rose a seasonally adjusted 2.7% in January, the fifth rise in six months, as buyers snapped up cheaper homes.

In a separate report, the government said orders for durable goods rose 2.7% in January, largely as a result of an increase in orders for civilian aircraft. In addition, initial claims for state unemployment insurance fell 22,000 to 391,000 in the latest week.

(c) 2011, MarketWatch.com Inc.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury released the October edition of the Obama Administration’s Housing Scorecard. The latest housing figures show continued signs of stabilization in house prices and high home affordability due in part to record low interest rates. The housing scorecard is a comprehensive report on the nation’s housing market. “Over the last 21 months, the Obama Administration’s swift action in the housing market has kept millions of families in their homes and provided responsible borrowers with incentives to refinance or to become a homeowner,” said HUD Assistant Secretary Raphael Bostic. “But, with many unavoidable foreclosures still in the pipeline, it’s clear that we have a hard road ahead. That’s why we’re focused on successfully implementing the programs we’ve put in place—such as additional assistance on refinancing and helping unemployed homeowners stay in their homes—and ensuring that help is available to homeowners as soon as possible.” “HAMP is not only an important part of the Administration’s efforts to stabilize the housing market, it has also redefined the loan modification standard for the mortgage industry overall. That has led to more than 3.5 million modification arrangements directly benefitting families in communities across the country still healing from the crisis,” said acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability Tim Massad. “Early data shows that well beyond the trial phase, the majority of homeowners are maintaining their HAMP modifications, reflecting the rigorous standards the program uses to provide assistance to responsible homeowners.” The October Housing Scorecard features key data on the health of the housing market including: -Families continued to benefit from the lowest rates in history on 30-year fixed mortgages. Since April 2009, record low interest rates have helped more than 7.1 million homeowners refinance, resulting in more stable home prices and $12.7 billion in total borrower savings. -As expected with the expiration of the Home Buyer Tax Credit, new and existing home sales remained below levels seen in the first half of 2010. At the same time, home prices remained level in the past year after 33 straight months of decline and homeowners added $95 billion in home equity in the second quarter. -More than 3.52 million modification arrangements were started between April 2009 and the end of August 2010—nearly triple the number of foreclosure completions during that time. These included more than 1.3 million trial Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) modification starts, more than 510,000 Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loss mitigation and early delinquency interventions, and more than 1.6 million proprietary modifications under HOPE Now. While some homeowners may have received help from more than one program, the number of agreements offered nearly tripled foreclosure completions for the same period (1.3 million). -At nine months, almost 90% of homeowners remain in their permanent HAMP modification, with 11% defaulted. Early data indicate that HAMP permanent modifications are performing well over time, with lower delinquency rates than those reported by the industry at large. At nine months, less than 16% of permanent modifications are 60+ days delinquent. Data in the scorecard also show that the recovery in the housing market continues to remain fragile. For example, foreclosure completions continue to move upward and a large supply of homes are being held off the market. While the recovery will take place over time, the Administration remains committed to its efforts to prevent avoidable foreclosures and stabilize the housing market.