Southeastern Virginia is blessed to have a relatively high percentage of military homeowners and therefore a higher percentage of homes than in most parts of the country with VA loans and therefore, thanks to the low down payment requirements for VA loans, a higher lingering inventory of “upside down” or “underwater” homes. Military homeowners…
The good news is that according to the Wall Street Journal the current temporary spending bill passed by the House of Representatives DOES have a provision to extend the Mortgage Debt Relief Act for another year! Call your Representative and thank them if you completed a Short Sale in 2014. The bad news is that…
In our blog earlier this month we included legislative contact information so that you could let your Senators and Congressmen know how important you feel it is to extend the taxable income exclusion for forgiven debt on your primary residence. That exclusion was originally part of a tax relief package begun in the Bush era…
Since the early days of Perry Mason, and LA Law, and all the many legal shows that followed, I have often lamented the omission from mainstream media of the exciting part of the legal calling that some of us hold dear, that is the practice of Real Estate Law. Dirt Law. An integral…
At first this sounds like great news for consumers. In reality, the only good news for consumers is that we live in America where you have the freedom to make risky choices. Only a decade ago you could buy more home than you could afford by paying just a little higher interest rate using a…
We try not to wander too far afield into the political end of things. But sometimes you just have to give credit where credit is due and point out some of the obvious consequences of laws affecting lenders, borrowers, default, and legal ramifications. Dodd-Frank and the ensuing Quality Management or QM regime enforced upon the…
No list of lenders who most shamelessly obstruct the short sale process is complete without mention of the reverse mortgage lending industry. (“RMLI”) The RMLI has gotten a pass from heavy consumer scrutiny in part because it is a fairly new phenomenon. But the list of abuses is growing and the honeymoon appears to be…
For many of our short sale clients, they waited a little too long to get our help. Nothing breaks our heart more than to interview a new client at the 11th hour and find that the normal techniques for avoiding foreclosure will not work. Most of these negotiated course changes take a few days or…
The bad news: It is nearly two months into 2014 and Congress has not extended the Mortgage Debt Relief Act. (MDRA) The good news: There are still more than 10 months remaining before any taxes may be due for short selling homeowners who close in 2014. If you were a betting person: One of our…
My investor and flipper clients still tell me about homes that they have bought at auction that are stripped of all copper wiring, HVAC equipment, appliances, and much of the plumbing by the time they are given access. Most bidders take these potential set backs into account when formulating a bid for a foreclosure auction…
