Orlando Short Sale Market Report
It has been quite awhile since I have given a real estate update and my main
reason was the deteriorating real estate situation around the country did
not need my negative outlook on the Orlando real estate market. I am sure
you are reading the paper was well as I do and I am sure you are seeing the
action the government is taking to add additional debt to our already
bloated national burden without getting anywhere. My team has been
successful in helping many sellers in selling their homes prior to
foreclosure and I think selling homes prior to foreclosure in a short sale
process the absolute best way to go, however, banks have been incredible
slow to react to contracts and they wait until the neighborhood prices have
dropped even more. If the TARP funds would be used to fund the difference
between what is owed and what the net amount of the offer is and speed up
the process, this would stabilize the market significantly and get things
moving.
In fact, if you are interested in helping the country and want to see things
move in the right direction, please write to your representatives. I have
sent a letter to the governor to point out this travesty and hopefully with
your help in writing as well we can get the real estate market moving again.
- Read the letter that we wrote:
The solution to significantly reduce Florida’s foreclosures and reduce the
drain on billions of tax dollars
I am just a real estate agent living in Lake Mary, Florida. My husband and
I have been in the real estate business for 20 years, employing directly 6
people (payroll) and indirectly a total of 10. They are depending on us for
their success to keep their livelihood going while the following real estate
insanity is going on in every neighborhood in Florida and all over the
country. We are experienced in dealing with real estate short sale
transaction and here is my point.
As a country and state we are trying to stop foreclosure, the decline in
real estate values, reduce unemployment and increase tax revenue, here is
the solution.
There are currently millions of real estate buyers who have contract offers
on pre-foreclosure homes, many of them totally approved to close or buying
for cash and the lenders who have these pre-foreclosure homes hinder the
selling process because of mis- organization and incompetence. These
pre-foreclosure homes can be prevented from going into foreclosure, it would
not only help the owners but also the economy and the entire country. Can
banks just do what ever they want without any accountability and even
receiving money from taxpayers for their mismanagement. Does anyone know
that there are literally billons of real estate dollars sitting right now to
be closed and lenders take up to one year to make a decision. Meanwhile the
owners, who have kept up the home in the hopes of achieving a short sale are
moving out and the property is getting run down and abandoned. Now the banks
foreclose on the home and selling it in many cases for 50-70% less of what
the buyer’s offer was. Billions of dollars are being wasted this way all
over the country. Everyone is getting hurt and nobody in doing anything
about it. These homes I am talking about are pre-foreclosures from
investors, people who have moved, people who have no jobs or have other
family crisis and they want to get their home sold and are not interested in
loan modifications, which they can’t afford, they just want out. Lenders are
standing in the way by creating a process which defies logic and is
incredible cumbersome and outright incompetent and in the meantime causing
the values go down, an increase in foreclosures and untold harm to everyone
involved.
We are bailing out the banks and the banks are the ones who are causing the
decline in real estate sales, home prices and revenues for the state, how
can this make any sense. We are helping the banks and in return they are
hurting us.
Below is an e-mail I sent recently to the National Association of Realtors,
but it needs national attention, how the Public is being ripped off by
bailing out the banks while they sit there on billions of real estate
contracts and letting them go down the drain.
Is anyone aware of how lenders are causing the current problems:
- Decline in home sales
- The collapsing values
- The drag on the economy
- The economic decline
- The losses of jobs
- The loss of jobs Realtors provide
Here are the facts!
There are hundreds of thousands of agents working on short sale contracts
nation wide and lenders take 6 to 9 months to decide to accept these
contracts or not. Buyers are backing out of these contacts left and right
because the lengthy delay and inaction of the lenders who are eventually
foreclose and selling these homes months or years later for hundreds of
thousand dollars less as a bank owned property. Billions of revenue are lost
daily because of this. This is a crying shame and nobody is addressing this
issue. There have to be billions of dollars worth of real estate contracts
currently sitting in bank’s short sale departments and no one is acting on
them, while the government is giving the banks billions of dollars of tax
payer’s money in funding. Why are they not accepting these contracts and get
sales going and keep prices up and the economy turned around? What is
currently going on is the most irrational, illogical and economically
devastating approach and our leaders have to be unaware of this incredible
mess. Who is holding these lenders accountable, can they just do whatever
they want and hurt everyone in the process? There are able and willing cash
buyers and buyers who are fully approved by a mortgage company wanting to
buy these homes at good values; however the lenders do not react and
eventually sell the properties at 50% or less than current value. In the
meantime we loose tax revenue, income to Realtors, loss in values and the
economy is tanking and causing all kinds of havoc. When is someone waking up
to this problem? Accepting these contracts is one of the solutions to turn
around the economy and a substantial reduction in foreclosures. What do they
not understand here? Some lender picker between themselves over how much
they will give junior positioned lenders in 2nd, 3rd or even 4th position,
while the accepted practice is $3000 or less some of these lenders in the
2nd, 3rd and 4th position either do not want to deal or they may want $3000
more and the home eventfully falls into foreclosure. For $3000 or even less
these lenders in junior position cause untold problems for the community,
for the mortgage holder and substantially increase foreclosures. They
should not be in this 2nd, 3rd and 4th position anyway, they put themselves
there and if the senior lender forecloses they will get nothing, however,
they are in power to stop a transaction which otherwise could go forward.
We can stop or hold the real estate decline right now and get in under
control if this was corrected and force these banks to deal on the billions
of dollars on contact they are sitting on right now instead of sitting idly
by and let these homes depreciate in value and foreclosure on them later on.
In the meantime nobody pays any taxes on these homes, the value goes down
and the banks sell some of the other foreclosed inventory up to 50% less in
the same neighborhood and competing against themselves. There has to be an
emergency meeting in Congress to address this insanity. Please help and get
this addressed for the sake of the economy and our future. People want to
buy houses even before they are becoming a foreclosure, but lenders sitting
idle by and causing this incredible hardship.
Ernst Urbainczyk
REO Manager
Gitta’s Real Estate Team
Keller Williams Heritage Realty
407-832-9072
