San Jose Real Estate * REALTOR ® * Richard Gonzalez

At the San Jose Foreclosure Prevention Fair people showed up with the look of hope in their eyes. Hope that for them would eventually lead to a modification of their overwhelming mortgage problems. I had a first hand look at this event from a lead volunteer and it was nothing short of a miracle for some people who taken time out of their busy lives to take a leap of faith in coming to this event.

An event put on by the City of San Jose, Department of Real Estate, Santa Clara County Association of REALTORS, and Don’t Borrow Trouble. I was asked as the President of NAHREP SCC to assist in this event and gladly took on the task, Although most of the planning had been done by the organizations mentioned there were HUD Certified counselors, attorneys, and the San Jose tax assessor on hand.

3:15
I arrived shortly after 3pm and with 45 minutes before the event officially began. I quickly realized that magnitude of this undertaking, you could see it in the faces of the volunteers, they were ready to assist in any way they could and they did. Unfortunately we quickly realized that as much as we wanted to help the true help would not come from us but from the lenders who has committed to sending a team of representative to this event. The bank representatives apparently had the authority to make a loan modification on the spot(whoa!). On the spot modification? Unheard of to all the people attending this event. Just ask any of the attendees who had spent hundreds of hours calling and visiting their bank asking for help only to have the door slammed on their request for help.

4:15
A few lender representatives had arrived and began setting up classrooms into makeshift modification centers. A few key lenders who had confirmed participation were still not on the school grounds. People were getting nervous while they waited in front of the assigned lenders class rooms. Slowly lender representatives began to arrive and in the case of my assigned class room chaos had ensued, not because the lenders had arrived late but because the amount of people had grown to over 40 people in the first hour alone. Elsewhere other classroom and the lenders located in them had very light attendance while in my classroom it was apparent that Washington Mutual had the biggest attendees.

4:45
After a mix up in our volunteer procedures and with the ever mounting crowd of attendees we finally began bringing people into the classroom. One by one they entered and one by one they exited with hope. An unbelievable and refreshing response to their request. The response for the most part was “YES!”.  Lender representatives were actually listening and acting on the request for a modification to these peoples needs. I was fortunate enough to act as interpreter for some of these folks who spoke Spanish. I quickly saw their despair turn into relief. I had to ask questions while I was their and found that these representatives had been given more flexibility in the last 30 days alone to help these people.

6:30
A steady flow of people entering the event had dwindled down to a few stragglers. I had hoped that more people would have attended  but for a first of its kind event it was a success in the minds of the volunteers.

11:pm
After sitting outside the Washington Mutual classroom for seven hours and feet hurting, I along with my buddy Karl lee helped WAMU clean up, turn off the lights and walk them to their car. On my way home I realized that we did something good today and knew that the volunteers who participated in this event must have felt as equally satisfied. I don’t know what the changing motivation of the lenders had been over the last 30 days but I will tell you that most of the lender representatives at this event had been on the job less  than 6 months,  only in the last 30 days has their ability to truly help the consumer been given to them. My only hope is that its not too late.

DataQuick Article show promise of a changing market and

a home buyers opportunity

News from DataQuick today shows an increase in Bay Area sales over from

last months numbers but as the article states we are obviously down from

2007(year to year) numbers, still down from the inflated numbers over the

last few years. Look at the Santa Clara County figures.

(source DataQuick information systems

The article points to another signal that our local market has turned.

Buyer are finally starting to see a great opportunity and are taking advantage of it.

Sales of distressed properties REO’s and short sales were the leading the the charge.

Buyers are sitting on the sidelines waiting for a signal (BIG RED FLAG).

Interpretation; Yet another signal that the time is right for buyers who have

been waiting for a sign of a changing market. Sure there are many other people

who will lose their home(god bless them) but ultimately a decision to buy a home

should not be based on the wave of foreclosures to subside but based on finding

the right home for you at a great value(relatively speaking).

Finally the article does cover some other information in terms of lending practices

comparisons of today’s market to the 2005 figures but the message
is clear.

Check out the article for yourself:

Bay Area home sales climb above last year; median price falls hard