Click Here to enlarge  County Assessor map for Santa Clara County

Although most of our county has seen some improvement Santa Clara County assessor Larry Stone has expressed concerns about the lack of tax dollars in this San Jose Mercury News article.  The concern is that city and County services are feeling the impact even with a recent jump in the affordable home sale activity. Read the article

Countrywide now Bank of America is now asking sellers to sign a 10% promissory note relative to the approved sales price and it appears to be getting worse before it gets better. For example if you are selling your property for $300,000 in a short sale you would have to sign a promissory note for $30,000 payable over 25 years at 0% interest.

Maybe I was wrong in thinking that those homeowners with countrywide short sales would benefit when it was announced that Countrywide would cease to exist and would officially become Bank of America.

It must have been the past 90 days of improved negotiations with banks and loan servicers in general that gave me that warm fuzzy feeling, but alas it was not meant to be.

I originally thought it may have been a glitch in the system, after all it’s not uncommon for investors to ask the seller to make some sort of a contribution but for whatever reason either some big wig or investor came up with the great idea of kicking sellers in the teeth while they are down (metaphorically speaking).

So far the last four short sales we have been negotiating with Bank of America have dropped the promissory note bomb on us. Take a guess at what our seller’s response has been. How would you respond? Some banks and servicers are making things worse rather than better, over the past year or two the common sense approach for the decision makers of these short sales have dwindled down to the absurd.

HVCC guidelines backfires on buyers during the appraisial process causing unnessisary apprasial costs. As a result the California Association of REALTORS has been lobbying for a Moratorium to address this issue. Its already bad enough as it is working through underwriting delays in the pipeline and now HVCC appears to be affecting a buyers ability to perform in some cases leading to unnessisary fees from lenders.I agree that we need to protect the consumer but this may be overkill.

I am attaching a FAQ published by Fannie Mae Download Document

C.A.R.  Supports  HR 3044
“California Congressman Gary Miller has introduced H.R. 3044, which would place an 18-month moratorium on the recently imposed Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC). The HVCC was worked out through an agreement between Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the New York Attorney General’s Office (NYAG) in response to an investigation by the NYAG into Fannie and Freddie.

The purpose of the HVCC was to try and insulate the appraisal process from undue influences. The HVCC attempted to do this by placing tight controls and restrictions on the ordering of the appraiser, as well as purposes for communicating with the appraiser during the process.  However, the implementation of the HVCC, which came about by neither regulation nor Congressional statute, has resulted in appraisals that cost more, take longer to perform, and are inaccurate.  C.A.R. has heard from members throughout the state of similar difficulties with the HVCC and its negative impact on the California real estate transaction. C.A.R. is supporting H.R. 3044, and is asking California’s Congressional Delegation to sign onto the bill as a cosponsor.”