San Jose Real Estate * Santa Clara County * Richard Gonzalez * Real Estate Broker * Realty World Powerhouse Brokers

I just hung up the phone with a representative from CHASE who introduced herself as a coardinator for a new loss mitigation department created by CHASE to speed up their rediculously slow short sale approval process.

How do you spell relief?

I spell it  A P P R O V A L.

All kidding aside it has not been a a very plesant experience for some of our WAMU/CHASE clients looking to short sale thier home. in fact is has been excruciatingly slow. It literally took seven months for me to get an approval from CHASE on one of my listings only to find that the buyer who had waited for the entire time walked himself into another home. Many sellers we encounter who have WAMU loans has found themselves in the same situation. For that reason I always set an expected six month worst case scenario on WAMU short sales.

How do I use this new information?

If you are contemplating short sale as an option and have a WAMU/CHASE/EMC loan the first thing to do is compete the CASE short sale packet updated in April 2010.

Download CHASE Short Sale Packet

You will also need the following information:

• Listing agreement
• Letter of Authorization for your REALTOR to communicate with the lender
• Listing History from the MLS
• Hardship Letter
• last two years tax returns
• Two months bank statements
• last 30 days proof on income wage earner or self employed (paystubs or profit & Loss or bank statements)
• Purchase contract and pre approval letter from a buyer

Uncharted Territory

Nobody really knows what all this movement means in terms of the approval process because every short sale situation is different. Perhaps this is CHASE’s way of adopting HAFA into their systems. What I do know is that we have come a long way in the last six months and the effort by the lenders to streamline the short sale approvals if much appreciated by the people who need it the most, our clients.

CHASE Short Sale information: www.chase.com/shortsale

California took a bold step today in helping those homeowners in default by allowing taxes owed to the state to be forgiven through 2012.

As mentioned in my blog a few days ago and now the Governor says he will sign the bill as reported by the Sacramento Bee.

“Primarily, the bill affects people who had debt forgiven as they lost homes in foreclosures, short sales and deeds in lieu of foreclosure last year – and through 2012 now. Also affected: those who got loan modifications that cut the amount they owe the bank.”

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/09/2666095/california-wont-tax-forgiven-home.html#ixzz0kdhKy8yh

Today the banks who signed on for HAMP in 2009 have agreed to increase their participation in HAFA(Housing Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives) an extension of HAMP that provides incentives for banks and servicers to streamline the Short Sale process.

Banks and HAFA

Bank of America for instance partnered with equator.com in November  to decrease the short sale approval timelines from 6 months to 45 days  to conform to the HAFA guidelines. Other lenders Like Wells Fargo are able to approve  23% of the Short Sales they service in 10 days.

What is HAFA?

HAFA will continue to evolve as banks and servicers adopt and implement HAFA rules and guidelines. In the mean time home owners can visit www.whatishafa.org to determine if they qualify for HAFA.

Just when most buyers face the end of the $8,000 tax credit Governor Schwarzenegger has revealed a new incentive planned for May 1st that would give buyers up to $10,000.

The day after the federal government credit expires this new state credit would pick up where the federal one left off.
Details of the credit qualifications have not been finalized but the funding is coming from a $100 million dollar program crafted last year as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Read article here

I uploaded the latest sales data to youtube. Please take a moment to watch this three minute video.

January 2010 sales data for Santa Clara County.