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        <title>Orange County Real Estate Blog</title>
        <link>http://www.viewhomesinoc.com/blog/</link>
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            <guid>http://www.viewhomesinoc.com/blog/orange-county-foreclsoure-preventionloan-modification-program-struggling.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.viewhomesinoc.com/blog/orange-county-foreclsoure-preventionloan-modification-program-struggling.html</link>
            <author>info@ViewHomesinOC.com (Trademark Realty)</author>
            <title>Orange County Foreclsoure Prevention/loan modification program struggling...</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
Under the main Obama administration program to ease foreclosures, fewer than 37,000 homeowners received permanently lowered mortgage payments in July. Modification cancellations are up.


Reporting from Washington &mdash; Just as the housing market recovery has stalled, so has the Obama administration's main program to ease home foreclosures. Only 36,695 homeowners received permanently lowered mortgage payments in July through the much-criticized Home Affordable Modification Program, the smallest increase since December, administration officials said Friday.


And the number of people dropping out of the program continued to soar. Overall, nearly half the homeowners who entered the program since it launched in March of last year have dropped out.


The Los Angeles-Orange County area continued to have the most active trial and permanent modifications under the program, with 44,617 total modifications in July, or 6.6% of the national total. But that was down from 48,846 total modifications in June. The Inland Empire was third nationwide, with 35,169 total modifications in July, or 5.2% of the total.


"Even with a substantial reduction in mortgage payment and even some reduction in principal, you still have people who are over their head financially because of their reduced financial circumstances," Ely said. "Isn't it time to just rethink this whole business of modification &hellip; and let the market clear through foreclosures and short sales?"


Read the complete article here


Trademark Realty is experienced in Orange County short sales and we have the satisfied clients to prove it.&nbsp; Please give is a call TODAY, so we can begin to help you right away.&nbsp; You can Call us at:&nbsp; 949-888-6650 we would be more than happy to go over all alternative options to foreclosure. Send us an email to info@ViewHomesinOC.com or a text message to 714-713-6381 All conversations are kept strictly confidential.
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            <pubDate>Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:47:15 -0500</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.viewhomesinoc.com/blog/orange-county-short-sale-agents.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.viewhomesinoc.com/blog/orange-county-short-sale-agents.html</link>
            <author>info@ViewHomesinOC.com (Trademark Realty)</author>
            <title>Orange County Short Sale Agents</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
Trademark Realty offers Orange County homeowners a customized solution for&nbsp;foreclosure alternatives through short sale assistance. Over the past few years we have been assisting Orange County&nbsp;homeowners in avoiding foreclosure and we can help you too! We are NOT YOUR TYPICAL REAL ESTATE AGENT, we have a wide degree of experience in both the mortgage, title and Real Estate industry that allow us to provide our clients with the best solution for their particular situation. 


The process of&nbsp;a short sale in Orange County can be a difficult one. Most banks who process short sales prefer to deal with an experienced short sale agent who understands the process and anticipates any potential problems which may put the short sale approval in jeopardy.&nbsp;Trademark Realty&nbsp;has a proven track record of sucess when closing short sales in Orange County. While our process is efficient, we are primarily&nbsp;focused on protecting our clients best interest and negotiating the absolute best terms avaialble. 


Some of the benefits of our&nbsp;short sale program include:




100% FREE services to sellers--NO COST OR OBLIGATION


Mortgage Debt RELIEF


Cash Back for moving expenses


No For Sale sign in front yard


Expert negotiations with your bank


Deliquent Taxes paid


Assist in credit restoration


Weekly updates regarding status and threat of foreclosure




Trademark Realty specializes in assisting homeowners in exploring&nbsp;heir options for mortgage debt relief. A short sale is just one of the options available to avoid foreclosure in Orange County. For more information on Short Sales in Orange County or if you are in need of assistance with a short sale in Rancho Santa Margarita, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Foothill Ranch, Potola Hills, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills, Huntington Beach, Ladera Ranch, Fountain Valley, Irvine, Tustin, Aliso Viejo or any of the surrounding Orange County areas Contact us today 949-888-6650
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            <pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:00:46 -0500</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.viewhomesinoc.com/blog/updated-orange-county-short-sale-information.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.viewhomesinoc.com/blog/updated-orange-county-short-sale-information.html</link>
            <author>info@ViewHomesinOC.com (Trademark Realty)</author>
            <title>Updated Orange County Short Sale Information</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
Victory for REALTORS and Their ClientsSB 1178 was just approved by the Senate, over lender much opposition, with a vote of 30 to 4.&nbsp;


This essentially extends the protection for Orange County homeowners who have refinanced their home and used that money for substatially improving the property.


Currently, if a lender forecloses, the lender is limited to taking back the property, which was the collateral for the loan.&nbsp; The law was enacted in the 1930s to protect borrowers against personal recourse when a lender forecloses on a purchase money loan. However, the homeowner forfeits their protection when they refinance their original loan - allowing banks to not only take back the property used as collateral but also pursue personal funds for any amount not secured by the sale of the home.SB 1178 extends the protections of existing law to refinances.&nbsp; So if a borrower refinances for the purpose of improving the asset (fixing the roof, adding an addition, etc), those conditions continue to apply.


&nbsp;So if you refinance to improve your property and, subsequently, the value of the banks' asset, you are protected and no personal recourse is permitted against you.&nbsp; The lender can only take back the home - not any additional personal assets.


&nbsp;However, this bill has only passed the state senate.&nbsp; It must also be passed by the state assembly and then signed by the governor before it actually becomes law.&nbsp; Secondly, regardless of whether the loan was refinanced or not, a deficiency right or promissory note should never be granted to a first lender in California because of the existing protections from California Code of Civil Procedure section 580d, which bars a lender from seeking any deficiency in the event of non-judicial (i.e. trustee's sale) foreclosure regardless of the type of loan.&nbsp; A lender should never be granted rights to something in a short sale that they would not be entitled to in a foreclosure.Get more information on Short Sales in Orange County or contact an experienced Short Sale Agent by visiting www.ShortSaleinOC.com 
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            <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:28:35 -0500</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.viewhomesinoc.com/blog/lenders-attempt-to-lock-homeowners-into-paying-underwater-homes.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.viewhomesinoc.com/blog/lenders-attempt-to-lock-homeowners-into-paying-underwater-homes.html</link>
            <author>info@ViewHomesinOC.com (Trademark Realty)</author>
            <title>Lenders attempt to lock homeowners into paying underwater homes</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
In preparation for the deluge of single family resident (SFR) foreclosures expected to wash over the country, and California in particular, by the end of 2010, Bank of America (B of A) has just released information on a program one would not expect from the nations largest bank: a $3 billion principal reduction program for defaulting homeowners on negative-amortization adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) with loan-to-value (LTV) ratios exceeding 120% of the homes current market value.While mortgage lenders resist handing out any type of loan modifications, despite being advised and even pressured by the government to do so, B of A claims it is now taking the lead. The initial B of A model seeks to conditionally (read: unlikely) cut up to 30% off the principal of 45,000 home mortgages nationally.This program is very limited in breadth and scope. It is geared to engage only those homeowners with ARMs containing payment schedules which have produced an increased loan balance due to negative amortization  the failure to pay all interest as it accrues. The principal reduction program will not be available to underwater homeowners with fixed rate mortgages or ARMs with amortized payment schedules. B of A claims their goal is to reduce homeowners monthly payments to an amount equal to 31% of their household income  the parameter set by the federal government two years ago, in 2008, based on long-standing fundamentals of mortgage lending. B of As labeling of their proposed &ldquo;principal reduction&rdquo; program is a very misleading term, with the true meaning hidden behind a veil of very skillfully-woven rhetoric. An analysis of this program reveals that it will be limited to a very narrow spectrum of homeowners. Candidates for this program includes only those homeowners who have the nastiest of option-ARMs and two-year rollover ARMs which were structured to allow negative amortization of up to 125% of the original loan amount.Option ARMs allow homeowners to make payments that do not cover interest as it accrues, instead of fully amortizing the monthly principal and interest payments. The two-year rollover ARM (semantically referred to by B of A as a &ldquo;two-year hybrid loan&rdquo;) has fixed monthly payments less than the amount of interest accruing for the first two years before resetting to fully amortize the loan.Further, to qualify for a principal reduction, the homeowner must be in default for at least 60 days on his negative-amortization ARM.Homeowners who qualify for B of As principal reduction will find their loan balances bifurcated, i.e. divided into two parts, but not reduced  at least not yet. One part will bear interest, while the other part of the principal will bear no interest. The non-interest bearing principal, the bulk of which will be the unpaid accrued interest due to negative amortization, will be maxed out at 30% of the balance now due on the loan. It is this bifurcated non-interest bearing principle that B of A is labeling as conditionally available for future write-off.What B of A has hidden in their loan reduction program is that the payments on the interest-bearing part of the principal will be reset immediately on modification under this program to amortize that portion of the principal over the remaining term of the 30-year loan. This means higher monthly payments for most all of those homeowners who could not make their payments and have already defaulted  a requisite to qualify for this program.If the higher monthly payments on the fully amortized part of the loan balance upon resetting the payment schedule are greater than 31% of a homeowners income, B of A will consider a temporary (read: an undisclosed amount of time until adjusted to a higher) monthly payment. The homeowners who have already defaulted will be forced to take on higher monthly payments through this program, supposedly designed to help those suffering from negative equity due in part to lower-than-interest monthly payments.The non-interest bearing portion of the principal, which will sit idle and not accrue interest, is the only amount which qualifies for the conditional future reduction. This separated principal will not be greater than 30% of the present loan balance. During each of the first three years after setting aside this separate non-interest bearing principal amount, one fifth of that amount (6% of the entire loan balance) will be written off annually on the condition the loan remains in &ldquo;good standing.&rdquo;&nbsp; To remain in good standing, the requisite for receiving each years amount of loan reduction, participating homeowners must not be delinquent for more than 60 days during each of the five 12-month periods after entering into this loan reduction plan.So long as homeowners remain in good standing, they will receive the one fifth reduction in the non-interest bearing principal each year for the first three years  that reduction being permanently discharged and no longer due, even if the homeowner falls into delinquency at a later date. However, these are the same homeowners who were already over 60 days delinquent (at lower monthly payments) in order to qualify for the program in the first place.Three years later, after three fifths of the non-interest bearing principal is written off, the write-off of the remaining two fifths is at the mercy of the rising market price of the homeowners property. At the end of the three years of reduction, B of A then turns the homeowners ARM loan into something even more horrendous: a price level adjustment mortgage (PLAM). When a homeowner enters the PLAM stage of this loan reduction program, they lose any of their homes upward price movement that occurs after entering the reduction program  they relinquish their ownership hedge against inflation. As commonly believed by most real estate market onlookers, housing prices are on the brink of rising again.The opinion of first tuesday is home prices will begin a steady rise late in 2013. It appears B of A believes such a notion as well. In the fourth and fifth year of this principal reduction program, if a homeowners property price has risen high enough to trigger B of As price level adjustment formula (presently unknown), the two fifths of the non-interest bearing part of the principal will be tacked right back onto their interest bearing principal part of the ARM. Further, the payment will then be reset (upward) to fully amortize the newly increased interest bearing principal.Consider a homeowner who still owes $400,000 on the ARM they gave to B of A. Their home encumbered by that mortgage has a current value of $200,000  a now classic condition of a 200% LTV ratio. Assuming he qualifies for the maximum 30% reduction, B of As principal reduction program would separate $120,000 of the loan amount into non-interest bearing principal, and leave $280,000 as interest bearing principal the homeowner still needs to make payments on. Assuming the homeowner remains in good standing and makes his payments on time, up to $72,000 of the $120,000 will be written off.However, if the homeowners property value increases from its &ldquo;present net value&rdquo; (a value determined by B of A that is wholly dependent on costs that B of A would incur if they modified or foreclosed on the home in question) by the 4th and 5th year  2014 and 2015  he will see the balance of the non-interest bearing principal, $42,000, thrown back onto his interest bearing principal, bringing the total debt to $322,000. At the end of this &ldquo;principal reduction&rdquo; program, a homeowner who qualified for the maximum amount will still wind up with an LTV of around 162%  but now fully amortized, resulting in higher monthly payments than the homeowner started out with before entering the program.And something B of A conveniently omitted from its press release on this program is the fact that Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), a government program funded by the U.S. Treasury using your tax dollars, is giving lenders subsidies for every dollar they discount on ARM loans. B of A will receive 10 to 21 cents for each dollar they discount. In the example above, B of A would receive $7,200 dollars of taxpayers money for essentially prolonging a homeowners struggle while providing absolutely no economic benefit to anyone, which will most likely, at a resulting LTV of 160%, still end in foreclosure.Dont be fooled, California. B of As interests are not in line with your own. A fully adversarial relationship exists between lender and borrower. [Kruse v. Bank of America (1988) 202 CA3d 38]If B of A truly wishes to do society a favor, they will not only permanently reduce the principal on these ARM loans to LTV levels of 94% in order to make the homeowner solvent and capable of building an equity, the indicia of an economic homeowner, but they will also turn these explosive short-term ARMs into true real estate loans  long-term, fixed rate mortgages.
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            <pubDate>Tue, 25 May 2010 15:02:06 -0500</pubDate>
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