The Bergen County Homes Blog

Not every short sale ends up at the closing table.  Many homes instead end up in foreclosure.  Often the reason is simple – the homeowner did not use the right professional to represent them.   Whether buying or selling a home, the best results come when you use the right people.  This is critically important for short sales.

The attorney or real estate agent who did a great job for you when you purchased your home are not necessarily the best choices if you are upside down in your house and need to do a short sale.  Skills needed for short sales are very different.

Short sales are arduous transactions requiring a tremendous amount of work and/or patience on the part of everyone involved.  The individual who negotiates with the bank is the person who achieves or loses the opportunity get the home sold.  It really is as basic as that.

If you are buying a home that’s a short sale, you also need a professional in short sale transactions.  There are special protections you must have that don’t exist in conventional transactions.

Sometimes a short sale is not the best idea for you whether you’re a buyer or a seller.  Without an expert’s advice, how can you analyze what’s best for you?  I have done several short sales successfully.  What I can tell you is that without the help of short sale professionals, I could not have achieved the success I did.  If you need the name of a short sale professional, just let me know.

Inman News is the leading source of news for the real estate industry.  I receive it’s news updates twice daily and this afternoon  there was a book review on a new book that I thought would be of great use to any home owner who is thinking of selling his home as a short sale.  

The book is titled “How to Use A Short Sale to Stop Home Foreclosure and Protect Your Finances” and what I liked about it was the clear way the material is presented.  The reviewer, Tara-Nicholle Nelson,emphasized that the author made everything involved in a short sale easily understandable.  Short sales can be a great solution to avoid foreclosure but what I’ve observed is that most homeowners and most real estate agents simply don’t understand them. 

I’d also recommend that any home buyer who is thinking about purchasing a short sale get this book.  From what Ms. Nelson wrote in her review, the material is very comprehensive and a lot of it would also help to educate a buyer.  You can get it at Amazon and the 2 reviews there were positive.

While national foreclosure rates rose 15% during the first half of 2009, in New Jersey foreclosures are dropping. In fact, NJ foreclosures are down by 30% for the first six months of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008 according to Realty Trac. In May, the New Jersey Judiciary announced foreclosure activity for the first 4 months of 2009 was down by 20%. These figures certainly point to an improving housing market in New Jersey.

A lot of credit is being given to the programs New Jersey brought out in January to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. A special foreclosure mediation website was put up just to help owners avoid foreclosure by the State with a toll free hotline. The Star Ledger reported that although the number of homeowners helped has been small, the public awareness brought about by these programs has had a significant impact. Many homeowners took stock of their situation and acted to avoid foreclosure.

Another aid has been historically low interest rates which allowed people to refinance their mortgage into a more affordable loan. Supporting this is the fact that the New Jersey housing market hasn’t depreciated as badly as elsehwere; our house values have performed better than national averages.

According to Jeff Otteau, the renowned analyst of the New Jersey real estate market, this makes quite a difference. “The reason that borrowers walk away and mail in the keys is because not only are they having a hard time making their payments, but their houses are worth less than their mortgage balance,” Otteau said.

Bergen County foreclosure rates, as reported in The Record on July 16th, are 1/206 while New Jersey is 1/146 and the US is 1/84. As usual, Bergen County outperforms the general real estate market.

While we can’t predict the future, it’s also true that a 30% drop in foreclosures will certainly stimulate consumer confidence in NJ housing and that is huge. For Bergen County homes, with it’s consistently superior performance, this is even more the case.