Seattle Foreclosure Specialist

Seattle Zip Code Aug Foreclosure Filings

admin — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:39:16 +0000

Seattle Zip Code Foreclosure Heat Map

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:32:20 +0000

August Foreclsoure Stats

admin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:28:54 +0000

IRS Mortgage Debt Relief Document

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:29:51 +0000

I get asked all the time about if the IRS will send the home owner a tax bill for the money written off from a Short Sale. I am not an accountant, but I can share the link to the Document that will allow you to Inform yourself… Knowledge is Power… So here is a Place for you to gain Knowledge…Because you are Powerful.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41091006/IRS%20Mort%20Debt%20Forgiveness.pdf

King County Foreclosure Information

admin — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:11:45 +0000

July 2011 Foreclosure Rate Heat Map

Foreclosure Activity and Home Price Index – King county, WA

Average Sales Price – King county, WA

Seattle Foreclosure Heat Map

admin — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:55:18 +0000

This is to update all my follower’s on the current hot spots for foreclosure’s here in the Seattle area.

Seattle February Foreclosure Heat Map

Again making it evident that the South Seattle Area being the most abundant in foreclosure saturation. So be extra cautious when considering investing in those areas. No need to throw more rocks on the rock pile.

One of my Best Letters of Rec, Yet!

admin — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 20:19:10 +0000

The distressed real estate transactions are never fun. they are often ridiculously difficult, and most often than not they never come to fruition (check statistics).

Nova says “there’s no situation he cannot navigate”, and that’s no lie; he is a true master of getting the deal done.

We just came out of a transaction that took the better part of nine months, that probably wouldn’t have happened without Nova’s hard efforts of negotiating the best deal; we got a beautiful house for 25% less than the market price.

There were a few things I liked about Nova from the start, and I respect him for that: his honesty, his attention to details, his determination to get the deal done, his thick skin to act as a shield when things go bad and people want to scream at each other, and numbers, numbers, numbers.

Nova will always be welcome in our home, and we hope we’ll laugh, thinking back of all the trials and tribulations we’ve gone through.
I’ve already recommended him to a few friends, and I do hope they get a deal just as good as we did.

Chris
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Current Forelcosure Market Evaluation For Seattle

admin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:46:37 +0000

Let us start off with a few knowns, so everyone has a foundation of relationship to the foreclosure situation here in the Seattle area. There are roughly 134,000 households in the city limits of Seattle. Year to Date there have been 3399 foreclosure filings (2.5% of the total population has had a foreclosure filing). Remember in the state of Washington a Lender can file foreclosure Default or Notice of Default on day 31 of a home owner’s mortgage payment being late. Also Out of that 3400 hundred homes over the past year only about 35% actually make it to auction to sell. The other 65% will usually remedy there notice which a home owner can do anytime, by paying their default amount. They can get their foreclosure stayed, or hopefully they also have received Loan Modification Counseling, so their payments have become more affordable.
This brings me to a small piece of advice. When you are doing foreclosure searches; remember just because a home owner has received Notice of Default; Does not mean the home is for sale and/or will actually going to auction.

Here is a Chart Showing the Number of Notice of Default given vs. A 30 year fixed interest rate (avg 4.74%). This is for the idea the interest rate are a correlate to the foreclosure defaults… Which I have yet to see… Interest rates are low, and people still can’t afford the loans they were given…

The next Chart shows the avg sale price for retail homes Vs foreclosure homes. The average Sale price for a Home in Seattle is $409,000.00. This home will be on average 1550 sqft, built between 1910 and 1950. That is an average price per sqft of $259.00. We know this city has tons of neighborhoods that are far more expensive than that. The average foreclosure sale price is $279,000.00. Understand a majority of the homes that are in foreclosure and for sale are in the South Seattle area where property values are far cheaper than the average retail sale price. So don’t even begin to think you are going to roll into Fremont or Ballard and purchase a foreclosure home for $279,000 that is 1550 sqft.

I am sticking to what I say to all my clients when they ask me what I think will happen with this market… “The Data Shows me; We will Be Boucing on the Bottom through the end of 2011. No worse or better…There will be small peaks and values, but all within a simular range.”

Foreclosures making it to Market Vs REO hitting the market

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:28:23 +0000

In February there were 309 properties in king County that made it to auction. There were a total of 342 REO properties that reverted back into bank ownership. There are 563,000 house holds in King County. So the total percent of homes in King County that are owned buy a Bank in February is 0.0006% of the house hold population. That is 6/10,000th of 1%. So as a lot of us are already experiencing, prepare your clients for multiple offer situations when going after REO’s, because they are scarce. Also know the banks have teams and teams of analysts crunching these numbers, so know there will be a lot less flexibility in negotiations. So, Keep it Real. Remember Banks don’t like Escalator clauses. They will always send out a multiple offer addendum whether you like it or not. And it will be on their time table not yours. And they will take the Highest and Best Offer on the date they select. That is the tough cookies.

Hot Market in Cold Times

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:15:08 +0000

Continually on media outlets that the economy is sluggish, unemployment close to double digits, bailout nation, and what ever fear the media can drum up to keep you watching. I die laughing at how outrageous some of the terminology is. If you watch network news you could think on any given day the world was coming to an end. What does this have to do with foreclosure? Well we are bombarded by these house statics showing all of us that the leading indicators are showing housing is doomed and the commercial market has yet to collapse. Well for my anecdotal perspective in real estate backed by many charts of data. Here in the Seattle Area foreclosure filings are down 22%, from 1100-ish per month to the mid 800′s. This is out of 560,000 house holds. That is 0.0016% of all of the homes in the Seattle/King county are currently in foreclosure. People want the deals but the scarcity is causing a blood bath out there. People are hungery for real estate deals. But remember in this city a deal is going to be $0.70 on the dollar. If you think; because you saw a commercial for a house selling for 3000 is going to be found in this city; don’t fool yourself. On average you will be paying between 300 and 500k for distressed home in this city. So, if you are thinking you are going to get deals at 0.40, 0.50 on the dollar, you will be chasing ghost. Land is scares, the population is well educated, they are healthy, the job market here has international demand, the city of Seattle did not allow for Urban Sprawl; and people haven’t stopped having babies. So everyday there is less space in a city that has high demand for goods and services. Put away the idea of what you saw on TV, because it does not apply in this town. The Distressed Real Estate Market is Hot! There are more buyers than product. Prepare yourself for competition; prepare yourself to write offers higher than asking. Prepare yourself to get less than what you saw on TV.