All Forum Posts by: Catherine Coy

I'm from Huntington Beach (Orange County), California, where the RE is expensive but it's sunny all the time. :-)

I'm a mortgage broker with 17 years experience, a credit repair expert, landlord and now short sale negotiator.

I've just been enjoyin' the heck out of this forum all day long and, I must say, as someone who has visited a LOT of real estate investor forums, this one is hands down the best and most comprehensive I've seen.

Bravo!

SoCalGal

Hmmm...I just clicked on it and it opened, but I'll send it to you via PM.

Wow...I've seen at least 1,000 credit reports in my 17 years of originating loans and I've seen plenty of notations of "forbearance agreement" on credit reports, with the resulting notorious Score Factor Code #22 in first position in the hierarchy of weightedness as a result thereof. It's hard to believe that a forbearance wouldn't affect one's score. No, I know for a fact that it does--negatively.

I've already explained that a SS is the same as a foreclosure, so I won't repeat that here except to include a link to an actual lender's guidelines so you can see for yourself how the guidelines (inspired by Fannie/Freddie) treat forbearance, SS, FC, etc.

Shhh...don't tell anyone I posted this link; it's 'sposed to be for loan originators only. (See page 5 under "Credit.")

http://tinyurl.com/4ostvx

Does anyone have Marko's subject to course called "Boot Camp in a Box?" I'd like to buy it...used...cheap.

Here's another well-regarded short sale course.

http://www.strategicrealestatecoach.com/

Try to buy your education from Craigslist or eBay.

You can list at 7% all you want but, in this environment, I'm not seeing ANY 7's getting a pass. Five percent split two ways is max. If there's one agent involved, the SS lender will approve 2.5 (in most cases).

I really believe that if the REA does short sales properly, it shouldn't take more than an hour's worth of the agent's time.

Yes, I've heard of the Case-Schiller Index. Here's another discussion from John Mauldin, one of the best investors on Wall Street.

http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2008/06/02/the-mean-season.aspx

Thanks for the Freddie Mac link. I never did know how to reach their announcements; now I do. :D

What is this investor's problem? He should stop making the payments and skim the rents until he can no longer skim the rent. End of story. His credit is trashed no matter what he does.

Sorry to say, but that's what most investors do.

Loss Mitigation Rep: "Why should we pay full commission? Getting short sale listings is like shooting fish in a barrel. They're low hanging fruit right now. There's hardly any work involved--you [short sale negotiator] are doing all the work, aren't you? The real estate agent has a Rolodex full of investors standing by or they should be able to slap the property on the MLS and get buyers, no problema."

This lender's loss mit rep has a point, doesn't he? REAs should take as many short sale listings as they can at a 15% discount to current market value. Line 'em [buyers] up, put 'em into escrow, turn the file over to a full time short sale negotiator (like me), take a lower commission for about an hour's work.

Rinse. Repeat.