gregdaman925 asked:


I was wondering what the difference was between a real estate broker and a real estate agent? How long would you have to go to school to be either one?
I pretty much got my answer to this question. Can a real estate broker act as both a broker as well as the agent? I plan on starting my own realty but want to do both jobs.

startrak_06 asked:


I was interested in the real estate field. What steaps do i have to take to become a real estate agent?

Kim Gibbons asked:


Short sales are becoming more of a topic as overburdened real estate investors in Pensacola and Destin Florida look to relieve themselves of top heavy mortgage obligations. Savvy investors know to be aware of possible tax liabilities and the effect short sales have on your credit rating.

Homeowners will need to consider the effect short seeing will have on their credit rating. A lender will typically report a short sale transaction to the credit bureau. While it may be better than a foreclosure, a short sale will definitely leave a considerable mark on your credit report.

Short sales occur when a lender accepts an amount less than the amount mortgaged as the total payment to settle the real estate debt obligation. Essentially the lender allows the homeowner to sell his or her property for less than what is owed on the mortgage. For example, let’s assume your home’s mortgage is $200,000 and you have fallen behind on your mortgage. You decide you need to sell your home to be relieved of the remaining mortgage. Your real estate agent tells you based upon recent sales in your area that similar properties sell for $170,000 today.

The problem is that the homeowner who sells their home in a short sale may face a considerable tax bill based on the amount of the mortgage balance. Having the lender forgive the debt does not lessen the tax liability. The property will be taxed as if it were sold for the total outstanding amount of the real estate loan, or the sale price, whichever is higher. If the bank were to forgive the $30,000 deficit the money will be reported to the IRS as cancelled mortgage debt on your behalf.

Short sales are considered by the IRS to be a debt cancellation. Your Bank will send you an IRS Form 1099C-Cancellation of Debt. The IRS views the cancelled or forgiven mortgage as income to the borrower in the tax year the debt was cancelled. You may end up with a large and unexpected tax bill on April 15th of the next year.

Banks don’t always agree to short sales and generally will not consider one too early in the process. Short sales are easier to negotiate if you already have a purchase contract from a qualified buyer. The Bank will make its decision based upon a number of factors including the best interest of the depositors and the hardship of the homeowner. Homeowners are required to prove that they are insolvent in an audit like process that can take weeks or months to complete.

The taxability of the gain and deductibility of the loss depend on the nature of the property. The loss may be tax deductible if your property is a rental property. Talk to your tax adviser to see what options are available to you before you short sell your real estate.

Marcel Ford asked:


tate short sale situation may be right when a homeowner is in foreclosure and the loan amount is close to the value of the home. The seller cannot sell the house with an agent because the fees involved exceed any moneys received from the sale. What can you do?

If you own a house and are late on your payments, you might want to learn more about short sales and if a short sale is right for your situation. Banks will consider a short sale in lieu of getting the home back. The bank takes less than what is owed on the loan.

An example would be, if you owe say $300,000 dollars on your home and you are facing foreclosure the bank might take $225,000 dollars and you’re off the hook for the balance. Bank will consider a short sale because if the bank continues to foreclose they most likely will get the house back – and that’s bad news for a bank. They will then have to hire a real estate agent, make any necessary repairs, wait several months in hopes of getting an offer, that, they still might lose money on the process. It’s far simpler for a bank to sell the property to a cash home buyer and cut their losses. The most beneficial point to a short sale is that the seller does not have a foreclosure on their credit report, just a loan adjustment.

A key component to all short sales is that the owner(s) need to be completely up side down and was victim of some kind of a hardship – out of the ordinary event that caused the default; such as illness, accident, loss of job, etc.

Sometimes the only way you can sell a house and protect your credit is through a short sale. It allows you to sell your house really fast, gets you out of the loan responsibility and you can go on with your life. You almost always need a cash buyer/investor to handle the process correctly, ensuring a successful transaction. Banks want you to use an investor because they want to close out the loan as soon as possible.

Explanation of a short sale A short sale occurs when a lender agrees t accept less that the amount owed to payoff a loan as an alternative to foreclosure. If the property is worth less than the amount owed on the loan, then even if the lender forecloses and takes back the property, they know they are going to take a loss. We can often convince the lender that they will benefit better if they take less than what is owned now rather than taking the property back by foreclosure and trying to sell it later.

Typical Time Frame The short sale negotiation process is a lengthy one. It may take several weeks or more likely several months to get an approval. Lenders have several layers of bureaucracy, insurers, and investors that we will have to maneuver through in order to get a short sale approved. So it is important to be patient during this long process.

My House if going to foreclosure, it there enough time? Not always. Just staring a short sale won’t automatically stop a foreclosure. However, many times an experienced short sale negotiation service; such as TheShortSaleHouse.com, or seasoned agent can convince a lender to stop the foreclosure to let them attempt to negotiate a short sale. So, while there are no guarantees, it does not hurt to try.

How long can I stay in the house? The key word is short sale is sale. The purpose of a short sale is to get the property sold. So you will need to move. We aren’t a program that can stop a foreclosure and allow you to keep the house indefinitely. It will be easier to sell a house if it is vacant, so you should make plans to move as soon as possible,

How do I know this will work? You really don’t. No one should make any promises to you that this will work, Once you missed a payment, the lender is in charge and can proceed to foreclosure if they want to. But you know they don’t want to and the negotiator should be very good at presenting alternatives to the lender that they often want to accept rather than foreclose. They should be very good at what they do, but NO PROMISES are being made as to where or not the lender will accept a short sale – every lender is different.

How much money will I get? You can’t get any money. A universal requirement of lenders in granting a short sale is that the borrower will not get any proceeds from the sale of the property. The lender is going to take a loss on your loan – they are not going to let you get any money. If you have something of value, the buyer may be willing to buy that item separate of this short sale.

What happens is this does not work? Your house will likely go to foreclosure. A short sale is something you should try after you exhausted all your other options.

What is a “RELEASE?” A lender may offer to ‘release’ its security interest against the property in exchange for less than the total amount of the note. A release will allow the property to be sold without paying off the obligations of the note. However, the note is not satisfied.

Advantages: This successful short sale will allow the property to be sold and thus avoid a foreclosure.

Disadvantages: The remaining debt on the property (sometimes called a ‘deficiency’) still exists. You are still liable for the note – in other words – you still owe the money.

Reality: It is not likely that the lender will pursue the deficiency unless you have other significant assets, and if you don’t try a short sale and the property goes to foreclosure, you are going to have a deficiency anyways.

What is a “satisfaction?” A lender may agree to accept less than it is owed as complete and total satisfaction of the note and release its lien against the property.

Advantages: Your note and obligation to the lender are satisfied for less than you owe. When the property is sold, the debt is paid off completely.

Disadvantages: You may have some tax consequences that you should discuss with your tax adviser since the lender is making money you owe disappear. Sometimes our negotiations are successful in obtaining satisfaction. Sometimes all the negotiator can get is a release.

The lender will require review of financial package that usually includes: two months bank statements, two months pay stubs, two years most recent IRS tax returns, and other common information. The leading cause of delay and even denial of our offer to the lender is caused by the seller failing to deliver these items in a timely manner.

Johnny asked:


I am trying to sell my parents house NY. How can I get the real estate agent to drop the commision from %5 to something lower.

Fergy asked:


I am a real estate investor and am looking for a experienced real estate agent as well as a real estate broker who specializes with investors. Can anyone please tell me how to find one, I have googled, ect and haven’t come up with much.
Thank you.

Abhinav Sidana asked:


 

If you are not aware of the actual avenue of selling, you can sell your home through FSBO technique. By doing so you can save lots of money & your precious time. Not only that you can avoid stress but also make more money while selling a house. Before placing ad of “For Sale By owner “ in fsbo site, you need to follow certain tips. These tips help you to sell your home effectively without any problems & hazards.

TIPS

1 Make an overall idea of your local market condition on real estates

2 Keep watching the ups & down’s of the market.

3 In some point of time the changing scenario of market will help you in making a decision.

4 When a buyer contacts you to view your home after looking your ad of “For Sale By Owners”, get their contact number.

5 Call the buyer before they visit you, this will help you to confirm that the phone number is genuine

 

Selling your property using this technique is more safer than selling it through some real estate agent. Many real estate agent claims that they do vet buyers before they visit. But the fact is that, any agent will just get the name, contact number & address of the buyer only before final visit. They not even check whether the buyers have illegal or criminal records. Therefore selling your home by yourself using FSBO will help you to have a check on buyers record before their visit.

 

FSBO will indicate that the seller is willing to sell his property without any middle man (real estate agent) avoiding brokerage.

 

Thus in “For Sale By Owners “ way seller make more money with less stress & the buyer make an effective deal. On the latest, there are lot of FSBO sites available on the web, http://www.postyourpad.com is one of those FSBO sites which charges very less commission and offer a good quality service.

Mark Walters asked:


For the last two years the real estate short sale has been a popular topic of conversation with investors as well as home buyers and sellers. Yes, but is the idea of a short sale much like kissing a frog with the hope it will turn into a handsome prince?

A short sale is when a bank or mortgage lender agrees to accept less than a homeowner still owes on a home. Lenders do that when there is not enough equity in the home to attract a buyer and pay all costs of a sale.

Ah yes, but a lender does not have to agree to a short sale and even with those that might consider cooperating it can be very difficult to make such deals work. That also makes home buying very difficult.

Banks have what’s called a loss mitigation department that handles foreclosure short sales. As the economy moves into a recession those departments have been swamped with foreclosures and are often unable to respond to a short sale request before the home is lost to the foreclosure auction.

A real estate agent experienced with short sale deals might be able to help, but less than about 5% of defaulting homeowners are able effect a short sale before the foreclosure.

Oh, but there’s more to it than that…

The big mortgage lenders package up their loans then sell them to investors all over the world. Sometimes the first buyer was Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. They bought, packaged and sold millions of mortgage loans.

When a loan goes into default and a short sale is requested the lender needs to some how contact and negotiate with each investor who now owns a piece of the loan or loan package.

They ask Mortgage Investor #1 if he is willing to accept $X00,000?

They ask Mortgage Investor #2 if he is willing to accept $X00,000?

They ask Mortgage Investor #3 if he is willing to accept $X00,000?

They ask Mortgage Investor #4 if he is willing to accept $X00,000?

Maybe they can get in touch with everyone who owns a piece of the package and maybe not. Ah, but there’s more…

Often there is more than one mortgage loan on the home and the negotiation process starts over again with those additional investors.

See the problem? With a short sale you not only have to negotiate with the investors, you have to negotiate with multiple lenders, sometimes as many as two or three. And they also must negotiate with their investors.

For homeowners facing foreclosure the question is should you even try for a short sale? Not an easy question to answer, but consider the follow:

A home owner’s credit score will be damaged by going through foreclosure or by giving the home to the lender by means of a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.

- Foreclosure or Deed-in-Lieu of Foreclosure

Sellers will take a credit score hit of something like 200 to 300 points. If before the foreclosure your FICO score was 680, it would drop as low as 380.

- Short Sale

Some say the hit on your credit score will be less with a short sale than a foreclosure. Others claim the damage will be identical. The short sale will appear as a “pre-foreclosure in redemption status” in your credit history. That may result in a credit score loss of 200 to 300 points. If your FICO was 720 you will see it fall to 520 to 420.

Are you doomed? If you have a foreclosure on your credit history will you ever be able to buy another home?

Sure you will IF you establish a good payment record with your other debts. After your foreclosure you might wait 24 to 72 months before a lender will offer a mortgage loan with a sensible interest rate. The more improvement you can show on your credit report the lower the rate of interest.

Most who have sold a home with the help of a short sale will be considered for new mortgage financing after two years if they show a responsible credit history. So the main advantage of a short sale is that you can be considered for a new mortgage loan within two years over the three- to five-year period required for foreclosures.

What about deficiency judgments? Are they going to squeeze you for every penny? Well, you could be subject to a deficiency judgment for the difference between the loan amount and the amount received by the lender in a short sale. Not to worry, many states have laws that no longer allow that and in the states that don’t have such laws lenders seldom go to the expense of trying to collect from someone who apparently has no money.

Have you heard that you can be taxed on unpaid foreclosure debit? Forget it, because The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 generally allows you to exclude income from the discharge of debt on your principal residence.

Oh yes, since Washington has decided to bail out the banks they have little incentive to take less than what you owe them on any debit. Can you say, “Good bye short sales!”

nickhinkle asked:


At first i was thinking of becoming a residential real estate agent but then, someone told me about commercial real estate and i was wondering would that be a better career choice and does it work the same as residential. If so, that would be major commision on a $40 million building and that would be a better route i would love to take.

Frank H asked:


In other words, not the traditional way that real estate is transacted.