A friend and real estate colleague just finished telling me about her recent short sale nightmare. It seems she found a buyer for her client’s house. The bank accepted the short sale offering and was processing the sale, talking to the investor , etc. As the sale was coming together, the foreclosure process was well on it’s way and the auction date had been set. The bank sent notice to the investor telling them to postpone the auction because a sale was imminent. Read on … (more…)

I took a Realtor class today called “What you need to know about today’s changing mortgage market” and left with knot in my stomach. Among other things, I learned that the Loan Quality Initiative (LQI) recently launched by Fannie Mae is an attempt to police the loan application process. The LQI requires checks and re checks of bank statements, pay stubs, credit scores and credit reports as well as owner occupancy after the closing. Not a problem, usually, because most of us are honest borrowers. The problem for even honest folk is that 2 or 3 days before the closing, the lender can run your credit again. Problem? Well, if there’s any new debt showing (maybe you had to buy tires for your car or furniture for your new house) you could easily be denied the mortgage… JUST before the closing. What a mess! And since credit reports are “histories” and usually 30 – 60 days “behind” in what they report, you could have purchased your new Pirellis or Barcalounger a month and a half ago, applied for your loan, been approved, found the condo and then learn on Wed that you can’t close Friday.

The debt crisis in Europe is being felt around the world. (Another example of how “connected” we all are!”) Mortage rates here have been pushed under 5% again. See Nick Timiraos’ WSJ article for details and perspective.

A 5.75% $400,000 30 year fixed mortgage refied to 4.75% would save you about $250 per month. Might be time to check it out.

If you’ve ever wondered how much someone paid for a property OR how much their mortgage is OR who actually owns it, check out http://www.salemdeeds.com/. It’s the S. Essex County Registry of Deeds website. If you live in Gloucester, Beverly, Danvers (or any S. Essex County town) your mortgages (and mine!) are recorded there, as well as divorce decrees, wills, condo docs and anything else that’s in the “public domain”. Here’s a quick video tutorial …

On a recent Cape Ann home inspection, I noted that there was a gas fired boiler in my client’s under agreement property. (“Big deal”, you think. “THIS guy has a terrific grasp of the obvious.” Please read on… ) The home inspector thought nothing of it, guessed that the boiler was about 30 years old and said it was “running well”. But I knew a lot about the neighborhood and that this tract of homes was built with oil fired boilers which meant that at some point there was an oil tank in or around the property that had since been removed. “So what?” you say. Well, Patty had already gone to the building inspector (looking for any “repair” permits) and to the local fire department (looking for any gas or oil type repair permits) and there was no “oil tank removal” paperwork. So I was concerned.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmY-auf__h0&hl=en&fs=1&]

We don’t do a lot of real estate related posts but I think this story might be worth sharing. While with clients who are looking hard at a Cape Ann deck house property, we noticed excessive carpenter ant activity AND there were lots of waves and bumps in the roof. Little did we know the 2 would be related.

FYI this deck house is a split entry with tongue and groove pine for the cathedral ceiling surface. That “surface” is 2.5″ thick stock that is the bottom side of the roof planking. On top of the roof planks is 2″ of a styro-foam-like insulation and then the asphalt roof shingles. Because of the roof inconsistencies, we had Dennis Gannett (a great Essex roofing contractor) take a look at the roof. He removed a couple of shingles, exposing the insulation and planks underneath. Guess what we found? Ants … in the roof! We opened up another section, more ants. Ugh.

So then we called Andy Corcoran of Maguire Pest Control and he gave us an education. Get this:

• Deck houses are really carpenter ant friendly: they’re usually built in the woods and have a perfect space in the roof with food (the insulation) and warmth for the ants.
• The ants don’t “eat” wood, they just excavate it so they can lay eggs. The cellulose insulation is easy for them to chew (easier than wood) so they love to nest in it.
• In the warm months, the ants actually travel off of the roof, down the walls and out into the yard to look for dead bugs and worms to bring back to the nests. (Amazing. We watched a couple.)
• The only good way to get rid of them is to remove the roof shingles and insulation, treat the boards with Bora-Care then put on new insulation and shingles.

The moral of the story is: if you live in a deck house, don’t wait to see the ants. Get it checked now. (We’ve used Maguire’s many times, they do a great job and the inspection is free.)

I’ll let you know later how this all works out. For now, I think I’ll file this under “you can’t make this stuff up”.

Old school selling with new design – GloucesterTimes.com, Gloucester, MA

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Gov. Patrick announced a new loan program, that allows first time home buyers to “monetize” the $8000 tax credit, to pay for closing costs.  It is only through the MassHousing mortgage program.  Payment of this loan is deferred until June 30, 2010, to allow homeowners  to repay MassHousing with their 2010 tax refund.