Compare cash savings to closing costs to determine how much house you can afford in this video on buying a home.
Expert: Brett Staggs
Bio: Brett Staggs has been working in the mortgage industry for the past 6 years. He has worked for a title company, a credit reporting company, and two major banks.
Filmmaker: Dana Glover
Duration : 0:1:24
Tax on 1099C, Cancellation of Debt Income; Short Sale, Loan Modification & Foreclosure. Exception; Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, Bankruptcy & Insolvency. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 4 (Excerpt)
1099 C is for Cancellation of Debt Income Only, not for Interest Rate and Payment Reduction
So for people who find themselves in a very difficult situation considering these options whether it’s a loan modification or a short sale, whatever they need to do to relieve themselves of this particular burden of a mortgage, that for whatever reason they’re no longer able to maintain, they are not always considering the tax ramifications associated with taking a specific course of action, like this example the short sale option.
Right there is actually two pieces of tax component here, you have the forgiveness of debt income that we talked about, they still have the fact that you sold your house and you have to see if there was a gain on that. Over and above the cost basis of the home.
We talked about the 1099Cs a few moments ago, did you say that the lender sends a copy of the 1099C to the IRS? Absolutely.
Now I’m the guy for a few minutes ago who bailed on $400,000 and sold it for $300,000 am I going to get a copy of the 1099C if I haven’t given my lender my new address. Well that could be a problem, they will send it to the last address they have on record for you. And as a homeowner it’s my problem.
The IRS will get a copy, so they will look for it on your return, if you forget to put it on then you’re going to get a friendly notice from the IRS.
If somebody is going to do a short sale, its a fairly civil transaction and when I say civil I mean going for a short sale is horrible for them and their family, but it beats the alternative which is foreclosure, and I think the real problem is when there’s a foreclosure and the guy just walks away and moves off to El Centro California, he’s the one who’s really getting hurt.
So in the event that somebody takes a course of action, and I know that Velocity financial and Michael Barnes, youre not necessarily advocates for that short sale approach. It’s not normally the best course of action, we’ve been talking about loan modifications and it would help me when I talk to clients, or people who call from radio broadcasts who asked questions about loan modification process as part of a financial strategy, help me with some of the tax ramifications. Let’s say that I have a loan and I know the best thing for me is a loan modification, am I going to be faced with a 1099? A tax bill at the end of a loan modification?
Yes, the first of the two tax implications will apply which will be the debt forgiveness part.
I didn’t mean to interrupt you Mike, well I said there are several different types of loan modifications, I believe are you asking about when the loan modification is where they actually do forgive some of the debt?
Thats a point, I know there’s been a lot of discussion on the use of the TARP funds especially from the federal government regarding these banks that qualify for some of these funds, they have to do principle reductions for their mortgages. So let’s say there isn’t a principal reduction involved, from that aspect, its not a taxable event that could take place, since I’m not reducing my principal, I’m simply getting a reduction in my term or my rate.
That’s right, the only time that taxes would come into play is when the principal gets reduced because thats forgiveness of debt.
So let’s take that one step further, whatever mortgage interest I’m able to deduct on my taxes may be impacted if it’s a lower percentage, right because youll be paying less interest, but there’ll be no surprise 1099 coming your way if its just an interest modification.
One of the things that I like to make thing clear is that were trying to do the best for you the homeowner so you can stay in your home. The situation I’m talking about, the $400,000, the lender is more likely than not is not going to forgive $100,000, however the same lender is more than willing to reduce your interest rate so that your payment would be the same if they have done the principal reduction, because it’s not a permanent loss for the bank. If there is someone out there who’s telling you that they can have your mortgage reduced by tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, it’s not going to happen and I doubt it’s going to happen anytime soon.
Duration : 0:5:58
Home Loan Modifications Negotiated by Licensed Attorneys. Real Estate & Mortgage Laws and Guidelines are Complex. Beware of the Banks Loss Mitigation Department. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 7 (Excerpt)
Attorney negotiated loan modification process Going thru the Legal Door
We have Dan Havey with us talking about loan modifications. This segment we want to talk about the specifics of the actual mechanics of, how does it actually work for the homeowner? Let me just start it off and if you would then explain the back end of how it works. Our job is to determine where you’re at now, be very specific about where you’re at with your mortgage now, what the rate is, what it’s done, those specifics. How much you make? We have to help the lender with one thing which is to establish a hardship which is crucial to this. You can’t be making half $1 million a year paying $5000 a month in a mortgage, they are not just going to lower your interest rate because you want it. There actually has to be some sort of change, financial change, hardship.
We determined that and then there is a significant amount of paperwork involved, Velocity Financial takes care of that for you. We fill out the paperwork along with your help, review all of the documentation, we then recommend be right loan modification, whether it be an interest rate reduction, or extending the term of your loan, waiving some of the balance that you owe which is very very rare. To make sure that once we’re done with this whole process you can sustain and live in that house and be happy forever.
So the process itself really is not that much different than what people went through when they got their loan in the first place. That is correct and it’s kind of funny, this has to be exactly the reverse. There is paperwork that we need to collect on your mortgages, we check the value of the property to see where you’re at and in most cases youre underwater with the value. We dont do an appraisal though, there is no credit analysis, we do review your finances, and these sorts of things but essentially it’s just like doing a loan. What we’re trying to determine is exactly what is sustainable for you.
So what we do at the modification hotline at Velocity Financial is to put together the entire package, just like we do for a loan package because we basically send this to a underwriter, theyre not known as an underwriter they’re known as a loan modification coordinator but at modification hotline we are the first set of eyes. We work with you directly, getting all the paperwork in, getting it put together because we know exactly what has to be in that file, how it has to be stacked, how it has to be presented, before it goes to the loan modification coordinator who works for the attorney.
Then once it is at the attorneys office with their modification coordinator, they take a look at it, they make sure that everything is in there, they make sure that it is a doable modification. This all happens before it is ever presented to an attorney.
There are a whole lot of steps and there is a lot of paperwork. The process like you said is very similar to a loan with the exception that there are no costs of the title company and all that other stuff. Those dont exist, we dont charge an upfront fee, and we do collect a retainer for the attorney. At some point during our process we make our recommendations and we turn it in. Then the attorney does their due diligence and thats where I really want you to explain what happens, what are these attorneys looking for?
Well this is where it completely goes off track, versus what a homeowner would do if they were doing their own modification, because they would do everything we just talked about, they would fill out the paperwork, get together tax returns, pay stubs, whatever the lender wanted and they would present all of it to the lender. Now they probably wouldn’t know exactly how to stack some of the paperwork, and how to calculate some of the things that we know how to calculate, but they would put all that they work together.
Where the difference comes in is once it gets to the attorney because the attorney ultimately wants to get you a loan modification but they can’t just call up the bank and say hey I want loan modification, because he is going to get the same result you did. So what he has to do is he has to go through the file, and he has to look for things like, I am going to use a bunch of acronyms here, he’s looking for things like TILA, RESPA, HOEPA, HUD violations, all these different guidelines that the lender was required to meet while giving you the loan.
Duration : 0:6:47
A home mortgage with one larger payment at some point is called a balloon loan. This type of mortgage is usually on a second mortgage. With these mortgage loans, most people will sell or refinance before the balloon payment is due. Watch this Expert Real Estate Tips video about these special mortgages and find out if a balloon loan is right for you.
Duration : 0:1:23
First Time Home Buyers use FHA Mortgage and Seller Paid Closing Costs to Buy Real Estate Now. Best Market Conditions for Foreclosures and Short Sales in Decades. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 7 (Excerpt)
The old rules no longer apply and Suze Ormond should know that.
We have Dan Havey the author of Real Estates Future in the studio today.
Michael, I was just curious, back when I got into the industry many, many years ago there used to be a rule of thumb that if you were going to refinance you had to lower your interest rate by at least two percent and I know as time went along and products changed that really became unnecessary, but I am just curious in todays mortgage market its a lot different than we were dealing with even two years ago. Is that still true that there is a 2% rule? Whats going on now?
I happened to catch Suze Orman on television and she was talking about mortgages, the caller who called in to the program, the question became I believe similar to what Dan just asked, her comment was that basically if you’re in 6% interest rate or above now is the time to re-fi. That is what she said, a blanket recommendation. I know a lot of people put a lot of credence into what she says, maybe you could speak to that, the lowest interest rates you’ve seen in your career, you have been doing this for a while.
I have, and they are. You know there was a lot of speak the last couple weeks about the Fed, the Fed funds rate by the way is the lowest it’s ever been in history. As of this week the discount rate is to the point that banks are lending money to each other at nothing, the Fed funds rate for intrabank lending is at zero, the problem is the banks don’t have any money.
To be serious about the refinancing, because its a serious topic, I think people are starting to see their mail boxes filled with lots of advertising crap about refinance. I believe that doing the refinance is no different from doing a loan modification or buying a house, you need to sit down with the human being that’s local, that you can know is a legitimate source. You’re going to give all this personal information about you, your family, your kids, your Social Security number, you want to make sure you have somebody there that you know whos legit.
In regard to the old rule of thumb 2%, nothing could be further from the truth, and I will expand, but to the point of Ms Ormond that if youre at 6% or higher, that is a blanket statement and blanket statements never work. We just did a refinance for a guy who was at 5 1/2%, and it makes sense. Every situation is different, as far as how much do I have to lower my interest rate to make it work? It depends on the type of mortgage that you get.
The only type of loan to get today in December of 2008 is a 30 year fixed. I know that one of the things that was really interesting to me, and that you and I have referred clients to one another for several years, so we share a number of clients, were familiar with those families and those households, and this is Wednesday, on Monday and Tuesday of this week I’ve had seven phone calls from clients who you’ve already done loans for, refinances for, asking if this is the time to refinance a loan that is only a couple years old.
And I know in several of those cases the answer is yes you’re actually helping families right now with that process. I am and we do. To answer the question, you need to determine what the payback term is, in other words when your refinance is done it’s a new loan, there’s the title insurance, appraisals, lots of different things may need to be done, not in every case, but in most cases there are costs associated with that. The cost has to be offset by the amount of savings. Its a breakeven analysis
Absolutely it is, the shorter the breakeven the better the loan. I am working on a case right now which is going to be done in the next couple of days where the guy lowered his interest rate by an1/8 of a percent and it made sense for him. It’s not for everybody, 2 percent or lower, 2% is significant, now you’re talking about really significant savings in terms of cash flow…
Duration : 0:6:31