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In today’s market, every savvy seller wants to know what turns buyers off so they can get their homes sold as quickly as possible for as much as possible. But buyers, take note – there is a minefield of seller turn-offs you can trigger that hold the potential to keep you from getting the home you want at the best price and terms, or to unnecessarily complicate dealings with your home’s seller. Lest you think all of today’s sellers are under the gun and will just put up with whatever behavior buyers dish out, be aware that there are still many multiple offer situations in which buyers have to compete with each other to get a home – buyers who trigger these turnoffs tend to lose in those scenarios. Also, avoiding these seller turnoffs can create a transactional environment of cooperation and avoid things turning adversarial. That, in turn, can empower you to score a better price, get extra items you want thrown into the deal, and even negotiate more flexibility around your escrow and move-in timelines – all perks that can make your life easier and your budget go further. For sellers, these turnoffs pose the potential of irritating you out of an otherwise good deal – maybe even the only deal you have! Here are a few of the most common buyer-perpetuated seller turnoffs, with tips for sellers on how to keep an emotional (and economic) even keel, even if your home’s buyer makes some of these waves: 1. Trash-talking. Trash-talkers are the home buyers who think they’re going to negotiate the list price down by slamming the house, telling the sellers how little it is really worth, how the house across the street sold for nothing, why the school on the corner should make them desperate to give the place away, etc. This strategy never works; in fact, when you attack a seller and their home, you only cause them to be defensive, and think up all the reasons that (a) their home is not what you say it is, and (b) they shouldn’t sell their home to you! Sometimes this happens with buyers who actually love a house and just walk around it fantasizing about all the ways they would customize it to their tastes while a seller is there. Sellers: avoid being at home while your home is being shown. Buyers: save your commentary for your agent; if you do encounter the seller in person keep your conversation respectful and avoid critiquing the house or the list price. 2. Being unqualified for mortgage financing. When a seller signs a buyer’s offer, most often the seller agrees to effectively pull the home off the market, forgoing other buyers who might be interested. As such, the only thing worse than getting no offers on your home is getting an offer, getting into contract, then having the whole thing fall apart when the buyer’s loan falls through – especially if that could have been predicted or avoided up front. Sellers: Work with your agent to vet your home’s buyers’ qualifications, including their loan approval, down payment and earnest money deposit – before you sign a contract. It’s not overkill for your agent to call the buyers’ mortgage pro before you sign the contract and get a level of comfort for how robust their qualifications are. Buyers: Get pre-approved. Seriously. And make sure that you don’t buy a car, quit your job, deposit lottery winnings or do any other financial twitchery between the time you get loan approval and the time you close escrow on your home. (Note: in Arizona a REALTOR® will require that a Buyer furnish a pre-approval form filled out by the Buyer's lender.) 3. Making unjustified lowball offers. No one likes to feel like they are being taken advantage of. And sellers generally know the ballpark amount that their home is worth, as well as what they need to sell it for to get their mortgage paid off. Yes – the price you pay for a home should be driven by its fair market value, rather than the seller’s financial needs, and deals are more available in a market like the current one, in which supply so vastly outpaces demand. But just throwing uber-lowball offers out at sellers hoping one will hit the spot is not generally a successful strategy, especially if you really, really want a given property. Sellers: Don’t get overly emotional about receiving a lowball offer; counter at the price you and your agent decide makes sense based on the total circumstances, including your motivation level, recent comps and the interest/activity level your listing is receiving. Buyers: Work through the similar, nearby homes that have recently sold (a/k/a comparables) before you make an offer to factor the home’s fair market value into your offer price – also factor in how much you want the place, too. Don’t be amazed if you make an offer far below asking, and don’t get a response. 4. Renegotiating mid-stream. Sellers plan their finances, moves and - to some extent – their lives around the purchase price a buyer agrees to pay for their home. If you get into contract to buy a home, find out during inspections that costly repairs need to be made, then propose a lower sale price, repair credit or even actual repairs to the seller, that’s sensible and fair. But if you were aware that the property needed a lot of work before you made an offer on it, then you come back asking for beaucoup bucks’ worth of credit or price reductions midstream, expect the seller to cry foul. And holding the seller up two weeks into the transaction because you caught a case of buyer's remorse? Not cool, and not likely to foster the spirit of cooperation you may need to get your deal closed. Sellers: avoid mid-stream price renegotiations by having a full set of inspection reports and repair bids at hand when you list your home. Buyers: try to avoid renegotiating the entire deal unless you get some major surprises at your inspections or inflating small repairs to try to justify a major price cut. 5. Misleading or setting the seller up. Remember when we talked about buyer turn-offs? Being misled by listing photos or very fluffy property descriptions was high on the list. The same goes for sellers.Offering way over asking with the plan to hammer the seller for a reduction when the house doesn’t appraise at the purchase price? #LAME Making an as-is offer planning the whole time to come back and ask for every penny ante repair called out by the inspectors? Lame squared. Sellers: If you get multiple offers and are tempted to take a sky-high one or one that claims to be all cash, consider requesting proof that the buyer has sufficient funds to make up the difference between what you think the home will appraise for and the actual sale price, and statements showing the cash truly exists. Buyers: Don’t be lame. I’m not saying you have to tell the seller exactly what your top dollar is, but making offers with terms designed to intentionally mislead is really, really bad form – and can result in losing the home entirely if and when your bluff gets called.

banker morons

My response to a Verde Valley homeowner who made the mistake of asking "How's the market? Can I sell my house yet? What's the percentage of foreclosures?"

Hi, Viktoria. The market is.......can I borrow your words and say "so-so?"
The foreclosures are rampant. The percentages don't really matter because foreclosures are at the bottom of any price range and that's naturally where the buyers go - to the cheapest. I would, too.

"Real" people and "normal" sales all have to wait until the foreclosures are gone, or else compete down there at the bottom. The banks don't care - they'll get bailed out. They just keep undercutting the prices and driving the comps and the market lower every day.

I realize that my sentiments are not what the media is portraying, but this is what I'm seeing.

If a bank-owned house has a fair market value of, say, $100,000 then the bank/owner says "List it at $75,000! Get rid of it!" Then the next bank/owner of an identical house now has a value of $75,000 because that's the comp. And so they say "List it for $50,000! Get rid of it!"

You see where this is going, I'm sure. They're shooting themselves in the foot, and in doing so they're shooting Americans in the head.

Sorry. I do go off on rants when this subject comes up, the banker morons.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is starting to get really serious about all of the mortgage delinquencies which are taking place across the country.

For those of you who may have never heard of the FHFA before, it is the Federal entity which oversees and regulates the mortgage behemoths known as Fannie Mae (add acronym) and Freddie Mac. The tally for delinquent mortgages is rising by the millions and FHFA is looking to offload its losses onto the financial institutions that sold them to Fannie and Freddie. Now, they have enlisted the services of some high powered attorneys to assist with the process.

For example, FHFA recently retained the firm of Quinn Emanuel (QE) to jump start its investigations. Using its expertise in business and banking litigations, QE has already subpoenaed JP Morgan Chase and has put Bank of America on notice for $47 billion dollars in poorly serviced loans. This investigation is broad ranging, as the FHFA is not solely pursuing institutions that sold mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but also private label financiers who eventually packaged and sold mortgage backed securities to investors on Wall Street. As it stands today, banks and mortgage companies could be forced to buyback over $179 billion in soured mortgage products. To date, Fannie and Freddie have forced banks to repurchase over $6 billion in mortgages, and an additional $16 billion will be forced back on the banks in the next 12 months. During the boom years of 2006 and 2007, Fannie/Freddie purchased over $200 billion in subprime loans, of which the majority have gone sour. The FHFA is seeking to force repurchases on these mortgages too.

As one could assume, the banks don´t want to buy back any mortgages. Accordingly, they are pushing back on FHFA/FHMLC/FNMA´s buyback requests with fervor. Bank of America´s chief has gone on record stating that "we will diligently fight this." Others have retained the best attorneys that money can buy to defend them tooth and nail. The unfortunate issue is that many of the buyback requests are legitimate. As a whole, the majority of these banks signed representations and warranties affirming that if any fraudulent documentation or faulty underwriting can be found in their files, the bank agrees to buy the loans back. Banks look forward to earning NII (net interest income) and not losing due to NIE (net interest expense). As repurchases mount, banks have to raise their loan loss provision, which accordingly drives down their stock price. This also leads to a need for additional capital. If the capital can´t be raised, a bank can fold.

Indeed, the scariest part is how buybacks travel through the mortgage food chain. Just as many banks signed repurchase agreements with representations and warranties regarding the buyback of loans with fraudulent documentation, mortgage brokers, bankers and other forms of �direct lenders´ signed them as well. Accordingly, if Bank of America, Chase, Wells, or Citi is forced to buyback mortgages, they may seek their own remedies by forcing buybacks onto mortgage brokers, banks and direct lenders who originated the loans. I haven´t personally experienced this myself, but I know mortgage brokers who were forced to buyback mortgages or go bankrupt. I don´t know many people with an average of $350,000 lying around (per loan) to reimburse a lender.

As this mortgage mess continues to snowball, I see the buyback issue getting bigger while sucking in more people involved in the mortgage origination process. Ultimately, it may take us years to recover as Fannie and Freddie struggle to repay the American taxpayer the $148 billion that was borrowed to keep both entities afloat by pushing bad loans back down on the banks that originated them in the first place. As the loss provisions rise and the stock prices fall, more banks will push their junk onto mortgage bankers, brokers, and other direct lenders by enforcing their own representations and warranties. The smallest of these guys will file BK, Fannie and Freddie will continue to be propped up on the back of the tax payer, while banks will suffer losses and in many cases closes their doors. Oh, what a mess one weaves when they originate a fraudulent loan in order to deceive!

By Howard Preston, contributor to Broker Agent Social.

Tax ramifications of a short sale

This makes me crazy. A homeowner is in trouble, yet wants to do the right thing and attempt a short sale rather than just walk away. So what does the IRS do? Possibly count the amount forgiven as income. Aaaaargh! If the homowner just lets the lender foreclose then the IRS isn't interested. What is wrong with this picture?

by Dave Cherry - Dec. 26, 2010 06:10 PM
Question: My daughter executed a "short sale" of her home in 2010. What are the tax ramifications?
- Barry Davis, Apache Junction

Answer: In a "short sale," the IRS would most likely consider the difference between what the house sold for and what she owed on it as income to her in 2010. This applies when the lender forgives the debt entirely and gives up any further rights to collect it. In this case, the lender would most likely send her a 1099-C showing the difference as income, and your daughter could owe tax on it. Your daughter should check IRS form #982 to see if she qualifies for one of the many exemptions available. If she does qualify, the difference may not be considered income. Conversely, in a foreclosure the difference is most often not considered income to the homeowner.Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2010/12/26/20101226tax-cherry1227.html#ixzz19KWc6Xxo

Funny. My last post was also from Freddie Mac, saying that interest rates are going up.

5 Predictions for 2011:

Freddie Mac analysts point to five features that they believe will likely characterize the 2011 housing and mortgage markets:

1. Low mortgage rates. With Fed observers expecting the central bank to keep the federal funds rate at its current target range of 0 percent to 0.25 percent for most (or all) of 2011, relatively low mortgage rates will be a feature of the 2011 mortgage market. Thirty-year fixed-rate loans are likely to remain below 5 percent throughout the year, and initial rates of 5/1 hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages will likely remain below 4 percent in 2011.

2. Prices have hit bottom. House prices are likely to begin a gradual, but sustained recovery in the second half of 2011.

3. Housing will remain affordable. With affordability high, many first-time buyers will be attracted to the housing market in the New Year, likely translating into more home sales in 2011 than in 2010.

4. Refinances will dwindle. Many eligible borrowers have already refinanced and the federal Making Home Affordable refinance program is expiring on June 30. While fixed-rate loans are likely to remain low, they will move up gradually, making it even less likely that refinances will be attractive to most home owners.

5. Delinquency rates will decline. Based on the last several business cycles, the share of loans that are 90 or more days delinquent or in foreclosure proceedings — known as the "seriously delinquent rate" — generally crests within a year of the start of the recovery in payroll employment, and this economic recovery appears to fit within that pattern. Payrolls began to rise last January, and by the spring the seriously delinquent rate had begun to fall.Source: Freddie Mac (12/09/2010)

Banks favor foreclosure

Banks favor foreclosing over altering home loans
by Laurie Roberts, columnist - Dec. 4, 2010 12:00 AMThe Arizona Republic

Hannah Swearengin and I are walking around her cozy north-central Phoenix home on Thursday, and she is describing what it feels like to live there these days.
"Terrible stress, just terrible stress," she says. "I have, like everybody else, worked hard all my life. I raised and educated four children, one with special needs. I've never asked anybody for anything. I never thought at this time in my life that I'd be in this position, ever."
Swearengin is in good company. Close to 200,000 Arizona families are believed to be behind on their mortgages. By month's end, more than 50,000 will have lost their houses this year, as banks foreclose and sell them for a song.
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When that happens, the Swearengins of the world will be out and their neighbors will be left an empty eyesore, plus an average $22,000 hit to the value of their own homes, according to the Center for Responsible Lending. Meanwhile, the banks or whoever owns the loans will have bigger losses in many cases than if they had just worked with the struggling homeowner.
So what gives?
"I wish I knew," said Attorney General Terry Goddard, who is asking the Legislature to adopt a Borrower's Bill of Rights that would force banks to treat customers more fairly.
"They're hurting themselves. They're hurting their investors. They're hurting their credibility going forward, bottom line, by essentially trashing these assets. Every house that gets sold on the courthouse steps in this economy is a fraction of its value. All of us take a hit."
Swearengin, 68, has owned a home for most of her life and says she had never missed a payment until February. Her struggles began in late 2008 when she fractured her back and was unable to work, assuming she even could find work given that she's a Realtor in one of the nation's worst real-estate markets. For much of the past two years, she's lived on her savings, and the drain only increased in late 2009 when she was hospitalized with kidney failure.
By January, it became clear that she wouldn't be able to keep up with the $1,700 monthly payments on her $225,000 mortgage. So she called CitiMortgage, hoping to work something out, only to be told that she had to miss three payments before they could even talk about it.
She's now missed 11. She's faxed and re-faxed documentation of her situation. She calls every few days, never speaking to the same person twice. And still she waits to hear whether the bank will modify her mortgage. At one point, she says, the bank told her that it might be able to cut her payments in half by extending her loan to 40 years.
But since then, she's heard only silence, and her home is due to be auctioned off on Dec. 30.
CitiMortgage declined to discuss Swearengin's loan, citing privacy, but it offered a general comment. "The modification process involves submission of financial documentation, which must be updated and refreshed at certain points," wrote Mark Rodgers, CitiMortgage's director of public affairs. "If any required documentation is missing, the modification may not proceed. Variations in the borrower's financial circumstances, such as changes in income, also have a direct bearing on eligibility for permanent modifications. We are looking into this case and will work with the homeowner to explore potential solutions to avoid foreclosure."
This is, of course, what all the banks say, right up until the moment they foreclose and sell your place for a fraction of what it's worth.
In fact, the practice is so prevalent that this week, U.S. Acting Comptroller of the Currency John Walsh told the U.S. Senate Banking Committee that he's directing the big banks to suspend foreclosures for borrowers who are actively seeking loan modifications.
So who's responsible for putting people like Hannah Swearengin and Hazel Nitis - the cancer patient whom I wrote about earlier this week - out when it appears each could stay put if given a modification?
Banks blame the investors who own the loans.
But two of the biggest - Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - pointed right back at the banks that service the loans, in testimony before Congress this week. "Servicers are required under our servicing contracts to help borrowers in trouble, not just collect payments," said Terence Edwards of Fannie Mae.
But a local real-estate attorney tells me that there's a financial incentive for the banks to foreclose rather than modify.
"At a foreclosure, they get all the fees, they get all the late charges. They get all their lost money off the top," said attorney Robert Nagle. "They don't want to reduce principal, because it's like your investment portfolio: They charge you 1 percent based on the amount they're managing. So if they start giving everyone reductions, their fees are going to be less because they're not managing as much."
Swearengin isn't even looking for a reduction of her principal, just an extension of her loan and perhaps a lower interest rate to bring her payments to a level she can afford.
The alternative is obvious. All you have to do is look at the foreclosed house next door. It's not hard to spot. It's the albatross at the end of the block, the weed-ridden mess surrounded by homes with neatly trimmed lawns ... for now.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8635.Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/12/04/20101204bank-foreclosures-roberts.html#ixzz17AIR29bj

An email from a good lender.

Hey all,

Mortgage rates have reached a 3 month peak. If you have fence sitters, it may be prudent to let them know what is going on as they should seriously consider purchasing that home they were thinking of.

According to Bankrate.com, the benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 4.62 percent. This is despite the government purchasing of Treasury Notes that was supposed to keep the rates low.

For the complete article, the link is below. You may need to copy and past the link into your browsers window to make it work.
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/mortgages/mortgage-rates-leap-to-3-month-peak.aspx


Have an outstanding weekend!

Mark A. Miskiel - Residential Lending Specialist
The Lending Company – Verde Valley
Office: (928) 634-7987 (rings to cell when out of office)
e-Fax: (480)-371-1150
www.Lender4you.com
NMLS # 198563
Not all loan officers are required to be licensed.
I am proud to be a licensed loan officer!

Understand which mortgage loan is best for you so your budget is not stretched too thin.

By: G. M. Filisko

The basics of mortgage financing:

The most important features of your mortgage loan are its term and interest rate. Mortgages typically come in 15-, 20-, 30- or 40-year lengths. The longer the term, the lower your monthly payment. However, the tradeoff for a lower payment is that the longer the life of your loan, the more interest you’ll pay.

Mortgage interest rates generally come in two flavors: fixed and adjustable. A fixed rate allows you to lock in your interest rate for the entire mortgage term. That’s attractive if you’re risk-averse, on a fixed income, or when interest rates are low.

The risks and rewards of ARMs:
An adjustable-rate mortgage does just what its name implies: Its interest rate adjusts at a future date listed in the loan documents. It moves up and down according to a particular financial market index, such as Treasury bills. A 3/1 ARM will have the same interest rate for three years and then adjust every year after that; likewise a 5/1 ARM remains unchanged until the five-year mark. Typically, ARMs include a cap on how much the interest rate can increase, such as 3% at each adjustment, or 5% over the life of the loan.

Why agree to such uncertainty? ARMs can be a good choice if you expect your income to grow significantly in the coming years. The interest rate on some—but not all—ARMs can even drop if the benchmark to which they’re tied also dips. ARMs also often offer a lower interest rate than fixed-rate mortgages during the first few years of the mortgage, which means big savings for you—even if there’s only a half-point difference.

But if rates go up, your ARM payment will jump dramatically, so before you choose an ARM, answer these questions:

How much can my monthly payments increase at each adjustment?
How soon and how often can increases occur?
Can I afford the maximum increase permitted?
Do I expect my income to increase or decrease?
Am I paying down my loan balance each month, or is it staying the same or even increasing?
Do I plan to own the home for longer than the initial low-interest-rate period, or do I plan to sell before the rate adjusts?
Will I have to pay a penalty if I refinance into a lower-rate mortgage or sell my house?
What’s my goal in buying this property? Am I considering a riskier mortgage to buy a more expensive house than I can realistically afford?
Consider a government-backed mortgage loan
If you’ve saved less than the ideal downpayment of 20%, or your credit score isn’t high enough for you to qualify for a fixed-rate or ARM with a conventional lender, consider a government-backed loan from the Federal Housing Administration or Department of Veterans Affairs.

FHA offers adjustable and fixed-rate loans at reduced interest rates and with as little as 3.5% down and VA offers no-money-down loans. FHA and VA also let you use cash gifts from family members.

Before you decide on any mortgage, remember that slight variations in interest rates, loan amounts, and terms can significantly affect your monthly payment. To determine how much your monthly payment will be with various terms and loan amounts, try REALTOR.com’s online mortgage calculators.

It’s All About Perception. By Dan Polimino.

I speak with a lot of real estate agents on a daily basis and they all seem to be talking about how many deals are falling apart over inspection items.
If you are not familiar with what I am talking about, it is when a buyer puts a home under contract and then terminates the contract after the home inspection. The question is, why is this a growing trend now?

To answer that question, let’s take a look at two different time periods.
It’s 2005 and it’s a hot real estate market. Bill Smith has a home for sale and Tom Jones puts it under contract. Jones has an inspection done, items come up on the inspection, some minor and some more serious in nature. Jones doesn’t object to the inspection items, he doesn’t even bat an eyelash and moves on with the purchase of the home asking for nothing to be fixed.
Fast forward to 2010 and Bill Smith is selling his home, Tom Jones put it under contract and orders his inspection. Items come up on the inspection, some minor and some more serious in nature. Buyer and seller argue, haggle, and fight over who is going to fix what and how much. Jones is not happy and terminates the contract shortly thereafter.
What’s the difference between these two scenarios? What happened between 2005 and 2010? Did all of the homes in America all of a sudden fall into serious disrepair? I think not! The answer is, “It’s all about perception.” In 2005, buyers looked the other way on inspection items or thought “No problem, I’ll fix them myself.”
Buyers did not want anything to get in the way of them getting the home they wanted, not even inspection items. Today the buyer perception is, “I have the seller’s over a barrel, I am going get what I want, when I want it, and if I don’t win, I’ll take my money and go home or elsewhere.”
In most cases, deals should not be falling apart over inspection items. This can and should be a give-and-take compromise with both parties winning. I understand what the market is right now and buyers have an advantage, but I think that we can make even more progress in the recovery of the real estate market if we can get to a more equitable “perception.”
Dan Polimino is a Realtor with Fuller Sotheby’s International Realty.

NAR prohibits sexual orientation discrimination!

NAR Bars Sexual Orientation Discrimination!
The change to Article 10 of the REALTORS® Code of Ethics passed in a roll-call vote by a greater than 9-to-1 margin.
It had been previously approved by the Professional Standards Committee and the Board of Directors at the 2010 Midyear Meetings in Washington D.C.
Here is the amended language of Article 10:
REALTORS® shall not deny equal professional services to any person for reasons of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or sexual orientation.
REALTORS® shall not be parties to any plan or agreement to discriminate against a person or persons on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or sexual orientation.
REALTORS®, in their real estate employment practices, shall not discriminate against any person or persons on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or sexual orientation.
A related recommendation amending Standard of Practice 10-3 was approved as well:
REALTORS® shall not print, display or circulate any statement or advertisement with respect to selling or renting of a property that indicates any preference, limitations or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or sexual orientation.The amendment was discussed prior to the vote.
A few of the questions raised were:
1. Is "sexual orientation," without qualifiers or any further explanation, the right phrasing?
2. Is NAR denying private property rights (ostensibly, the right of property owners to refuse to do business with people of a certain sexual orientation due to their moral beliefs)?
3. Should NAR precede the federal government in adding sexual orientation as a protected class?
In response to the third question, a delegate from Minneapolis pointed out that the purpose of the Code of Ethics was to hold REALTORS® to a higher standard. Another delegate who approved of the amendment said the Code of Ethics was a living document. Delegates approved the Code change by voice vote, but one delegate called for a vote by ballot. In ballot voting weighted by size of local association, the amendment passed by more than 93 percent.
- Brian Summerfield, REALTOR® Magazine

Mold Remediation: What to Expect When You Hire An Expert
By: Karin Beuerlein
Published: October 13, 2010
Mold remediation can be a pricey venture. Here’s what to look for and expect when you call in the professionals.
Who you gonna call?
Mold remediation is the Wild West of home improvement. The field largely is unregulated, and anybody can call himself an expert and call just about anything mold. There’s no required separation between who diagnoses the problem and who fixes it. And home inspectors, who evaluate your home’s major systems, don’t necessarily know much about mold remediation.When you need professional mold remediation, look for an independent consultant with credentials in mold remediation and investigation. Such professionals should:
Demonstrate completion of industry-approved coursework in mold investigation given by the American Board of Industrial Hygiene or the American Council for Accredited Certification (formerly the American Indoor Air Quality Council).
Provide a written report that includes lab results of air and surface samples.
Work independently from a mold remediation outfit.
Refrain from selling you products.
Investigate the mold
Mold remediation begins with an eyeball investigation that takes anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours, depending on where the problem is hiding--in plain sight or behind walls.Next, the consultant may suggest taking air and surface samples, necessary only to identify your particular mold for health or legal reasons. Always ask the mold remediation consultant why he wants to take samples: He should be able to articulate whatever hypothesis he is trying to confirm.
Make a mold removal plan
If cleanup is a simple DIY project, the consultant will advise you about procedures, protective equipment, and tools. He should also tell you where/what moisture problem gave birth to the spores. If cleanup is beyond amateur status, the consultant should draw up a mold remediation and removal plan that a professional mold remediation company or trusted demolition and building contractor will follow. Make sure the professionals you hire have a long track record, provide references, and are bonded and insured.Cleanup can be as simple as spraying and disinfecting drywall, or as complex as:
HVAC disinfection
Drywall, stud, and insulation removal
Cleaning personal belongings
HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filtration
How much it costs
Mold consultant: $250-$500 (which might include air and surface samples: always ask).
Air samples: $18-$225 apiece, depending on the laboratory.
Simple mold removal: $500 for surface mold removal.
Extensive mold remediation: $6,000-plus for severe infections that require extensive demolition, disinfection, and restoration.
Check your insurance
Homeowners insurance typically covers mold remediation and removal only if the problem results from a sudden emergency already covered under your policy, such as a burst pipe. Insurance usually doesn’t pay if the mold resulted from chronic moisture, deferred maintenance, or floodwaters (unless you carry flood insurance).As always, consult your insurance agent before contracting for work.Karin Beuerlein has covered home improvement and green living topics for HGTV.com, FineLiving.com, Better Homes & Gardens and the Chicago Tribune.

Four years into the housing crisis, myths about foreclosure still litter the minds of even the smartest of real estate consumers. When it comes to matters as high stakes as your home, confusion can cost you thousands - or even your home. Whether you’re a buyer looking at foreclosures, a homeowner struggling to keep your home or a seller concerned making sure your home can compete with the foreclosed homes on your block, these foreclosure myths are prime for the busting, with no further ado.

Myth #1: Foreclosure happens fast. With unemployment and underemployment still affecting nearly 1 in every 4 Americans, no one is immune from fears that a pink slip might quickly turn into a foreclosure notice. According to NeighborWorks America, nearly 60 percent of families seeking foreclosure counseling cited a lost job or cut wages as the reason they were facing foreclosure. While the Obama Administration's Home Affordable Programs haven't been nearly as effective as predicted in actually preventing foreclosures, they have had the effect of extending the foreclosure process for many families. Even though the legal process of foreclosure can happen in as few as 6 months in most states, it is currently taking much longer for the average foreclosure to get to completion. Recently, JP Morgan Chase revealed that their average borrower who loses a home to foreclosure has not made any payments in 14 months nationwide; 22 months in FLorida and 26 months in New York.To be sure, some see this as a good, others view it as unnecessarily dragging out the overall market's recovery. Many insiders will point out that these delays in foreclosure may be calculated to save the banks the costs of owning and maintaining foreclosed homes, not to help homeowners. In any event, the fact that foreclosure does not happen nearly as fast, in many cases, as expected does give families who are temporarily down on their luck some extra time to try to get back on their feet and save their homes.

Myth #2: Buyers can’t get clear title or title insurance on foreclosed homes. When the foreclosure robo-signing scandal first hit, there was widespread concern that buyers would not be able to get clear title on foreclosed homes, because the former foreclosed owners might be able to come get their homes back when the improprieties in the bank's foreclosure documentation processes came fully to light. At the same time, several of the country's largest title insurance companies publicly balked at issuing policies on bank-owned homes until the issue was resolved. At this point, the banks claim they have revamped their processes, and all banks have stated that they have found not a single borrower whose home was repossessed without them having missed the requisite number of mortgage payments. Nevertheless, a number of governmental investigations are still in progress.The fact is, buyers of bank-owned properties in nearly every jurisdiction are protected from later title attacks by foreclosed homeowners by the bona fide purchaser rule, under which courts would prefer to simply award cash damages to be paid by the culpable bank to a wrongfully foreclosed-on homeowner, rather than reversing the sale or ownership to the new, innocent buyer. Additionally, the title insurers have now changed their tune and restarted issuing insurance policies on bank-owned homes which protect buyers' interests, after working with the banks for them to take responsibility in the event a former homeowner prevails in a wrongful foreclosure suit. While there are still many intricacies of title to be resolved for foreclosure buyers who purchase homes at trustee sales and auctions, or for cash buyers who often went without title insurance in the past, on the average, Trulia-listed, bank-owned property purchased with an average mortgage and title insurance, the chances a buyer's title will later be successfully challenged by the foreclosed homeowner on the basis of robo-signing? Exceedingly slim.

Myth #3: Buyers should wait for the shadow inventory to be released. Many a buyer, discouraged with the homes they see on the the form in their price range, has decided to sit still and wait for the banks to release for sale what is called their "shadow inventory" - rumored to be anywhere from 4 to nearly 6 million homes that have already been foreclosed, but not listed for sale, or will be foreclosed in the near future. The fact is, to the extent that the banks have acknowledged the existence of a pool of homes they own but are not selling, they have expressed that their reasoning for holding the homes off the market is to avoid flooding the market and driving home values down any further. For that reason, buyers should not expect to see a massive influx of these shadow homes onto the market anytime soon - if ever. The banks' current modus operandi is that as they sell a home, the replace it with another home in that market - if they sell 50 homes in a town that month, they'll put another 50 on the next. So, don't hold your breath waiting for a fabulous new flood of homes. Instead, set up a Trulia alert to notify you when homes that fit your search criteria come on the market, and be ready to call your agent and go visit any and every one that looks like it might be a good fit.

Myth #4: If you’re looking for a deal, you’re looking for a foreclosure. Despite what they may say, no buyer’s heart's fondest desire is to buy a foreclosure. But almost every buyer dreams of buying a great home - and getting a great deal on it. Many people think that to get a great value on their home on today's market, it means they must buy a foreclosure. As a result, the value and other advantages of buying an individually-owned home on today's market are frequently overlooked. Individual sellers with homes on the market right now are generally quite motivated, and understand that their homes are competing with discounted short sales and foreclosed homes. Many of these sellers are slashing prices in an effort to get them sold - the most recent Trulia Price Reduction Report revealed that 27 percent of homes on the market across the country have had at least one price reduction. Now that's what I call a sale!Further, individual owners are often much more negotiable on a wide range of contract terms than a bank which owns a foreclosed home. You can work with non-bank owners on things like repairs, closing dates, choice of escrow provider, closing costs and even included personal property much more flexibly than you can when the bank is on the other side of the bargaining table. On top of that, many individually-owned homes are in pristine, move-in condition; that is much rarer with foreclosures. So, don't underestimate the value of the deal you might be able to get on a non-foreclosed home. Just get clear on what you can afford and look at all the homes that are available in that price range, without discriminating against non-foreclosures.

Myth #5: Having a foreclosure on your credit history means it'll take years and years before you can buy again. One of the most Frequently Asked Questions in the Trulia Voices Community by homeowners who are facing or have just lost a home through foreclosure is how long it will take before they'll be able to buy again. Until recently, the standard wisdom was that 5 years, minimum, would have to have elapsed between the foreclosure and the new home purchase. Now, though, borrowers can obtain an FHA loan with the low, 3.5 minimum down payment requirement as soon as 3 years following a foreclosure. To do so, though, all your other ducks must be in a row. Post-foreclosure buyers need a credit score of 620-640 to qualify for an FHA loan; higher for a non-FHA loan - given that the foreclosure itself usually dings anywhere from 100-150 points off the credit score (not necessarily counting a full year or more of pre-foreclosure missed payments), former homeowners who want to buy again need to ensure they have no other late payments or credit dings after they lose thier home. You must have clean credit with no derogatory marks like late credit card payments following the foreclosure, and you may also be required to document 12 to 24 months straight of on-time rent payments after the foreclosure. Further, the bank may impose a lower debt-to-income ratio on post-foreclosure borrowers than on borrowers who have not had a foreclosure, in an effort to keep your mortgage payments low, keep you from overextending yourself and boost the chances you'll be a successful homeowner over the long-term this time around. The bank will also need to see 2 years of continuous employment history in the same field, and documentation that you meet other loan qualification requirements.

Thanks to Tara-Nicholle Nelson

I have something of what I call a voodoo frame of mind. I believe that what we concentrate on is what we get. If we tell ourselves a thousand times a day how horrible the world is, how awful people treat each other, even that there are SOOOOO many bad drivers out there then this is all that we will see. What we believe becomes so, at least in our little slice of the world.

So what does this have to do with real estate? Well, look around you. The real estate market reflects our economy, or vice versa - I've never been sure which comes first. People ask me "What the heck happened?"

I think that it all started with the media, which is perpetuating a self-defeating cycle. (All I know is what I see - I don't know which economic guru to listen to so I've stopped paying attention to any of them - they're all contradicting each other anyway.)

So here's my story. The media caused the real estate feeding frenzy of 2005. News stories about the scarcity of real estate and the wonderful investment of real estate sold newspapers and got hits and so they reported it more and sold more ads and so they amped it up and pretty soon people were buying every piece of property that they could get their hands on whether they could afford it or not. The lenders were throwing the money at these buyers because hey - if the borrower defaults we'll just take it back and re-sell it at a profit. Of course we can - watch the Today Show.

This couldn't continue indefinitely and so of course, it all fell apart and the frenzy slowed down and then quickly came to a screaming halt.

So now the media concentrates on what they're portraying as the poor stupid fools who bought during the frenzy. They tell horror stories of markets freezing and "flippers" stuck with houses they can't pay for and variable rate borrowers who can't make their payments and the public says, "Whoa! I'd better walk away from my house now!" Or, "Gee, I'd better not buy anything until I know what's going on!" And so they do and the economy gets worse because no money is moving.

So, tell me. How do we get the media to tell the true story? How do we make it sexy that it's a wonderful time to buy a house? How do we get them to reverse some of this damage?

I'm fully aware that my approach to what is undoubtedly an intricate economic process is going to make some people crazy. That's OK - your truth is not necessarily my truth, and I'm always open to seeing more pieces to a puzzle.

I'm being technologically special lately. My wonderful hoo-hah phone (that I now realize has replaced my brain) crashed. AAAaaargh! Calm down, Carol Anne - just sync it and everything will be back. Nope. Nothing there. (Did you know that the license plate on my Jeep says "TURETS?" I earned it, mostly with episodes and epithets like yesterday's.) So now I've lost my schedule and hundreds of phone numbers that apparently I haven't stored anyplace else. Why would I put them anyplace else? I have a wonderful phone with a computer back-up. Wrong.

Then I borrowed Mike's Blazer to go to a Grievance Committee meeting in Phoenix. On the way home the "check engine" light came on. I pulled over and figured out to lift the hood and checked the engine. Yep - there's an engine, right there. Got back in and started it up and the "check engine" light is still lit up. "But I did! I checked the engine!" Momentary and muttered TURETS this time.
So Mike takes his Blazer to Brain The Car Doctor. Brain hooks it up to his voodoo instruments and they tell him that it misfired while going 93 MPH with the throttle at 80% and Mike comes home and shakes his finger at me and explains (again) the photo radar and that they'll mail me a felony speeding ticket. Yes, Dear.

Then Nick The Computer Doctor replaced the old Windows OS on my office computer with a Linux system. I'm sure that it's absolutely wonderful, but it's different - instead of clicking on the little spinning world now I click on the bird and my brain is not seeming to want to develop this new habit.

So I'm thrashing around feeling betrayed and snitched on and challenged and then finally realize that if these are the worst things that happen this week then I'm doing pretty darn well. I remember to count my blessings, and to pray for the billions of people out there that would trade problems with me in a New York heartbeat.

I know that this post is not so much about the business of real estate as it is about being grateful that I do have a phone and a car and a computer to cuss at. If you wanted real estate, give me a holler and I'll talk about it for as long as you want, but right now I'm just feeling happy to have a roof over my head and a family to share my life with and the technology to share these thoughts with you. Thank you for listening.

REALTOR ETHICS.

I notice that a lot of the general public is unaware that REALTORs (I'm not yelling at you when I capitalize REALTOR - the National Association says that I must always put our name in caps.) have a stringent Code Of Ethics.
I've been extensively trained in our Code, so I feel comfortable talking about it to you. It's not secret, like the Masons. You can find your own copy, suitable for framing, at www.realtor.org.
Basically, the Code outlines the REALTOR's obligations to the public and to other REALTORs. We are required to always work in the best interests of our client. Within legal guidelines, we're required to tell you anything that we know about the property that might have a bearing on your decision to buy, or how much you pay. Our clients have to give us permission to work with both the seller and the buyer in the same deal. We have to be honest with everyone involved. We ae required to account for every penny.
That's just a taste - the REALTOR Code of Ethics goes on for days. I know - I've been on Arizona Association of REALTORs' Professional Standards or Greivance committees for almost 20 years, and I'm one of the comparatively few certified ethics instructors.
Do REALTORs sometimes make mistakes? Yes. Are there ever bad apples who just don't care about ethics? Yes, but they die on the vine pretty quickly. If a member of the public feels badly treated by a REALTOR, do they have any recourse? Absolutely - that's what we're here for.
Is this a subject that you want to hear more about? I live and breathe the Code of Ethics, but I realize that everybody might not share my enthusiasm. What do you think?

Where have all the Buyers gone?

I remember growing up in the '60s, listening to The Kingston Trio singing, "Where have all the flowers gone? Young girls picked them, every one. When will they ever learn? When will they ev-er learn?
Now I wander around my world singing, "Where have all the Buyers gone? The media scared them, every one. When will they ever learn? When will they ev-er learn?"
This real estate market is amazing. Here in Arizona's Sedona Verde Valley area, we have hundreds and hundreds of homes for sale, most of them at incredible prices. Interest rates are at a 40-year low, sellers are ridiculously negotiable, and yet very few buyers are coming out of the woodwork to take advantage of the situation. Amazing!
Why? I understand that the media has done a hatchet job - bad news sells better than good news. But why did people believe the bilge that got spewed? Why are they still believing it? Why have we allowed the short-sighted politics that caused this in the first place?
I know that 2 years down the road everybody is going to be kicking themselves for not grabbing a house now when the deals are so favorable to the buyers.
If you are somebody that thinks that they might want buy a house someday, please let me know what I'm missing. I promise that I won't jump on you wanting to strong-arm you into buying - I don't roll like that, anyway. I'm just confused and need enlightenment.