By Suzanne Kapner in New York

Published: February 17 2010 02:00 | Last updated: February 17 2010 02:00

Under the Obama Administration’s Making Home Affordable plan, which offers alternatives to foreclosure for homeowners struggling or unable to make their payment but unable to complete a loan modification, the short sale process is expected to be streamlined with incentives for all parties by the Treasury.  As reported in Short Sale Stories:

Sellers who complete a short sale can receive up to $1,500 when the sale closes. They can use this money to pay some of their moving expenses when they finish the short sale. This helps the recurring problem that sellers need funds to be able to relocate when the home sells. This same $1,500 incentive payment applies to borrowers who give their lender a deed in lieu of foreclosure.

In addition to these incentives, this expansion of the Making Home Affordable program creates a standard process to follow in a short sale. It creates timelines for the performance of the short sale, which is a welcome addition as they frequently drag on and on. The program also creates standard documents for use in short sales and deeds in lieu of foreclosure. This standardization will make short sales easier to do, and the performance timelines should speed up the process. Clear time limits for a response from the lender to a proposed short sale contract… could greatly encourage buyers to purchase short sale properties.

The lender has to allow the sellers/borrowers a minimum of 90 days and a maximum of a year to sell their property. The time will vary depending on local market conditions. The property to be sold must be listed with a real estate agent that has experience in selling properties in the neighborhood.

The lender will establish both the property value and the minimum amount that the lender will accept. So, the lender will order an appraisal or a Broker Price Opinion (BPO) and use that to establish a reasonable sales price for the property. The appraisal or BPO will have to be current, as the program requires that they be done within 120 days of the Short Sale Agreement. This appraised value will be the basis for the lender’s decision of how much they will accept as the short payment of the balance due on the loan. Many lenders will accept 80% to 90% of the value established by the appraisal or BPO, which allows buyers to purchase the property at a favorable price.

This procedure of establishing the acceptable value of an offer will be a wonderful improvement to a short sale. This should eliminate the “guess again” feature found in some current short sales, where the lender will occasionally turn down an offer without giving a counter offer or any guidance to the seller. The opposite should happen under the current program, i.e. the lender will instruct the seller concerning the price at which the property should be listed and also provide guidance on price reductions.

One of the biggest problems in short sales comes when the property has a first loan and additional junior liens. For example, many homes have a first loan and a home equity line of credit that is a second loan. There is some assistance from this program because the Treasury will contribute money to help pay off second loans and other junior liens.

If the borrower is unable to sell the home within the time specified in the Short Sale Agreement, the lender may consider a deed in lieu of foreclosure, in which the borrower voluntarily transfers ownership of the property to the lender. However a deed in lieu of foreclosure only works if there is only one loan on the property because the lender will not want to accept the property burdened by the obligation to pay off the junior loans.

This program will be available until 2012.

To read all the details, go to: http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/docs/05142009FactSheet-MakingHomesAffordable.pdf

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HAFA helps standardize the short sale and deed-in-lieu process by creating an alternative to foreclosures for homeowners unable to successfully modify their troubled mortgage under HAMP.

Although not perfect, the program reflects C.A.R.’s efforts in the federal arena to standardize the short sale process, protect your business, and safeguard commissions. It also makes clear the timeframes by which servicers must respond to an offer on a short sale.

The HAFA program will permit pre-approved short sale terms before a property is listed; prevent servicers from attempting to reduce real estate commissions established in the listing agreement as a condition for short sale approval; release borrowers from future liability for the debt; and provide financial incentives to borrowers, servicers, and investors.

Under terms of the program, the borrower and/or listing broker have three business days to submit an executed purchase offer and related documents to the servicer on a short sale, and the servicer has 10 business days to respond to an executed purchase offer. The servicer may negotiate the real estate commission prior to the listing of the property, not to exceed 6 percent, but once this has been agreed to the commission may not be reduced at a later date.

The servicer also will determine the minimum net proceeds for a short sale; if an offer presented to the servicer by the borrower or listing broker meets the net proceeds requirement, then the servicer must accept it.

Each participating servicer also must develop a written policy that describes the basis on which the servicer will offer the HAFA program to borrowers. All borrowers must be evaluated for a loan modification prior to going to HAFA. For additional information, please go to car.org at http://www.car.org/governmentalaffairs/federal/ustreasuryfap/.

HAFA is a step in the right direction toward helping distressed homeowners now, and is an effective tool to quickly move distressed properties through the market. Although HAFA goes into effect April 5, 2010, our expectation is that servicers may choose to implement it earlier. The program is available only for non-Fannie Mae- or Freddie Mac-owned loans up to $729,750. C.A.R. will continue to reach out to servicers and lenders to encourage their adoption of HAFA and other programs that will help California’s housing market continue to recover. We anticipate that Fannie and Freddie will release their own guidelines soon, and we will share details with you as soon as they are available.

By James R. Hagerty

As he appeared before the House Financial Services Committee Tuesday to discuss the slow progress of government efforts to force lenders to ease payment terms on home mortgages, Anthony B. Sanders was reminded of the movie “Jurassic Park.”

It might be possible to bring dinosaurs back to life, but does that make it a good idea? Similarly, says Dr. Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University, it might be possible to slash interest rates on millions of loans, but that doesn’t mean we should.

What if the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program somehow finally gains traction and manages to reduce interest rates to 2% on millions of loans and extend their terms to 40 years? That would just create fresh problems, Dr. Sanders says.

“Our banking industry, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and our Federal Reserve would now be sitting on trillions of dollars of mortgages, many at super-low interest rates and stretched maturities to 40 years,” he writes. Any rise in inflation and interest rates would then slash the value of those mortgages. “When one considers the precarious balance sheets of our lending institutions and our government agencies, we should think very, very carefully about loading up their balance sheets with these mortgages,” he warns, adding:

“Congress and the Administration should bear in mind that it is not just the banks that will suffer, but our pension funds, our own government agencies and the viability of the economy going forward.” Banks would be “stuck with low-interest, long-maturity loans on their books that will prevent them from lending to other borrowers or small businesses for a long, long time.”

The solution, he says, is to encourage financial institutions to sell distressed loans and mortgage securities at big discounts from face value to private investors, who could then restructure the loans on realistic terms related to today’s house prices. Such sales would force banks and other financial institutions to book big losses, but perhaps regulators could allow those losses to be absorbed in stages over five years.

If U.S. financial institutions don’t clean up their balance sheets by shedding dud assets soon, “we will make the Japanese zombie banks look the role model for a healthy financial system,” Dr. Sanders says.

But what about all those borrowers struggling to avoid foreclosure? “The (loan) servicers and financial institutions should be able to modify distressed loans as they see as economically appropriate,” Dr. Sanders says. “After all, these are private market contracts between borrowers and lenders.”

In a major victory for NAHB that will boost the fledgling housing recovery and help struggling business owners nationwide, Congress today approved legislation that will extend the first-time home buyer tax credit beyond its Nov. 30 deadline and expand it to a wider group of home buyers. The bill also provides relief to cash-strapped home builders by providing broader tax benefits for businesses with net operating losses (NOLs)

The legislation, which will be signed into law shortly by President Obama, will extend the $8,000 credit for first-time home buyers for sales contracts entered into by April 30, 2010 and closed by June 30. Further, it has been expanded to include a new $6,500 credit for owners of existing homes who are purchasing a new primary residence. An existing home owner can claim the $6,500 tax credit if they have been residing in their primary residence for five consecutive years out of the last eight.

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