Back in the early 90s, the number of Notice of  Defaults (NODs) were about twice that of the Notice of Trustee’s Sales (NTSs) and the Trustee’s Deeds were 1/3 to 1/2 of that. That pattern went on for years but now we’re seeing a shift. The NODs are down, most NODs go to a sale date and 50 – 70% either go back to the lender or are bought by an investor at the auction.

Currently, the number of NODs for April (410) is way down from March (546) but is the same as February.

Check out the chart for the last 12 months here.

The percentage of homes that were short pays in the first quarter of 2011 are:

Ventura – 20%

Oxnard – 26%

Camarillo – 25%

Sold prices – Single family homes in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo: Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo mirror each other for the past 3 months – a bit upward from February to March with April trending downward.

• 12 month graph

Sold prices – Condos in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo:

• 12 month graph

Numbers sold – Single family homes in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo: Ventura is moving upward, Oxnard is a bit in the rise and Camarillo is trending downward.

• 12 month graph

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Recently I met with an individual who was concerned about the tax implications between a foreclosure vs. doing a short sale – and the potential of having to pay taxes on the short sale. I believe this individual felt there would be no (or maybe less) tax implications if the property were simply to go through the foreclosure process.

The first thing I said was I’m not a tax attorney or CPA so I can’t give tax advice, and all tax implications must be discussed with your tax adviser. But having said that, here are the general federal and California rules, forms, etc, pertaining to this issue. Read the rest of this article »

Homeowners contemplating a HAFA short sale need to be aware that if their loan is a Fannie Mae loan, Fannie Mae will not do a HAFA short sale within 60 days of a scheduled auction date. In California, what does that mean?

California foreclosure law provides a 3 month window for the first stage of foreclosure (filing of the Notice of Default notice). The final window is when the Notice of Trustee Sale notice is filed, which can be as short as 21 days.

Because of the “dual track” process, the time clock keeps running even if a homeowner applies to their lender for a short sale. It can take months for a lender to approve a traditional short sale, while a HAFA application will take at least 30 days for review, then time to negotiate a deal. It’s not unusual for 2 months to go by until a homeowner gets their final pre-approved HAFA short sale.

How do you know if you’ve got a Fannie Mae loan? Click here for Fannie’s loan lookup site. So needless to say, once the Notice of Default has been filed, the homeowner needs to quickly begin their HAFA application process.