What the heck is the clue report? That is possibly what you are saying.  Even worse is if you are saying “I don’t have a CLUE!”  Oh you are sooo funny!  I forgot to laugh! :S  Seriously though if you are interested in purchasing a house or currently own a house you need to understand the CLUE report.

So what is it?  The clue report is a centralized database that keeps track of all hazard insurance claims on a house for 7 years.  The important part of this is that the clue report is attached to BOTH the homeowner and the home.  The most troubling issue is that phone calls alone to your insurance adjuster is seen in many states as a claim!  This is not true though for the state of Maryland.  In the 2006 legislature they passed a law stating that ones insurance premium may only go up due to actual damages which are claimed and not just phone calls!  If you want more information on that law you can go here.

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Everywhere you look their is somebody speaking about a Short Sale!  Simply stated I am going to give you in this blog post everything you ever wanted to know about short sales.  Why you may ask?  So that you can be successful in short sales - whether it be to purchase them for investment, as your own home or to go out and be a real estate agent that specializes in short sales.

How viable are short sales and can you make money on short sales?  Well according to the National Association of Realtors the following are the statistics:

•   54% Involved in a short sale in the last 12 months

•   87% Faced impediments by lenders or loan servicers

•   94% Cited lack of response by lender or servicer as a chief impediment

Source: NAR Research, online survey of 3,530 practitioners

1) Due to me not knowing what your level of knowledge is for short sales I want you to first watch this webinar conducted by Freddie Mac on short sales.  It is a very simple explaination on short sales, and I will be honest the guy who is speaking can be boring, but he does a good job of explaining the basics of both short sales and the process.  It is made for real estate professionals, but really it is for any individual.  Here is the webinar

2) So you want to understand more about the process and what occurs from the beginning to end?  NAR just came out with this great document which does a good job of explaining what can occur throughout the process.  I would strongly suggest downloading and reading through it from beginning to end and understand this document.  Short Sale Process.pdf

3) Are you confused as to what should be put into a Short Sale Package?  Well you are going to love me for this.  I want you to download the following handout.  It explains everything you need to know about what to have in the package as well as dealing with the short sale.  You have to have this handout to do a short sale!  Short Sale Package.pdf

4)  Want a Successful Short Sale Letter!  Here is the one that I used successfully that allowed my client to do a short sale with no issue! short_sale_letter.pdf

Have tons of fun with these downloads and please email me at psingh@rempower.com if you need anything!

I will look forward to seeing you all in a future workshop!

Thanks so much

Prabhjit Singh

Psingh@rempower.com

I know that in a number of my workshops participants have asked me about doing BPOs.  So what is a BPO?  A BPO is a Broker Price Opinion.  These can only be done by a licensed real estate broker, or on behalf of the broker, a real estate agent could do these reports.  The purpose of the BPO is to determine what the property should be priced to sell within the current market.  The real estate agent looks at sold, under contract, withdrawn, expired, and active properties that are similar to the property which they are looking at.  As well, they look at the economic information and days on market to determine what is coming in the future to determine both how long it will take for the property to sell as well as what the price could be the price during that time.  For example, if there is a property that is within a neighborhood that usually takes 110 days to sell and within that period you know a major employer will be moving into that area - what do you expect to happen?  Most probably, the prices are going to be going up!  All of this information is put together to come up with the BPO price.  This is very different then an appraisal in which the lender is looking at a snap shot in time.  So they are trying to determine if the property needed to be sold right now - how much the lender would be able to get for it.  The appraisal, unlike the BPO, only takes sold properties into consideration and nothing else.

So why is the BPO such a Hot Topic?

Since there have been such a large number of Short Sales, there have been a HUGE demand BPOs requested by lenders in the attempts to find out what to price the property to sell it now!  So you are interested in BPOs?  I have listed some of the major companies that request BPOs at the end of this blog post.  It is a way for real estate agents to get their information in front of banks so that they can possibly get a chance to list (REO) otherwise known as Real Estate Owned by the Bank.  As well, it is also a way to make for the real estate agent to make a few extra bucks!

Before starting to do BPOs I would strongly suggest listening to the following podcast from the National Association of Realtors and reading the following report as well! The following is the link for the report and podcast  In it contains vital information on LIABILITIES.  Before starting to do BPOs I would strongly suggest speaking to your broker.  I would also suggest that you have all checks payable to your broker as real estate agents are not allowed to get paid directly for real estate services.

BPO Companies:

http://www.valuationsupportservices.com

http://www.iasreo.com/

http://www.clearcapital.com

http://www.marktomarket.com

http://www.ocwen.com

Have fun doing those BPOs and please email me at psingh@rempower.com if you have any questions/concerns or to let me know how it goes!

Prabhjit Singh