Chicago Real Estate

People need mobility and those of you who are counting your days… having kids… needing more space… wanting to plan the home, yard, etc.. and move out of a condo… it’s time to start talking to a pro to help you plan out of it.

The negative equity you have on your property might have you frozen in place.. and if you can’t cashflow your unit.. that’s not good. You could be missing OPPORTUNITY and missing Opportunity is a HIDDEN cost and the opportunity of buying somewhere else. Lenders want you to stay in place but keeping paying and MISSING a new job opportunity or buying opportunity to replace your lost job or business… well that’s a HUGE LIFE COST. So I am encouraging you to COMPUTE YOUR RETURN TO EQUITY DATE. IN fact I want you to figure out… off your current value what it would take at 3 more years of NO appreciation… then 5 years of 2% appreciation what it would take to get BACK TO POSITIVE EQUITY in your home.

I have a client who is literally deciding not to HAVE A KID cuz they don’t have space… and if your 37 like this person… well.. I have to say… THAT’S A REAL MISSED OPPORTUNITY. Consider the big picture here. There is life after this epoch of negative equity we are in. The quicker you plan for the future the better you are. If you have a true HARDSHIP you should consider the option of listing your home for SALE NOW and working toward a SHORT sale… on terms to responsibly pay your debt but also MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIFE.

The news just keeps coming…and the National Media a few months ago had everyone but us Realtors who saw the depth of it all that “housing was getting better”. No.. it’s not. And until unemployment really gets lower… like below 8% *(forecast for that is 2015 or later) then don’t count on heavy appreciation until then. Period. That’s my crystal ball. Sure it’s tuff. But it’s reality. And it’s good to stand in reality when considering your future.

Point to reality. Look at these July numbers for Chicago… and the forecast from the Illinois Association of Realtors. This is local, real info. This isn’t the Today show telling you “housing might get better soon” in some headline before the coffee commercial and interview with a movie star.
The deal is that Chicago’s still dropping.
City of Chicago’s performance…
␣ Home sales down 19.5% after 10 months in a row of sales increases ␣ Median price down -19.8% ␣ Year-to-date sales remain up by 25.0 percent January through July 2010 with 12,397
sales compared to 9,915 home sales for the same period in 2009. ␣ The year-to-date median sales price for the city of Chicago is down 6.1 percent to
$215,000 from $229,000 for 2009.
Forecast – U of I REAL
␣ Forecasts for sales for the next there months (Aug/Sept/Oct) indicate a continuation of the July experience with declines in the 14-38% range statewide and 13-24% for Chicagoland.
␣ The “hangover” from the expiration of the tax credit in April may extend into fall. Prices continue their downward trend, down 4-7% statewide and 4-8% in the Chicago region.
␣ The expectation has to be that the slowing of the national economy will affect Illinois’ growth prospects over the remaining months of the year.

Ok.. so if you have negative equity now.. and the forecast is negative.. what’s your return to equity date?

You do have options… call me to talk. Let’s get’s straight and real options out in the open.

Phil Buoscio, is a broker with Better Living Realty he leads the sales team “Phil Buoscio Team” and specializes in listing homes and getting them sold, in helping buyer’s buy the right home for them LONG term, and he specializes in short sales in Chicago Illinois.
Chicago Loan Modification Help can be referred to you. We don’t do loan modifications ourselves but we work with those who do.
We know Chicago Short Sales. I am a Chicago Short Sale Realtor. Chicagoland Short Sale Realtor. Chicago IL Short Sales. Chicago Realtor. We do business in Pilsen. McKinley Park. Bridgeport. Wicker Park. West Town. Ukranian Village. Lincoln Park. Near North. River North. East Village. Logan Square. Uptown. Edison Park. Portage Park. Hermosa. Lincoln Park, South Loop, West Loop. Bronzeville. Hyde Park. Kenwood. Oak Park. Brookfield. Cicero. Berwyn. Evanston. LaGrange. LaGrange Park. Riverside. We sell condos, single family homes, lots, land, multi units, two flats, three flats, etc.

City of Chicago

␣ Home sales down 19.5% after 10 months in a row of sales increases ␣ Median price down -19.8% ␣ Year-to-date sales remain up by 25.0 percent January through July 2010 with 12,397
sales compared to 9,915 home sales for the same period in 2009. ␣ The year-to-date median sales price for the city of Chicago is down 6.1 percent to
$215,000 from $229,000 for 2009.
Forecast – U of I REAL
␣ Forecasts for sales for the next there months (Aug/Sept/Oct) indicate a continuation of the July experience with declines in the 14-38% range statewide and 13-24% for Chicagoland.
␣ The “hangover” from the expiration of the tax credit in April may extend into fall. Prices continue their downward trend, down 4-7% statewide and 4-8% in the Chicago region.
␣ The expectation has to be that the slowing of the national economy will affect Illinois’ growth prospects over the remaining months of the year.

Phil Buoscio, is a broker with Better Living Realty he leads the sales team “Phil Buoscio Team” and specializes in short sales in Chicago Illinois. Chicago Loan Modification Help can be referred to you. We don’t do loan modifications ourselves but we work with those who do.
We know Chicago Short Sales. I am a Chicago Short Sale Realtor. Chicagoland Short Sale Realtor. Chicago IL Short Sales. Chicago Realtor. We do business in Pilsen. McKinley Park. Bridgeport. Wicker Park. West Town. Ukranian Village. Lincoln Park. Near North. River North. East Village. Logan Square. Uptown. Edison Park. Portage Park. Hermosa. Lincoln Park, South Loop, West Loop. Bronzeville. Hyde Park. Kenwood. Oak Park. Brookfield. Cicero. Berwyn. Evanston. LaGrange. LaGrange Park. Riverside. We sell condos, single family homes, lots, land, multi units, two flats, three flats, etc.

Ok… It’s settling in. We have all heard the reports that unemployment might… just MIGHT get back down to 8.5% before the 2014 Presidential elections. Wow.. that’s grim.
And when someone asks me when housing is turning around… the prevailing truth there for them … without me answering is that it’s gonna be awhile.

The truth, I think is, and this is the cumulative effect of too much NPR, reading too many of the banking periodicals like DS News, and spending way too much time on Chicago’s Agent Metrix program doing cool charts and graphs and trying to look like I know it all… is that… we don’t know.

But one think I think I do know is that unemployment is going to have to get better to push housing up. So that’s my time frame. So those of you who have to MOVE and have NEGATIVE EQUITY have choices to make. Do you rent and try to break even or cash flow or lose 5k a year in negative cash flow… ???

To discuss your options call me. I have some ideas.
Now for the real good news… July’s numbers…right out of Washington last week with my ALL CAPS COMMENTS>

Washington, August 24, 2010 THE PLACE OF ALL TRUTH

Existing-home sales were sharply lower in July following expiration of the home buyer tax credit but home prices continued to gain, according to the National Association of Realtors®. THEY ONLY GAINED .7 PERCENT SO THAT’ PHRASE “Continued to gain” IS PROPOGANDA. THE POINT IS THAT 30 PERCENT FEWER BUYERS ARE SHOWING UP TO SEE PROPERTY RIGHT NOW. THAT SUCKS.

Existing-home sales1, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, dropped 27.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million units in July from a downwardly revised 5.26 million in June, and are 25.5 percent below the 5.14 million-unit level in July 2009.

Sales are at the lowest level since the total existing-home sales series launched in 1999, and single family sales – accounting for the bulk of transactions – are at the lowest level since May of 1995. THIS PROBALY MEANS IT”S AS BAD AS IT WILL GET>>> BUT IT IS NOT GETTING BETTER SOON. WE ARE AT BOTTOM BUT HERE FOR AWHILE>

Ok.. so if you want to short sell, buy, or sell.. or just talk real estate sporty talk that’s my thing…

Send me an e-mail at myrealtorphil@gmail.com. I will contact you for a free consultation. When we talk, I will explain how each process works in detail and answer any questions you may have. Or, if you prefer, you can call me at (312) 953-6725.

Discover how other sellers successfully completed a short sale and request a free consultation by clicking here.

Thinking about a loan modification? Our Chicago Loan Modification Kit has the instructions you will need to get a loan modification approved with your lender. Click here to request a copy.

Thanks for reading this, Phil Buoscio.

Phil is a Real Estate Agent at Better Living Realty – Buoscio Brokerage, Inc..

Phone: (312) 953-6725. myrealtorphil@gmail.com.

Chicago IL – You can get your life back on track after a short sale. One of the first things you’ll want is to start repairing your credit. But, how do you get those pesky collections off your report? I’ll show you a couple of techniques here.

Discover how other sellers successfully did a short sale and request a free consultation by clicking here.

Collections can be very easy to remove. The reason is that most collection accounts have been transferred several times. The original lender gave it to a collection agency for 6 months. The collection agency couldn’t collect. Then, the original lender gave it to another collection agency. They couldn’t collect it either.

So they finally sold it to a debt buyer for three to five cents on the dollar. The debt buyer wrote them a check. But, the paperwork hardly ever gets transferred over properly. Here is the first step.

Dispute it with the credit bureaus. You may not agree that it is your collection. That will take 30-45 days to process. It will often clear up the problem.

Then, dispute it with the debt buyer (or collection agency) noted on your report. You can’t dispute with them until you have disputed with the credit bureaus first. Request an investigation. They have 30 days to respond. Most will not have documentation.

They may send you documentation. But, it isn’t very specific. If that happens, then ask for specific documentation. I would ask for a copy of a document that is signed by the company that sold them the debt. The document should clearly state all your account information.

It should have the account number, your information and address, and the amount owed. In addition, it should be signed by the president of the company. That is the burden of proof I would request. I doubt they would have something like that.

If the techniques above don’t work (that will be rare), then settle the debt. Pay them from five to twenty cents on the dollar. They agree to report to the credit agencies as “paid as settled.” You get what you want and they get a little money. Everyone wins.

Do you want to short sale your property and never pay the bank another penny? I can help you do that.

Send me an e-mail at myrealtorphil@gmail.com. I will contact you for a free consultation. When we talk, I will explain how the process works in detail and answer any questions you may have. Or, if you prefer, you can call me at (312) 953-6725.

Discover how other sellers successfully completed a short sale and request a free consultation by clicking here.

Thinking about a loan modification? Our Chicago Loan Modification Kit has the instructions you will need to get a loan modification approved with your lender. Click here to request a copy.

Thanks for reading this, Phil Buoscio.

Phil is a Real Estate Agent at Better Living Realty – Buoscio Brokerage, Inc..

Phone: (312) 953-6725. myrealtorphil@gmail.com.

View My homes for sale at www.BetterLivingRealty.com.

Phil Buoscio, is a broker with Better Living Realty he leads the sales team “Phil Buoscio Team” and specializes in short sales in Chicago Illinois. Chicago Loan Modification Help can be referred to you. We don’t do loan modifications ourselves but we work with those who do.
We know Chicago Short Sales. I am a Chicago Short Sale Realtor. Chicagoland Short Sale Realtor. Chicago IL Short Sales. Chicago Realtor. We do business in Pilsen. McKinley Park. Bridgeport. Wicker Park. West Town. Ukranian Village. Lincoln Park. Near North. River North. East Village. Logan Square. Uptown. Edison Park. Portage Park. Hermosa. Lincoln Park, South Loop, West Loop. Bronzeville. Hyde Park. Kenwood. Oak Park. Brookfield. Cicero. Berwyn. Evanston. LaGrange. LaGrange Park. Riverside. We sell condos, single family homes, lots, land, multi units, two flats, three flats, etc.
Copyright 2010 SFI Marketing Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved

Chicago IL – I know a guy that wiped out 300k in mortgage debt. I’ll call him Tom. The name and some of the details have been changed to protect his privacy. Tom owed a lot of money on his house. He owed 600k on a first mortgage and then another 300k on a second mortgage.

<a href=”http://stopchicagoforeclosure.info/Short_Sale.html”>Discover how other sellers successfully did a short sale and request a free consultation by clicking here.</a>

Tom’s income dropped dramatically. He almost lost his home. He finally got a new job and was able to pay the first mortgage payment. Because they were closer to foreclosing, he found a way to pay them. But, he didn’t have enough money to pay the second mortgage.

So Tom didn’t pay the second mortgage. He was doing everything he could to save his home. The second mortgage called Tom a lot. “If you don’t pay us, then we will file for foreclosure”, they would say. <strong>Twelve months went by and no one filed for foreclosure.</strong>

Tom was quite surprised. “I had no idea when the sheriff was going to come out and kick us out”, Tom told me. We told him that most second mortgages never file for foreclosure. (Here is why they hardly ever do. In a foreclosure, the first mortgage gets paid off before the second mortgage gets a dime.)

In Tom’s case, his home’s value had dropped below the 600k he owed to his first mortgage. This meant that if the second mortgage did foreclose, then they would only lose more money. That is not a winning business proposition.

We also told Tom that he could probably settle with his second mortgage for five to ten cents on the dollar. That means he can eventually settle for $10,000 to $20,000. We first talked to him over a year ago.

Today, Tom still hasn’t made a single payment on his second mortgage. He has caught up all the payments on his first mortgage. In addition, he has been able to get back on his feet financially. <strong>He expects that he will settle with the second mortgage in a year or two.</strong> The first priority is getting all his other finances completely in order.

This story illustrates that you are not doomed. Many people owe more than their home is worth. They are able to short sale and get rid of the debt. Or, they can use creative strategies to reduce the level of debt. <strong>You can get your finances back in order with a little work and time.</strong>

Do you want to short sale your property and never pay the bank another penny? I can help you do that. Call me at (312) 953-6725 for a free consultation. When you call, I will explain how the process works in detail and answer any questions you may have. Or, if you prefer, you can e-mail me at <a href=”mailto:myrealtorphil@gmail.com”>myrealtorphil@gmail.com</a>.

Discover how other sellers successfully completed a short sale and request a free consultation by <a href=”http://stopchicagoforeclosure.info/Short_Sale.html”>clicking here</a>.

Thinking about a loan modification? Our Chicago Loan Modification Kit has the instructions you will need to get a loan modification approved with your lender. <a href=”http://stopchicagoforeclosure.info/Loan_Modification_Secrets.html”>Click here to request a copy.</a>

Thanks for reading this, Phil Buoscio.

Phil is a Real Estate Agent at Better Living Realty – Buoscio Brokerage, Inc..

Phone: (312) 953-6725. <a href=”mailto:myrealtorphil@gmail.com”>myrealtorphil@gmail.com</a>.

View My homes for sale at <a href=”http://”></a>.

Phil Buoscio specializes in short sales in Chicago Illinois. Chicago Loan Modification Help can be referred to you. Chicago Short Sales. Chicago Short Sale Realtor. Chicagoland Short Sale Realtor. Chicago IL Short Sales. Chicago Realtor. Pilsen. McKinley Park. Bridgeport. Wicker Park. West Town. Ukranian Village. Lincoln Park. Logan Square.

Copyright 2010 SFI Marketing Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Chicago IL – Bear Stearns was a survivor. It survived the Great Depression without laying off any employees. It survived World War II, and 9/11. What killed it off during a time of peace and relative stability?

Discover how other sellers successfully did a short sale and request a free consultation by clicking here.

The problem was that it had engorged itself on risky mortgages. In my opinion, the Wall Street Firms were playing a risky game. They would buy a risky loan from the original lender. They would pay a premium because of the high interest rate on the loan. They would then resell the risky loans for a profit.

They would sell the loans to the general public (most likely for more than they had paid for them.) They would take a package of loans and “securitize” that bundle. Here is an example of how this would work.

New Century Financial issues a loan to you. New Century then sells that loan to a Wall Street Firm, along with 900 other loans. The Wall Street Firm then takes that bundle of mortgages and “slices and dices” the ownership of them. They would sell certificates that represented ownership of a percentage of that bundle of loans.

Let’s say they had a bundle of 1,000 loans. They might sell 10,000 certificates. Each certificate holder would get some of the monthly payments. But, here is where it got even more crazy.

The Wall Street Firm would sell better quality certificates and lower quality certificates. They laid out guidelines, that if 10% of all the loans in the bundle defaulted, then the lowest quality 10% of certificates wouldn’t get paid any money at all. See how messed up the lending business has gotten?

It used to be that you got a loan from a local bank. That bank would expect you to pay on time. If you didn’t pay, then that bank lost money. They didn’t transfer all the risk to Wall Street or someone else. If they gave out bad loan, they lost the money personally.

With these crazy, engineered loans, the person losing the money could be anywhere in the world. Maybe in China, Dubai, or Norway. Or, the owner of the loan could be your co-workers Pension Plan.

CALPERS, which stands for California, Public Employees Retirement System, supposedly lost a lot of money on these certificates. I heard that they invested in these risky certificates. Why? They wanted to earn a better interest rate on their investments. When the housing market crashed the certificates they owned dropped in value.

Let says that you live in California and your mortgage was “sliced and diced” by Wall Street and CALPERS bought one of those “slices.” So they could own some of your mortgage. Your neighbor might have a CALPERS’s Pension, thereby owning a percentage of your mortgage. Sounds crazy, right?

There is a method to the madness. Tomorrow, I will explain how to determine if your loan has been “sliced and diced.” In addition, I will explain what that means to you if you are short selling.

Are you interested in selling your property as a short sale? Call me at (312) 953-6725 for a free consultation. When you call, I will explain how the process works in detail and answer any questions you may have. Discover how other sellers successfully completed a short sale and request a free consultation by clicking here.

Thinking about a loan modification? Our Chicago loan modification kit has the instructions you will need to get a loan modification approved with your lender. Click here to request a copy.

Thanks for reading this, Phil Buoscio.

Phil is a Real Estate Agent at Better Living Realty – Buoscio Brokerage, Inc..

Phone: (312) 953-6725. myrealtorphil@gmail.com.

View My homes for sale at .

Phil Buoscio specializes in loan modifications and short sales in Chicago Illinois. Chicago Loan Modification Help. Chicago Short Sales. Chicago Short Sale Realtor. ChicagolandShort Sale Realtor. Chicago IL Short Sales. Chicago Realtor.

Copyright 2010 SFI Marketing Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Banks used to take most defaulted loans to foreclosure–now the reality is that mist need to be shorted–or short sold.

The number of short sales has more than tripled since 2008, with the estimated annual volume now at 400,000, according to the real estate data and analytics firm CoreLogic.

CoreLogic says multiple variables indicate short sales will continue to be a frequent and important part of the mortgage industry.

A trillion on home equity lines that was loaned out is not being payed back.

The delinquency rate on home equity loans was 4.12 percent in the first quarter if 2010 — this was down slightly from the fourth quarter of 2009 but man that’s not good news for banks. These default rates are the highest in 24 years of such record keeping….

Home equity loans default rates are worse than auto loans, boat loans, personal loans and even bank cards like Visa and MasterCard, according to the American Bankers Association.

Why are lenders hard pressed to reclaim the loaned money?

In reading various articles today to find a consensus I came to the opinion that it is because so many borrowers threaten bankruptcy and the equity or collateral once that existed in the homes backing the loans is now long long gone and surely disappeared.

Equity gone means “people no pay back” .

So the truth being fleshed out is: the more money you borrowed in the boom means you will likely have to pay back less !!

Lenders wrote off as uncollectible $10 plus billion in property equity loans and $18 plus billion in home equity lines of credit in 2009 alone!

That trend is continuing in 2010 with almost eight billion being written off in the first quarter already.

Lenders are having a very hard time getting judgements and buyers to pay up. It is likely from reading the bank literature on this subject, that lenders will actually collect more than twenty percent if this money they lent out !

The largest amount of home equity debt that might still go sour is on the books of the big boys : including Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase.

I think they will have o keep charging overdraft fees to all of us to pay for their mistakes.

The Treasury dept announced that the Hardest hit fund announced by Obama in January will be expanded. Until now, the Hardest Hit Fund had been projected to help about 140,000 borrowers. Treasury officials said that number would increase now with the new infusion of funds by Obama announced today to have the unemployed be given assistance to keep their properties.

If the funds will be spent in the same way as the previous money, both programs would eventually aid about 370,000 borrowers — a large number, but not when set against the 13 MILLiON million unemployed or three million contemplating foreclosure.

Yes that’s three million homes goin to foreclosure die to lost jobs.

Usually the housing sector leads the economy out if the recession!!! This super recession is being made longer by the housing correction that is still underway.