Steve's Blog

FHA- 90 Day Rule

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is temporarily suspending a
5-year-old rule intended to deter property flippers, as part of an effort to
help speed the sale of foreclosed properties.


For one year, the Federal Housing Administration will no longer impose a
90-day waiting period before foreclosed properties can be sold to receive
government-backed loans.


The policy was put in place in 2003 to deter property "flipping" schemes, in
which buyers are overcharged for foreclosures or other distressed
properties. But the surge in vacant properties resulting from borrowers who
were unable to afford their mortgages has become a far more pressing
concern.


"A glut of foreclosed and abandoned homes harms neighborhoods, frustrates
homebuyers and delays a community's recovery,"
FHA commissioner Brian Montgomery said
in a prepared statement.


The new policy "will allow homebuyers
to purchase these homes in much greater numbers and ease the excess supply
of unsold homes," Montgomery said.

 

 

I've seen two interpretations of this so far.

1) it's being interpreted as the banks doing the foreclosures can sell to an end user without having to honor the 90 day rule.

2) the other interpretation is that an investor can buy a foreclosure and sell it to an FHA buyer within 90 days.

I believe that banks were always exempt from this anyway (but I'm not sure) so I'm inclined to think that #2 is the proper interpretation of this rule.

We're discovering that lenders are interpreting it on their own because it's not very clear and not all lenders are interpreting this the same way.

I'll keep digging for answers.

Blessed Investing, Steve Cook www.flippinghomes.com How beautiful would this world be if we all lived and loved like Jesus?

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Don't miss this!

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Shaun McCloskey, Property Match LLC, is now accepting reservations for his Short Sale Wealth Mastery, Live Learning event to be held July 10-13, 2008 in St. Louis, Missouri.

Go here to get all the details and make your plans to attend!

Blessed Investing, Steve Cook www.flippinghomes.com How beautiful would this world be if we all lived and loved like Jesus?

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June Updates

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Hello everyone,

First, I just want to apologize for the delay in getting back to some of you.  I'm on vacation and have very limited email and phone access. 

 

We've been travelling for about a week now and it's my first time doing a road trip halfway across the country.  We've been to awesome car shows, islands in Lake Erie, Chicago, Wisconsin Dells, and are just relaxing on my in-laws farm.  We're really enjoying ourselves and we are looking forward to spending some time with the Hyre family.

While passing through Wisconsin I stopped by Nate Andree's, Fox Valley REIA.  I have to tell you, he has a real quality club there.  It was great to be able to just share with the group.  If you are in the area, you need to look Nate up.

For you short sale investors, you need to be aware of Shaun's upcoming Short Sale Boot Camp.  If you want a short sale education, I don't believe that you'll get a better education anywhere else.  He simply covers it all, and has been accused by others of teaching too much.  Can you really teach to much?

There has been quite a bit of discussion lately regarding coaching and mentoring.  If you have not already heard, I'm releasing a coaching program very soon and I need a small group of people to come on board as beta testers to help me work through the kinks that we may have with the website.  I'm hoping to have the group launched in August.  If you want to learn more about my coaching, click here.

Finally, I want to let you all know that I'm working on getting to the bottom of the FHA rule that is allowing no seasoning for foreclosure flips.  It's not very clear as to whether or not this rule is being lifted across the board, or if it's only for foreclosures.  Lenders are telling different stories and some say that they haven't even heard of it.  I suspect that we're going to see different rules from different lenders based off of their interpretations.  As I get a clearer picture, I'll let you all know.

Blessings,

Steve

Blessed Investing, Steve Cook www.flippinghomes.com How beautiful would this world be if we all lived and loved like Jesus?

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Leprechaun Gets Yucky House Leads

Thursday, June 05, 2008

I’ve got a new interview I think you might find interesting. Especially if you’re on the lookout for new, aggressive ways to approach marketing for motivated sellers.

Have you ever considered joining one of those big, national affiliate marketing programs?

You know, the ones where you get to plug into some sort of brand applied to a mass marketing system, often involving bill boards, TV advertising, radio, slogans, zippy tunes, etc?

Honestly, when it comes down to it, I hear a lot from both sides of the fence on this one over the years.

Some folks are completely in love with them, swearing there’s no other way they’d ever want to go about marketing for sellers. While others complain about the quality or quantity (too many) leads that they get.

But have you ever wanted to peek inside one of these programs, to get a little better look at how/why they’re really supposed to work?

Interview with a Leprechaun

I recently had the chance to record a chat with one Sean Flanagan, founder of Lucky Buys Yucky Houses.

Steve and I encountered Sean a few months back, when “Lucky Buys Yucky Houses” was still just a great idea, percolating in his mind.

Sean had been a part of programs like this previously, experiencing both the upside (lots and lots of leads and profitable deals) and the downside (poorly run, poorly branded, unfair to licensees)

So it was really interesting to hear him share about his interest in starting his own national affiliate marketing program, one that WASN’T centered around a vanity number so much as an ATTRACTIVE BRAND.

Hmmmmmm….

So once Sean launched his program (just out of pre-launch right now) I had a chat with him I thought you might benefit from hearing it.

…………… So here it is…

You can click here to see Sean’s Lucky Buys Yucky Houses site (for sellers)…

Or click here to see Sean’s Yucky House Leads site (for investors/territories)…

Blessed Investing, Steve Cook www.flippinghomes.com How beautiful would this world be if we all lived and loved like Jesus?

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Success Story- Simple Letter Makes $34,500

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Here is a success story from a couple of students that I've been coaching:

 

 

We recently found a house through our probate letter campaign and put it under contract. It was an older home in a great neighborhood of Baltimore County, MD and we knew it would need significant repairs.

 

Since this was an older property and we had never done a home of this age or style, we contacted Steve Cook for guidance on what type of rehab to perform. Meeting with Steve (fortunately Steve is local to us) and looking at the property together we discussed various options to move forward. We told him our rehab plans and he thought the repair estimates were too high and should do less to the property as it would change the “feel” of the home.

 

We were fully engaged in other rehab projects and cash was tight. Steve asked what we had it under contract for and after telling him he chuckled “You bought it right. Why don’t you try to wholesale it?” We had never wholesaled a property since we usually rehab for resale. We kept going back and forth if we should keep it as a rehab or look to wholesale it.

 

Following Steve’s direction, we placed an ad on our local REIA message board as a wholesale deal and several other investors showed interest in the property. A smaller group came to see it and one investor did buy the property. After settlement we walked away from this wholesale deal with a net profit of $34,500 on our very first wholesale deal!

 

Thank you Steve for all your help. We are hooked on wholesaling and realize we can take on several deals and utilize the different real estate investing tools/strategies.

 

Larry and Tina

Blessed Investing, Steve Cook www.flippinghomes.com How beautiful would this world be if we all lived and loved like Jesus?

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