Massachusetts Foreclosure Filings Drop

June 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Foreclosures filings in MA are down significantly due to new legislature and efforts by the banks. However there are still a lot of homes in foreclosure and underwater. If you are having trouble making the payments on your house, even if you owe more then the house is currently worth, give Hampden Homebuyers a call at 413-248-SELL or fill out our Quick Home Selling Form on our site and we can help!!!!!

Here is an interesting article about the significant drop in the number of MA foreclosures.

This article is from Housingwire.com

By Kerri Ann Panchuk • May 13, 2013 • 12:09pm

The state of Massachusetts continues to benefit from more home sales and foreclosure prevention efforts – two factors that caused foreclosure activity in the New England state to plummet 82% year-over-year in March, according to data from publisher The Warren Group.

The latest statistics show lenders filed 284 foreclosure petitions in March, an 82% decline from 1,621 petitions in 2012. In just the first quarter, the state recorded 2,080 petitions to foreclose, down 52% from 4,348 a year earlier. Petitions to foreclose are the first step in the process of foreclosing on a property. “Overall, we’re seeing foreclosures drop all over the country, but Massachusetts is exceptional in its reduction,” said Timothy Warren, CEO of The Warren Group in a press statement. “The Mortgage Bankers Association reports that we rank 48th in foreclosures started in the first quarter of 2013.

Foreclosure prevention efforts combined with a booming real estate market are leading to fewer foreclosures.” Foreclosure deeds, which signify a completed foreclosure, also fell 74% to 227 in March, down from 899 filings in March 2012. Auction announcements also plummeted, The Warren Group added, with 398 foreclosure auction announcements in March—a 67% decline from 1,214 announcements a year earlier.

The first three months of the year brought 1,102 foreclosure auction announcements, down 73% from 4,174 during the same period of 2012.
The decline in foreclosure activity first picked up last summer when new foreclosure requirements in Massachusetts stalled activity as banks faced new rules from the national mortgage servicing settlement as well as a state law signed by Gov. Deval Patrick in August. Those two trends set Massachusetts on track to experience falling foreclosure filings—a development aided by rising prices in the state, which helped homeowners gain equity.

kpanchuk@housingwire.com

——————————————————————-

Foreclosures are down, but the new legislature just seems to be delaying the process rather than fixing things.

If need to sell your house quickly, as-is for Cash; or if you are having trouble making the payments on your house, even if you owe more then the house is currently worth, give Hampden Homebuyers a call at 413-248-SELL or fill out our Quick Home Selling Form on our site and we can help!!!!!

P.S. Remember, if you like our blog posts you can subscribe using the form right below:

[subscribe2]

or you can subscribe in the upper right hand corner under the heading “Subscribe to this Blog” , that way you get an email whenever we make a new exciting, awesome, informative and inspirational post!!!!

P.S.S.   Want to learn to flip houses like a pro; check out our real estate investing Mastery Coaching program. We’ve teamed up with Than Merrill from A&E’s Flip this House to offer this amazing coaching program. Check it out here:  http://masterycoachingmatt.com/

Filed Under: Foreclosures Tagged With: , , ,

Chicopee Short Sale Wrapping Up

September 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

We are finishing up the short sale rehab that we started a few weeks back. It is a pretty light rehab but we’ve been bouncing our guys back and forth between a few different jobs, so it’s taken a little longer.

We pulled up all the nasty, smelly carpets in the house and found some real nice hardwoods that ran throughout all the main living rooms.

We made a lot of cosmetic upgrades and improvements, but we left the kitchen and bathrooms as-is for the most part.

Our plan is to blow it out below market value to some lucky first time homebuyer who won’t mind that the kitchen and baths are not totally updated like we usually do.

Here’s a look at the progress so far:

Home for Sale Chicopee MA

 

House for Sale Chicopee MA

Kitchen

Kitchen 2

 

Living Room

First Floor Bedroom

Half Bath

Second Floor Bedroom that was Neon Green

Second Floor Full Bathroom

Freshly Refinished Tub

Second Floor Bedroom

 

All the trim throughout the house had a natural wood finish with a coat of polyurethane…. it was in real good condition so we just kept it. I always prefer the nice bright white trim, but in this case the work needed to sand and paint the trim wasn’t worth it.

Our next step is to get the house cleaned and staged.

We’ll pay extra special attention to staging the kitchen and bathrooms real nice, since we didn’t do our normal “full” rehab on these rooms.

I think it’s gonna look great once staged….

 

P.S.  Remember, if you like our blog posts you can subscribe using the form right below:

or you can subscribe in the upper right hand corner under the heading “Subscribe to this Blog” , that way you get an email whenever we make a new exciting, awesome, informative and inspirational post!!!!

Filed Under: Short Sales Tagged With: , , ,

Buying and Selling – House Flip Updates

May 25, 2010 by 5 Comments

Well it has been a very eventful couple of weeks. Ever since the end of April we have been cranking full speed ahead.

The expiration of the first time buyers tax credit kept us very busy in April. We put 6 of our finished rehabs on the market and 5 went under contract to sell by April 30th.  Those properties are 53 Fullerton St, 143 Lloyd Ave, 209 Gifford St, 42 Wexford St, and 8 Bosworth St.

Gifford St and Lloyd Ave are suppose to close this week, and the other three will close over the next couple weeks.

Although the first time buyer credit is now gone, and everyone thinks the market is gonna crash, we have still been quite active on the buying front. We just bought two properties today; an estate property and a bank REO…. and we should be buying three more by the weeks end. We’ll see how this strategy plays out over the next couple months…. things are definitely a bit slower now but I’ve found there are still a good amount of buyers out looking.

The three purchases coming up at the end of the week are pretty interesting.

One is a short sale that has given us all sorts of trouble. The bank gave us a verbal approval at a very good price. A day before the bank was to issue the approval letter we find out the sellers ex-husband filed for bankruptcy, whom I thought was no longer on the loan anymore, but obviously he still was. 

We got everything squared away with the bankruptcy court and are ready to close…. when all the sudden we find out there is also a second mortgage on the property and two judgement liens, which we had no clue about.

OK, so we gotta put the first on ice while we try to take care of these new liens. The second is with TD Banknorth and these fools decide they are not going to take anything less than a full payoff. I’m not sure what their thought process is here… the first is taking a $50,000+ haircut, we sent them the appraisal showing the house is worth nowhere near the debt owed, and they still won’t budge. I guess they don’t realize if it goes to foreclosure they will get wiped out and receive nothing!!!!

So we may have to bite the bullet and pay the second in full, which I don’t want to do, but there is enough room in this deal that we can do that and still make it work.

I guess the moral of the story is to do a good title rundown prior to doing your short sales.  

Well that’s it for tonight. We’ll be getting some more pictures and videos together as these deals unfold.

Filed Under: Deal Updates, Short Sales Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Bank of America Short Sale Approved…. and Closed

January 27, 2010 by 5 Comments

Everyone thats ever attempted a short sale knows that there is nothing short about the whole process…. as was the case for the short sale we just closed on today. I met with this homeowner about a year ago…. January of 2009. It took two appraisals and 12 months time, but we got Bank of America to approve the deal and we finally closed on it.  We got a really good deal on this property, as is the case with most of the short sales that we buy, so it is definitely worth the wait. My strategy with short sales is to just jam them into our pipeline and sit and wait. I never know when they will get approved, or even if they will get approved at all….. but its always a pleasant surprise to get that call or email with an approval.  

This is another one that we started work on before we even owned it. A little risky, but we actually received the short sale approval letter in December and they gave us over three weeks to close it….. which really surprised me because usually they are drilling you to close within 10 days.

Heres a look at the property, located on Ravenwood St in Springfield;

Kitchen

Dining Area

Living Room

Bathroom

Bedroom

Roof Leak.... always a plus on a Short Sale

Bedroom

Garage Full of Junk

Basement Full of Junk

You’ll notice that this house had an active roof leak, which is always a plus when you are negotiating a short sale because the bank knows that no FHA buyers will be able to purchase the house. Use this as ammunition to drive the price down. 

I think we may have another short sale very close to approval. Should be another good deal, I’ll post more about it as things materialize.

Filed Under: Ravenwood St Springfield MA Tagged With: , , , , , ,