Team Thayer Property Servicing

Whether you’re listing your  home for sale in New York, NY , or Birmingham, AL, the winter months can prove difficult for listing and showing your house. Between the rainy season in the Pacific Northwest, ice storms down South, and heavy snow in the Northeast and Midwest, just about every region of the country is affected by subpar weather during the winter. And while everyone enjoys a good snow day, trying to attract buyers in dangerous conditions can melt your home’s chances of a sale quicker than Frosty the Snowman in a greenhouse. Here’s how to sell your house in the winter — from prelisting to closing — plus steps to take so you’re prepared if inclement winter weather strikes. Appeal to the snow bunnies Snow may be a hassle when you’re de-icing your car or taking out the dog at 6 a.m., but buyers often become snow worshipers when they see the words “within driving distance to ski slopes.” Even adding that a home is within walking distance to the grocery store or phar...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ( HUD ) on Friday  announced significant changes  to its Distressed Asset Stabilization ( DASP ) program meant to offer more protections to borrowers facing foreclosure and increase non-profit participation in purchasing distressed loans. Under the new rules, loan servicers are required to delay foreclosure on a home for a year and evaluate all borrowers facing foreclosure for participation in the government's Home Affordable Modification Program ( HAMP ) or a similar loss mitigation program. Loan servicers could previously foreclose on a home six months after they received the loan and were not required to evaluate borrowers for loss mitigation programs, though they were encouraged to do so. The improvements to the Neighborhood Stabilization Outcome (NSO) sales portion of DASP include giving non-profits a first look at vacant properties, allowing purchasers to re-sell notes to non-profits, and offering a pool of loa...

The low housing inventory continues to drive developments in the market, which will ultimately lead to more house price appreciation, according to the Q4 Housing Market Analyst released by  Capital Economics  on Thursday. The tight housing supply amid recovering demand has constrained sales and put upward pressure on housing prices. But don’t expect another house price boom, the report said. “With the months’ supply of homes having been under five since May of this year, it is not surprising that house price growth is picking up,” Capital stated in the report. “But there are a sizeable number of vacant homes being held off the market. As these are gradually listed for sale or rent, that will ease supply conditions to some extent. And with banks not set to repeat the rapid credit loosening of the mid-2000s, another house price boom will be avoided.” The lack of inventory is holding back existing home sales, and Capital Economics said it does not expect those condition...

Angela Kleine Angela Kleine is a partner with  Morrison & Foerster 's San Francisco office. She is member of the firm's Financial Services Litigation Group and her practice focuses on complex civil litigation and enforcement. She has experience litigating and advising on matters under the Fair Housing Act, Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and state equivalents, Real Estate Settlement Procedures  Act, Truth in Lending Act, and state unfair practices statutes. In 2014, she was named to  MReport  magazine ’s “Thirty-five Under 35” list, recognizing 35 women under the age of 35 as rising stars in the mortgage banking industry. Angela recently spoke with  DS News  about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ( CFPB ) filing an  amicus curiae brief  in the Ninth Circuit case of   Ho v. ReconTrust;  the brief argued that a trustee is engaging in debt collection by s...

Some foreclosure metrics have long been approaching or below pre-crisis levels. Foreclosure starts reached a new low in November, however, falling to their lowest level in nearly 10 years, according to  Black Knight Financial Services ’  First Look at Mor tgage Data for November 2015  released Wednesday. November’s total of 66,600 foreclosure starts was the lowest total for one month since April 2006, about two and a half years before the beginning of the housing crisis. The total represents a 9 percent decline from October and nearly a 10 percent decline from November 2014, according to Black Knight. Foreclosure inventory was also way down in November, falling by about 185,000 properties year-over-year down to about 698,000—or approximately 1.38 percent of all residential mortgages in the U.S. While foreclosure starts were steadily declining, however, the number of both 30- and 90-day delinquencies experienced seasonal upticks. The total of mortgage loans tha...

The National Association of Realtors ( NAR )  reported on Tuesday  that existing-home sales dropped off in November to an annual rate of about 4.76 million, the slowest pace in 19 months. November’s decline represented a 10.5 percent drop from October’s downwardly revised total of 5.32 million, and the sales pace for November was the lowest since it was reported at 4.75 million in April 2014. November’s pace is now 3.8 percent lower than November 2014, marking the first time the existing-home annual sales pace declined year-over-year since September 2014. One of the major drivers of November’s dropoff in the pace of existing-home sales is likely the implementation of the “Know Before You Owe” mortgage rule, commonly known as the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule, which went into effect on October 3. According to the  Realtors Confidence Index  in November, 47 percent of respondents said they were experiencing longer closing times compared to last y...

The  omnibus appropriations bill , which is a $600 billion bipartisan spending bill that includes the extension of several tax relief provisions, has passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate and is expected to go before President Obama on Friday. The bill includes a standalone  proposal sponsored by U.S. Rep. Tom Reed  (R-New York) known as the Mortgage Relief Assistance Act that extends a provision allowing homeowners to exclude forgiven mortgage debt (the remaining mortgage loan balance when a borrower’s principal residence is sold in a “short sale” to avoid foreclosure) from their gross income when filing tax returns. According to the  National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) , the forgiven mortgage debt exemption is expected to save homeowners about $3.3 billion for the tax year 2015. The President is expected to sign off on the bill. He signed off on a similar bill last year on December 19 that retroactively extended 55 tax provisions, i...

The low housing inventory continues to drive developments in the market, which will ultimately lead to more house price appreciation, according to the Q4 Housing Market Analyst released by  Capital Economics  on Thursday. The tight housing supply amid recovering demand has constrained sales and put upward pressure on housing prices. But don’t expect another house price boom, the report said. “With the months’ supply of homes having been under five since May of this year, it is not surprising that house price growth is picking up,” Capital stated in the report. “But there are a sizeable number of vacant homes being held off the market. As these are gradually listed for sale or rent, that will ease supply conditions to some extent. And with banks not set to repeat the rapid credit loosening of the mid-2000s, another house price boom will be avoided.” The lack of inventory is holding back existing home sales, and Capital Economics said it does not expect those condition...

The higher demand for single-family rental properties, primarily due to low vacancy rates, has put upward pressure o n rents. In turn, rising rents have prevented many would-be first-time homebuyers from entering the housing market. The national homeownership rate fell to a 48-year low in the summer of 2015 to 63.6 percent. All of these factors have prompted the question as to whether or not housing policy should continue a focus on traditional homeownership or concentrate its efforts on a broader definition of what constitutes “shelter.” According to  CoreLogic ’s SVP of Government Affairs, Faith Schwartz, in the company’s December 2015 MarketPulse  released Friday, data points make a case that it’s time for the federal government to consider expanding its focus. For one, according to the National Association of Realtors ( NAR ), first-time buyer share is at an all-time low of 32 percent. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said the “normal” first-time buyer share is aro...