Posts Tagged ‘loss’
First Time Home Buyers use FHA Mortgage and Seller Paid Closing Costs to Buy Real Estate Now. Best Market Conditions for Foreclosures and Short Sales in Decades. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 5 (Excerpt)
loan modifications are all the craze beware and only work with an Attorney
I have been a part of these broadcasts where we have talked about the loan modification concepts exclusively and to your credit Michael and your team at Velocity I saw you guys as being first to the punch if you will, first to start introducing this concept not only to the listening audience but to your clientele whenever it might be appropriate for the people who need to look at that option. Now I am seeing on street signs that are handmade and posted on street signs all over the city, call me for loan modification. I am hearing commercials and radio broadcasts that are discussing this loan modification concept; I have seen infomercials regarding this now so its becoming a bigger and bigger scope, its a big buzz right now and maybe you could tell me, and I already know the answer to this how long have you been doing this? And then what are the criteria for someone to consider this process?
Its funny that the loan modification concept is new and its the new buzz word and everybody is talking about it and everybody is doing it and it has been around forever. People have been able to do this for many, many years. The banks dont want your house back; they really, really dont. They may act like it and when you talk to them it may sound like they do but they dont. Velocity Financial is working with a national network of attorneys that have been doing this for 16 years, they have done thousands of these.
These law firms have represented thousands of home owners helping them, keeping them from going into foreclosure. You will see yard signs, street signs, advertisements. As you know Velocity Financial does not advertise, the radio station does play a spot because its important for people to know there is legitimate, licensed help out there. What I want to point out is if you have tried to do it on your own and it didnt work out, I am sorry about that and it doesnt mean it cant be done.
Most importantly you want to deal with somebody that you can sit across the table from, that is here locally, and you dont want to write a check to anybody other than a law firm. A licensed attorney needs to handle this, it is the best way to handle this. Velocity Financial does not charge an up front fee; we take care of all of the necessary paperwork, the discovery work. We do all of that and we dont charge for that. You do have to pay an attorney to represent you and after the case is done and modified and everyone is happy, they will pay us for the work that we have done. So dont work with anyone who isnt an attorney, thats my opinion.
In most states its the law and in Arizona its the wild, wild, west once again as usual, loan modifications are just not regulated but you know what, if you need a legitimate firm, if you need a human being to talk to and sit down with and lets get this thing worked out.
Well as you know Michael I started in the business about 20 years ago and the entire time I have really been working with attorneys. When I was doing loans for 12 plus years, I worked almost exclusively with bankruptcy attorneys helping to bail their clients out of bankruptcy and out of foreclosure, and I had been approached by other people and seen plenty of stuff on the internet about how you can basically buy a book online for $495, or go to a seminar, or do whatever and suddenly youre this loan modification expert after you read the book and filled out a couple of forms and that just doesnt give you the knowledge, the background and especially the negotiating ability that you have when youre dealing with an attorney…
Duration : 0:5:40
Tax on 1099C, Cancellation of Debt Income; Short Sale, Loan Modification & Foreclosure. Exception; Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, Bankruptcy & Insolvency. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Cancellation of debt income reported to the IRS on form 1099 C
So we talked about 20 million homeowners are upside down on their mortgages, thousands of their homes are being foreclosed on every week, property values may still be declining in some areas. Homeowners are walking away, they are doing foreclosures, there is a deed in lieu that people may not be aware of, loan modifications in many different shapes, forms and fashions and short sales.
These are all things that do have tax implications that a lot of people are not aware of. Each has its own consequences thats why we have asked Mike Patenella, a CPA to be with us today on the air. Mike tells a little bit about yourself.
Well I am a CPA. I have been in public accounting since 1988, I have my own tax practice and operate out of Scottsdale, and we focus on tax-preparation, advance planning for high net worth individuals and small businesses throughout the Valley. I moved to the Valley in 1990 back from New York.
You know, I have had the opportunity to work with Mike as a strategic partner as well and I share a number of clients. Each time I have had the honor of providing him a referral for tax work the outcome has exceeded expectations, so I am really pleased to be part of the discussions today and to work with such a great group.
It has been a pleasure, and again if you’re talking about that strategic partnership, the financial power team, as our good friend Dan Havey likes to call it, the outcome is important, but when a client calls you up or a homeowner calls you up and says thank you so much for sending me to Brett or Mike, what a great job, wow. Thats the greatest, again Mike thats why youre here with us today
So we should probably dive right in. I know we’ve been talking a lot the last few weeks about loan modifications and how Velocity Financial can help in that regard. But, help me out, even for my financial planning perspective what are some of the implications of taking this approach. For example how does the IRS look at people who don’t pay back their debt?
Well they do have a record of who does not pay back their debt because the banks have to send a form 1099C to anyone who gets any debt forgiven and what that does is it lists how much debt youre able to walk away from. And the reason they want to track that is unless you qualify under certain exclusions that is taxable income to you.
A question for you on that and I honestly don’t know for sure the answer to this, so let’s use a simple scenario, my favorite one is a guy owes $400,000 on his house and he does a short sale for $300,000. A laymen would think that there is going to be $100,000 he is going to get a 1099C for, a 1099C form from the lender that they didnt pay the moneys back for. What about the other cost the lender incurred? For instance even though they sold it for $300,000 there are still real estate commissions, title, deeds all kinds of closing costs, and things like that, that the lender loses below that 300. Do you know if thats included?
Yes that would be almost like lending you additional money to cover those costs.
So in other words if I owe $400,000 and sell it for $300,000 in a short sale, the bank is going to spend $112,000 I saw in a report today, youre getting a 1099C for that right?
In that example yes
The foreclosure cost, I just read today, the average foreclosure costs $112,000, average cost, thats legal fees, carrying cost, all these different things. Thats a lot of 1099C income.
Duration : 0:6:23
Tax on 1099C, Cancellation of Debt Income; Short Sale, Loan Modification & Foreclosure. Exception; Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, Bankruptcy & Insolvency. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 1 (Excerpt)
Expert tax advice from a CPA regarding a real estate related issues
Today’s show has a timely message. We have with us, an expert in the tax ramifications of the different types of mortgage situations that people find themselves in, we have brought in Mike Patenella, that I will introduce in just a moment, as well as Brett Fallon is back with us. Were going to be talking about the tax ramifications of short sales, foreclosures, and some of the different types of loan modifications.
Now if you listen to our show regularly, of course you know, we have been over the last several weeks, talking about loan modifications, but we have been getting hundreds of e-mails and calls requesting more information on the loan modifications. There are also some interesting questions that people ask about whats going to happen in regard to taxes. Thats the one thing that so many people are not talking about.
Well we need to talk about it. Its something that we need to bring to you that you can hear and thats what were going to focus the majority of today’s show on. Before I introduce Mike I need to introduce one of my very best friends and the best financial advisor I have ever known, Brett Fallon. Brett thanks for being on the show today.
Brett also has some information in regard to the markets and there is some really great, exciting stuff out there. But before I throw that back over to Brett, we have our expert guest today. He is a CPA and his name is Mike Patenella, thank you for being on the air with us today.
Mike is an expert in taxes, he is a CPA, he knows the ins and outs of all matters tax. His expertise in this particular area is widespread. Mike is an expert and will have specific answers to questions that we have put together. If you have had a foreclosure or youre facing foreclosure or if youre considering a short sale or bankruptcy, any number of things. Were going to touch on each just a little bit.
But we have a few numbers on our staff who are experts in loan modifications, we have put together a great video that helps explain the process, it’s about seven minutes long. And we will get that sent out to you in immediately.
Duration : 0:5:25
home loan modifications Negotiated by Licensed Attorneys. Real Estate & Mortgage Laws and Guidelines are Complex. Beware of the Banks Loss Mitigation Department. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 3 (Excerpt)
Re-Default rates on Forbearance Agreements done with banks reaches 58%
In studio with us today on this fine New years eve is Dan Havey, the co founder of the modification hotline as well as the author of The Foreclosure Sharks a great white paper he put together. He is also the author of Real Estates Future and this segment we are talking about loan modifications and some specific information.
You also have a great story to tell about this to. Well unfortunately I have too many stories about people who have had to go through foreclosures, bankruptcies, loan modifications. The one story I want to talk about real quick is a friend of mine who unbeknownst to me went out and did a loan modification on her own and not to get into a whole bunch of technical details on it she ended up getting a pretty decent interest rate because they actually cut her mortgage payment in half and she was pretty happy about that.
She owed a little bit more than the house was worth, she wasnt terribly upside down, but by the time they got done with her she certainly was going to be because the modification, and actually I should not call it a modification, I should call it a forbearance agreement, what they did to her was to say, OK we will cut your interest rate in half, we will cut your monthly payment in half, but we will take all of that deferred interest and tack it onto the back end of the loan. So that by the time her interest rate went back to where it had been, it was going to adjust up over the next five years, so that within that five year time period she was actually going to owe $60,000 in back interest on top of the principal balance that she had before she went to go talk to her bank.
What kind of a deal is that? I didnt think it was a very good one and she ended up eventually not taking it and just recently let the house go back to the bank, because she just looked at it and said, Wait a second here, I am already $20,000 upside down, by the time Im done with you guys I will be $80,000 upside down and so great I get a cheaper payment for a while. She moved into a rental property that was even cheaper then what she would have had to pay to stay in the house and from what she tells me the house is nicer.
Some of the unfortunate scenarios that come up that we get to see. Unfortunately we talk to lots of people that have similar situations, trying to do these on their own and it is possible to do a loan modification on your own. We know that, the program is designed for you to do that. The problem is it generally does not work out.
The re-default rate on loan modifications done on your own is significantly higher than loan modifications facilitated by an attorney that is representing you, for a number of reasons. Number one you have to pay an attorney to represent you. The other is that I think you are going to get a better modification based its not just a negotiation between you and the loss mitigation department for the bank. We are talking about using a professional attorney who is a trained negotiator to negotiate on your behalf with another attorney. By the way, theyre not talking to the same loss mitigation people in India that you may be talking too.
Here are some numbers that just came out from John Dugan who is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and they did a study of the loan modifications that have been done to date. In many cases these were forbearance agreements, not loan modifications. If an individual talks to his bank, generally speaking he will not get the same as result as what an attorney would do, so most of these are really forbearance agreements. And in that case, 36% had defaulted or were 30 days past due after 6 months and 58% were in default after 8 months. Again that is 58% in default after eight months and I saw some numbers the other day and unfortunately I didnt bring them in with me today, that according to some study of the very few modifications that have been done using an attorney, I say very few, but it is still thousands or tens of thousands, but few compared to what is getting done directly with the bank, the number is only like 5% of the ones done with an attorney have re-defaulted and again I dont have the numbers with me so I cant site the source…
Duration : 0:5:47
Tax on 1099C, Cancellation of Debt Income; Short Sale, Loan Modification & Foreclosure. Exception; Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, Bankruptcy & Insolvency. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 4 (Excerpt)
1099 C is for Cancellation of Debt Income Only, not for Interest Rate and Payment Reduction
So for people who find themselves in a very difficult situation considering these options whether it’s a loan modification or a short sale, whatever they need to do to relieve themselves of this particular burden of a mortgage, that for whatever reason they’re no longer able to maintain, they are not always considering the tax ramifications ociated with taking a specific course of action, like this example the short sale option.
Right there is actually two pieces of tax component here, you have the forgiveness of debt income that we talked about, they still have the fact that you sold your house and you have to see if there was a gain on that. Over and above the cost basis of the home.
We talked about the 1099Cs a few moments ago, did you say that the lender sends a copy of the 1099C to the IRS? Absolutely.
Now I’m the guy for a few minutes ago who bailed on $400,000 and sold it for $300,000 am I going to get a copy of the 1099C if I haven’t given my lender my new address. Well that could be a problem, they will send it to the last address they have on record for you. And as a homeowner it’s my problem.
The IRS will get a copy, so they will look for it on your return, if you forget to put it on then you’re going to get a friendly notice from the IRS.
If somebody is going to do a short sale, its a fairly civil transaction and when I say civil I mean going for a short sale is horrible for them and their family, but it beats the alternative which is foreclosure, and I think the real problem is when there’s a foreclosure and the guy just walks away and moves off to El Centro California, he’s the one who’s really getting hurt.
So in the event that somebody takes a course of action, and I know that Velocity financial and Michael Barnes, youre not necessarily advocates for that short sale approach. It’s not normally the best course of action, we’ve been talking about loan modifications and it would help me when I talk to clients, or people who call from radio broadcasts who asked questions about loan modification process as part of a financial strategy, help me with some of the tax ramifications. Let’s say that I have a loan and I know the best thing for me is a loan modification, am I going to be faced with a 1099? A tax bill at the end of a loan modification?
Yes, the first of the two tax implications will apply which will be the debt forgiveness part.
I didn’t mean to interrupt you Mike, well I said there are several different types of loan modifications, I believe are you asking about when the loan modification is where they actually do forgive some of the debt?
Thats a point, I know there’s been a lot of discussion on the use of the TARP funds especially from the federal government regarding these banks that qualify for some of these funds, they have to do principle reductions for their mortgages. So let’s say there isn’t a principal reduction involved, from that aspect, its not a taxable event that could take place, since I’m not reducing my principal, I’m simply getting a reduction in my term or my rate.
That’s right, the only time that taxes would come into play is when the principal gets reduced because thats forgiveness of debt.
So let’s take that one step further, whatever mortgage interest I’m able to deduct on my taxes may be impacted if it’s a lower percentage, right because youll be paying less interest, but there’ll be no surprise 1099 coming your way if its just an interest modification.
One of the things that I like to make thing clear is that were trying to do the best for you the homeowner so you can stay in your home. The situation I’m talking about, the $400,000, the lender is more likely than not is not going to forgive $100,000, however the same lender is more than willing to reduce your interest rate so that your payment would be the same if they have done the principal reduction, because it’s not a permanent loss for the bank. If there is someone out there who’s telling you that they can have your mortgage reduced by tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, it’s not going to happen and I doubt it’s going to happen anytime soon.
Duration : 0:5:58
http://www.LIGLoanMods.com is a loss mitigation company that offers loss mitigation services such as loan modification, short refinance, forbearance, short sale, and deed in lieu of foreclosure.
Duration : 0:2:24
home loanloan modifications Negotiated by Licensed Attorneys. Real Estate & Mortgage Laws and Guidelines are Complex. Beware of the Banks Loss Mitigation Department. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 1 (Excerpt)
Why you should use a licensed attorney to negotiate your loan modification
Dan Havey thanks for taking the time to be with us tonight. Thank you Michael for having me and you are absolutely right 2008 for many people was a very tough year. Tough year for pretty much everybody that I know, how many banks have we lost in 2008? Hopefully the bleeding is gone; hopefully there arent too many more banks to fail. Quite a few banks have picked up some of the slack, but the reality of it is so many people have been faced with such hardships, we have solutions that we are maybe going to talk about today that they can look forward to, to make 2009 a great year.
Definitely that is what we are doing here with your organization at Velocity Financial and with the Modification Hotline and with many of the other things I am working on right now to help people out. When I first got into this business it was back in the late 80s, I moved here from Wisconsin after getting a degree in finance and I started selling repos for Fannie Mae, Countrywide, and the RTC. The Resolution Trust Corporation was responsible for getting rid of all the real estate owned by the over 1,800 S&Ls that failed. So I cut my teeth selling those reposed properties and got to know a lot about the laws and worked with a lot of attorneys and then in the mid 90s I moved into the mortgage business, and I immediately started there working with bankruptcy attorneys for the most part.
I was helping people get out of their bankruptcies, chapter 13 bankruptcies, to avoid bankruptcies, to stop foreclosures and I did that up until the fall of 2007 and at that point the market really changed for me as we know most of the subprime financing went away. Some people might look at me and say, my god you gave people subprime loans, well if you are in a chapter 13 bankruptcy and your payment to the trustee is $1,500 a month and I can get you out of bankruptcy and reduce your total monthly outlay by $1,200, your mortgage payment would go up a little bit, I think this is a really good use of a subprime loan. And I certainly never had any complaints from anyone when I got them out of bankruptcy or I stopped their foreclosure and saved their home.
So late last year I moved out of the mortgage business for a while but I never really left it because it is pretty much what I have done my entire adult life. Over 20-25 years I have been involved with real estate, mortgages and finance and I worked for a while for about 6 months last year on a model for an idea that we came up with of being able to accurately predict the top and bottom of all real estate markets and we perfected it for Arizona and most of California. It worked really well to the point that we could actually predict the bottom of the market 6 months in advance and then after the bottoms hit all across the country we kind of stopped working on it.
It is one of the things I am going to start working on again over the next few months. The title of the book is Real Estates Future and you can go to my website at http://realestatesfuture.com and get a copy of that if you want to, it is not available yet but just put in your information and I am going to give away a whole bunch of free copies of it.
The reason why I went through this entire story is because a few months ago Michael and Velocity Financial came to me and said he was going to do loan modifications and I had been approached by other people and I had seen a bunch of garbage on the internet and the thing that he said to me that sold me was, You know Dan, you have to understand, were using attorneys to negotiate these loan modifications.
And that is, I didnt mean to interrupt but that is the key; that is one of the reasons it took us so long to get in. Even though Velocity Financial was at the very beginning of this mad craze, heck you cant drive down the street without seeing a sign that says loan mod, kind of like back in 2006 in the heyday of the mortgage business where you couldnt drive down the street and see a sign that said, if your mortgage payment is more than 1% you are paying too much. Well now everybody is jumping into the loan modification game and it is dangerous.
And that is exactly it, it is every unemployed loan officer has gotten into the loan modification game and I guess I am guilty of the exact same thing. It is just after having 20 years experience of working with attorneys, I know what they are capable of doing, I know how they can go in and negotiate and the biggest thing is they are there to protect the home owner, to protect the consumer, to protect their client because they have a fiduciary responsibility to that client…
Duration : 0:6:29
home loanloan modifications Negotiated by Licensed Attorneys. Real Estate & Mortgage Laws and Guidelines are Complex. Beware of the Banks Loss Mitigation Department. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 8 (Excerpt)
The pitfall of forcing your bank to rescind your loan for lending violations
I have a question on that, it is my understanding and I could be wrong, but they dont need a copy of the note, they need the original note.
You are correct. Your attorney of course will get a copy, because they are not going to send them the original.
Items that your attorney is going to ask for, and I forget the number, I think its 47 different items that the attorney could ask for. Heres one. I’ve been in the industry for 20 years and I just heard this term a couple months ago, it’s known as an alonge. What the heck is an alonge? Well apparently it’s one of the documents that has to be in the file.
While essentially the whole purpose of this is to catch the bank, the lender having messed up your loan somewhere along the way. Because if it is true that they violated some kind of Federal Law in the past when they gave you the loan or are in violation of the loan now, you can then take them to court. And you can sue them. You can have your loan rescinded. Which basically means it comes off your credit report. This loan never happened. As good as that sounds that may not be the best thing for the home owner.
I want to back up just a little tiny bit, you mentioned the alonge, there’s more to the alonge then it sounds like. The bank needs to have the original alonge, more importantly, the person who signed the alonge has to have been authorized by the licensed entity to sign that alonge. And I know for a fact that several people in this town, in this industry, were signing alonges because they needed it signed before the loans could fund. And they were not qualified to sign.
So let’s go back to this discovery process, when we find the lender has to rescind. And I will admit after being in the real estate and mortgage industry for over 20 years, I would have to say that almost 100% of the loans that are originated, if you look at them hard enough you could find something wrong with them. Something wrong, where there could be a reason for you to rescind this loan.
So let’s say you go to that point and push it and get the bank to rescind your loan. Here’s the problem. The loan is gone, it is no longer on your credit report, but let’s say you have a $200,000 loan you took out two years ago, in that time, you would’ve paid about $35,000 in interest. You get a credit for the 35,000, and let’s say you had attorney fees to fight the bank, let’s say $10,000, I don’t think it would be that high but we are just throwing out numbers here. And $5000 in closing costs when you bought the house, so that total is $50,000. You get a credit for $50,000 off of the $200,000 loan, which means you still owe $150,000 on the house. You have to pay the difference.
You have to pay back to the bank $150,000. So its nice that we filed suit and won but frankly in this market where are you going to get the $150,000 from? I think it would be very difficult to find a bank or lender right now that will lend you $150,000 for your house. Chances are you may be several months behind on your payment and although the lender cant show your payment history because the loan was rescinded more than likely the new bank is going to say they need a mortgage payment history. And you say you have been in the house for two years, but the loan got rescinded and they say you need payment history, you cant produce it.
In this marketplace today you are not going to get that loan done. And so the attorneys know that and that’s why once they get the lenders attention they say to the lender, we dont want to rescinded the loan, we dont want to incur a ton of attorney fees but we will if we need to, if you dont want to play ball with us. What we want to do is to work together to get the best possible loan modification for our clients. So we can keep them in their home, keep their family intact.
The reality of a it is, here what we are doing we are working with a national network of attorneys that care about you and you first.
You can go to http://mortgageanswerman.com where there’s going to be information about everything including, one thing I’ll add really quickly. I have something there that is known as a Decision Matrix. The Decision Matrix will walk you through step by step by step, every single step of the process regarding what you should do with your property, should you do a short sale, should you do loan modification, should you just let the bank foreclose? Is bankruptcy an okay idea for you, or not? What are the tax consequences?…
Duration : 0:6:54
Loan Modification 7 - Home Mortgage & Real Estate Marketing Nov08 - Avoid Scams & Huge Loan Mod Fees
Attorney Negotiated mortgage loan modification for Home Owners. Expert Advice on Real Estate and Finance. Avoid Foreclosure Scams and Fraud. Prevent Bankruptcy. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 7 (Excerpt)
Watch out for scams; huge fees for Loan Modifications
Important to point out folks that Velocity Financial is a full service mortgage broker, the majority of our business is writing and originating and underwriting mortgage loans for homeowners, people to buy real-estate, people to refinance their homes, people can still refinance out there, loan modifications are not for everybody, in fact they are for a small segment of the market.
Im the founder of the Modification Hotline and we put that in place to help people right now, people dont need a salesman when it comes to these loan modifications, I heard a story today from a home owner that I just couldnt believe, this person that is trying to get loan modification told them that she had to pay them $1500 a month for 4 months and by the time she was finished paying them they guaranteed her some kind of ridiculous, I just dont understand why it is like that.
Right now we need to help you get through the situation, we are here for you, we are going to do everything in our power with our national network of attorneys, who are expert negotiators, so it is important that you call.
I just want to make the distinction so it is clear for everybody, Velocity Financial is a full service mortgage firm, all things mortgage related and the concept of todays show being loan modification program is a division of something that you kind of created and had some foresight about all of these issues that are effecting not only mortgage holders but the economy at large, thus this topic and wanting to help these people.
Thats correct, a year and a half ago I was approached by someone that I respected very much in the industry, asked me to get involved with the loss mitigation process and I essentially declined the offer, once I reanalyzed that a number of people calling us needed loan modifications. We did do some research and found the debt advisory alliance with a gentlemen that I have know for years, and he had already put together the national network of attorneys, so we are working with these people who have done thousands of these loan modifications.
We are the affiliate, we are doing the discovery and due diligence, they are taking care of the expert negotiations, thats not my job, that is not what we are good at, what we are good at is putting together a case that will get modified the best for you, and your kids and everything else to keep all of you in place…
Duration : 0:4:32
http://www.mtgmodadvice.com Free home loan modification info & advice. Get everything you need to know about mortgage loan modification an Alternative to Foreclosure from loan modification Experts.
Duration : 0:1:50