The MARK Z. Home Selling Team finished number 81 in the country out of 2 Million plus Realtors on the "Top 250 Teams by Transaction Sides List" for 2011. The Wall Street Journal and Real Trends Inc. anncounced the top 1,000 real estate agents and teams for 2011 in the United States. Teams and Agents were ranked based on the total number of closed transactions in 2010. I wanted to congratulate my team on a very successful year in a very challenging real estate market. 

We are starting to see the market turn for the positive. Although we are seeing home prices increase in certain communities, we are still having appraisal issues on many houses. Foreclosure inventory is very scarse and when one does pop up on the scene more times than not, it is a…

Government-sponsored mortgage purchaser  (“FNMA”) is  encouraging certain distressed homeowners to find other alternatives to foreclosure. The price to the homeowner? A seven year ban on any new loan! Troubled borrowers who do not attempt good faith efforts to work out a resolution, but have the capacity to pay, are targeted by this new FNMA policy.

FNMA has repeatedly stated that walking away from a mortgage is bad for borrowers and bad for communities and FNMA’s approach is meant to deter the disturbing trend toward strategic defaults. A strategic default occurs when a homeowner stops making payments on a mortgage despite having the financial wherewithal to do so. It has become increasingly common in communities where housing values fell sharply and…

This chart, from a recent paper by Alan Mallach, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, helps explain why more properties haven’t ended up on the market as foreclosure resales.

There isn't a day that goes by that one of my investors or buyers in our pipeline doesn't ask "Where did all the foreclosures in Michigan go?" A lot of investors and commonly known as "fix and flippers" have a lot of cash sitting around waiting to jump all over the next bank foreclosure.

The number of properties in the foreclosure or delinquency pipeline has grown to record highs, yet volumes of bank-owned properties have fallen steadily over the past year.

What’s happening?

• Some delinquent loans have “cured,” either naturally or through loan modifications. Even…

Legal Avenues for Homeowners to Avoid/Delay Foreclosure Proceedings

Whether your home is in foreclosure or worried about foreclosure in the near future, below are ten techniques and legal strategies homeowners should contemplate during this stressful time period.

Technique number 1-Chapter 7 Bankruptcy 

The first and probably one of the more well known ways of delaying a foreclosure is chapter 7 bankruptcy. Any kind of bankruptcy will immediately stop your foreclosure where ever it is. A chapter 7 bankruptcy will actually dissolve all debt and absolve you of the responsibility to pay your debt. It will temporarily delay foreclosure with the US bankruptcy court. Usually it will buy up to 45 to 75 days, sometimes more sometimes less depending on your…

Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program

In the past, anyone who has been involved in the process of seeking approval and finalizing a short sale will more than likely tell you first hand that it has been a tall order. Since the housing meltdown began, short-sale offers have often taken months to get a response from overwhelmed lenders. Even then, there have been no clear guidelines about what kinds of offers are acceptable or about how to handle second mortgages that can easily derail the process.

Industry experts estimate that less than half of short-sale offers have been accepted, and many real-estate agents have avoided showing these properties altogether. 

Under the new Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program, which has taken…

By now you probably received your real property tax assessment notice for 2010. If you haven't, rest assured they are in the mail and you will get them in the next couple weeks. If you do not agree with how your municipality has assessed the true value of your property, you have the right to appeal it.

An appeal of a property tax assessment begins at the local level with the board of review. Under Michigan law, the board of review meets on the second Monday in March unless the governing body authorizes an alternative starting date to meet which would be the Tuesday or Wednesday following the second Monday of March.

There are not too many positives to focus on, in the economic condition that Michigan is faced with this, however your property taxes being…

Number of Homes For Sale Each Month In Metro Detroit

Get off the fence and sell now!

This is data that nobody is talking about. As you can see from the chart above there are currently only 37,608 homes for sale in Metropolitan Detroit, compared to over 68,000 homes for sale back in January of 2008!

If I was looking to sell my own home sometime within the next 1-10 years, even if the…

This time of the year this is the number one question I get asked on almost every listing appointment, "Should I list now or wait until the spring time?" Without a doubt in my mind, I advise every seller to list now. In fact if I were to list my own home for sale I would do it in October or November for one reason, there is very minimal competition.

What I mean by that is, the reason most homeowners have such a hard time selling their home is because of the quantity of homes for sale on the market. In the months of November, December, January, and February, most homeowners take their house off the market if it had not sold by then, or if they were thinking about selling they wait until March.

Statistically home sales only drop by 20%-25% in the winter…