By Affiliate Alyce Dailey, Owner of The Dailey Group
“April showers bring May flowers” is a popular saying for spring. If you ask most real estate agents, they would also tell you that spring is the best time to sell your house. We have some unconventional (and SMART) advice for why you should NOT wait until spring to put your house on the market.
Due to additional banking regulations, banks have had to guarantee that all paperwork necessary to begin a foreclosure process on a family was both complete and accurate. As a result, the foreclosure process has slowed greatly as banks have re-examined their procedures. Now that banks are confident that all of their paperwork is in order, they are now simply awaiting a settlement between the attorney general and the banks that will establish what penalties will be assessed. Once this settlement is reached, banks will once again move forward on homes that have been in a “holding pattern” at some stage in the foreclosure process.
According to Calculated Risk, there are millions of homes in this category:
“There are a large number of seriously delinquent mortgage loans in limbo waiting for this settlement. According to LPS, at the end of August there were about 1.87 million loans seriously delinquent and another 2.15 million loans in the foreclosure process. This is only down slightly from a year ago when 4.4 million loans were seriously delinquent or in-foreclosure. Once the settlement is reached, the pace of foreclosures will pick up sharply.”
The principles of supply and demand are about to take effect as more foreclosures enter the market at discounted prices. The spring selling season is going to have an increased supply of distressed properties, and this is going to overshadow the increase in demand. If you want to gain the most value from your property, now might just be the right time to sell. Give us a call for a free, no-obligation consultation.
Committed to helping you Buy. Sell. Live SMART!