Steve Capen's (scapen) Blog

St. Petersburg FL – GMAC, was the financing arm of General Motors. It was taken over by Uncle Sam and has been mostly privatized as Ally Financial. However, many people still have loans from the original GMAC. Some of these homeowners want to short sale, but are curious about how it works. Disco...

I am one of the leading short sale agents in my area and I get asked the following question quite often: If I short sale my home will I have to pay taxes on the debt forgiven? Now I am not an accountant and the first thing I tell people is that they need to speak with their accountant.  I will al...

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/01/smallbusiness/small_business_hiring_adp/index.htm   Small businesses added 54,000 jobs last month!  This is a great sign for the housing market.  Here in the Tampa Bay area our values have declined over 50% and are still declining.  I always get asked "Has the mark...

Here is a great article in the Wall Street Journal explaining the issues when there are 2 lenders involved with a short sale: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704526504575634950022011416.html?mod=WSJ_RealEstate_LeftTopNews   This is one of the biggest challenges when doing a short sa...

Here is a good article from the Wall Street Journal on potential costs that may occur when buying a short sale. HIDDEN COSTS OF SHORT SALE BARGAINS There are some excellent points regarding costs to be aware of brought up in this article. When buying a short sale you (or your agent) need to inter...

Here is an article from CoreLogic about the current shadow inventory and commentary from a writer at the Wall Street Journal: http://www.corelogic.com/About-Us/News/Shadow-Inventory-Jumps-More-Than-10-Percent-in-One-Year,-Pushing-Total-Unsold-Inventory-to-6-3-Million-Units.aspx http://blogs.wsj.c...

The answer is ABSOLUTELY!  I recently did a short sale on an investment property where my client owns multiple properties (1 with no mortgage), has substantial equity in his primary residence, and over 500k in liquid assets and retirement accounts.  His lender was Wells Fargo - he was released fr...

I just closed a short sale for a family that did not have a serious hardship.  They owed 185k and the sales price was 103k.  They wanted to move because they wanted a bigger home in a nicer neighborhood (which they found and the rent is equal to their mortgage payment).  At closing my clients wer...

Should you walk away or should you stay? Here is how to determine whether or not you should walk away from your home. Because of the decline in the nationwide housing market, I doubt that your home is worth what you paid for it.First, determine the current market value of your home.  Talk to a re...

Here is an interesting article: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Mortgage-battle-gains-steam-rb-2729423220.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode=   Investors of mortgage backed securities are uniting together to pressure the banks (and possibly sue)that are servicing the loans that are owned by...