foreclosure

Legislation has been enacted that partially conforms California personal income tax law to federal amendments made by the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 (MFDA). That’s the legislation which allows you to exclude the amount of your mortgage debt from your income when facing foreclosure.

Mortgage companies are underfire by Congress to keep people in homes and find viable solutions when option ARMs adjust. But are mortgage companies really acting in your best interests? Here’s one case of what Countrywide did to “help” a customer:

Yesterday I posted a link to a story from Detroit about a bank that was so desperate to rid itself of a troubled REO property it sold the house for $1. You can read about it here. Today I read another report that was equally startling: 1/3 of homeowners who bought in the last 5 years are upside down today on their houses.

I remember hearing, during the boom days of real estate, statements like, “There is no way that house is worth that much!” after a house sells for an outrageously high price. And I remembered the statement about fair market value I learned years ago:

Fair market value is what a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller in a free market.

How much is something worth? It depends! What would someone pay for it?

The Internet is loaded with stories now about local and state governments grappling with how to handle row upon row of abandoned houses. They’re passing on property tax increases to those still in their houses and having to figure out how to police abandoned houses to stop the spread of crime to these neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, in Florida, thousands of prospective homeowners can’t buy their houses because of confusion about a Florida tax. The issue is that in Florida there is a transfer tax that is charged when a property is bought. The transfer tax is based on the home’s value.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed the new Foreclosure Act. The bill still needs to pass the House and be signed by the President. But, there are some very interesting tidbits inside the bill that bear a second look.

First, and my favorite, is a $7K tax credit (credit not deduction) for anyone who buys a house in the foreclosure process.

I don’t know about you, but my email inbox is getting flooded with solicitations for Foreclosure Investment Workshops. Without a doubt, now is the time to make some money on the buy!

I’ve been in real estate investing long enough, that I’ve seen this cycle before. So have most of the foreclosure instructors out there. The one thing that is very different, though, is the rules have changed in many states. Please read the rest of this article before you sign up for anything.

Courtesy ABC News

For Sale … Like it or NotOne of the benefits I get from working with a nationwide group of CPAs, is that I get to keep up with what successful business owners and real estate owners are up to. The real estate market is booming in some areas, crashing in others and just holding its own in others. But, there is one area of real estate that is exploding – the foreclosure market!

With constituents facing foreclosure and an election year looming, the pressure’s on Washington lawmakers to give homeowners a helping hand out of the mortgage meltdown.

We all know that many parts of the country are experiencing either a flat or a down market when it comes to real estate. Just today I read that Las Vegas, once one of the hottest markets in the country, now has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country.