Time to Challenge Assessed Home Values in ABQ

Bernalillo County Assessor Karen Montoya will mail out Notice of Valuations for Real Property and Mobile Homes on Thursday, March 1, 2012.The Assessor’s Office will also begin its annual protest period for Real Property and Mobile Homes on March 1st. Subsequent to the mail out of the Notices of Values, property owners will have the opportunity to file a valuation protest within 30 days of the actual date of mailing.




How do you know if you should file a protest? I can check for you or you can estimate based on market value trends. The statistics for yearend show that the values went down about 6% last year. It varies by area but that is a rule of thumb you can use to compare last year's assessment with the one you get for 2011.



If you want me to help you decide give me a call and I will do a free market analysis for you. Also, you can go to my website and click on Market Snapshot to see what the values were for similar homes sold in 2011. If you decide to protest, I can provide you with three comparable homes that have sold which you will need for the protest. If that doesn't work, a good friend of mine is an attorney who specializes in protests. Give me a call and let me know how I can help you save money on taxes.

Forclosures UP - Good News Bad News

Foreclosure starts are reversing course and are back on the rise, which is expected to continue to put downward pressure on home prices, a new report released Monday from Fitch Ratings says. With a jump in the inventory of distressed homes, Fitch predicts home prices to dive another 10 percent nationally before stabilizing.
Foreclosures are up by 7-10% in the last month depending on what source you believe. This trend was expected as the banks start putting their foreclosures on the market after the robo-signing scandal temporarily brought foreclosures to a standstill. Fact is banks need to get rid of these properties to improve their financials. Like they need to have more profit, but that’s another blog!
The spike is nearing the average rate of 14 percent that was seen between 2000 and 2010, according to Fitch’s RMBS (residential mortgage-backed security) Performance Metric.
Foreclosure initiation rates on borrowers who haven’t made a mortgage payment in more than six months also have nearly doubled in the last five months. This means that they are not as patient with the timeline needed for a short sale and are rushing to get into the foreclosure sale. Although the home is sold for less as a bank-owned property, banks do NOT give up their right to file for a deficiency waiver so can come after the homeowner for the difference between mortgage owed and sale price!
The good news is that for buyers there are some very competitively priced short sales and even lower priced bank owned properties. The bad news is for Sellers who find themselves competing on price just to get their house sold. That said, there are many Buyers who don’t want to mess with a distressed property and would rather have the home that is in the best condition and fairly priced. That rule remains the same. The shiny penny sells first in all cases.

STRATEGIC FORECLOSURES ON RISE

"Strategic" mortgage defaults (people who "walk away" from a mortgage they can afford to pay) are on the rise.This week FOX News did an interview with the CEO of HomeFlux and 1-800-CashOffer on the rise of strategic defaults, and how many of the people we talk to each month are considering it as an option. Most people doing "strategic" defaults would be much better off selling their home via a short sale through an experienced real estate agent. The banks are in much better position to expedite and approve short sales now. We haven't lost one approval! They would rather take a loss on your mortgage than to incur the expense of foreclosing and then selling it again. Give me a call if you are thinking of a strategic default or short sale.

SHORT SALES EXPEDIATED

Hoping to expedite the short sale process, Fannie Mae has launched a pilot program in the Orlando area in which 300 homes have been preapproved for short sale by the mortgage finance giant to reduce the wait time on offers to a matter of days from several weeks or months. Rather than wait for various parties involved in the short sale to approve the offer, the Fannie Mae program performs property research and obtains required clearances beforehand. Although we have a lower number of short sales on bank owned properties, we do have good deals on homes that are either pre-forclosures or already bank owned. Give me a call if you want to find a deal.