• In 2011, there were 1,887,777 foreclosure filings (including default, auction, and bank repossession notices) in the U.S. Though, 1.9 million homes seems like a daunting number, it is actually the lowest it has been since 2007. The 1.9 million homes that went into foreclosure in 2011 is down 34% from 2010, 33% from 2009, and 19% from 2008.
• Nationally, in December 2011, 1 in every 634 homes received a foreclosure filing. The Knoxville real estate market fares significantly better than the national ranking. In Knox County, 1 in 1136 homes received a foreclosure notices. To see how other East Tennesee counties fared, check out the Foreclosure Rate Heat Map on RealtyTrac.com.
• Scheduled auctions hit a 49 month low in December. It was down 19% from November 2011 and 20% from December 2010.
• Default notices were also down in December, down 19% from November, and down 23% from December 2010.
• Still, despite what shows to be a decrease in foreclosure filings for 2011, RealtyTrac also reported that the time table for foreclosure proceedings has actually increased in 2011. Foreclosure filings took an average of 348 days in the fourth quarter of 2011, up from 336 days in the third quarter in 2011, and up from 305 days in the fourth quarter of 2010.
• In the state of Tennessee, the foreclosure process takes less than two months, with a process period of 40-45 days and a sale publication of 20-25 days. The state with the longest foreclosure process is New York, which takes an average of 1,019. New York is closely followed by New Jersey, which takes on average of 964 days.

What do you think these numbers mean for the Knoxville real estate market, and other areas of the nation?

Senior Vice President of Mortgage Servicing at Bank of America Home Loans.

Bob Hora provided insight into Bank of America’s evolving approach to managing their distressed mortgage portfolio, which includes plans to increase short sales by as much as 60 – 70% next year. To achieve this increase, Bank of America is improving their short sale process and implementing a number of new programs to help both homeowners and agents.
Download the Report Now!
In CDPE’s newest report, we detail the information covered in the broadcast, such as Bank of America’s new community outreach campaigns and homeowner transition guides. You’ll also learn how increases in manpower and improvements to Equator will effect you, the agent, and the homeowners you serve.

Political beliefs aside, Olick makes some astute observations regarding the bank’s preferences for short sales over foreclosures and the important role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in keeping the market liquid.

Given the major impact housing has on the overall U.S. economy, it’s vital that our political leaders have a thorough understanding of these issues.

The biggest mistake we see politicians make, however, is to claim they have a new plan or program to fix the housing crisis. The reality is, no such “magic bullet” exists. What’s needed is a series of rational financial decisions that will eventually return us to a rational housing market.

Little by little, the housing market is coming back. It’s not going to happen overnight, and it shouldn’t. While creating temporary relief, a return to the irrational housing boom of the past decade would only create future instability.

Educated and experienced real estate agents are playing a crucial role by getting homeowners out of houses they can’t afford, and qualified buyers into existing inventory in a responsible way. Savvy investors have already returned to the market and are helping to relieve over saturation and fill the increased need for rental units.

If we can change the misconception that housing is a risky investment, we will also see the return of primary home buyers, and a return to stability in the market.

THDA is a program designed to help home buyers get into a home with little or no money down. It is an excellent program that many of my first time home buyers use. They have just increased the purchase price limits in Knox County up to $240,000 which is great. This is the announment from THDA is below

“THDA is pleased to announce that effective Thursday, December 1, 2011 the Acquisition Cost Limits will increase for all Tennessee counties. These changes in Acquisition Cost Limits for each county are reflected on the revised page 9 of the Originating Agents Guide
All THDA loan applications received on or after December 1, 2011 will be considered in accordance with these new limits.”

Check out all the changes here

If you are interested in buying a home using the THDA please feel to call me at 865-696-9002 or email me Rick@TheBigorangePress.com.

1. Affordable home index of 83% — that means 83% of everyone working in West Knoxville can afford to purchase a home.

2. Cheaper to buy than rent – it’s now cheaper to buy a West Knoxville home than rent! Save some of your hard earned money AND own a West Knoxville home. What could be better than that?

3. West Knoxville homes prices at 2005-06 levels — when you purchase a West Knoxville home, you’re paying approx. 2005-06 home prices. How would you like gas, food, and car prices to be at 2005 levels? I don’t know about you, but I’d love to pay only $1.55 a gallon for gas (2005 gas prices). We may never see West Knoxville home prices this low again.

4. Tax benefits — hate paying taxes? Owning a West Knoxville home has a number of tax benefits not available to renters. Here’s 3 great articles on how you can save even more money this year using the tax benefits of home ownership:

Homeowner Tax Benefits from Uncle Sam
Home Sweet Home Tax Breaks
Tax Reasons to Buy a Home

5. 4% interest rates — interest rates are near all-time lows. Why should you care? You can save a bundle! Below is a scenario written by a homeowner who purchased a home in 1997 at higher interest rates and how today’s all-time low interest rates can save you $$$ and build equity in your home faster!

“Back in 1997 I bought my first home, it was new construction, I paid $137,000 for a 2040 sq ft home…. that translated to roughly $67 per foot. My interest rate at the time was 8.125% with a total payment of $1,017 per month.

Today, the same home as mine, in my neighborhood, is selling for $249,000 equaling $122 per foot with a total payment of $1,188 per month at a 4% rate. You can see the slightly higher minimal monthly payment quite clearly ($1,017 vs. $1,188) — but with a 8.125% interest rate only 9% of my payment ($89.62) was going towards principal, whereas if a new buyer purchased the same home in my neighborhood at today’s rate of 4% — a whopping 30% ($358.76) would go toward principal. In other words, West Knox buyers who purchase today get 2002 home prices with low interest rates but also gain a SIGNIFICANTLY faster rate of equity. But that’s not all…

Now lets talk interest paid…on the $137,000 loan, the buyer paid a whopping $229,201 just in interest. However, a $249,000 loan at 4% would be $178,956 in interest, SAVING you $50,245 in interest on a loan that’s nearly TWICE as large!

Do you think you still have time to wait? Don’t Give me a call at 865-696-9002 or email me Rick@TheBigOrangePress.com let’s get started!!

So I decided to put these sites to the test on a recent sale I had in West Knoxville in Fox Run on a home located at 12530 High Forest LN. I sold the home for $425,000 in March of this year. So I went to Zillow and look up the value they had on the home which was $491,100 is the value they had for the home. So you are thinking the buyer made a heck of a buy on this one. Next I went to Trulia $388,493 …OOPS they buyer paid TOO MUCH!!!

The is the problem with these sites they are all over the place when it comes to values on homes. That is exactly the point of the article in Smart Money which is causing many buyers to believe that these sites are sharing true market value.

Here in West Knoxville our Neighborhoods have felt prices fall back because of the economy but not to the point of some other parts of the country. Recently I wrote about values in Montgomery Cove and Mallard Bay and as you can see in the post things have remained pretty steady of the last couple of years.

The best way to determine value is to have your Realtor run the comps for you on the home you are interested in buying. That way you can make an informed decision and make an offer based on those findings. You will know if the seller is asking too much, price right or too low from the other homes that have sold.

Need Help? Call Me 865-696-9002 or email me Rick@TheBigOrangePress.com would love to help you find your next home.

My third buyer was looking for a property with acreage within 30 minutes of Knoxville. We were searching for homes and the home at 1402 Carpenters School Rd in Maryville came on the market. This home was a Fannie Mae REO which automatically means you are dealing with the government and plenty of paperwork. Fannie Mae normally has their homes in pretty good shape when they hit the market. They offer HomePath financing on their homes which means you can buy with as little as 3% down. Nice program that I haves used a few times for my buyers. They also run specials offering to cover closing cost from time to time.

This home was priced very well at $283,000 the previous owner paid $375,000 in 2008. The home is on 5 acres and was in pretty good shape. Once again because these type of properties are usually priced pretty aggressively more than one offer came in at a time. We got the multiply offer situation form signed it and submitted our highest and best offer. Fortunately this time we were the successful bidder. At the time of this post we are still waiting to close on this home in a few weeks.

I guess their are a few things you have to remember if you want to buy this type of home and be successful. First be patient many times if there are more than one offer on a home and you lose out many times the first offer doesn’t work out. Second get in touch with a good Realtor they can make a difference in helping you be successful in buying your home.

There really isn’t that much difference in the buying experience of a Knoxville Short Sale or Foreclosure. They both take time and patience…If I can help you in anyway with the purchase of “Your Deal” call me at 865-696-9002 or email me Rick@TheBigOrangePress.com

I recently sold a local banked owned home at 1504 Lakeshire in West Knoxville. This home was a foreclosure by a local lender that needed a great deal of work. But instead of putting the home on the market in terrible condition. The lender decided to put some money into the home and update it so it would compete successfully when they put it on the market.

They updated and replaced the carpeting, kitchen, and bathrooms. They did a really nice job in fixing this home. But what they really did was price it to sell by putting on the market for $130,000

The next thing you know there are 4 offers on the home. When this happens the lenders make you sign what is called a multiply offer form. They want you to know there is more than one offer to consider and want you highest and best offer. So I went back to my buyer and we wrote an offer for $135,000 and submitted to the bank. Well unfortunately we didn’t get the house because someone wrote an offer higher. We were disappointed and continued to look around but I styaed in tough with the other agent. Because there where inspections to be done and you never know what could happen.

Well about 10 days later I got a call out of the agent telling me the other buyers walked away. She was calling everyone to know it was back on the market. So i called my buyers and we submitted our $135,000 offer again. Well sure enough more than one offer came in again and we were back in a muliply offer situation.

My buyer didn’t fool around this time they wrote $140,000 offer got the home. We did our home inspections and found a few minor issues that the bank fixed. They make a great buy on a basement rancher in West Knoxville just for being by being patient.

If you are looking to find your “deal” let’s talk. I can help you call me at 865-696-9002 or email me Rick@TheBigorangePress.com

I always go back a couple of years to try and determine trends that are occurring in the market. Are homes prices falling, stable , how long is it taking to sell etc so I can better advise a client on pricing.

Montgomery Cove  from November 2009-2010

Average Sale Price	Median Sale Price	Highest Sale Price	Average Days On Market
$587,910	$537,500	$949,900	137

Montgomery Cove from November 2010-2011

Average Sale Price	Median Sale Price	Highest Sale Price	Average Days On Market
$610,071	$580,000	$1,425,000	125

When you compare the 2 years things remained pretty flat from one year to the next year. Average home did sell faster and there was on very large home sell at $1.425 million. But for the most part there wasn’t any big changes as far as pricing or homes selling quicker.

Mallard Bay from November 2009-2010

Average Sale Price	Median Sale Price	Highest Sale Price	Average Days On Market
$654,211	$592,400	$1,550,000	189

Mallard Bay from November 2010-2011

Average Sale Price	Median Sale Price	Highest Sale Price	Average Days On Market
$797,116	$599,900	$1,899,000	140

Same is true in Mallard Bay the one big chance was days it took homes to sell 189 days 2009 to 140 days 2010. That is pretty significant in the price ranges of homes. I have noticed that the inventory has started to drop in the upper bracket slowly but surely over the last year. That is good for the marketplace. I don’t think we have turned the corner yet and I think awhile before it will happen.

If you are thinking about selling but worried about the value on your current home and taking a beating on price. If you analysis your situation and give it some thought it may not be as bad as you think. I have had many of my sellers decide to sell after we sat down and talked about it. Want to discuss your situation call me 865-696-9002 or email me Rick@TheBigOrangePress.com.

Also check out my 3 part post on Knoxville Real Estate Deals may help with your decision process Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Current Homes For Sale In Mallard Bay

1. Am I okay with being a seller in a buyer’s market? In the current West Knoxville real estate market, there are currently more properties for sale than there are buyer’s to buy those properties for sale. This means buyer’s are the ones calling the shots. Sellers trying to sell their West Knoxville home must understand that they might not necessarily get the price they were hoping for and it may take longer for the home to sell. This is not to sound all doom and gloom about the current West Knoxville real estate market.  There are still people buying homes and there are homes selling. Being a seller in this current market, just requires a bit more patience and flexibility.
2. How can I price my home so it sells quickly? Look at other properties in your neighborhood or in the area that are currently for sale. How does your home compare to those? Is it in better condition? Does it need more work? Consider talking to a licensed agent, who can provide you with a list of comparable properties that have currently sold in your area and your price range.
3. Are there any repairs or improvements I should make before putting my home on the market? You know your home better than anyone. Do you still have damage from the Spring 2011 Hail Storm? Could the inside use a little fresh paint? What can you do to make your home sell quicker? Consider the cost of the repairs and if they would make your house more marketable to potential buyers.
4. Should I sell my home all by myself? Or should I use an agent? Having an experienced agent can greatly improve your odds of selling your home. If you are trying to sell it by yourself, your home will not be listed on the Knoxville Multiple Listing Service. Also, buyer’s agent is less likely to show your home, since they receive their commission from the list agent.
5. Am I ready to move? And, am I committed to selling? Preparing to sell your West Knoxville home is a big commitment. You want to make sure you are ready to take all of the necessary steps to make sure your home is as marketable as it can be. In the current market, it takes some patience and flexibility to make the move happen.

There is a lot to think about when it comes to selling your West Knoxville home. If there is anything I can do to help make this descision easier, please do not hesitate to contact me by phone at 865-696-9002 or send me an email. Are you considering selling your home? If so, is there anything holding your back?