Here are the major points to keep in mind:

- response time to a short sale offer should be 20 days or less

- sellers need a pre-approved sale price before submitting an offer

- agents must submit all 5 documents to initiate the process (Buyer’s Acknowledgment and Disclosure HUD-1; IRS Form 4506-T; Bank of America Short Sale Addendum, which includes the Agent Certification form; and Bank of America Third-Party Authorization Form.)

But the kicker is this: they’re offering cash to cover “relocation” costs. This can range from $2,500 to $30,000 and varies based on each case. But this kind of money can sometimes make the difference in convincing a homeowner to take the short sale route, as if there wasn’t enough reason before.

But I want you to play both sides of the coin for now. We don’t know how reliable BofA is going to be here (and we DO know how unreliable BofA can be). So you need to be a servant and make sure your clients are aware of the possible benefits but also the costs.

Short sales have proven to be the mainstay of the real estate recovery (BofA has done 230,000 so far in the recession) so you won’t have problems convincing people to look into them. This latest news from the first of what should be many lenders is just icing on the cake.

Leave a comment if you’ve dealt with these regulations first hand and what you’ve seen.

So they were right – sorta. It actually depends on where you live. Because you’ve got to remember, gains of 3 percent are the average. And when you’re using an average it means some people are going to see much higher gains (topping 5%) and some people will see, um, no gains (or even losses).

It’s just the way the system works and you can’t really blame the people for giving their predictions. But it really doesn’t do you much good unless you know what to look for. For instance, the states that are looking to do well are the ones that weren’t really hit that hard: North and South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, etc. But Florida, Nevada and the like, well let’s just say Florida won’t just be known for slow drivers anymore, we’ll have to throw in slow recovery also.

But all is not lost. Never fear. If employment picks up and investors scoop up properties fast enough early on then recovery should follow.

So are you a leader or a follower?

Are you waiting for prices to pick up or are you investing and causing them to rise? Where do you want to be in a couple of years – riding the results of your investments or trying to keep up with prices that you missed out on?

The choice is yours.

Eight of the top 10 cities at the top of the turnaround indexes are in Florida and this is credited almost entirely to investor interest. So it’s no surprise that distressed properties are playing a large role in home prices – they’re the reason we saw so much activity in the state in the first place. Nearly 1/3 of the entire supply of soon-to-be-available investment opportunities are in the Florida and that’s enough to keep you, me, and your friends and students busy for the next few years.

I really can’t stress this enough – opportunity is where you make it, but some times it’s like shooting ducks in a barrel. Short sales are becoming more and more the preferred option by the establishment, the process is becoming more streamlined, and profits are going to start rolling in.

Why wait until things get harder? Why have to earn less returns later? Why watch your friends master short sales now when the market is ripe and then jump on the bandwagon when it’s too late?

I think you need to decide seriously whether you’re getting in the game or sitting it out. Because it’s happening now, not just in Florida but around the country. Are you in?

A report just came out which I think is a really good example of how “stats” can mess with your mind. The report says that overall, home prices fell in the fourth quarter of last year. That might come as a surprise or it might not. But what should surprise you is that 27 states plus D.C. actually had price increases.

So just to spell that out for you – more than half the country saw improvements at the end of 2011. Should it bother us that the losses of less than half the country outweighed the gains of more than half the country? I honestly don’t know. Sure, I’d like to see gains across the board but is that realistic right now? You should not walk out of 2011 with a sense of loss. Because if you’re one of the states that saw a gain, it won’t drain your spirit to hear about losses halfway across the country. And you should be proud of the hand you played in helping things pick up.

We can’t all make waves across the US but most of us can make waves in our city, our county, or even our whole state. So leave the “statistics” alone for a minute and look at what you have. Let the momentum we’ve built up carry us forward and maybe, just maybe, it will continue to spread out.

Have a great weekend guys!

So in an effort to add to the madness, I’m happy to bring you the latest findings, courtesy of Fiserv, Inc. So here’s the prediction: by the end of 2011, 75% of metro areas will have stable home prices. I’m not sure if that was meant to knock you out of your chair or not, but let’s just take what they say at face value.

They’re looking to see this kind of stability (high or low they didn’t say) for a few reasons:

- In 3Q of 2010 average prices only dropped 1.5%

- 1/4 of metro areas have leveled off

- By 2012, the entire market should be stable

And what about the long months in between? Will we see ups or downs? Let’s assume for a minute that Fiserv knows what they’re talking about. If so, they’re expecting a 5.5% drop during this year, mainly in (as if we didn’t already know) Florida, California, Nevada, and Arizona.

Mainly they’re hoping to see sales of foreclosed properties pick up (or short sales thanks to people like you!) and unemployment to continue to drop. So keep your spirits up and don’t wait for predictions to come true. Make them come true yourself!

Guess what they had to say was the “primary factor” keeping the market from showing a real recovery? Wait, think, breathe deep, then answer. It’s (drumroll please) the Shadow Inventory of Distressed Homes!! (Said in deep rolling voice as if from on high.) Amazing breakthrough discovery! Pandemonium ensues! Stunned crowds lay down and suck their thumbs!

Yes, those are some reactions you might expect to hear from something I would call actual news. But unfortunately, this doesn’t qualify. (If I hear something Earth-shattering, I’ll meet you under the nearest door frame!) Meanwhile, in case it wasn’t obvious, since the pace of defaults and foreclosures FAR outstrips the pace of purchases, a huge shadow inventory of distressed properties is looming ready to smash prices even lower than they’ve sunk to now.

This is meant to take into account everything under the sun including failed loan modifications and for sure doesn’t have an accurate measure of how long this shadow inventory will take to clear, so let’s not even take up space mentioning numbers. But obviously that’s been the issue all along and will continue to be the biggest factor influencing housing prices.

I didn’t need some Poorly Sub-standard report to tell me that.

I mean, I looked around during 2010 and noticed definite periods of improvement and definite periods of decline. Things were hard and we all faced some tough times. I don’t need some book to tell me generic statements about how our country is doing.

But anyway we’re still facing a tough road to recovery and unemployment is still higher than ever. Over a million homes were foreclosed on and housing prices are at rock bottom. Yet, some areas ended up alright with decreased unemployment pushing prices higher and driving demand.

So put away your Beige books and put on some rose-colored glasses. The world is what you make of it and 2011 can be a year of real growth and change. Just follow the resolutions that we’ve been talking about and do your part to make positive growth a reality for you, your family, your job, and your entire life.

Oh, and have a great weekend!

Have you seen that sign hanging up in your neighborhood? It represents how much value the US housing market has lost just this year! $1.7 trillion! (Since 2006, the industry has lost $9 trillion, more than 12 times the cost of the war in Iraq since 2001!)

You’re not likely to find that money lying around anywhere, at least not in the near future. It’s disappeared into thin air, if it ever really existed in the first place. Can we really say that if a stack of cards crumbles that something was lost? Were homes really worth anything if their value was propped up by accounting tricks and loopholes? Maybe not, but on paper that’s how the situation looks.

The only 2 major cities tracked in the latest study to show increases in values were Boston ($10.8 billion) and San Diego ($10.2 billion). But for the rest of the country, we’re reaching what most people are calling “equilibrium.” Basically, the market is just correcting itself and any efforts to preserve home values artificially are unnatural and go against the grain.

So let’s not look at this as lost value or lost money. Instead, just imagine someone had scribbled the wrong number on a piece of paper and is simply erasing it. We’re heading back to where we need to be. That will certainly be hard for those homeowners underwater, but we’re tough, and the short sale community will be out there making a difference.

Sadly, this year was no different than most. Voter turnout was around 50% nationwide, meaning even in the most heated states, people just couldn’t work up the energy to go vote.

So what does that say about us? Are we disillusioned with democracy? Do we not think that one candidate will really make a difference? If that’s true even in this year, then I think it’s time to throw in the towel.

No, I think the truth is much simpler. We all care about change, we just want to make it our selves. Think about it like this (we’ll talk real estate because that’s why we’re all here):

You know the state of real estate in your area, right? You’ve watched housing prices slide, foreclosures happen left and right. And all we talk about here is getting out there and making a difference. That YOU need to be the one to make things happen and do something. Change your life, change your situation, and you’ll be making your environment better along the way.

For those of you that got that message, maybe voting seems to vague to you. Maybe that kind of change is too indirect. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong. I’m just pointing out that if you’re not excited about voting because you don’t think that’s where change comes from, then you need to step up and make the change yourself.

If you’re not running for office, then do something else. Find great deals; look at the market opportunities around you; expand your contacts and your horizons. But most importantly, get off the computer and make your day extraordinary.

If you’re easily panicked, then you and Clear Capital should get together. They felt the need to issue a “market alert” seconds before the weekend because of a “dramatic change” in home prices. I’m sure if you’ve been following trends (and who hasn’t) you’ve seen your fair share of dramatic changes. But let’s see what was so urgent.

It seems that over 2 months home prices fell 5.9%. This is the biggest decline since March 2009. And to go one step further, this indicates that the gains from the tax-credit sales earlier this year have been wiped out. So we’re back down to prices from April of this year. And just to quote a little bit more, this “paints on ominous picture” that will only get worse over the coming months.

You should know, I don’t include myself in the scares-easily category. And I’ve been around long enough to know that statistics really don’t paint any kind of picture. So excuse me if this news doesn’t have me burying my life savings in my backyard.

First of all, 5.9% may be the biggest drop in a while, but it’s still not large enough to set off a panic wave (though maybe panics benefit some people out there, but that’s not for me to say…). Secondly, anyone who knows even general housing trends knows there’s a fall off in the fall. And third of all, I’m not saying whether or not the tax credits were a good idea for the system or not. But the point is people were more easily able to buy homes. That means people who otherwise would have been renting or stuck nowhere have roofs over their heads that they own. So don’t tell me the gains have been wiped out. People own homes and no statistics are going to change that.

So let’s all get our acts together, not let fear or panic grip us, and keep our cool while we do what we need to do. I’d like to see less sensationalism in these studies, and more raw data. Let each person reach his own conclusion. Who’s with me?