Real Estate Information Archive

The division of assets between the spouses is an important decision to finalize a divorce.  The exercise looks relatively simple: assign a value for each of the assets and divide them based on a mutual agreement between the parties.

The challenge is to make a fair division which requires an analysis to determine their value after they’re converted to cash.

Assume the two major assets in the example, a retirement account and the equity in the home, are equal at $100,000.  It might seem logical to give the home to one spouse and the retirement account to the other.  However, if the person receiving the home decides to sell the home, the net proceeds could be considerably less than the spouse receiving the retirement account.

Let’s pretend that the spouse with the home negotiates a lower price of $475,000 due to current market conditions.  The former couple had owned the home for many years and refinanced several times, pulling money out of the home each time.  When the remaining spouse sells the home, there could be a considerable gain that was never recognized.

As a single person, he or she is now only entitled to $250,000 exclusion and would have to pay tax on the excess gain.  After paying the sales costs, outstanding mortgage balance and the taxes due on the gain, the remaining spouse would have net proceeds of $24,375 compared to the $100,000 that the former spouse received in the settlement.

The message in an example like this is to examine and consider the potential expenses that may be involved with converting the assets to cash after the divorce. Obviously, expert tax advice is valuable in making such decisions

When you’re buying or selling, the obvious source to get your real estate question answered is your agent but where do you go the rest of the time?  As a homeowner for many years to come, you’ll need reliable help and solid suggestions.

Our business goal is to have a select group of our friends and past customers who consider us their lifelong real estate professional. We want to earn that trusted position so they’ll enthusiastically refer their friends to us.  Our plan to achieve this is simply to help these people with all of their real estate needs not just when they buy or sell but for all the years in between.

Throughout the year, we offer reminders and suggestions by email and social media that benefit your homeowner experience.  When we find good articles to help you be a better homeowner, we’ll pass them along.  You’ll discover new ways to maintain your property, minimize expenses and manage debt and risk.

We want to be your “Go-To” person for everything to do with real estate.  If we don’t have the answer you need, we’ll point you in the right direction to find it.

We’re here for you and your friends…now and in the future.  Please let us know how we can help you.

The following article was in the Columbus Dispatch on Saturday, May 31, 2008, written by Sarah Pulliam.  It was forwarded to us by an attorney Terrance R. Monnie.  He explains that if the buyer mentioned in this article "had purchased a title insurance policy the loss would not only have been covered but the insured buyers would have been provided with legal counsel to defend the claim."

Clerk's error jeopardizes family's home

Undetected lien against seller haunts buyer

Zanesville, Ohio - A spelling error by a government worker might cost Andy Mateja his house. 

When he bought a home worth at least $400,000 for $320,000 in 2001, he thought it was a good deal.  He moved in with his family of six and paid his mortgage on time, according to his records.

So he couldn't understand why the Muskingum County sheriffs office served him with foreclosure papers in August 2007.

"My wife literally broke down and cried.  She thought we were going to lose the house," Mateja said.  "If we were going to be evicted, I didn't know where we were going to turn."

When Mateja bought his house, he paid for a title search that found no liens on his property.  It turns out what wasn't true.

JPMorgan Chase had placed a $150,000 lien on the house in 1998, when it was owned by Dr. Subbarayudu Koppera.  But the lien was mistakenly entered into the public record under the name Koppera, so it did not not show up when the title company searched for liens by the owner's last name.

Muskingum County Recorder Karen Vincent, whose office made the spelling mistake, testified that a correction was made in 2006.  Vincent told the Dispatch that to her knowledge, it was the first time an error has been made, but she declined to comment further.

In buying the house, Mateja did not take out title insurance that would have protected him from claims against a previous owner.

Now JPMorgan Chase is going after the Matejas' house.  The Matejas have countersued the bank and Koppera.  The case is scheduled to go to court June 19.

Tom Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, said that if the lien is paid off by Koppera, the bank will not pursue foreclosure.  He declined to check how much Koppera has paid or whether there is an agreement to pay back the money, citing privacy issues.

"Our goal for all of this is to be paid what we're owed, and the security to that is the mortgage lien on that property," Kelly said.  "Our preference is to be paid the money, not to own the house."

Former homeowner Koppera, 61, modified the lien in 2004, even though he no longer owned the house.  Koppera, who bought a $682,000 house in New Albany is 2000, said he is paying the bank $2,000 each month on the lien of his former home.

"We are paying now.  Somehow they got mad and they want everything."  Koppera said of Chase.

Koppera, a kidney specialist, and his wife have faced numerous civil judgments for unpaid debts and federal, state and county tax liens for unpaid taxes.

He believes the title company made a mistake.  "They should've known it and stopped right there so the lien was clear.  Instead of me taking the cash, I would've paid the lien," Koppera said regarding the sale of the house.  "They didn't do their job, and they should pay for it."

Koppera declined to comment further.

Mateja, a 53-year-old father of four, moved to his Zanesville home from Chicago.  The four-bedroom, red-brick house sits on a manicured hill in a quiet neighborhood northwest of Zanesville.

He has incurred mounting costs since he left his job as vice president of sales for Robinson Ransbottom Pottery before the company went out of business in 2005.  He worked as a consultant for two years before getting a full-time job in October with Gale Pacific.

Because he was struggling financially, he refinanced his mortgage in May 2007 at a higher interest rate in a loan that gave him extra cash.  His lender would not give him an equity loan.

Then, he was hit with foreclosure papers, and he has incurred about $10,000 in legal bills since.

"My first inclination was, 'Do we just let them pull the plug and go rent?'  We didn't want to try to rent, but we couldn't buy again if we had been foreclosed on," Mateja said.  "It definitely put me into shock and put my wife into deep despair."

This article was written up in the KYPost and features our agent partner Peter Zimmer.

Web produced by: Jessica Noll

Fifteen people graduated from the 3rd Annual Kenton County Government Academy Monday evening.

State Rep. Arnold Simpson, D- Covington, was the featured keynote speaker. Kenton County Judge/Executive Ralph Drees also addressed the graduates.

The Kenton County Government Academy was created to give average citizens the opportunity to learn about how their local government works from the inside out.

Goals of this program are that citizens will become more involved with government related issues in Kenton County all the while fostering potential community leaders by equipping them with essential information to share with and answer questions from friends, relatives and neighbors.

Now, after completing a 40 hour program over the course of the last 12 weeks, these citizens graduated from the academy with honors.

Graduates include:
Jeremy Canter – Ft. Thomas
Jay Ficke – Covington
Joni Ficke – Edgewood
Holly Houillion – Covington
Brian Houillion – Covington
Barry Johnson – Covington
Beverly Naïve – Walton
Nataliya Parker – Walton
Scott Pennington – Independence
Joe Price – Crestview Hills
Nancy Ray – Covington
Gregory Scully – Burlington
Terry Mayo – Crestview Hills
William Wells – Covington
Peter Zimmer – Covington

Congratulations Peter on a job well done!!!!!

This article was written in the Chigago Tribune regarding what to do if you are running behind on your mortgage payments.....

Options exist for homeowners behind on their mortgage payments—if they act quickly. Lisle attorney Steven Bashaw and Michigan real estate broker Ralph Roberts offer these:

·         A forbearance agreement may help borrowers with short-term financial problems, Roberts said. It’s a payment plan with a set pay-back period, and the bank will want proof you can live up to it. “If you owe $3,000 in back payments, for example, the bank may allow you to pay an extra $250 per month for 12 months,” he said.

·         Reinstatement entails paying all past-due payments, costs and fees to bring the account current. This may be a good short-term solution, Roberts said, but homeowners have to make hard decisions about whether they can keep paying the loan in the long haul.

·         Mortgage modification means working out a new loan, with many possible variations. The bank may agree to roll the amount owed in missed payments, penalties and interest into the total loan amount, for example, Roberts said. Or a modification might lower the interest rate or change the loan’s term.

·         Sell the house in a timely manner, pay off the loan and fees, and end the problem, Roberts and Bashaw said.

·         A short sale occurs when a lender agrees to take a loss by selling the house for less than the amount owed. “I don’t encounter those as much as you’d think,” Bashaw said. “They’re not the panacea that speculators and investors and real estate agents want you to think they are.”

·         Bankruptcy. “It can give you more time to restructure your debt,” Roberts said. “Bankruptcy takes you off the market, the collection proceedings can’t keep going. The clock just stops running.” But it’s extreme, and a lender might get court approval to proceed with the foreclosure anyway, Roberts said. Plus, it poisons your credit-worthiness.

·         Redemption. In Illinois, a foreclosed borrower has a certain amount of time after the house is sold at auction to redeem it by reimbursing the purchaser for the sale price and other costs.

·         Rescue plans can come from all manner of folks. They are too varied to describe here—except to say that homeowners must be wary of scams.

Bottom line: Don’t sign a quit-claim deed to someone who says this will “fix your problem,” Roberts says. It may be a ruse to steal the house. Check with a lawyer before you sign.

This was originally posted by Ralph Roberts but we thought it was such great information, we just had to share it. 

If you or someone you know is currently facing foreclosure, you have options, including:

1.    You are not alone. Foreclosure knows no geographic, racial, ethnic, or socio-economic boundaries. We have seen real estate agents, attorneys, and others face foreclosure. Michael Jackson recently filed for bankruptcy. Foreclosure is much more prevalent than you think.

2.    Most people facing foreclosure have at least a dozen options. (Many people falsely believe that they have only two options – pay up or move out.) You can reinstate the loan, refinance (consolidate debt), list the home for sale with an agent, sell to an investor (if you have insufficient time to list the property), offer a deed in lieu of foreclosure, declare bankruptcy, negotiate forbearance or a mortgage modification, to name several of the most common options.

3.    Banks and other lending institutions do not want to foreclose. They make more money if you can make your payments. When they foreclose, they not only lose your monthly payments, but they also have the expense of foreclosing, rehabbing the home, and then selling it. In today’s market, there’s a good chance they’ll have to sell the home at a loss. This is all good news for you – it means the bank is highly motivated to make a deal with you.

4.    Given the current mortgage crisis and resulting foreclosure epidemic, the federal government, your state government, and consumer protection advocacy groups have put more pressure on mortgage lenders and provided them with additional resources to help homeowners in distress. In a way, people facing foreclosure now may be in a much better position to avoid it than they would have been, say five years ago.

5.    If you own the home with your spouse or life partner, tell them immediately. Far too many people try to keep their partner in the dark. Eventually, the person will find out. It’s always better if they find out from you earlier rather than from someone else when they have little or no time to do anything about it. Couples that work as a team almost always see much better results.

6.    Call your lender – the sooner, the better. As soon as you stop making payments, the foreclosure clock starts ticking. The earlier you know your options, the more time you have to pursue those options.

One of my mentors Pat Zaby wrote this article in his newsletter and I thought I'd share it. 

Email is definitely something that we can't do without and it is hard to imagine how the people who don't have it can even exist.  It has become a standard like regular mail except used much more often.

It's always good to reexamine our techniques and procedures to see if there is room for improvement.

Email Tips

• Be polite; avoid slang and offensive language - not being able to see your face or hear your vocal intonations might lead a person to misinterpret your message.  We need to say what we mean and say it politely.
• Spelling and grammar are important - in the US as most other countries, lack of proper spelling and grammar can indicate lower education which in business can translate to lack of professionalism.  Chances are that the program you're using has automatic checkers; you just have to verify that they are turned on and not ignore their recommendations.
• Avoid all Caps - the message can be misinterpreted with emphasis to mean that you are shouting.  If you don’t want to give the impression that you are displeased, use upper and lower case letters.
• Avoid unnecessary attachments - many times the attachment we send won't even be opened by the recipient.  Partly, because the recipient's email might block the attachment and sometimes, it isn't opened intentionally for fear that it might contain a virus.  If it is an important attachment, tell them you are going to send it in a following message and ask for confirmation after they have received it.
• Avoid abbreviations & emoticons : ) - unless you are under 15 and your primary communication is texting, abbreviations may mean different things to different people which can obviously lead to poor communications.  If little symbols following a sentence are necessary to convey meaning, you may want to consider rewording the sentence.  XOXOX
• Short sentences & paragraphs - email is supposed to be easy to read but long sentences and paragraphs make it difficult.  A simple rule is 10-15 words in a sentence and only two to three sentences to a paragraph.

Setting up Outlook

• Multiple email addresses - if you have several different email addresses, you can direct them all to your Outlook program.  This will save time but more importantly, may save a transaction.  Most franchises and many companies will assign an email address to their agents and even if the agent has a preferred address with their own domain, they should receive email with these additional addresses in case someone should be using it.
• Signature - (Tools, Options, Mail Format) an email signature contains the same information that your business card does like name, company, address, phone, email address, and website.  It should be attached on every email - originated, replied to, or forwarded.
• HTML - (Tools, Options, Mail Format) email has different formats like text only, rich text, and HTML, Hypertext Markup Language.  The benefit of HTML is that website and email addresses automatically become hyperlinks which are convenient for users and they can insert pictures directly in the body of the message instead of sending it as an attachment which may never be opened.
• Spelling - (Tools, Options, Spelling) verify that your spelling tools are turned on and they'll serve you well.  Even if you are using Word as your email editor and are used to the green squiggly lines indicating a misspelled word, the Spell checker will identify the questionable words prior to sending the message.
• Preferences - (Tools, Options, Preferences)
  • Junk Email - the filters in Outlook 2007 are remarkably good and allow varying degrees from none to low or high. 
  • Calendar - I recommend that you remove the default reminder on all appointments; you can always add specific reminders to appointments when needed.
  • Calendar Options - you can identify your work days to show on your calendar but if you're like most agents, it will be seven days a week.  You can identify the first day of the week which might be Monday for you rather than the traditional Sunday; you can also specify the normal business hours of the day.
  • Contact options - Outlook 2007, check Contact linking on all forms to allow you to link one contact to another.  This was a standard feature in previous versions of Outlook.

Domain name

It seems like agents understand about the importance of obtaining your own domain name for a website but they don't understand that they can use it for their email too.

The overall objective is to have one email address that will never change for as long as you're in real estate.  That way, once a person has your email, they'll always have your email.

Regardless of whether the agent changes companies or Internet Service Providers, if they are using their domain name for their email, it will never change.  Promoting your name and business is hard enough without having to periodically promote your email address to make certain that potential clients can indeed get in touch with you.

Look at the example in the graphic that shows the agent's name as her website address but she isn't using it for her email.

If you are not comfortable making the changes that were discussed in this article, you need to find someone who can help you.  It might be an IT person in your office.  It might be a paid consultant.  It could even be just a young person who could figure it out for you.

You don't need to be able to set it up yourself as long as someone does it for you.  This is too important to leave undone.  Email can be your most valuable tool and can go a long way to helping you achieve customer satisfaction which can lead to referrals and a long career.

An Advertorial Presented by Frost Brown Todd LLC

Written by: Kyle R Grubbs

I'm interested in purchasing a parcel of Real Estate, but the property owner just filed for bankruptcy?  Can I still purchase the property?  Is there anything special I need to do?

Yes and Yes.  The Bankruptcy Code permits a debtor-in-possession to sell its real estate and other assets based on its reasonable business judgment.  As with other purchases of real estate, as a potential purchaser, you should conduct standard due diligence including title, survey, environmental, zoning, and building inspections prior to purchasing the property.  In fact, since there will be virtually no representations or warranties made by the seller, the purchaser's due diligence is even more important in the bankruptcy context.  In addition, because the property owner is in bankruptcy, additional precautions are warranted.

First, the sale of the real estate must be authorized by the bankruptcy court if the sale of the real estate is outside of the debtor's ordinary course of business.  In almost all cases, sales of real state will be outside of a debtor's ordinary course of business.  To ensure the debtor obtains prompt bankruptcy court approval of the sale, the purchase contract should require the debtor to immediately file a motion seeking the bankruptcy court's approval of the sale.

Second, the sale of the real estate should be free and clear of any interest or lien of the debtor's creditors.  Because the seller of the real estate is in bankruptcy, the property is likely encumbered by mortgages, mechanic's liens, judgment liens, and other encumbrances.  Unlike a typical real estate transaction, liens and other monetary encumbrances are not necessarily paid at closing.  To ensure your purchase is free from the claims of the debtor's creditors, the order authorizing the sale of real estate should provide, among other things, that the (a) sale is free and clear of all liens, claims, encumbrances, and interests and that any liens will attach to the sale proceeds only; (b) purchaser is a "good faith purchaser" under the Bankruptcy Code so that the validity of the sale is not affected by an appeal of the sale order; and (c) ten-day stay set forth in the Bankruptcy Code is waived and the sale order is effective immediately to avoid any post-closing challenges to the sale.  You should work closely with your title company to ensure that the sale order is sufficient in all respects for the title company to issue you a clean title policy at closing.