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Selling Real Estate In This Market

Posted Friday, February 6, 2009

According to the Treasury Department over 420,000 home owners mortgages are going to adjust this year. These are home owners who purchased homes with adjustable rate mortgages, some of whom tried to make a quick buck off the real estate boom. Others purchased their home using a hybrid mortgage so they could afford a larger home in hopes they would be able to refinance in a couple years to a lower rate.

Well, their time has come and this year their rates will adjust. The good news for many is that interest rates are at an all time low. So low in fact they have not been here for more than 37 years. This is good news for these home owners who have these adjustable rates, it is also good news for the real estate economy os a whole. A large part of the homes that hit the foreclosure auctions over the last couple of years have been due to adjustable rate mortgages.

Mortgage rates what were at 8 percent were due to adjust to almost 12 percent this year. Now with the low mortgage rates they will increase up to 9 percent. This adjustment will still increase the monthly mortgage payment for the home owner but this is a much more manageable increase than a 12 percent interest rate would create.

The larger issue is that home values have decrease dramatically over the last couple of years. This mean home owners are not able to refinance their homes because they owe more on their mortgage than what their house is worth. This is a very large issue that we will continue to see in the real estate arena for quite some time.

The only current fix for home owners in this situation is to sell their house through a short sale. A short sale is a bank approved home selling option that lets you sell your home for less than your mortgage. Banks are willing to allow a short sale on homes that have negative equity, the home owner has some sort of hard ship, and the end buyer is able to purchase the home.

Selling real estate in this economy is directly related to interest rates. It is possible the new government that took office in february will have some sort of plan for home owners needing to sell their house with negative equity, but there is no guarantee any plan will work. If you need to sell your house and have no equity I suggest selling your house as a short sale. It is better than a foreclosure and can get you out of your house and on with your life.