Matt Fetick Keller Williams Real Estate Podcast Matt Fetick

Now that the Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Relief Act has ended, here’s what you as an attorney need to know to guide your clients through a foreclosure or a short sale. Buying a Kennett Square, PA home? Get a full home search  Selling your Kennett Square, PA home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation One of the most common questions I’ve been asked in recent weeks is, “What do we do now that the Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Relief Act has ended?” This act was designed for homeowners who went through a short sale or foreclosure to avoid paying taxes on the forgiven debt. If you’re an attorney and you have one or multiple clients who are asking themselves the same thing and looking to you for guidance, there are a couple things you need to understand. Whether you do a short sale or a foreclosure, the canceled debt portion is considered potential income to the sellers. In a foreclosure, a short sale, and a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, your clients will receive a 1099 form for the forgiven balance. Does that make it a taxable event, though? During the height of the market crash, the Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Relief Act decided that it wasn’t. Now that that act has ended, the question becomes whether to do a short sale or a foreclosure and what happens to the forgiven debt. To figure this out, use publication 4681 of the IRS Circular, which is titled “Canceled Debts, Foreclosures, Repossessions, and Abandonments.” It explains how the IRS looks at the taxation on the forgiven debt. The good news is that if the short sale occurs on the primary residence, chances are the primary residence is an exclusion to the canceled debt and will not be a taxable event. Additionally, even if they don’t qualify under that, they may qualify under insolvency. The publication has a chart that you can use where you add up all of your client’s assets and liabilities, and if they have negative equity across their entire income and they’re insolvent at the time of the short sale, then the canceled debt is a non-taxable event. The 4681 will be your guide for your clients. This publication will be your guide for your clients. Keep in mind that the biggest benefit between foreclosures and short sales is that when you do a short sale for one of your clients, the bank is accepting the payoff as payment in full and they give up their right to pursue the deficient balance. That is not true for foreclosures, though. The bank has the right to collect the debt on a foreclosure. You won’t see this right away, but banks are now selling that forgiven debt off to debt collectors who—now that the economy has improved—are going after the folks for their deficient balance. The nice thing about the short sale is there is finality in it. For foreclosure, there’s a pretty big window to pursue that deficient balance. If you’re contemplating how to advise your client on a short sale, a foreclosure, or a deed-in-lieu, or you need help interpreting the 4681 publication, give me a call so we can talk. I’m also conducting a continuing education class for the family law section next month where you can get your continuing education credits, so if you’d like more information about that, I’d be happy to provide it to you. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’m here to help.

Thank you for contributing to our success! Buying a Kennett Square, PA home? Get a full home search  Selling your Kennett Square, PA home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation I wanted to take a moment to say thank you. Over the last several years, the Matt Fetick Team has been recognized as a leading real estate team in the region. On average, we sell a home every 48 hours and in today’s market, it’s almost every 24 hours. With that in mind, we wanted to say thanks! Thank you so much for working with us and contributing to our success. Our market is in a frenzy right now, so whether you’re buying or selling a home, you’re going to need our advice. We don’t want you to overpay as a buyer or get stuck with bad offers as a seller. We don’t want you to overpay as a buyer or get stuck with bad offers as a seller. I’m sure you’ve got questions about the market, so please feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email. If you send me a question I can answer in a video, I’ll send you a $25 Starbucks gift card so you can have some coffee on me. Thank you so much again! We look forward to hearing from you.

If you’re buying a home, you should interview one or multiple agents and ask them different qualifying questions to get a sense of their capabilities and how well they match with you. Buying a Kennett Square, PA home? Get a full home search  Selling your Kennett Square, PA home? Get a free Home Price Evaluation If you’re a homebuyer, how can you know if a particular agent is the right fit to help you buy a home? Our lead buyer specialist David Williams knows all about this topic. David has been part of our team for eight years, and he’s helped more than 249 people purchase a home. He’s exclusively a buyer’s agent, which is a little different than most agent’s you’ll meet. He’s still amazed by buyers who go to open houses or stop at a new construction site and end up hiring the first agent they come across. That’s all well and good if that agent can represent them well, but if you’re considering buying a home, it’s important that you interview one or multiple agents the same way a person would if they were listing a house instead of buying one.   Your house is your biggest financial asset, so the agent you hire should know how to represent you, how to work the market you’re currently in, and know what’s important to you for the long term. We’ve even created a list of about a dozen questions a buyer should ask an agent before working with them. Some of these questions include: Why did you get into real estate? What are some things that can happen during the transaction that can cause problems? How long have you worked in the area? How many homes have you sold? There are many different qualifying questions you can ask an agent to find out what their experience is, how actively they can solve problems that come up, and how well they can represent you in the process. The agent you hire should know how to represent you. Our team loves your questions so if you have one, feel free to email us any time of the day. If we choose your question as the subject of one of our videos, we’ll send you a Starbucks gift card. We look forward to hearing from you.

Getting an offer on your home is easy in this market. What’s not easy is making it all the way to the closing table without a Realtor’s assistance. Right now, it’s a feeding frenzy in the real estate market. We are seeing near-2007 levels of sales prices and pace. You might think selling today would be easy. You’d be partly right. It is easy to get an offer, but it’s much harder to get to the closing date with the offer still intact. I want to share a few important thoughts with you today about how you can make it through your transaction with a little helping hand. When a buyer makes an offer on your home, there are generally 10 to 20 different people involved in the transaction. You might have a few different buyers, with each of them having a loan officer, an underwriter, an appraiser, a home inspector, and more. There are a lot of expectations to manage and being able to negotiate all the way through to closing is the hard part of the transaction. Our job is to give you the best advice possible. Our job as Realtors is to give you the best advice possible. When we review offers with you, we will find out about the buyer’s credit, income, and probability of securing their loan on closing day. We also want to make sure you are protected throughout the inspection process by recommending which repairs to make and referring you to someone who can help you out for a fair price. If you market your home right, stage it, and price it correctly, you’ll get an offer. However, it will be hard for you to get to the closing table without the help of an experienced professional. If you’re thinking about selling your home, give us a call and we’ll pair you up with a team member who is an expert in your area. We cover Chester County, Delaware County, Montgomery County, parts of Philadelphia County, and the entire state of Delaware. We’re ready to help you today. If you have any other questions, we’re always here to answer them. Just give us a call or send us an email. We can’t wait to hear from you.

Today we want to say thanks. Thanks to all of our friends, families, and clients who have been supportive of our team over the years. I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you. Over the last few years, The Matt Fetick Team has been recognized as a leading real estate team in the region.This wouldn’t be possible without the support of our friends, family, and clients who have entrusted us with the purchase or sale of their home. On average, we sell a home every 48 hours. In today’s hot market, we’re selling one almost every 24 hours. We’re almost back to 2007 pre-recession levels. We don’t want you to overpay for a home or accept a bad offer, however. Both are still possible in this market. Our team is positioned to help keep your best interests in mind whether you’re buying or selling. If we answer your question in the next video, we’ll send you a Starbucks gift card. I’m sure you have a lot of questions if you’re thinking about buying or selling. Give me a call or send me an email to let me know what those questions are. If I answer them in my next video, I’ll send you a Starbucks gift card. If you have any other questions, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you.

If you want to sell your house this year, follow these three tips. Selling a house isn't easy, but if you plan on selling yours in 2017, we can help you make the most of your time on the market. There are three things you can do to make sure you sell your home fast for the most money possible this year: Find the right agent: Not all agents are the same. Sure, we all pass the same tests, but you want to hire an agent with the expertise and knowledge to help you get the most for your home. You want a consultant to help you understand what the market is saying so you get the best advice and marketing.  Your first showing actually happens online. Hire a professional photographer: Marketing counts, and your first showing actually happens online. Your presence online is of the utmost importance.  Price your home right: You want to pick the price that will cause your home to sell. Price can be up to 80% of your marketing. If the price doesn't seem right, buyers won't make offers—it's that simple. Some people choose to price high from the start to see what they can get, but this can be a risky move that results in your house spending more time on the market and ultimately netting you a lower price. The longer your house is on the market, the more your price will go down. We're in a seller's market, and the only homes not selling here are ones that aren't priced correctly. We want to help people realize their home selling goals this year and help make it as stress-free as possible. If you have any questions for us or you're ready to get your house on the market, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to helping you!