New marketing opportunity is here with higher commisions. If you are an agent in California it has been said 51% of the "pick a pay" loans were originated here with large balances. Resets and recasts have been put on hold due to the nature of our economy... but when they start to move these it could be a great sales surge. One caveat is they need buyers that can afford the homes even at sharp discount. Time will tell.

Full Story Here

Quoted "Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Homeowners with mortgages of more than $1 million are defaulting at almost twice the U.S. rate and some are turning to so-called short sales to unload properties as stock-market losses and pay cuts squeeze wealthy borrowers.

“The rich aren’t as rich as they used to be,” said Alex Rodriguez, a Miami real estate agent with JM Group USA Inc., whose listings include a $2.9 million property marketed as a short sale because the price is less than the mortgage, leaving the bank with a loss. “People have reached the point where they can’t afford the carrying expenses of a $2 million home.”

Payments on about 12 percent of mortgages exceeding $1 million were 90 days or more overdue in September, compared with 6.3 percent on loans less than $250,000 and 7.4 percent on all U.S. mortgages, according to data from First American CoreLogic Inc., a Santa Ana, California-based research firm. The rate for mortgages above $1 million was 4.7 percent a year earlier.

As defaults on the biggest mortgages rise, borrowers such as Steve Holzknecht are turning to short sales to exit loans that now are larger than the market value of the house. In such a transaction, the lender agrees to accept less than a 100 percent payoff on a mortgage to expedite the property’s sale.

Holzknecht, 53, last month cut the asking price for his 7,280-square-foot home in Kirkland, Washington, by $550,000 to $1.25 million, lower than the balances of his two mortgages. Holzknecht, the former owner of Four Suns Inc., a Seattle luxury homebuilder that went out of business two months ago, constructed the Craftsman-style home in 2000. He declined to identify his lenders or the amount he owes. "

Many have signed up for Foreclosure Universities and Short Sales Universities and Loan Mod Universities and ... As our economy changes a new strategy seems to always over take the old one.. whats next? As we run out of options to deal with the housing situation and try and help people stay in their home many home-owners know they can just stop paying for a few years as the banks forestall any action.

An article on Broker Agent Social says that 1 in 7 have stopped making payments on their mortgage and banks cannot or will not keep up with forclosures and short sales with out sending prices even lower.. we have to ask ourselves is their a sales university program we can sign up for that can accomodate this trend??

Besides helping retail sales numbers with the extra cash home owners now have there has got to be a business model that fits this.. If you know of one we here would like to get in on the ground floor.. Let me know, Let me know...

No Joke.. link http://www.cnbc.com/id/35333195

Part of the article

"LVG, which is a mortgage consultancy, is behind a program that would give future cash rewards to underwater borrowers who don't voluntarily walk away from their mortgage commitments.

It's called the "Responsible Homeowner Reward," and it's kind of a way around principal reduction, which happens to be getting more chatter these days. The payments would be on average less than $10,000, but LVG believes this is enough to keep borrowers from becoming "walkaways."

We've talked plenty on the blog about walkaways or "strategic defaults" or whatever the industry chooses to call them next. There are supposedly around 10 million homes in the U.S. with "substantial negative equity," according to LVG. That's about $2 trillion in mortgage debt. LVG's release says the program, "is being launched with one of the largest investors in consumer and mortgage debt in the U.S. The client, who has asked for anonymity during the rollout phase, has purchased and sold over $5 billion of debt since 2008." You make the guess."

What can you do while on hold... home project, take a bath and read, watch a show.. or my favorite, fish. Just have your account number handy a blue tooth and unlimited minutes, and of course the loan number handy and Viola! The short sales dept thinks you are slaving away in your office waiting for the loss mitigators to fumble through the file and request info already submitted. Save the PDF's to your phone and do wireless fax! Think of short sales as mini annuities.. that close over time and in the future.. all the while you "work" :)