Charlotte Short Sale Advisors

Earlier today, Yahoo.com published an article regarding the 10 Greatest Cities for Young Adults and Charlotte, NC was included! Feel free to read the excerpt below:

“Free from ties to kids or a mortgage, young adults can settle virtually anywhere they choose. So which place is best for you when the world is your oyster?

Here are 10 cities in the U.S. that offer exceptional opportunities for those starting out in life. We began our search using the criteria we used to select our overall list of Best Cities for the Next Decade: healthy economies fueling new job growth. We fine-tuned our search using other youth-friendly factors such as large percentages of people under 35, cost of living and rental costs, culture, nightlife, and the time you’re likely to spend in traffic. Take a look – and tell us what you think.

Charlotte, N.C.

Metro population: 1,745,524
Cost-of-living index: 94
Median monthly rent: $803 (average is $819)
Average annual wage: $41,190
Unemployment rate: 10.9%
Percentage of Gen Y residents: 21.7%
Top employers: Carolinas Healthcare System, Wells Fargo/Wachovia Corp., Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Bank of America, Wal-Mart Stores, Presbyterian Regional Healthcare, Delhaize America

Charlotte has seen explosive growth over the last 20 years, and is now the second-largest banking center in the country (after New York). The city took it on the chin in the 2008-2009 meltdown, but it should offer lots of entry-level jobs for college graduates as the financial sector recovers. Despite the towering new skyscrapers, and a vibrant Uptown district, it’s still possible to live comfortably here on a tight budget.

PROS: A cost of living that skews well below the national average, reasonable rents, a bustling downtown still being developed, high-paying advancement opportunities in the financial sector

CONS: Hot, humid summers, smog alerts, high (but falling) crime rates, you’ll need a car (average commute lasts 24 minutes)”

PRESS RELEASE
For IMMEDIATE Publication
July 26, 2010

For Information Contact:
Showcase Realty
Office: 704-889-5600
www.showcaserealty.net

Nancy Braun Attends WinDS and AREAA Leadership, Education and Networking Seminar in Las Vegas

Charlotte, NC – Nancy Braun, Owner-Broker of Charlotte-based Showcase Realty, recently attended the successful Women in Default Services (WinDS) and Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) – Las Vegas Chapter, Leadership, Education and Networking Seminar held at the Westin Causarina Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

According to Ms. Braun, the special seminar brought together over 300 members from these two leading real estate and default servicing industry trade associations from across the country.

“Featured during the two-day event were sessions on the SBA’s 8(a) Program, and how to do business with the U.S. department of Housing and Urban Development,” said Braun. “There were also lender roundtables featured during the seminar and we also were so pleased to have Lynn Effinger, Senior Vice President of Olympus Asset Management and a long-time veteran of the mortgage default servicing industry, as our luncheon keynote speaker on Thursday. He was very inspiring.”

According to Shelley Kaye, Executive Director of WinDS, in addition to the educational sessions the seminar offered a number of networking opportunities to the attendees including a charity poker tournament that benefit a local women’s shelter in Las Vegas.

“Real estate professionals are among the most generous business people in the country and the officials at AREAA, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable homeownership opportunities in Asian American communities by creating a powerful national voice for hosing and real estate professionals that serve this dynamic market, readily agreed to hold this chartable poker tournament,” added Kaye.

The default services business comprises a multitude of disciplines and a wide variety of activities that are essential to the goal of handling the glut of defaulted loans and foreclosed properties negatively impacting the entire U.S. economy. According to Kaye, the members of WinDS, are involved at all levels within this niche of real estate and many of these successful members own their companies, while others are engaged as independent contractors or employees at firms of all sizes in every state.

“Among the many shared goals of WinDS and AREAA is to provide ongoing, meaningful educational, leadership and networking opportunities to our members,” said Kaye. “This special seminar was just one example of our commitment to our members in that regard.”

According to Kaye, numerous positive comments were made by attendees to directors of both trade associations regarding the quality of the seminar leaders and panelists

For more information about this seminar, please visit the WinDS web site at www.WomeninDS.com. For more information about Showcase Realty, please visit www.showcaserealty.net or www.charlottereobroker.com .

 Bailout watchdogs on Wednesday raised a red flag over the Obama administration’s program for helping homeowners avoid foreclosure, saying the multibillion-dollar fund is not working and the Treasury Department refuses to fix it. 

Warning that the inefficiencies could hold the economy back, the officials told a Senate panel that changes should be made and that Treasury needs to come clean. One official called the program “one of the greatest failures in transparency and accountability” in the $700 billion bailout. 

A $50 billion fund was carved out of the Wall Street bailout for the mortgage program. The housing market being a root cause of the 2008 economic crisis, the money was pitched as a way to help millions of homeowners avoid foreclosure and get the economy back on track. 

But a fraction of that money, $248 million, has been spent. 

Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the congressional TARP Oversight Panel, said that for every one family that wins a permanent mortgage modification, “10 more have been moved out through foreclosure.” 

“This is a program that’s just — it’s behind the curve,” she told the panel on Wednesday. 

Special inspector general for the financial bailouts Neil Barofsky said the program has not “put an appreciable dent in foreclosure filings” during the Senate Finance Committee hearing on the $700 billion bank bailout. He also said the Treasury Department has ignored earlier demands that it set clearer goals for the program.  A Treasury official said Wednesday that the bailout program has had “a major effect on the ability of people to stay in their homes.” The official argued that before the program was launched, it was not designed to prevent all foreclosures and not designed to help investors or speculators — or those with vacation homes or million-dollar homes.

More foreclosures could force down home prices and further hurt the ailing housing industry. 

Part of the problem with the Home Affordable Modification Program has been that plenty of homeowners are being accepted into a trial period, but relatively few are having their loan changes made permanent. Warren said just 165,000 have moved into permanent modifications with help from the TARP program, though more than that have advanced through a similar program administered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. 

Barofsky said Treasury is giving mortgage companies too much leeway to decide which homeowners will qualify for a program to reduce the principal balance of their mortgages. 

The program relies on voluntary cooperation from mortgage companies, Warren said. She said many of the mortgage debt collectors make more money when they foreclose than they do when helping homeowners. 

“We can’t have a program in which, in effect, we put incentives on the table paid for by the taxpayers to say, ‘Please do the right thing here,’” she said. “We have a crisis, and the consequences of not having cooperation from the servicers … (is) felt by this entire economy . We need a program with far more urgency and some real teeth in it.” 

Article contributed by Fox News

Due to the current economic climate, Foreclosures are at a record high. An article written by Fox News explains more below, providing up-to-date statistics and facts about Foreclosures. Please feel free to continue reading the complete article below:

“LOS ANGELES — More than 1 million American households are likely to lose their homes to foreclosure this year, as lenders work their way through a huge backlog of borrowers who have fallen behind on their loans.

Nearly 528,000 homes were taken over by lenders in the first six months of the year, a rate that is on track to eclipse the more than 900,000 homes repossessed in 2009, according to data released Thursday by RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure listing service.

“That would be unprecedented,” said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac.

By comparison, lenders have historically taken over about 100,000 homes a year, Sharga said.

The surge in home repossessions reflects the dynamic of a foreclosure crisis that has shown signs of leveling off in recent months, but remains a crippling drag on the housing market.

The pace at which new homes falling behind in payments and entering the foreclosure process has slowed as banks continue to let delinquent borrowers stay longer in their homes rather than adding to the glut of foreclosed properties on the market. At the same time, lenders have stepped up repossessions in an effort to clear out the backlog of distressed inventory on their books.

The number of households facing foreclosure in the first half of the year climbed 8 percent versus the same period last year, but dropped 5 percent from the last six months of 2009, according to RealtyTrac, which tracks notices for defaults, scheduled home auctions and home repossessions.

In all, about 1.7 million homeowners received a foreclosure-related warning between January and June. That translates to one in 78 U.S. homes.

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