Popular program returns after wildly successful campaigns in 2009 and 2010 awarded $18,000 in educational grants to financially-assist 10 students

Foreclosure.com today announced that it will once again reward five college students with scholarships who can best provide a solution(s) to its latest essay topic for 2011.

The subject of the Foreclosure.com Scholarship Program 2011 is as follows:

“You’ve acquired $150,000 in cash to be used specifically for a distressed real estate purchase. Outline a detailed strategy that ensures the maximum return on investment, whether it’s in terms of financial profit or personal satisfaction … or both.”

Foreclosure.com, which received thousands of entries from students during its scholarship programs in 2009 and 2010, will accept written essays/plans (800-word minimum, 2,000-word maximum) through its website (http://www.foreclosure.com/scholarship) from Jan. 1, 2011, to Dec. 1, 2011, which is nine months longer than the previous two programs.

Five winners will be selected at the conclusion of the contest and will share $9,000 in allotted scholarship funds. The top prize is a $5,000 scholarship and four $1,000 grants will be awarded to the runners up.

Read the rest of this entry »

“… buyers – largely investors – are snapping up homes at bargain prices.”

– Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist, National Association of Realtors®

Cash-laden investors are cherry-picking discounted foreclosure, short sale and other distressed real estate deals at an increasing rate, according to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors® (NAR).

In fact, distressed properties accounted for 39 percent of homes sold nationwide in Feb. 2011, which is up two percent from last month and is five percent more than last year at this same time.

Investors accounted for 19 percent of all sales activity during this time and all cash sales reached a record 33 percent in Feb. 2011, too.

What’s it all mean?

It’s pretty simple: If you’re in the market for a home, you need to act fast because the best deals will be gone before you know it.

Cash is king … especially in a housing market like the one. And investors will continue to reign supreme for as long as the competition (that’s you) sits on the sidelines and watches opportunity pass by.

There are programs like Fannie Mae’s “First Look” that offer first-time homebuyers and local communities with opportunities to buy before properties go to market. It’s a clever safety net, but it doesn’t stop all the great deals from landing in the hands of investors.

Not even close.

A fantastic way to stay on top of the latest distressed real estate deals entering the market is to take advatage of our free foreclosure email alerts. When a new foreclosed home for sale in your area becomes available we notify you with an email that same day.

It’s an awesome resource.

Or, you can do what most investors and bargain hunters do and search our database each day for great discounts on real estate. It’s free for seven days! Click here.

Careful, homeowners currently in default.

If you think that a foreclosure and/or short sale will help you improve your distressed situation moving forward, and that you can just cut your losses free and clear, think again.

The Detroit News passes a long a helpful nugget of advice about mortgage deficiency judgements, which is essentially a tool that lenders can leverage to recoup some of their losses by coming after borrowers who defaulted on their mortgages.

And in some cases, they can wait years before coming after you.

Here’s the skinny:

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s no secret that the $75 billion government-sponsored loan modification program, Making Home Affordable, has fallen short of expectations since its introduction two years ago.

As of the end of Jan. 2011, there had been about 550,000 permanent modifications made nationwide, according to the January Housing Scorecard. That’s good news for some, but bad news for many when compared to the program’s original goal of preventing 3 million to 4 million foreclosures.

The Treasury Department recently admitted that the foreclosure prevention program will probably never attain the original goal that it set back in 2009.

Based on this lackluster performance, there is a movement among Republicans in the nation’s capital to put an end to Making Home Affordable, which they say would save about $1.4 billion and result in 100,000 fewer loan modifications subsidized by taxpayers, according to NASDAQ.com.

In fact, there is a bill currently on the table that would do just that and it is expected to be voted on later this week.

But White House officials are basically saying don’t waste your time because President Obama would never let that happen. Why?

Because Making Home Affordable “is still benefiting tens of thousands of borrowers every month” and it is “important to the nation’s sustained economic recovery.”

Stay tuned to see how this stalemate unfolds.

For ore information and details on the various foreclosure prevention programs offered under Making Home Affordable click here.