Shandrow Group - Long Beach Real Estate | Long Beach Homes for Sale | Long Beach Foreclosures | Long Beach Short Sales

Recently, I had the opportunity to discuss the state of REOs and Fannie Mae lending in Long Beach with Steve Bergsman of Inman News.

If you are a home buyer or investor, you’ll be interested in the information that myself and Amy Bonitatibus, a spokesperson for Fannie Mae, share in the article, Fannie Mae incentives drive REO sales, Closing-cost credit, agent bonus pay off.

In the article, you’ll find out more about the benefits of purchasing a Fannie Mae home or applying for Homepath financing, such as flexible mortgage terms, low down payments, no mortgage insurance or appraisal fees and the availability for financing from local and national lenders.

“Right now, the way California prices are, you can get a home at reasonable prices: a 2-bedroom, 1-bath for $200,000 in a decent neighborhood. The Fannie Mae loan stands at 3.5 percent and it is giving you closing costs. And what’s also great, mortgage insurance (and appraisal fees) is not necessary. For the first-time buyer, it is hard to get better than this.”

Just follow this link to read the rest of the article: Fannie Mae incentives drive REO sales

If you have questions about the article or REOs in Long Beach, CA, feel free to contact me @ 562-364-9505 or mark@shandrowgroup.com

One Less Foreclosure.

Sincerely,

Mark Shandrow
Real Estate Broker
office 562-364-9505 ext 100
mark@shandrowgroup.com
Shandrow Group
3970 Atlantic Ave., 210
Long Beach, CA  90807
follow my story at http://markshandrow.com

Shandrow Group - Long Beach Real Estate | Long Beach Homes for Sale | Long Beach Foreclosures | Long Beach Short Sales

Are you a Long Beach homeowner who’s looking for information about what’s going on in your neighborhood?

Are you interested in hearing about great events and people in Long Beach, CA?

Well, we are too.

That’s why my brother, Adam, and I created a fantastic new podcast, LivingLongBeach.com covering everything that’s going on in Long Beach.

Just click the link: LivingLongBeach.com and listen to all the news about our area, exciting events, great restaurants, the best Long Beach attractions and everything else that ‘s interesting in Los Angeles County.

When you tune in, you’ll hear the latest neighborhood real estate statistics in the Long Beach area, as well as all the Long Beach news. You’ll even get a chance to hear some great guests talk about life in the area.

So if you’re interested in finding out where everyone is hanging out and which places you should avoid, click on over to find out all the “hot” and “not-so-hot” spots in Los Angeles County, CA.

And you definitely don’t want to miss our discussion all the things Adam and I love about Bixby Knolls, CA.

So check it out today.

LivingLongBeach.com

It’s everything you need to know about buying Real Estate in Long Beach!

Sincerely,

Mark Shandrow
Real Estate Broker
office 562-364-9505 ext 100
mark@shandrowgroup.com
Shandrow Group
3970 Atlantic Ave., 210
Long Beach, CA  90807
follow my story at http://markshandrow.com

Shandrow Group - Long Beach Real Estate | Long Beach Homes for Sale | Long Beach Foreclosures | Long Beach Short Sales

Long Beach REO Real Estate Agent helps raise $18,338 to support national pet rescue and animal shelter organization

Long Beach, California Sponsored by several Bank-Owned Property Real Estate firms, the first annual No Paws Left Behind Casino Royale Night was held on April 15, 2010 at the Parker Palm Springs and raised nearly twenty thousand dollars to rescue pets abandoned by displaced homeowners.

The Casino Royale Night raised $18,388 through sponsorships and donations, which will support No Paws Left Behind™s pet rescue and housing initiatives for pets across the nation that have been abandoned by their owners during foreclosure. The No Paws Left Behind site also provides information on local animal shelters and other alternative housing providers based on ZIP code.

Cheryl Lang, founder of No Paws Left Behind, says,  ”We founded No Paws Left Behind to provide homeowners facing foreclosure with a solution, instead of leaving their pets to wander the streets or be euthanized. No Paws Left Behind may also provide monetary assistance for pet deposits required by new landlords.”

Mark Shandrow, owner of Shandrow Group and co?sponsor of the Casino Royale event, says, “We decided to become sponsors of the event because we’ve contacted No Paws Left Behind several times to come out and rescue the pets we find in locked and abandoned homes. These pets would be doomed if not for the kindness and caring of Cheryl and her organization.

Homeowners entering the foreclosure process can visit the No Paws Left Behind website to locate no-kill animal shelters, temporary foster care and pet deposit assistance options before they are forced to relocate. No Paws Left Behind provides information for qualified animal shelters and foster care providers who are seeking financial assistance.

For more information about No Paws Left Behind, contact Cheryl Lang by visiting www.nopawsleftbehind.org

About Shandrow Group

Shandrow Group is a boutique real estate brokerage specializing in the management, marketing and sale of bank owned properties (REOs). The brokerage focuses on the sale of single-family homes, condos, and small multi-unit buildings. These are properties in various stages of disposition, from evictions to closings. For more information about Shandrow Group, please visit http://www.ShandrowGroup.com

About No Paws Left Behind

No Paws Left Behind, Inc. is a 501c3, not for profit organization dedicated to bringing awareness and finding solutions to the growing phenomena of foreclosure pets. This trend is increasing in numbers with no immediate end in sight and it is these helpless victims of the mortgage crisis that suffer in silence. For more information about No Paws Left Behind, please visit http://www.nopawsleftbehind.org

Shandrow Group - Long Beach Real Estate | Long Beach Homes for Sale | Long Beach Foreclosures | Long Beach Short Sales

The video that was discussed earlier this month here is now ready for you to view.  I made several edits to reduce the length of the video, but check it out here:

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Sincerely,

Mark Shandrow
Real Estate Broker
Shandrow Group
t 562-364-9505 ext 100
f 562-364-9506
mark@shandrowgroup.com

Shandrow Group - Long Beach Real Estate | Long Beach Homes for Sale | Long Beach Foreclosures | Long Beach Short Sales

Here are 10 Great Reasons to Choose Shandrow Group for your real estate needs:

1. We’re a No-Hassle Turn-Key Solution. We take you from start to finish, no matter what type of property you’re in the market for. Our goal is to provide our clients with personalized, professional, honest hard work. We truly desire to match you with the property of your dreams, a solid investment for years to come. Click here to search our properties now.

2. Proven, Local Experience. Together, we have 40-plus years of combined successful experience in the Southern California real estate market. Our top-selling agents truly know how to get the job done in what is essentially our back yard. Click here to meet them all.

3. We Live Here. So we’re in touch with the local market better than anyone. We’re proud to say our children go to school right here and we do the majority of our personal and professional business in this community. It doesn’t get more local than that.

4. Incredible Property Selection. We have dozens of amazing properties to choose from, from traditional home sales to bank-owned foreclosures, from raw land to luxury homes to beachfront condos and everything in between. You name it, chances are we have it. If not, we’ll get it for you in short order.

5. VIP Access to the Latest Foreclosure Listings. Click here, sign up in seconds and we’ll send weekly hot foreclosure listings from Los Angeles and Orange Counties directly to your email inbox. It’s that easy! We receive nearly one foreclosed home to sell EACH AND EVERY DAY from our fast-growing list of local and national list of bank and financial institution clients. Shandrow Group’s foreclosure inventory is literally multiplying on a daily basis. As of this blog posting, we have more than 60 properties in various stages of sale from Pasadena to Foothill Ranch.

6. We Truly Understand the Local Investment Market. Several Shandrow Group Realtors own their own investment properties right here in Long Beach and in the outlying areas, and they’re happy to share their first-hand insider market expertise directly with you.

7 . Convenient Bixby Knolls Offices and around-the-clock availability. To better serve you, whenever you need us. Call us at 562.364.9505, ext. 800 or feel free to drop by our offices (located at 3970 Atlantic Ave. in Long Beach, CA 90807) today! Here’s a map.

8. Honest, Sincere Testimonials. Don’t take our word for it. Take a listen for yourself and find out what Shandrow Group clients are saying about us. Click here for a video or here for our latest written testimonial.

9. We Build Lasting Relationships. We’re more than just your neighborhood real estate agents. Our wealth of successful partnerships is backed by our uncompromising integrity, honesty and respect—100 percent of the time.

10. We Value Diversity and Culture. We’re an incredibly diverse team of young, extremely motivated and energetic Realtors and administrators. Together we represent all walks of Southern California lifestyles and cultures. Plus, most of us are bilingual, some of us from birth. The ever-increasing list of languages spoken fluenty by our agents includes: English, Spanish, Tagalog, Illicano and Khmer.

Each of us possesses an intimate knowledge of Greater Long Beach’s historic neighborhoods. More importantly, we maintain meaningful, real-life personal connections to many of the very residents and legislative leaders who bring our city’s rich, diverse cultural character and identity to life. We’re proud to be a part of Long Beach’s vast multicultural fabric.

The next time you’re in Bixby Knolls, please feel free to drop by and meet our talented team. We’d love to show you around our newly expanded offices.

Warm regards,

Mark Shandrow
Real Estate Broker
Shandrow Group Owner
562.364.9505, ext. 800

Shandrow Group - Long Beach Real Estate | Long Beach Homes for Sale | Long Beach Foreclosures | Long Beach Short Sales

This is a great post from Mathew Padilla of OCRegister.com discussing the new foreclosure moratorium in California.

A state law halting home foreclosures for 90 days begins today, but companies can earn an exemption by showing they are already busy modifying loans.

The California Foreclosure Prevention Act, or Assembly Bill X2 7, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed in February, is meant to push banks and loan servicers into lowering mortgage payments of homeowners in financial trouble. It reflects a similar federal plan.

Several companies have already applied for exemptions, said Mark Leyes, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Corporations. The department must grant or refuse an exemption within 30 days, during which companies need not comply with the moratorium. The law impacts loans made from 2003 to 2007.

A lender or servicer gets an exemption by demonstrating it already has a loan modification program in place, including lowering owner payments to a target of 38 percent of their income going to housing. Methods of choice are lowering the loan’s interest rate or extending its term to 40 years.

The bill, however, seems to lack teeth. The 38 percent debt-to-income ratio is merely a target.

And the bill says it does not require a servicer to violate contracts for investor-owned loans.  The most troubled loans are generally those investment banks packaged and sold, and if the servicing contract says foreclosure is preferable to a loan modification, nothing in the law stops foreclosure.

The law also says it does not require a bank to provide a modification to a borrower who is not willing or able to pay under the modification.” I am not sure what able to pay means if the target debt-to-income ratio is 38 percent? Maybe if borrowers have to make other hefty payments” on cars, credit cards etc. ” then they are out of luck.

• Read the full text of the bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), HERE

Best,

Mark Shandrow
Real Estate Broker
Shandrow Group
mark@shandrowgroup.com

Shandrow Group - Long Beach Real Estate | Long Beach Homes for Sale | Long Beach Foreclosures | Long Beach Short Sales

Will the ‘shadow inventory’ stunt a housing recovery?

Source: — Tom Petruno, Los Angeles Times

After every bear market on Wall Street, some investors are reluctant to buy because they believe many other investors will be anxious to sell into any rebound, swamping the market and stunting any recovery.

And yet, bull markets get going anyway.

Now the same issue is dogging the housing market.

A new Zillow.com survey of 1,266 homeowners nationwide asks, “If you saw signs of a real estate market turnaround in the next 12 months, how likely would you be to put your home up for sale?”

Twelve percent of homeowners said they’d be “very likely” to try to sell into an improving market, 8% said they’d be “likely” to do so and another 12% said they’d be “somewhat likely.”

Zillow refers to that total of 32% as the “shadow inventory” of homes.

“With almost a third of homeowners poised to jump into the market at the first sign of stabilization, this could create a steady stream of new inventory adding to already record-high inventory levels, thus keeping downward pressure on home prices,” said Stan Humphries, Zillow’s vice president of data and analytics.

By region, just 7% of survey respondents in the West said they were “very likely” to try to sell their homes into an improving market, compared with 10% for the South, 12% for the Midwest and 20% for the Northeast.

Despite the low number for the West, I’ve often wondered through this housing crash whether California would be particularly vulnerable to a supply overhang — in large part because of the number of aging California baby boomers whose retirement plan had consisted of eventually selling their home (at a big profit) and leaving for a lower-cost state.

For a summary of the Zillow survey, which also delves into home-price expectations and other market issues, go here. A link to the full report is here.

Read Mark Shandrow’s recent comments about the impending flood of Southern California shadow inventory expected to hit the market here, as told to a German TV reporter and camera crew on-set at the Shandrow Group offices in Long Beach.

Shandrow Group - Long Beach Real Estate | Long Beach Homes for Sale | Long Beach Foreclosures | Long Beach Short Sales

Shandrow Group Goes International!

We’re proud to announce that Shandrow Group will soon be making its European television debut in a German “60 Minutes”-style documentary on the booming California foreclosure market.

We were honored to have Munich-based FOCUS TV Produktions GmbH along for the ride for an entire day last week as editor Kirsten Moser and her camera crew shadowed Shandrow Group broker-owner Mark Shandrow while he went about his business day. The video shoot included visits to:

• Several bank-owned/REO properties currently under Shandrow Group asset management contracts
• A Shandrow Group-listed foreclosure duplex in Compton
• A single family residence foreclosure currently for sale by Shandrow Group in Long Beach’s historic Wrigley neighborhood
• An upscale lender-owned condominium in Manhattan Beach (which is now in ESCROW!) and several other exclusive Shandrow Group properties featured on our popular VIP Foreclosure List.

The 20-minute FOCUS TV California foreclosure market documentary segment also features a San Diego sheriff performing officer eviction lockouts and a work crew in Perris painting brown grass green, a common instant front yard “face lift” in a foreclosure-blighted neighborhood.

Mark expressed his experienced, informed perspective on what the future holds for the local and national foreclosure market on-camera, specifically regarding the American real estate industry’s emergent shadow inventory phenomenon.

He explained that approximately one-third of Southern California foreclosures are now in what’s called shadow or “limbo” territory. That is to say that they are not registering in county records as having been resold.

Banks throughout California and the rest of the country are “sitting on hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes that they have not resold or listed for sale.” When those shadow inventory properties flood the market–and they will–home values will dramatically drop in response, Mark told German FOCUS TV reporters.

With so many bank repossession and default notices expected to explode onto the market in the coming weeks and months, Mark doesn’t foresee the foreclosures trend slowing down any time soon.

“This is just the beginning of the foreclosure market,” Mark commented. “Coupled with property depreciation in California, in the coming years, we can expect this situation to continue to greatly impact the domestic and global economies.”

“On a brighter note, we will eventually see the real estate market come back into balance,” Mark said. “However, it will definitely take plenty of time. Unfortunately, this is the way a free market works. The real estate market became incredibly inflated, and in turn inflated people’s expectations, and it just has to level out at some point.”

Munich-based Focus TV, a spin-off of the internationally read Focus Magazine,  is broadcast throughout Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

All of us at the Shandrow Group truly appreciated and enjoyed the up-close-and-personal opportunity to play a direct role in educating an international audience on the fast-paced, ever-evolving Los Angeles and Orange County area foreclosure climate, and, more specifically, Southern California’s unprecedented shadow inventory, which you’ll definitely be hearing about in the headlines very soon.

When we receive a video link to the segment, you’ll be the first to know!

As always, stay tuned for more exciting Shandrow Group development news.

To contact the Shandrow Group today, call 562.364.9505, ext. 800, or connect with one of our agents via our About Us page.

Shandrow Group - Long Beach Real Estate | Long Beach Homes for Sale | Long Beach Foreclosures | Long Beach Short Sales

Click here to take a look at this article that came out a few months ago.

Press-Telegram Article Sunday, September23, 2007

Sincerely,

Mark Shandrow
Keller Williams Realty

Shandrow Group - Long Beach Real Estate | Long Beach Homes for Sale | Long Beach Foreclosures | Long Beach Short Sales