Summer Time

Summer Time is a great time to sell or buy a house. If you are looking to buy a property in Lake County or McHenry County Illinois please visit our website and sign up for a free search to buy a house, rent a house, lease an apartment, or any of your real estate needs. If you are looking to move to Lake County or McHenry County, there are many fun things to do! The Chain of Lakes runs through both counties, giving residents a wonderful and relaxing place to spend time in the warm summer months. There are many parks and forest preserves in the area for camping, fishing, hiking, or just for a picnic.

If you are interested in selling your house, you can also sign up for a property search for houses similar to your property to see what things are selling for. Or simply call 815-669-4944 and ask us to perform a Comparative Market Analysis on your house to give you an idea of what you can sell your house for in the current market. Either way, pricing your house is a very important factor in selling your house.

Because of the current economy, many sellers are having to have a short sale done on their mortgage. The government has enabled programs that will help homeowners to move forward in these difficult times. When a homeowner decides they need to sell their property or are having trouble keeping up with the payments, they can call their bank and apply for a loan modification. The homeowner submits their financial statements to the bank and the bank decides according to government guidelines if the modification will work. This is called the Home Affordable Modification Program or HAMP for short.

A couple in Fox Lake, Illinois bought a home for $200,000 in 2004. By 2007 the husband, a union carpenter, was laid off and was not called back to work since. The wife, a school teacher, was left paying the mortgage and bills from her income when her husband's unemployment ran out. He has been searching for a job since he was laid off, and has worked on and off part-time since his unemployment stopped. They called us wanting to sell their house and we encouraged them to apply for the modification, which they were approved for. Their mortgage went from $1800 a month down to $1000 a month and the interest was lowered to 3% for 5 years, and then can go up to as much as 5%. The mortgage was turned into a 40 year from a 30 year, and there will be a "balloon" payment due if they sell their house before the 40 years is up.

If you do not qualify for the HAMP then you will have the choice to sell your home doing a short sale. A short sale is when the bank accepts less of a payoff than is owed to them. Often times this amount is written off as a loss to them, less often will they ask the homeowner to pay a portion of the amount back. We have only seen this happen when the homeowners have a significant income.

If you decide to have a short sale done on your home instead of letting the bank take it back at sheriff's sale you are making a good choice. It is never a good idea to just walk away from the house and leave it vacant, this creates wear on the house and the bank can prosecute for any damage done to the property. While a short sale is being done the homeowner can still live in the house, as it is often easier to sell a house when it has furniture in it. When there is an offer made on the property and the bank accepts, the homeowner will often have the standard 30 day closing time to move, buyers offering cash may request a sooner closing, but this can all be negotiated with the real estate agents.

A couple in Johnsburg, Illinois bought a house in the early 2000's and both had decent incomes. The husband was laid off in 2008 from his job as an auto mechanic, and the wife was laid off from her job as an office assistant. They were both able to find other jobs, but not making what they had been. They applied for the mortgage modification and were denied because they did not make enough money. The bank allowed them to do a short sale on their home and they walked away owing nothing to the bank, they are currently renting a house in Spring Grove, Illinois and plan to buy another home within their price range after they pay down some of their other debt.

Summer time will be over sooner than anyone realizes, we'd all love it to last forever, but as you walk into stores such as the McHenry Walmart they are already putting out the school supplies and fall clothes. Once children go back to school the buying time of summer slows down and as winter comes it slows more. Now is the time to buy a house or sell a house, start out by visiting www.metrovisions1.com, befriend us on facebook, and sign up for a property search today. When you see a property you'd like to view, simply call us and we will be happy to set up an appointment for you to see the property.