Real Estate Agents Learning About “Cash for Keys”

has been going on since the Romans

Its the industry in NYC; most tenants nowadays are lawyers and know every trick in the book.

$5000 to $2500 to leave the house 'broom swept', and this is suppose to save money for the homeowner?!

It definitely saves money for the bank! (bank never loses!) they are always thinking of ways to get more out of the homeowners, even while in their last minutes of being in the homes!!

Instead of asking for the keys, why don't the banks try to work something out with the homeowners to avoid foreclosure in the first place!! Greed! that is why!

Valerie

I have a client I sold a house to 7 years ago, always paid on time, and this past year has been extremely tough on them, they fell behind, they are working again and the bank expects them to come up with 4 months of back mortgage instead of doing a modification to allow them to get back on their feet.

Amazing but the way things are so backed up and log jammed, I think and hope things change for the better.

Sad. Sometimes you wonder how businesses can get to be so clueless about the customer. When a business stops trying to make a profit by honestly making other people's lives better, their customers won't stick with them too long.

RENinja

There is just always something new out there!!

Is this a good or bad thing? Am trying to figure out if I totally understand this. So, the banks are moving the home owners out by paying for the keys? No matter if they're behind on payments or not?

Been going on for quite awhile in Washington State....

It keeps the costs down to prep the houses for going back on the market. Generally the tenants who agree to participate don't strip the houses on the way out the door.

Big difference between angry people leaving and taking all the appliances, light fixtures, sinks, toilets, countertops, fireplace inserts and electric garage door openers versus leaving those things behind, because they got a few hundred dollars and felt a little better.

Sure Banks do what makes financial sense, but there is also an incredible market for pre-owned appliances, bath and kitchen fixtures and fireplace inserts.

Not sure which is cheaper or makes better sense. But broom swept clean generally also means leave the house intact.

Sad, but all too common.

to turn in keys and clean the house (still considered a foreclosure on homeowner's credit)... or strip the house and sell the stuff on ebay???
hmmmm....how do you think the homeowner will make more $ and vent??

Of course it cost the bank thousands to bring the house up to selling condition, that's why they're trying to promote the 'cash for keys' strategy... they have no shame!

Valerie

Is already known in Wisconsin for a while. The probate home I was working on, is what the daughters did with BOA. However, I put in a short sale, and talked to the bank for almost an hour this week. They advised me to continue with the short sale, and apparently the girls are still able to do the cash for keys.
BOA also told me that they are now starting this, not sure if they already did this in other states. But the owners must now list with an agent for 90 days before they can do a short sale.
Cash for keys was a good choice for these girls. Their situation was very different since they hadn't been in touch with their dad for most of their lives. And it took almost 5 months to find the daughters.
So for them, it was a good thing.

Man, I should have held out for more. I got 750 and the place was spotless.
Smile. At least I got enough to move my stuff to storage.

Life is like a set of keys....one will open a locked door, and another will open a door to new opportunities. In my case, I got the monkey off my back and met the DG family with nothing but the best to come.

Want to get back at the man? Use his money to fund your deals at a lower rate than you get back from the investment.

Yes, I agree. Why are banks not working with homeowners. I know someone who has attempted every angle that she could think of and has been turned down. If banks could work with the homeowner, maybe then that person would have a inclination to work with a investor so they can reap some gain. MS

I have a homeowner I am working with that was offered $10K by her bank to move out..... but, she also is required to market and sell the home herself! In other words, if she is lucky she might break even at $0. She really loves her home where she is at but it's only worth about $80K and she owes $160K.

Not worth much unless Bank also forgives loan shortage/deficiency!! Otherwise the homeowner (or Buyer) still has a huge debt he must pay and the Bank wins again. Bemper Fi. D-LO

Not worth much unless Bank also forgives loan shortage/deficiency!! Otherwise the homeowner (or Buyer) still has a huge debt he must pay and the Bank wins again. Bemper Fi. D-LO

This whole thing with the banks and big corporations really disgusts me. I have been trying to get a loan for $3,000.00 and am willing to pay for the use of the money but everyone including banks tells me "no". They want to charge more fees because they are loosing money. Hmmmm that did not make sense to me in the first place. Maybe if they would not try to buy off the homeowners they would not need to get a bail out or have to process foreclosures. Who the hell is in charge and what kind of ethics is that? If those in charge would give people a decent interest rate on savings accounts and manage the banking business correctly they would be making money. I wonder how many people even have a savings account. I would be willing to bet it would be hard to find people with a savings account. There is no return or chance to grow the savings. So people spend spend spend or loose it in stock market.

I sure wish people would wise up and get back to the good old days when business was done on a hand shake and a gentlemans agreement. We need to focus on education, character development and respect among other things.

Thanks for letting me speak my mind.

When I started this website, I found a lot of helpful people but some of them turned out to be back stabbers. I also had someone else rip me off earlier this year. It sounds like banks are up to their old tricks again. Lately it has been charging 5 bucks for every time a person uses some sort of bank service (I don't remember which service) until the people yelled about it and started pulling their accounts and going to other institutions for storage of their funds and the like. Banks need to realize they need to consider the needs of their customers instead of how much money they can make off the backs of hard working people.

The world is full of wicked people. But, there are still a lot of good people. I happen to use a smaller community bank and recently rec'd info from them regarding changes to fees. Then before I had a chance to investigate the changes they sent me another e-mail saying I would not have the new fews because I have income direct deposit. Thank God!

I for one can't stand B of A and the only reason they have my home loan is due to Countrywide's greed and the bubble burst. I will never bank with them ever and going forward I will only do business with companies that take care of me and my needs. I will focus on working directly with people and smaller business owners.

There was community banks!! But gov regulations caused these small banks to fail or be absorbed by big banks. You are right about managing them correctly. The use of fractional reserve lending is insanity! The fact that banks can go after people for money that was not even deposited in the bank(created out of thin air by fractional reserve lending) or foreclose on a home that is backed by a loan of nonexistent money is crazy!
The reason the banks did all these extremely risky loans is because the gov promised to guarantee payment(payment by taxpayers) of the loans no matter what.

RENinja

Interesting... I've never heard of such a thing as cash for keys. And I agree, I also use a credit union bank, their fee's are a lot less and seem to be much easier to work with. Thing is, they aren't looking to get your money whenever they can.

Banks are so unscrupulous! They have no shame!
They made these 'interest only' mortgage loans to hardworking middle class people, who believed they were 'buying' their home; and since they didn't have the 'bank required 20% downpayment', the banks said 'no problem'; we can give you a second mortgage to cover that. Oh yes, also, since your credit isn't the best, we'll still give you a loan, but with a higher interest. So these gullible homeowners walked out of the banks owing a 'mortgage loan' and a line of credit; but they weren't aware that even though they would pay the bank for years (most of their income), they would never own the house! The payments they had been making all these years, it's all been interest paid to the banks!

How can the banks even call it a mortgage payment??!! what mortgage were the homeowners paying?! They were paying interest only loans!!

And now that they're foreclosing on all these properties, they want the homeowners to turn in the keys (for $2,500) and leave the houses in decent condition, so that they can turn around and sell it again without having to fix them!
Outrageous! that's all I can say...

Valerie