It's Official: If you've been waiting for the bottom...you missed it!

The numbers have been looking up for about the last 60-90 days: inventory is dropping off, sales volume is up and the closings are up.

Industry Barometer Shows Gains in Home Prices for Second Straight Month

Prices of single-family residential homes rose for the second consecutive month in June, Standard & Poor’s reported Tuesday. Quarter-over-quarter gains were also evident during the second quarter of the year, for the first time since 2006.

Yes the new lending guidelines are a hassle, no there's no 100% no doc loans but, the huge sucking sound that was our equity disappearing alongside 200+ banks and lending institutions, has eased.

The opportunity is there but you can't win if you don't enter the race.

market conditions, real estate, short sale, REO, cash flow, houses

If you are thinking about a short sale you need to read this!

It's been my understanding that the IRS has "waived" the "gain" of a short sale - it was just for a short time period, etc so read up on the details at irs.gov.

In all my short sales, I've only had one bank negotiate a deficiency judgment but read on:

A Short Sale May Not Mean You're Home Free - WSJ.com

Financially troubled borrowers may think that foreclosure or a short sale of their home means their mortgage woes are over.

Not necessarily.

Some homeowners are finding that when they sell their homes for less than the outstanding mortgages -- a so-called short sale -- their mortgage companies are going after them for some or all of the difference. Mortgage companies are also sometimes taking legal action to recover unpaid amounts after a foreclosure is completed.

Are TICs Real Estate Product or Securities

There's been debate - for years - about who can sell a TIC.

TIC stands for Tenants in Common and has been used as a way to hold title on real estate. This fractional ownership has been used in the last 8 +/- years for small investors to be able to pool their money and buy large class A buildings that the little guy could never get into before.

Realtors thought this type of sale was real estate and stock brokers though this type of sale was securities.

On January 14, 2009, the SEC published its response to a request for a no action letter. The request, which was submitted to the SEC in 2006, described two TIC structures (using a master lease or a property management agreement) that are commonly used by sponsors who take the position that they do not need to comply with the securities laws. The letter urged the SEC to rule that such transactions should not be considered securities under Section 2(a)(1) of the Securities Act of 1933. In its response, the SEC said that it disagreed with that view and could not assure the taxpayers requesting the opinion that a sponsor adopting these structures would not be subject to an enforcement action by the SEC.

This recent statement confirms the SEC's view that TICs should be marketed and sold as securities. It is likely that some sponsors who sell TICs as real estate will stop doing so out of concern about being the subject of an enforcement action; however, some sponsors will probably continue to sell TICs as real estate.

What do you think?