by J. Craig Anderson The Arizona Republic Mar. 21, 2010 12:00 AM
Dave Dziedzic believes there is money to be made keeping struggling families in their homes.
Most people think of real-estate investors as the people who enter the picture after a homeowner has been foreclosed on, and in most cases that's true.
But Dziedzic, owner and designated broker of RealCore Realty International in Phoenix, said investors could make just as much money helping homeowners remain in the homes they love but can no longer afford.
His company is launching a program called Housing Angels that Dziedzic said would create partnerships between investors and homeowner-occupants to the benefit of both.
It could help homeowners destined for foreclosure to keep their homes, by short-selling them to an investor, leasing the home back to the homeowner for a few years and then allowing them to buy it back at a much lower price, he said.
Dziedzic said that so far only one midsized mortgage lender has refused to go along with his plan. Most see the benefit of having a third party buy the home via a short sale, in which the bank takes a loss because it prevents the lender from having to foreclose.
The program would be good for investors who want to own a rental property, Dziedzic said, because there already would be a tenant living there, and it would be someone with an interest in maintaining the home.
Former homeowners who would have to move out and find a rental property could remain in their homes, as renters.
Dziedzic said his lease-to-buy-back-your-home program could be just what some homeowners need.
Dziedzic's chief financial officer, Jeff Dicks, is one of those homeowners. The Avondale resident and his family bought a home in mid-2006 for $300,000. Now, it's worth about $120,000, he said.
Dicks has been trying for a year to get his mortgage loan modified. "The note has been bought and sold three times since then," he said. "We've had to start over from scratch every time."
When Dziedzic told him about the program, Dicks said he volunteered to be its test case. His lender has agreed to let him short-sell the home to a Canadian investor. Under the program, he would rent for three years and then buy the home for about $160,000.
Valley renters' advocate Kenneth Volk, a die-hard critic of rent-to-own deals, said he can see value in a program that keeps people in their homes.
The problem is that many things can go wrong, said Volk, executive director of Arizona Tenant Advocates & Association in Tempe. Either the landlord or the tenant can back out of the deal, and renters often fail to qualify for a mortgage loan when the lease expires. "Lots of concepts are great, but you have to see how it plays out," he said.
Details are at housingangels.com.
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