Last week, in the “fiscal cliff” package passed by Congress there was a provision to extend for one year the Mortgage Debt Cancellation Relief Act.  Some people aren’t happy about this, they feel one year is not enough.  Some people aren’t happy about this, they feel that sellers who receive a forgiveness on a debt shouldn’t get away “scot free” without paying any taxes. (The IRS calls this forgiveness “phantom income” by the way)

I say “Yeah” to extensions.    I know it’s not the best we could have gotten, and yes, I would have liked to have seen a longer extension, but for my short sale seller clients, it’s a ray of hope.  A big ray of hope.

We now have a bit more time to muddle through this very complicated short sale process, which I know in their case is not because they used their homes as an ATM card and took vacations and bought cars, but due to real hardships like job loss and a negative economy.  They know that they have 12 more months to sell without having to pay taxes on a loss that they never dreamed of having when purchasing what they expected to be the home of their dreams.

So I’m not going to be negative, instead I’ll use this time to market and sell their home and help them move on with their lives.  I’ll also use this time to offer whatever assistance I can to make some real changes in this quirky real estate market we find ourselves in.

What do you think about this extension?  Can I help you as well?  Because this country’s recovery is going to be all about US working together!