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Legislative Update on SB354

Legislative Update on SB354 (the 82% of Fair Market Value Offer Requirement) and the Lease Option Bill SB629

Good News…read on

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week investors from across Texas joined representatives from National REIA and lobbyist hired by TexREIA and the Houston RICH club to address proposed Senate Bill 354.

As you may recall, from prior messages, this proposed bill attempts to legislate how homes in foreclosure can be bought and sold, including a provision that states that a buyer must offer no less than 82% of “fair market value”.

I’m proud to state that Austin was by far the best represented city and the investors from Austin made major contributions to this event.

On Tuesday we reviewed the bill and identified 10 “fatal flaws” of SB354 including that there is no definition of what “fair market value” is, no definition of when a home is actually “in foreclosure”, no  clarity on whose responsibility it is to identify when a home is in foreclosure, and that the bill fundamentally restricts homeowners rights and options for selling a home, which will ultimately have many negative unintended consequences.  We developed a letter outlining these concerns so we could effectively discuss these issues with state reps.

On Wednesday we broke up into groups and hit the capitol to talk directly to individual representatives and/or their staff members.

At the conclusion of this event, based on feedback from our lobbyist (based on their discussions with several representatives) , the belief is that this bill will probably NOT move forward (because representatives don’t like unintended consequences) !!!

This is a PERFECT EXAMPLE of democracy in action – and the value of organizing early to address proposed legislation BEFORE it is enacted into law.

ADDITIONAL UPDATE – We also met with Representative Gary Elkins regarding some lobbying efforts that we have been pushing for the last two years regarding the Lease/Option Bill (SB629) that effectively banned lease/options in Texas. MORE GOOD NEWS – due to these lobbying efforts, changes are being proposed to that bill – including a proposal to make lease/options legal for a 3-year term (as opposed to the current term of 6 months). This would effectively REVERSE THE BAN and make lease/options a viable option for investors and homeowners moving forward.

HOW YOU CAN HELP – Your membership, participation, and support your local real estate investment clubs makes these activities possible.  All of the local clubs help fund and support the National REIA and the lobby efforts that give us the ability to influence future bills that can dramatically affect our livelihood in real estate investing.  This involvement helps us track proposed legislation when it can still be stopped or modified before it becomes a law.  Bottom line –stay involved!

The future of this bill – Hopefully we have dodged a bullet here with our efforts at the capitol this week.  However, if we have not, we’ll need to increase our efforts and we’ll let you know how you can help.  Stay tuned.

I would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to all of the local investors that made this possible.  We’ll continue to update you and stay involved in the process.

Regards,

Phill Grove

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