Diamond Bar, CA-Don’t lose your house! How I let a homeowner down!

November 4, 2011
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Don’t lose your house! Especially after a Realtor (who’s been certified to help) has offered to help

House

Don't Lose Your House!

you. But you didn’t accept that help because you were waiting for that modification to be approved.! Do protect yourself and make him show proof of his certification. But keep in touch in case that modification fails to materialize. This way you can develop a plan B.

As a Realtor, I sometimes work for a Bank Servicing Company (BSC). I won’t mention the name of the company. My title there is a Home Retention Consultant (HRC). I’m the person between the borrower/homeowner and the bank.

When the bank cannot get a hold of the borrower/homeowner (who is having trouble making their payments) the bank hires a BSC which in turn hires me to physically go out and knock on the door and see if I can make contact with the borrower/homeowner and let the borrower/homeowner know that the bank would like to talk to them about a modification or other foreclosure alternative. They can either call the bank while I am there or they can call later.

I received an assignment about one and a half years ago to go out to this house and talk with the homeowner. She answered the door and stepped outside her home to talk to me. We talked and she said she would be right back. She came back with her phone number and told me that we should meet down the street at Starbucks since she did not want to upset her mother who was living with her.

A couple of days later we met. She was very cordial. She asked me what I needed. I told her that the bank wanted to talk to her about an offer for a modification that they had sent to her. I was to follow up with her and pick up the documentation that the bank required for the modification offer.

She insisted that the modification paperwork was already completed and sent to the bank. She said she was laid off before but she just landed an even better job. That income and payments would no longer be a problem. She once again insisted that she had received the modification paperwork from the bank and she had completed it (including the form that needed to be notarized) and had sent the package back to the bank. I felt relief for her and her situation. She seemed to me to be pretty competent and that she could fill out the required forms for the modification with no problem or help.

I left Starbucks feeling pretty good about this assignment. I reported back to the BSC what I was told and left it at that.

Well back to today, I was looking in the multiple listing service (MLS) for properties for my client and what did I find? Yup, you guessed it! That borrower/homeowner’s home I had visited a year and a half ago listed on the multiple listing service (MLS) as a Fannie Mae repossession. The homeowner that I visited, counselled and felt pretty good about lost her house and didn’t call me to try to help her.

Not to deviate from this subject but I have to side with the bank on this one issue. We just had a meeting with Chase and they informed us that Chase makes on average one hundred and eleven (111) attempts to get a hold of the borrower before they foreclose on their property. That’s phone calls and letters to the borrower/homeowner.

This distresses me very much! I’m very sad about this situation! I should have followed up at least to see how she was doing! Maybe I could have helped her. Maybe not! But at least we could have tried.

There are 13 ways to avoid foreclosure. If you are a member of the armed forces, there are 14.
I’m sure we could have used one of them to help her avoid foreclosure (no, it doesn’t always have to be a short sale). Possibly even had her lender help her with moving expenses if a short sale was even necessary.

I promised to myself to be more diligent and follow-up with distressed borrowers. After all we are all people. We should help each other out. People deserve better! I wish her luck and I hope she realizes this isn’t the end. In three years she can buy again. It really isn’t that long to wait.

THE THIRD WAVE: Look Who’s Going Into Foreclosure NOW!!!

October 26, 2011
Foreclosure, Modification, Mortgage Help, Real Estate, Short Sale, Strategic Foreclosure
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I see this first hand, working in this little community of Diamond Bar, CA. Being out in the trenches I’ve seen the various waves of foreclosures. Ask any Policeman or Fireman when was the last time he/she had over-time? These are people that still have their jobs! How about the homeowner who just got their modification to find out they just lost their job! It’s very ugly out there!

Via Paula I Hathaway, SVP (Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate):

THE THIRD WAVE: Look who is going into foreclosure NOW!!!

TARP WAS A LIFELINE TO A DROWNING FINANCIAL WORLDThere is going to be a Congressional hearing in the next day or so to evaluate the results of TARP on financial institutions and on the housing market…wonder what they will find out?—and what they will tell us???

I have heard rumors that some of the banks used their funds that were designated to help out the homeowners, to pay off their “bailout” money. One of the contingencies of the bailout was that the banks would remain under the microscope of the government as long as they owed the Tarp money. Some financial institutions paid off the “loans” in order to escape the scrutiny of the government!

Meanwhile, the next wave of foreclosures is starting–this time it’s the homeowner who has never had financial problems during theTHE THIRD WAVE OF FORECLOSURES Great Recession….Until now!

 

 

 

FIRST WAVE: The homeowner who put nothing down on their home, had no job but was the “protected” class who the government insisted become homeowners at all costs. Below, I have included the NY Times article from 1999 regarding the Clinton administration taking the idea of home ownership for the poor:

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae-eases-credit-to-aid-mortgage-lending.html

SECOND WAVE: The homeowner who was caught off guard, trades people who lost their jobs/businesses because of the crash, the “pink slipped” financial workers,  the real estate agents who were left with no income because of the housing bust.

THE THIRD WAVE: The middle class and upper-middle class small business owners who lost revenue from the recession. This would include restaurants, shops, specialty manufacturing,

The housing recession (or depression, depending upon from where you are looking at it!) has not abated–it has not ended and it has in fact become worse.

This time, the people who are being foreclosed upon are those who had no problem in the past with their finances; even in the recession, these homeowners were able to go forward without much harm from the downturn. They still had their jobs,  were paying their bills on time and the possible loss of their home was so far out of the realm of reality that it never came to mind for them.

Now, the middle class and the upper middle class are under duress—they are suffering from the long drawn out financial messes caused by the initial crash of the real estate market. The Third Wave is made up of the Baby Boomers trying to retire and can’t; the new level of financial or Wall Street worker who is considered “excess baggage”, and all the businesses associated with a thriving real estate market. This next wave of foreclosures is sure to be the final nail in the coffin of the real estate market as we know it.

Today, Congress is meeting to hear the bad news about the failed attempts to rescue the housing market and ultimately the whole financial system of the US. The hearing is a review of the results of TARP, the $872 Billion bailout of the banks and the financial institutions that started the whole problem in the first place though their packaging of the bad loans with good in order to sell them as “Good” investments!!

TARP Failed ( What we know of as the “big bank bailout‘ that was put into effect after the failure of Lehman Bros)

HAMP Failed (Instituted in 2009, It helped fewer than 200,000 homeowners stay in their homes through mortgage modifications).

WILL WE HEAR WHAT THE TRUTH IS ABOUT WHAT THE EFFECTS OF “TARP” HAS HAD ON HOUSING IN THIS HEARING?. WILL THERE BE ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO MANIPULATE THE HOUSING MARKET OR WILL THERE BE A CAPITULATION  OF THE GOVERNMENT TO LET THE HOUSING MARKET JUST REPAIR ON IT’S OWN???

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 **ALL INFORMATION AND CONTENT IN THIS BLOG IS ORIGINAL TO PAULA I. HATHAWAY

Paula I. Hathaway, Senior Vice President, Prudential Douglas Elliman

Southamtpon Village Real Estate Specialist since 1995;  Also Specializes in North Sea, Noyac, Water Mill and Bridgehampton, New York

Diamond , Gold and Chairman’s Circle Awards; Top Producer since 2005

Click here to see my Hampton’s website to see all my listings; please email me or call me for all your real estate needs in Southampton, Bridgehampton and Watermill:

http://www.prudentialelliman.com/paulahathaway

http://www.hathawayhamptonhomes.com

http://www.realestateshows.com/576624

http://www.realestateshows.com/576620

This will help out condominium and townhouse document fees

September 12, 2011
Real Estate, Uncategorized
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Everybody is trying to make a buck. Even circumventing the law with third party vendors just to charge more for something that should actually be in pdf format to save money and help green this industry.

Governor Brown Signs Bill Preventing Gouging of Condominium/Townhome Buyers

LOS ANGELES (Sept. 1) – The CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) applauds Gov. Jerry Brown for signing AB 771, a bill that prevents home buyers in a common interest development (CID), such as a condominium or townhome, from being charged excess document fees.

Homeowner associations (HOAs) are required to provide specific documents to prospective purchasers of homes in a CID — a form of real estate ownership in which each homeowner has an exclusive interest in a unit and a shared interest in the common area property.  In addition to the standard residential property disclosures, purchasers of a unit within a CID must receive basic information about the structure, operation and management of the HOA that operates the CID.

Current law requires that this information come from the HOA and prohibits it from charging fees in excess of what is “reasonable,” not to exceed the actual cost of processing and producing these documents.  HOAs generally have provided the documents for approximately $75 to $250. Increasingly, HOAs have been delegating document preparations to third party vendors or contractors who, under a 2007 court decision, are exempt from this fee limitation. This delegation of responsibility by HOAs sometimes resulted in home purchasers being forced to pay additional fees, as much as $1,000, for other documents which were “bundled” with the required documents.

Assembly Bill 771 (Betsy Butler, D-Torrance) addresses this situation by specifying that only fees for the required documents may be charged when such documents are provided, effectively prohibiting any “bundling” of fees for other documents with these fees. The bill also creates a new form detailing which documents are required, and requires the provider to disclose the fees that will be charged for the documents before they are provided. The seller of a CID must complete this form and transmit it to the prospective purchaser along with the required documents.  This will eliminate any uncertainty for the prospective purchaser as to exactly which documents are being provided and the precise fees being charged for those documents.

Leading the way…® in California real estate for more than 100 years, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (www.car.org) is one of the largest state trade organizations in the United States, with more than 160,000 members dedicated to the advancement of professionalism in real estate. C.A.R. is headquartered in Los Angeles.

We Could Have Used This Several Years Ago!

September 12, 2011
Foreclosure, Modification, Mortgage Help, Real Estate, Short Sale
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President Obama vowed to help more Americans refinance their mortgages during his speech to a joint session of Congress on Thursday.

“To help responsible home owners, we’re going to work with federal housing agencies to help more people refinance their mortgages at interest rates that are now near 4 percent,” Obama said during his speech. Such a move would “put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocketbook and give a lift to an economy still burdened by the drop in housing prices,” he added.

Obama’s speech provided no specifics about the refinancing plan. He used the speech mostly to preview his American Jobs Act, a bill that would include tax cuts for small businesses, extend unemployment benefits, and provide other aid that would set out to help workers and spur more jobs.

Some critics said Obama’s speech did not contain enough to help the ailing housing market.

“That’s not the bold stroke that I want,” Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, told HousingWire after the speech. “It’s not just refinance; we want people to be able to sell their homes.”

Some housing advocates said more needs to be done to address the massive number of foreclosures plaguing many housing markets.

“To get the economy moving forward, we simply must address the millions of people in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure,” adds Orson Aguilar, executive director of research group The Greenlining Institute. “This massive shadow inventory is a dead weight on the housing market and the whole economy, and we can’t ignore it.”

Some housing advocates praised the president’s refinancing proposal, saying it will help underwater home owners lock in record low rates and lower their monthly mortgage bill.

Luxury home foreclosures a deal for well-heeled

September 11, 2011
Foreclosure, Real Estate, Strategic Foreclosure
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This is pretty much happening in CA too!

Luxury home foreclosures a deal for well-heeled

There are $4 million estates in Lutz and the Riverview area that are now less than $1 million,” said Keller Williams real estate agent Rande Friedman. “There’s a condo in Channelside that was $1.5 million, and now it’s $700,000.”

Most homeowners have seen values drop, but these prices are so low because the homes are owned by a bank. And the bank wants to get rid of them.

There are so many foreclosed luxury homes that Friedman created a website to list them. In three weeks, PoshForeclosures.com already has about 400 local listings.

The Tampa Bay area and Florida are among the hardest-hit by foreclosures in the country. Friedman has a theory on why the foreclosure crisis finally caught up to the rich.

“A lot of the people who got into the luxury market in 2005, 2006 were making their money from real estate,” he said. When the market crashed, so did their incomes.

Plus, just like the rest of the population, many luxury buyers took out adjustable-rate mortgages. Many of them have come due recently. That, combined with job loss and sinking home prices, led to an uptick in foreclosures of luxury homes.

That means hundreds of high-end homes sit abandoned. But that could be good news for those ready to buy. Homes and condos along the beaches and downtown condos are among the most popular luxury foreclosures, Friedman said.

Potential buyers of luxury foreclosures also don’t have to worry about trashed homes as much as buyers of lower-end houses. That’s because banks usually take better care of them, Friedman said.

“People are still living in them, maintaining them, so they’re not the deserted, desolate foreclosure feeling,” Friedman said. “They really are truly nice properties.”

That’s true, said Daren Blomquist, spokesman for RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosure activity nationwide.

“It’s in the bank’s best interest to fix up the home and get in the best shape possible before trying to sell it,” Blomquist said. “That way, they may get a better price.”

Getting the best price matters even more, he said, when the homes are expensive. That’s why lenders often give owners of luxury homes more time to work something out.

“We find that with mortgages of more than $1 million, lenders wait longer to file for foreclosure,” he said. “By the time they foreclose, the mortgages are much deeper in default.”

That said, Blomquist said he’s noticed lenders of these million-dollar homes acting to foreclosure much more quickly this year.

“While this category of mortgages still has a low foreclosure rate, this category is also seeing the largest increase in initial foreclosure filings, compared to less expensive mortgages,” Blomquist said.

PoshForeclosure.com currently lists foreclosed homes that are for sale in Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties.

On the website there are estates that were listed at $1.5 million in 2006 and are now being sold for $500,000.

“All buyers are expecting great deals these days, and upper-end buyers are especially savvy,” Friedman said.

6 Best Cities for Retirees

September 8, 2011
Real Estate
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We all have to retire some day. And lets face it. California is expensive!  I would have to check out Winchester VA but I would probably settle for Portland Maine even though there is tax on pension. I think it would be nice. What do you think?

Posted by GLOZAL on September 8, 2011 at 3:43pm

If money didn’t matter, there’d be plenty of fabulous places to spend your retirement: a penthouse in Paris. An all-glass modern on the beach in Malibu. Perhaps a small winery in Napa Valley.

But money does matter. Even as the financial markets limp out of their recessionary funk, many of us are redefining what our “dream” retirement might look like.

Sure, Honolulu has beaches and well-priced pineapples, but few of us can afford its median home price of $550,000. Chicago has world-class dining and lake views galore, though its 9.75 percent sales tax can put those amenities out of reach. Then again, not many of us want to move to a one-stoplight town either, even if it is cheap.

We started our search for the perfect retirement destinations by examining financial data on more than 350 cities across the country. We looked at not only property- and sales-tax rates, median housing price, and cost of living but also the tax rate on pensions and Social Security. Then we added in such criteria as recreation, climate, and arts and culture.

Here are some of the cities that topped its list for most affordable cities for retirement:

Winchester, Va.

Median home price: $151,500

State tax: On pensions, partial; on Social Security, no

Sales tax: 5%

Portland, Maine

Median home price: $202,800

State tax: On pensions, yes; on Social Security, no

Sales tax: 5%

Gainesville, Ga.

Median home price: $141,800

State tax: On pensions, yes; on Social Security, no

Sales tax: 7%

Wenatchee, Wash.

Median home price: $192,000

State tax: On pensions, no; on Social Security, no

Sales tax: 8%

Tulsa, Okla.

Median home price: $126,600

State tax: On pensions, yes; on Social Security, no

Sales tax: 5.5%

Cheyenne, Wyo.

Median home price: $141,400

State tax: On pensions, no; on Social Security, no

Sales tax: 6%

September 15 is Deadline for Emergency Homeowner’s Loan Program (EHLP)

September 6, 2011
Foreclosure, Modification, Mortgage Help, Real Estate, Short Sale, Strategic Foreclosure, Uncategorized
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The Emergency Homeowner’s Loan Program (EHLP) application process has reopened in 27 states and Puerto Rico to give homeowners at risk of foreclosure more time to apply for the program. Applications will be accepted through September 15, 2011.

EHLP will assist homeowners who have experienced a reduction in income and are at risk of foreclosure due to involuntary unemployment or underemployment, due to economic conditions or a medical condition.  Eligible homeowners can qualify for an interest-free loan, which pays a portion of their monthly mortgage for up to two years, or up to $50,000, whichever comes first.

Keep Your Home California

September 6, 2011
Foreclosure, Modification, Mortgage Help, Real Estate, Short Sale, Strategic Foreclosure
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Keep Your Home California is a website that has great programs for homeowners who want to keep their homes. There is even a program for people who have recently lost their jobs. Their lender has to participate in the program but you can go to the website and see if they are participating!

Originators of Loans Were Buried (via Livinglies's Weblog)

September 6, 2011
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This article is eye-opening!

Originators of Loans Were Buried MOST POPULAR ARTICLES GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION ANALYSIS – CLICK HERE EDITOR'S NOTE:  One of the things that is being universally overlooked is that the original “mortgage lien” was never valid in the first place. Lawyers refer to that as “perfecting the lien.” The reason that the securitization scheme worked so well is that “originators” were used instead of banks at the time of closing. These originators have been buried in bankruptcie … Read More

via Livinglies's Weblog

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