Where do all the Disgraced Mortgage Executives Live?

In Florida of Course.

But not only do they live in Florida, they live in a special neighborhood just for these types of bank executives. They all live in an upscale subdivision in beautiful, sunny Fort Lauderdale, Florida aptly named Shady Banks, where the homestead laws favor unsavory characters of this sort. Yes, this picture does not lie and many former mortgage executives live there. 21 of them to be exact.

Well, now it is 18. 3 are in Federal prison. As for the others - 7 are under indictment, 5 are under investigation and 6 are on house arrest.



Jason Donn
eRealEstate Social Media Group

Fannie Mae Gets Into The Home Rental Business

Good News for foreclosure victims. Some homeowners will get an option to rent the home that they just lost. Its possible to stay in your home as a renter. Fannie Mae will give borrowers facing foreclosure an option to rent their homes for a year.

Foreclosed home owners will be able to sign a one year lease, with possible month to month extensions with Fannie Mae. Good for everybody.

Homeowners get a little relief and are able to remain in their homes for a year or more. This will buy them the time they need to regroup. It will also help keep neighborhoods from going missing. Rather than rows of abandoned homes with all the crime and destruction that vandals create.. Neighbors that have not lost their homes will not see more equity loss as squatters and criminals move into vacant homes. The banks are reluctant landlords and they are allowing property to decline.

It will keep supply off the market for at least another year and that is good for all the handlers, Fanne Mae because it can put off the expense of a foreclosure, the banks because less supply will protect equity in homes they are off loading and everyone one because it will help stabilize home prices. I dont think we can have a strong recovery without real estate.

To qualify, homeowners have to live in the home as the primary residence and prove that they can afford the market rent, which will be established by the management company running the program. In many cases, rents will be less than the mortgage because properties that are now worth far less than they originally paid.

The downside is seems to be that homes that might normally have been foreclosed and sold will now remain owned by taxpayers. Homes, according to Dr Shiller have risen faster in the last few months than he has ever seen. Perhaps Fannie will profit a little while doing a good thing for families that must be a little traumatized by it all.

And even if prices don't rebound quickly. Fannie Mae gets rental income, avoids foreclosure expenses gets to helps people.

Thanks for Reading
www.yourpropertypath.com

From Howard Bell's article on eRealEstate

Generation Y: Bullish on U.S. Housing Market

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The first major survey into Generation Y’s perception of the U.S. housing crisis reveals a surprisingly strong sense of optimism about the future despite cautious near-term sentiment.
First major national housing survey during current downturn reveals surprising results

While the housing industry is readying for this wave of future homeowners (approximately 80 million strong), there is little data on what this influential buying group actually wants in their next home or how the current downturn has affected their future plans.

According to the national survey conducted by The Concord Group:

50% say they are likely to purchase a home within the next three years
50% say tax credits or lower interest rates would motivate them to purchase a residence sooner
70% believe home prices will be higher or at today’s levels in two years
62% say wealth creation is a very big advantage of real estate ownership
Although economic conditions factor strongly in their decision-making process, survey respondents say that lower home prices and/or a raise at work would be the top motivations for buying a home sooner than planned.

"Generation Y is going to have more impact on the national housing market than any group since the early Baby Boomers. We wanted to better understand their preferences and expectations especially as they will have such an impact on our future,” said Emma Tyaransen, Principal of The Concord Group, a national real estate advisory firm.

The majority of respondents to The Concord Group’s survey say they are:

Willing to pay a premium to live closer to their job
Seeking out a larger space for their next residence
Interested in living near alternative modes of transportation
Likely to put down less than 20% on their next residential purchase
Planning to eventually abandon the cities for a life in the suburbs
“What’s so interesting about this data is that it supports our prediction that transit-oriented development will command a premium in the near future. It also proves that suburban development will continue to play an important role in the housing market that emerges from the downturn,” said Tyaransen.

The Concord Group is a premiere national real estate advisory firm with offices in Newport Beach, CA; San Francisco, CA; Portland, OR and Boston, MA. The Concord Group provides developers, investors and public planning agencies with vital analytical input throughout all phases of real estate financing, development and operations. www.theconcordgroup.com

Jason Donn
AllStar Realty
954-892-6244

A shadow lurks in the housing market

This is scary. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that lenders are sitting on hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes that haven’t even been listed yet. If this “shadow inventory” hits the market, we’ll have a new definition of bottomless pit.

From the article:

“We believe there are in the neighborhood of 600,000 properties nationwide that banks have repossessed but not put on the market,” said Rick Sharga, vice president of RealtyTrac, which compiles nationwide statistics on foreclosures. “California probably represents 80,000 of those homes. It could be disastrous if the banks suddenly flooded the market with those distressed properties. You’d have further depreciation and carnage.”

The Chronicle suggests several reasons why banks might not be selling off their foreclosures:

— The “pig in the python”: Digesting all those foreclosures takes awhile. It’s time-consuming to get a home vacant, clean and ready for sale. “The system is overwhelmed by the volume,” Sharga said. “In a normal market, there are 160,000 (foreclosures for sale nationwide) over the course of a year. Right now, there are about 80,000 every month.”

— Accounting sleight-of-hand: Lenders could be deferring sales to put off having to acknowledge the actual extent of their loss. “With banks in the stress they’re in, I don’t think they’re anxious to show losses in assets on their balance sheets,” O’Toole said.

— Slowing the free-fall: Banks might be strategically holding back some foreclosures so prices don’t fall as fast. “They want to be careful about not releasing them too quickly so they don’t drive prices down and hurt the values,” O’Toole said.

And then, there are people scamming the system. Two dozen people have been indicted for “allegedly conducting a wide-ranging mortgage fraud based in San Diego and led by a street gang member.” From Reuters:

The defendants allegedly used straw buyers and inflated appraisals to purchase homes that had sat on the market for extended periods and had been reduced in price.

They submitted offers that exceeded the homes’ asking prices, and had the overage paid to a shell construction company that they claimed would make upgrades or handicap modifications to the properties, prosecutors said.

The defendants instead disbursed the “kickback amount” to members and associates of the enterprise as payments for their participation, the indictment said.

Lenders later foreclosed on the properties, taking “severe financial losses,” after the straw buyers failed to make payments, the indictment said.

Jason Donn - Real Estate Open Networkers

CREDIT REPAIR - Closing more deals with the right Credit Repair Company

As many of you know Credit Repair Companies are a dime a dozen. Most of the credit repair companies I have come in contact with charge around $500 or some sort of monthly fee. From the feedback I have received, most of them are not very good.

In an effort to find a VERY GOOD credit repair company I started researching them and met with several. 1 or 2 seemed to be very good but charged an arm and a leg. I finally found one that was not only superb but were also reasonable in their pricing. In addition, they have a money back GUARANTEE. I have already referred them to many Real Estate Brokers and Mortgage companies with phenomenal results.

One of the reasons this company is so good is that the President of the company was a former high level executive with Experian.

I would love to share more information on this company with you. If you are interested, please email me at jason.donn@yahoo.com or call me @ 954-892-6244.

Jason Donn

Foreclosure nation

Posted by Scott Van Voorhis

Looks like the foreclosure epidemic is getting its second wind.

The first wave of foreclosures featured homeowners duped into buying homes they couldn’t afford with goofy, subprime loans. Not to mention a whole lot of small-time investors who bought units in hopes of flipping them for big profits, as well as a just outright fraudsters who used straw buyers to create artificial sales.

But much of that first wave of crazy subprime mortgages gone bad has already crashed into the housing market and economy. Now we are starting to see the second wave, regular homeowners who are losing their jobs and their homes due to the economic downturn, of course triggered in part by the subprime fiasco.

Anyway, that is the way some are reading the latest foreclosure stats, with the number of troubled mortgages rising to 7.8 percent of all home loans, the highest since 1972, Bloomberg reports. Loans actually in foreclosure now amount to 3.3 percent of all mortgages in the country, an all-time high.

The Mortgage Bankers Association is pointing to the deepening recession and job losses as a key factor behind the growing number of bad loans.

Let’s just hope President Obama’s $75 billion lifeline to homeowners in trouble works a bit better than the now long list of previous multibillion-dollar rescue plans rolled out by the federal government and several states, including Massachusetts.

Still, even the president’s ambitious effort won’t help you if you’ve lost your job and have no money at all to pay your mortgage.

Jason Donn

Housing bailout details are released

The Obama administration today is rolling out details of its plan to help as many as 9 million homeowners restructure their mortgage debts and avoid foreclosure.

Here's a link to the summary of guidelines for the program. There are plenty of additional details posted on the Treasury Department Web site.

To be sure, the effort has evoked mixed feelings.

The majority of folks who played by the old-fashioned rules of saving money and not buying more house than you can afford may feel a twinge of resentment at bailing out a lot of people who grasped beyond their economic reach.

Others contend that many of the folks who are in a foreclosure fix got there through no fault of their own other than an unlucky turn in the economy or falling victim to unscrupulous lenders and their Wall Street enablers.

The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle. And the economy is already so weak that simply letting the housing market collapse could worsen the plight of everyone.

My preference, of course, would be for the feds to buy up enough mortgage-backed securities to drive down mortgage rates and enable even more folks to refinance at new lower fixed rates. The resulting cash flow tsunami cold float the entire economy.

Just a - modestly self-interested - thought.
Submitted by Chris Lester on March 4, 2009 - 12:22pm.
National Economy

Contact Jason Donn

Even Once-Strong Housing Markets Stumble

by Prashant Gopal
Friday, January 30, 2009

Formerly resilient areas like Charlotte, N.C., and Boston are struggling, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index

Home prices in 20 major metro areas nationwide fell 18.2% in November -- a record annual pace -- as the deteriorating economy pulled down previously resilient markets, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index released Jan. 27.

All 20 metro areas in the index saw annual price declines, 14 of which were double-digit drops and 11 of which fell by record rates. Only Denver and Dallas experienced a drop of less than 5%.

The index, which is a three-month moving average ending in November, captures the impact of the financial crisis following Lehman Brothers' collapse in September. The November decline was terrible, but it wasn't much worse than the October drop, said Patrick Newport, U.S. Economist for HIS Global Insight.

"There is so much inventory," Newport said. "Prices are going to continue to drop for quite a while."

Bargains in Worst Markets

But in the worst markets, including Miami, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas, the year-over-year price declines -- though deep -- have remained relatively flat since the summer. A wave of foreclosures has depressed prices so much in those markets that investors and other first-time home buyers have moved in to scoop up bargains. According to a survey released on Jan. 26 by the National Association of Realtors, sales of existing single-family homes jumped an unexpected 7% in December from November's seasonally adjusted annual rate.

In Los Angeles, for example, the annual decline has stayed between 25% and 27% since June, according to the index. In Miami, the annual declines since may have remained in the 28%-to-29% range.

"If you buy a home and rent it out in these markets, you can have a positive cash flow just because prices are so low," said Mike Larson, a real estate analyst with Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla. "Even though the economy is crummy, some investors are willing to nibble when the price is right."

Other resilient markets were feeling the impact of the economic downturn. Year-over-year declines have been accelerating in Minneapolis, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, Washington, Detroit, San Francisco, and Charlotte, N.C.

Charlotte Market Stumbles on Banking Woes

In Atlanta, for example, the year-over-year declines increased steadily each month, from 2.12% in November 2007 to 11.25% in November 2008, according to the 20-city index. In Charlotte, the banking capital of the South, home prices fell 5.33% in November 2008. By comparison, prices jumped 2.9% in November 2007.

The Charlotte housing market was relatively stable until the summer because the area had benefited from a population boom and a strong job market. But buyers grew cautious as problems worsened in the financial sector. Charlotte-based Bank of America plans to eliminate up to 42,500 jobs worldwide as a result of mergers with Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch. And Wells Fargo also is expected to cut local jobs as a result of its acquisition of Charlotte-based Wachovia.

"People don't know how many layoffs there will be in Charlotte," said Professor Steven Ott, director of the Center for Real Estate, University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "There's a lot of uncertainty."

Charlotte appraiser Steven Stone said Charlotte's problems have worsened since November. Home sales were off 40% in December compared to the previous December. And prices are now down 15% to 20% for homes above $600,000 and down up to 20% for starter homes, he said.

The financial crisis is the "main reason Charlotte took the last punch compared with other markets," Stone said.

Gopal writes about real estate for BusinessWeek in New York.

Jason Donn

Radical cheap: $1,000 homes

The real estate market is so awful that buyers are now scooping up homes for as little as $1,000.

There are 18 listings in Flint, Mich., for under $3,000, according to Realtor.com. There are 22 in Indianapolis, 46 in Cleveland and a whopping 709 in Detroit. All of these communities have been hit hard by foreclosures, and most of these homes are being sold by the lenders that repossessed them.

"Foreclosures have turned banks into property management companies," said Heather Fernandez, a spokeswoman for Trulia.com, the real estate Web site. "And it's often cheaper for them to give these homes away rather than try to get market value for them."

In Detroit for instance, Century 21 Villa owner Randy Eissa has a three-bedroom, one-bath bungalow of about 1,000 square feet listed at just $500. It's a nice place with lots of light, but it needs a total rehabilitation inside, which Eissa estimates will cost between $15,000 and $20,000. But that's not bad, considering that the home last sold for $72,000 in late 2007, according to Zillow.com.

With prices this low, lenders aren't looking to make any money on these deals. They just want to get these houses off their books, so they don't have to bear the cost of maintaining them and paying property taxes.

In fact, the $500, $1,000 or $3,000 that a buyer forks over often goes straight to the real estate brokers as a commission. And often the lenders have to kick in extra cash to make it worthwhile for a realtor even take the listings, according to Eissa.

"Usually these homes are bank repossessions that the lenders have already tried to sell on the market, perhaps then put up for auction without success and then re-listed," he said.

Fixer uppers

These houses are almost always small fixer-uppers. Wiring, plumbing and heating systems have to be replaced, walls and ceilings sheet-rocked, plumbing and light fixtures installed and new kitchen cabinets and counters put in. Few come with working appliances.

Often buyers are legally required to rehab these homes to bring them up to code. In Detroit, buyers are required to sign Affidavits of Compliance Responsibility, which obligates them to make repairs outlined in an inspection report. Only after that can a certificate of occupancy will be issued, which makes the house legal to live in.

But even factoring in these costs, they're still bargains.

And as the housing crisis drags on, there are more and more four-figure listings popping up, as lenders try to unload their repossessed properties.

Cleveland is another city with many incredibly inexpensive homes. On Ardenall Avenue, in East Cleveland, McMullen Realty has a listing for a four-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house for $1,900. It's been vandalized inside, but the outside is in good shape.

It features a deep front porch with Doric columns, double dormer windows and a separate garage. It's an excellent opportunity, according to agent Tonya Stoudamire. The last time it sold was in March of 2008 when it went for $16,677, according to Zillow.

"East Cleveland has a beautiful housing stock," she said. "These houses just need someone to come in and love them a little."

Another property for sale in Birmingham Ala. is priced at $1,900. The one-bedroom, one bathroom home was built in 1923 and has major fire damage, according to its listing broker, Tom Murphy Realty. The listing states that "Rooms are hard to distinguish."

But it's on a nice-sized lot, about 0.38 acre, close to downtown and transportation and has all utilities. Nearby, comparable homes in good condition sell for about $100,000, according to Zillow.

Rehab money

Most of these $1,000 homes can be renovated relatively inexpensively, and buyers can actually get government help to finance these repairs. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has a special loan program for just such purchases.

Its rehabilitation mortgage insurance, available through FHA-approved lenders, was designed to encourage banks to issue a single, long-term loan to buyers that covers both the acquisition and rehabilitation of a property, according to HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan.

He adds that there may also be grant money available from the $4 billion Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which was a part of the massive housing rescue bill passed by Congress in July, to assist buyers with grants for down payments.

Buying homes like these is certainly a leap of faith; they're generally not in the best of neighborhoods and they're often surrounded by many other vacant and deteriorating homes. Still, some of these neighborhoods may turn around and provide residents with good, dirt-cheap housing.

"It's a sad time," said Stoudamire. "But it's also a time of opportunity, especially for low and moderate income people."

Contact Jason Donn