Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Saturday, October 23rd 2010
People are now aware that the foreclosure mess has led to lower sales on foreclosed homes. But what they don’t know is that it has also affected another group of people considered more influential in aiding the housing and economic recovery. The very people helping wipe out the inventory on foreclosed homes has decided to stay in the sidelines until the issue on foreclosure fraud dies down.
Investors help keep supply at a low by rehabilitating foreclosed properties before selling or renting them out. With the dawn of foreclosure fraud and rob-signing, though, investors are filled with fear. And they have chosen to freeze any foreclosure buying and selling activities as well.
“We’re like a plane flying around in a holding pattern, waiting to land. Nothing is going on, and why? Fear has taken hold in the marketplace,” shares Southern California investor Tony Alvarez.
The whole housing market was turned upside down when news of possible fraud and robo-signing descended on foreclosure proceedings. This has led major banks and mortgage lenders to suspend any foreclosure activities. Though Bank of America and GMAC Mortgage have recently lifted their foreclosure freezes, the joint investigation launched by state attorneys general in 50 states is still putting foreclosure activities at a standstill.
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Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Saturday, October 23rd 2010
Technology has become a big part of people’s lives, with it governing almost every aspect from the mundane daily tasks to bills-paying jobs. That’s why despite the housing market crash, real estate brokers have tried their best to balance cutting down on expenses and catching up with the continuously evolving technological advancements. This is the reason one Chicago brokerage has decided to merge its two offices in one location.
The latest among Chicago brokerage to adapt to the trend of real estate agents relying on technology to service clients, owner Jason Palermo has consolidated RE/MAX Vision of Elmwood Park and RE/MAX Vision 212 of Chicago into one location. The 62 agents of the company are now based at 1500 W. Chicago Ave. in Chicago, which used to be the base of only RE/MAX Vision 212. Most of those agents, though, do their work at home offices or their cars.
More and more real estate agents have come to rely on laptop computers and smart phones when making deals and serving clients. This was actually the reason Palermo decided to merge the two offices. According to him, it was a redundant and unnecessary expense to be keeping two brick-and-mortar offices in this technology-driven world.
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Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Saturday, October 23rd 2010
Perhaps one of the hardest decisions a person can make is whether or not to sell something of sentimental value when the proceeds will surely fill a big gap in budget deficits. This is may just be the dilemma that California is facing. The sale of an iconic property to a real estate firm will address California’s budget woes but it has also raised the ire of some lawmakers and residents.
In an effort to fill the state’s budget deficit, some state-owned properties are being sold – one of them being the Orange County Fairgrounds. The fairground is being sold for $100 million to real estate firm Facilities Management West. Facilities Management will make an initial payment of $20 million for the 150-acre Costa Mesa property and will pay off the remaining amount in the next 35 years.
“This sale creates a new revenue stream to help shore up the state budget and prevent further cuts to programs or the need to raise taxes. We’ve truly earned the highest and most certain return for California taxpayers,” says Department of General Services acting director Ron Diedrich.
But the Orange County fair is an icon for the area as it has been hosted by the county since 1949. Being of historical and sentimental value, the sale of the fairgrounds has led Democratic Assemblyman Jose Solorio to make a statement about the fairground remaining a public property. He further says that a legislation he intends to introduce in December will block the transaction; and he says he expects strong bipartisan support for the said bill.
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Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Thursday, October 21st 2010
It is something that’s been abuzz in the real estate world for quite some time now: major banks and mortgage lenders freezing foreclosure proceedings amidst talks of fraud and robo-signing. The delay in foreclosure is supposed to be used to review the policies and procedures behind foreclosure proceedings. Lifting on the foreclosed properties, banks now come to their defense and are calling the recent mess a mere ‘technicality’.
Some weeks ago, banks like GMAC Mortgage and Bank of America have announced that they are suspending foreclosures because of issues of fraud and of signing off foreclosures without checking accompanying documents. Bank of America even extended the freeze from the 23 states where foreclosures need judicial review to all 50 states. Now, both Bank of America and GMAC Mortgage are pushing through with foreclosures, saying their individual reviews did not produce evidence that borrowers were wrongly foreclosed on.
Court filings on loan documents from mortgage servicers have produced a different story. A case of a 45-year old software engineer tells of his house being sold by San Francisco bank Wells Fargo & Co. in a foreclosure sale in August, only to have the bank rescind the sale a month later. Admitting that the sale should never have happened, Wells Fargo offered the software engineer a loan modification increasing monthly payment by $70 to $1,422.34.
Even with such existing cases, banks are still saying that looking into the mortgage paperwork has not uncovered wrongful foreclosures. The banks defend themselves by saying that those who are currently facing foreclosures are indeed behind in their mortgage payments. Bank of America shares that in the second quarter, 33% of foreclosure sales involved vacant properties and 80% of them have not been paid for a year.
To further downplay the issue, banks say that the current paperwork problems were just technical errors. The banks go on to say that there were no systematic flaws in which previous (and ongoing) foreclosures are handled.
For those who fear that lifting on foreclosures will wrongly take their homes away from them, state attorneys general are still looking at the issue. Concerned that foreclosures and mortgage modifications happen simultaneously, the attorneys general – who recently launched a unified investigation – will look at robo-signing, bungled paperwork, and even backdating of documents.
Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Wednesday, October 20th 2010
A Capital Economist analyst wrote, “A double-dip in both housing activity and prices is underway. Prices are likely to fall for the next 12 months, while activity will remain weak for at least three years.” And that’s enough to instill fear in most (if not all) Americans. This is probably why a foreclosure moratorium is feared to spur that said double-dip – which is why the recent development on foreclosure freezing may be seen as a positive thing by real estate insiders.
Three weeks ago, Bank of America implemented a stoppage of foreclosure proceedings in 23 states; shortly after, it announced that the delay is being expanded to include all 50 states. This week, though, the biggest mortgage lender in the country is lifting the freeze in the 23 states where foreclosure activity undergoes judicial review. Bank of America says the reason behind this is that there was no evidence found regarding unwarranted foreclosures.
The partial lifting is earlier than what analysts predicted, but this bodes well for industry insiders. With the current statistics on the housing market, which is seen as the main anchor for lifting the economy from recession, analysts’ fear just might have basis.
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Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Wednesday, October 20th 2010
There has been much talk about the recent foreclosure crisis that led to major banks – like Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase – to suspend on foreclosure sales and proceedings. One of the topics that arose in the recent foreclosure mess is the role of mortgage registry in tracking down who has the right to foreclose on homes. Recent debates on the topic just might shed some light into the foreclosure mess.
The Mortgage Registration Systems Inc. allows banks to electronically register home loan sales. Its role in home foreclosures, if there is any, is currently being debated in a number of courts. The turnout of the debate can determine if the registry system can share the blame for the defective foreclosure process and the clouded titles for millions of properties.
MERS has played a big role in the process of bundling mortgages into securities. If a ruling against MERS happens, the same process will surely slow down.
“MERS is the central device by which the banks have tried to opt out of the legal system and the real-property record system. They have taken it upon themselves, with the supposed consent of the borrowers, to violate a system of property record-keeping that we’ve had going back centuries,” says U.S. Representative Alan Grayson of Florida.
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Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Monday, October 18th 2010
Perhaps with all the mess the housing industry is experiencing, the commercial real estate is benefiting. The commercial real estate sectors, though, has not yet fully recovered from the recession no thanks to the weak job growth but it is definitely on its way with sectors offering incentives that make the market ripe for expansion. This is according to the country’s largest trade association.
The National Association of Realtors admits that the commercial real estate is still suffering from the effects of the current economic recession. However, with the housing market still unable to recover from the crash, practitioners are restructuring practices to aid the commercial market’s recover.
NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun explains, “Vacancy rates are beginning to level off in some sectors, but rent discounts and moderate levels of landlord concessions are widespread. This is very much a tenant’s market, which is quite favorable for businesses that are considering expansion. It’s also encouraging that there is a modest improvement in the sentiment of commercial real estate practitioners.”
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Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Monday, October 18th 2010
The housing market may still be on its way to recovery and the economy still on shaky grounds, but there are still people who can surely afford to purchase new properties. One of them will be NBA superstars who just got signed in to a new team.
Basketball superstar Chris Bosh has been looking at Miami properties ever since he got signed to Miami Heat. He has, in fact, been scouting for months before settling on the mansion on North Bay Road. He will be moving in time for the start of the new NBA season.
The North Bay Road mansion was tagged at $16 million but Bosh got a substantial discount for it. He only had to pay $12.5 million for the said property. Agent Lourdes Alatriste said timing made it possible to secure the mansion at a lower price – Bosh closed on the sale before other interested families can make competing offers.
The clean, modern home situated on Miami Beach is perfect for the near seven-foot tall Bosh as it has high ceilings to accommodate the tall basketball star. The waterfront location and state-of-the-art entertainment room will also most likely appeal to the hardworking player.
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Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Monday, October 18th 2010
With the apartment industry starting to pick up on construction and rental prices slowly going up, it is apparent that the commercial real estate market is on its move to recovery. In 2011, things just might continue to perk up, according to a global professional services firm and a non-profit education and research institute.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Urban Land Institute (ULI) report, entitled “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2011″, yields that the three years of dislocation and unprecedented loss for the commercial real estate just might be changing course. The report reveals that commercial real professionals and industry investors are becoming more hopeful of moderate improvements. A lowering of performance indications and anticipation of high single-digit returns for core properties and mid-teen returns for higher risk investments were some of the things that the survey respondents revealed.
Helping values reset at 30-40% below 2007 peaks is the stepping up on foreclosures and dispositions of properties during 2011 and 2012 being done by lenders with strengthening balance sheets.
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Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Monday, October 18th 2010
Banks freezing foreclosure proceedings and sale to review their foreclosure proceedings is hardly news. The truth is, though, that not everybody knows where the issue really stemmed from and what foreclosure freezing could mean to the housing industry and the economy as a whole. The following will shed light to some commonly asked questions about the latest buzz on foreclosure delays.
Some owners have cried foul over some foreclosure proceedings and when their lawyers looked into the matter, that’s when they unearthed the fact that robo-signing – or signing thousands of affidavits without checking accuracy of supporting papers or having a notary present – has been present in almost all major lender companies. Getting depositions from officials preparing legal documents for foreclosure court approval who confirm this practice indeed exists has been the root of the current foreclosure mess. Through the press, claims of fraud – such as forged signatures and backdated documents – also surfaced.
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