Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Friday, October 8th 2010
It’s a homeowner’s nightmare: contently living in a place without fear of foreclosure as the house is paid in full, only to have the bank pull the rug from under you and surprise you with an unexpected foreclosure.
This was what happened with Jason Gordensky, who paid in cash for his South Florida home in December. Seven months later, Bank of America foreclosed on the home with the court-ordered foreclosure on the 15th of July. Gordensky, surprised, tried to straighten out the matter by contacting the lenders and lawyers involved.
Gordensky got nowhere for months until he decided to approach South Florida Sun Sentinel. The newspaper poked around and published the story. Now, Bank of America promises to straighten things out at their own cost.
Gordensky’s case is probably just one of the many who are victim to the foreclosure issue that’s haunting the real estate market nowadays: major financial institutions are halting foreclosures because of an admission that bank personnel don’t check document accuracy prior to filing a foreclosure notice. Banks say everything is mere technical error, that most foreclosures are on solid legal grounding and that paperwork errors are but results of the surge in defaults. But the issue is more than just a case of technicality and a lot of harm has been inflicted.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Friday, October 8th 2010
When the country was hit by the economic crisis, the real estate market was hit the hardest. Even now, when the economy is already starting to stabilize, the real estate market is still struggling to keep its grounding – aside from the declining prices, the mounting number of foreclosed homes is proof of this. It is then no wonder that more and more homeowners and lawmakers are clamoring for banks and mortgage servicing companies to stop foreclosures and review their current processes.
The push to freeze foreclosures came when Ally (formerly GMAC Bank), JPMorgan, and Bank of America all admitted that some employees have signed off on some foreclosure affidavits without checking on the accuracy of legal documents. The process – which has come to be known as “robo-signing” – has led these three banks to put foreclosure proceedings to a pause while they review the processes, ensuring the documents submitted were correct. Stoppage happened in only 23 U.S. states but foreclosures were still a go in the remaining 27 states, like California and Texas – which is why pressure to stop foreclosures has been coming from these two states.
Members of Congress from California, on Tuesday, requested the heads of Justice Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Comptroller of the Currency to investigate banks’ foreclosure processes for “possible violations of law or regulations”. Suspension notices, which ask that foreclosures be put to a standstill until review of procedures, were sent out by the Texas Attorney General’s office to 30 loan servicers within the state.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Thursday, October 7th 2010
Almost everything in the real estate market is going down, like home sales and home prices. But here is one decline that can be taken as a bit of breather from all the bad news: U.S. apartment vacancies have dropped in the third quarter – the first in three years. This means that more and more people are deciding to move out of their families’ and friends’ places and renting their own places.
New York-based Reis Inc. released a survey of about 9.1 million apartments and found out that the national vacancy rate fell from last year’s 7.9% to 7.2% in the third quarter – the figure was at 7.8% in the second quarter. The vacancy rate is said to be the lowest since the 6.7% achieved in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first year-over-year drop since fourth quarter of 2007. Vacancy rate was at a three-decade high late last year, when it hit 8%.
When the U.S. recession started two years ago, the trend of rental demand surge during the second and third quarters was interrupted. Declines in employment rates led many Americans to move in with parents or friends than renting their own places. Now, with the survey results, the trend seems to be coming back.
“Those guys are starting to move back to the rental market. What we’re seeing might be these folks who realized, ‘Hey, I love my father and mother, but I don’t think I can live with them forever. I’ll take a chance on a year long lease and maybe I can find a job in six to nine months,’” explains Reis director of research Victor Calanog.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Thursday, October 7th 2010
The real estate market is far from a total recovery. The recent figures on the Phoenix area home prices prove that: both commercial and residential real estate have been seeing a decline in prices. And the decline seems to be a consistent trend.
Though economists still consider the Phoenix area real estate market as stable, the downward trend in prices sure is alarming. For the first time in months, Valley home prices are in the negative. Commercial real estate prices are also consistently 30% lower than what they were a year ago.
The Arizona State University released reports last Wednesday showing a 2% drop from August 2009 to August 2010 Repeat Sales Index. The index, which measures the annual changes in average Phoenix-area home prices, has shown no change in July and slight increases from April to June. Since March of this year, the index has not been in the negative.
“This is the first overall decline since March, but it is consistent with the small ups and downs associated with relatively stable housing prices. The ASU-RSI has been relatively stable for more than a year, which suggests that changes in house prices will be moderate going forward unless there are dramatic changes in the Phoenix economy or housing market,” says report author Karl Guntermann, the Fred E. Taylor Professor of Real Estate at ASU.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Thursday, October 7th 2010
Real estate watchers have heard of news of GMAC and JPMorgan Chase putting a halt on foreclosure proceedings. What they have not heard of is a bill – which has passed the Senate with lightning speed – that will make it harder to nullify improper foreclosure attempts by banks and mortgage processors. The bill, which is only getting media attention now, is already awaiting President Barack Obama’s signature.
The law, named “Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act”, requires all state and federal courts to recognize as valid notarizations that were made in other states. Notarizations stamped en masse by computers, or electronic notarizations, are also included in this bill.
The bill had been sitting idle in the Senate Judiciary Committee for months but sped through approval and without public awareness on September 27. This made others question the timing of how it was acted upon; even the bill’s main sponsor, Republican Representative Robert Aderholt, was surprised at how it did not ignite any public debate.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Wednesday, October 6th 2010
Looking after our health is very important nowadays, not just because the economy makes it hard to be sick but also because a lot of chemicals are in the air and the food we eat that the risks of contacting sickness is higher. This is the reason some apartment complexes and condos are now banning tenants from smoking – not just in the common areas but in their own units as well. Tenants in some apartment complexes and condos where smoking are permitted are now also asking for the same protection from secondhand smoke.
As Center for Tobacco Regulation, Litigation and Advocacy at the University of Maryland Law School deputy director Rita Turner explained, people are starting to realize that smoke is not contained in a unit. As buildings “breathe”, smoke seeps from one unit to the next. And cigarette smoke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, may cause lung cancer, heart disease, asthma, respiratory infection, sudden infant death syndrome, and ear infection.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Wednesday, October 6th 2010
Many economists and housing market analysts have pointed out that for the real estate market to really start its way up, it needs to reach bottom first. Each of them suggests that for this to happen, the U.S. government should leave the market alone. Now, though, an economics professor at the Harvard University says such a move will be suicidal and that in fact more U.S. aid is needed to save the housing market.
Martin Feldstein, who was once chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Reagan administration and currently a member of President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, predicts that U.S. home prices are due for another decline. With the ending of the first-time home buyer credit last April, the decline is inevitable according to the professor. The decline can only be prevented, says Feldstein, if the government comes to the housing market aid and provides a program that will allow owners to refinance mortgages.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Tuesday, October 5th 2010
Who’d have known that the country’s high unemployment, weak currency, and bloated inventory of homes could lead to an unusually attractive buyer’s market? Indeed, the combination of these three negatives has attracted the international investor class, helping stabilize the housing market for a few key cities.
In Miami, swanky condo complex Viceroy has buyers raving about its Kelly Wearstler-designed place and hotel-like amenities, such as room service food by a celebrity chef, daily housekeeping, and poolside libations. A total of 262 of its 372 units have been sold since the start of the year. And 90% of the buyers were foreigners – and they have all paid in cash.
This is very telling of the trend in Miami, where buyers from Canada, Argentina, France, Israel, Colombia, Italy, Venezuela, and Norway are flocking in to Miami real estate sales offices. These foreign investors once would have shelled out their cash in the U.S. stock market but are now seeing greater potential in real estate: they could buy a property now at its deflated price, rent it out, and then sell when the economy turns around. Take Viceroy’s case: prices have been slashed in half in that units that once sold for $670 per square foot are now just averaging $319.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Tuesday, October 5th 2010
Washington Real Estate Investment Trust, which has its shares publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, has recently announced the final results of cash tender offer to purchase 5.95% Senior Notes due June 15, 2011. The Notes amount to $150,000,000.
The tender offer expired on October 1st of 2010, at 5:00 pm New York City time. At that time, a total of $56.1 million aggregate principal amount of the Notes were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn. Payments for all Notes that are validly tendered and not validly withdrawn have been accepted by the Washington Real Estate Investment Trust pursuant to the tender offer.
Payment of the aggregate consideration of approximately $59.3 million – accrued and unpaid interest included – for the Notes purchased pursuant to the tender offer are expected to be made in the same-day funds come 4th of October, 2010. Both Wells Fargo and Citi acted as Dealer Managers of the tender offer.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by
Heyli Regpala on Tuesday, October 5th 2010
A popular bank and a mortgage servicer are being sued by homeowners in Kentucky for conspiring with a mortgage transfers company for falsely foreclosing on loans. It is a serious allegation and when proven true, then a lot of homeowners who are currently facing foreclosures just might get a chance to save their homes.
Homeowners in Kentucky have filed a lawsuit against Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc., alleging that the two have conspired with Reston, Virginia-based Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. in falsely foreclosing on loans. Filed as a civil-racketeering class action on behalf of the Kentucky homeowners facing foreclosures, the lawsuit claims that banks – via MERS, which handles mortgage transfers among banks – are foreclosing on homes to which they don’t hold titles to properties. The complaint was filed in a federal court in Louisville, Kentucky on the 24th of September.
The complaint reads, “Defendants have filed foreclosures throughout the state of Kentucky and the United States of America knowing that they were not the ‘owners’ or beneficiaries of the loan they filed foreclosure upon.”
According to the lawsuit, the defendants either filed or caused to be filed mortgages through forged signatures. It also stated that foreclosure actions were filed months before any legal interests are acquired in the properties. Own notes executed with mortgages were also falsely claimed by the defendants, the lawsuit further says.
Read the rest of this entry »
