Category Archives: Government

Foreclosure Starts are Down Across the West

Leave a reply

Foreclosure starts are down all across the West Coast for December. Reduced filings were reported in California, Nevada and Washington. Nevada showed drops of 14%.

According to ForeclosureRadar the drops were due to the closing of trustee sale locations in California. Riverside County passed an ordinance prohibiting solicitation on all County property. California law only specifies that the location must be within the County where the property is located and must be published in the Notice of Sale. Nevada law states

2. All sales of real property must be made:
(a) In a county with a population of less than 100,000, at the courthouse in the county in which the property or some part thereof is situated.
(b) In a county with a population of 100,000 or more, at the public location in the county designated by the governing body of the county for that purpose.

Here in Reno trustee sales are conducted on the steps of the Court House on Virginia Street.

The slow down in Nevada was attributed to AB 284 which established new foreclosure rules requiring the lender and trustee to certify that they have done everything correctly.

“Nevada’s new foreclosure rules appear on track to bring a near complete halt to foreclosures in that state,” said Sean O’Toole, founder and chief executive officer of ForeclosureRadar.

“In the near term this will certainly help homeowners who were facing foreclosure, eviction, and potentially deficiency judgements. Longer term, we believe there will be unintended consequences for the state as business declines for the many real estate related companies that would normally service, resell and finance those foreclosures.”

Read more: http://www.housingwire.com/2012/01/13/foreclosure-starts-drop-across-the-west-coast?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+housingwire%2FuOVI+%28HousingWire%29

You may also be interested in . . .

The Informal Economy

Leave a reply

Are you a part of the informal economy? Do you do things outside of a formal work structure. Do you get paid in cash, under the table? Do you buy and sell using Craigslist, eBay or other routes? Do you ever hire the day laborers hanging out on Galletti Way?

The governments (Federal, State & Local) frown on this sort of behavior. After all, how would they get their cut. And, perhaps even more, how can they regulate and control you?

Here is a story of an itinerant New York City candy vendor who makes upwards of $150/day selling candy in the subway. It’s also a report on some of the facts of life about this segment of the economy.

It’s estimated that about 60% of all working people on earth work in an informal economy. A great benefit is seen because the independent entrepreneurs are not sitting on welfare or collecting food stamps.

What do you think? Would we be better off if this were legal?

You may also be interested in . . .

  • No Related Posts

Unemployed Borrowers Get Break from Fannie Mae

Leave a reply

New guidelines from Fannie Mae followed similar guidelines from Freddie Mac on forbearance for homeowners that are unemployed and facing foreclosure. The loan servicer can grant six months forbearance without the GSE’s approval.

If the borrower is still unemployed Fannie Mae can approve an additional six months forbearance. After that the lender and borrower must consider other options.

The borrower is expected to repay the lost payments over a longer period. But in reality, in many cases the forbearance would simply amount to one year free rent.

This follows a similar program last summer for FHA loans and loan modifications.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/business/unemployed-mortgage-holders-get-payment-extension.html

You may also be interested in . . .

Nevada Notaries Charged With Fraudulent Foreclosure Documents

Leave a reply

Just in case you may have forgotten about the robo-signing scandal that first came to light in Florida, I thought that I might jar your memory. Florida happens to be a judicial foreclosure state while Nevada is non-judicial. In Florida’s case, the fraudulent document signers work ended up in court. But, the foreclosures in Nevada were for the most part settled at public auction on the court house steps. These never had to face a judge.

Now, it has come to light that Nevada is not immune for fraudulent signing. At least three notaries have now been charged with notarizing documents without actually witnessing the signing.

The three notaries had all worked for LPS, (Lender Processing Service) to handle paperwork for the banks. This is the same company at the center of the problem in Florida. Apparently, they had such a workload such that they could never witness every document within the time allotted.

The problems here, were addressed in AB 284. Now the foreclosing entity must certify that their documents are in order. The end result is that foreclosures will now take longer to complete the process.

Read More: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57337111/3-nevada-notaries-named-in-foreclosure-fraud-case/

You may also be interested in . . .

Nevada Ranks # 46 in List of Best Run States

Leave a reply

Here’s another one of the “Best of” and “Worst of” lists that must fill journalists need for “product.” This time it is ranking the best of and the worst of the 50 states according to their arbitrary opinion.
These are the same kinds of lists that the politicians and the activist refer to when they seek to further pick the pockets of the public. Notice that they don’t include the per capita taxes the states collect.

FWIW, Nevada ranks #46 on the list:

46. Nevada
> State debt per capita: $1,690 (6th lowest)
> Pct. without health insurance: 22.6% (2nd highest)
> Pct. below poverty line: 13.0% (24th lowest)
> Unemployment: 13.4% (the highest)

Nevada has dropped five places in our rankings. This drop is due primarily to its credit downgrade this year from AA+ to AA. Surprisingly, the state has one of the lowest debts per capita in the country, at just $1,690 per person. However, it has other financial woes that make it a long-term risk. Nevada properties declined 44.5% in value between 2006 and 2010, the worst decline in the country. In October alone, one in every 180 homes was foreclosed upon, easily the worst rate in the country. The state also has the second lowest percentage of residents covered by health insurance and the highest unemployment rate in the country.

California ranks the worst, # 50, but you probably already knew that.

Read more (To save you time, Nevada is on page #6.).

You may also be interested in . . .

New Short Sale Rules From Freddie Mac

Leave a reply

Effective Jan, 1, 2012 everyone involved with Freddie Mac short sales will be required to sign an affidavit and be held liable for any misrepresentations they may have caused. This is purportedly to ensure that the transaction is at arms length.

In August, the government-sponsored enterprise alerted real estate agents to the rise in shady short sale deals. The main concern is flopping. There is a growing trend of real estate agents on the buy-side of the deal failing to disclose other bids on the property, rigging the sale at a lower price.

This was based on the theory that if a buyer flipped the property and made a profit, the deal must have defrauded the bank. If we extend this concept then every business that buys a product or service and re-sells it at a higher price would be committing fraud. We know that any merchant that doesn’t make a profit soon goes out of business.

We must realize that this absurd notion comes from the government where little makes any sense. But take care because they will look for any excuse to make an example of you.

This is from the same Fannie and Freddie that has already cost the taxpayers $169 billion and have paid huge bonuses to their executives for losing money.

How big are the paychecks going to top Fannie and Freddie executives? Big. Really, really big. Since the agencies went into conservatorship, Fannie and Freddie’s top six executives have received $35 million in compensation, including millions in bonuses, even as borrowers struggled to keep their homes and got no meaningful relief.

Read more:

You may also be interested in . . .

Fannie Mae Discloses that it Pushed Foreclosures Over Mods

Leave a reply

It appears that Fannie Mae lied and was pushing foreclosures instead of loan modifications as they had originally insisted.

Fannie Mae has released papers and internal memos indicating that the government-controlled GSE has been pushing its lenders to opt for foreclosure instead of loan modifications and threatening to “charge a penalty to lenders who allowed foreclosures to wait too long before they were executed” . . . Ethical arguments about this policy aside, these memos are dated from the same time that Fannie Mae officials were testifying in congressional hearings that they “were doing everything in their power to prevent foreclosures.”

Nearly everything we see coming out of Washington is complete corruption and lies.

“I am thoroughly disgusted by the actions of Fannie Mae,” said Ingham County Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel, who is currently suing Fannie Mae and other lenders arguing that they failed to pay Ingham county millions of dollars in title transfer taxes. “What these internal documents show is that while Fannie Mae was being bailed out by taxpayers they were systematically pushing for citizens to be foreclosed. The reason for this is even worse. Right now we as taxpayers pick up the cost of every foreclosure, because we pay Fannie Mae’s loss in the foreclosure process. In other words they actually get paid more for a foreclosure than for a reasonable modification.”

Neeta Delaney, co-director of the Michigan Foreclosure Task Force, had a slightly more muted response.

“We see this on a daily basis. It is what we have been characterizing as the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing,” she said. Her coalition represents nearly 200 groups with a stake in ending the foreclosure crisis and is working to push new foreclosure related legislation through the legislature. “It’s not new news (foreclosures during modification negotiations). But the documents are new news. These documents are implying a policy behind this. It’s not just the banks being overwhelmed.”

Read more:http://michiganmessenger.com/51716/officials-angered-over-fannie-mae-disclosures

You may also be interested in . . .