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By News Desk, on July 3rd, 2011 Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WASHINGTON — Eight California real estate investors have agreed to plead guilty for their roles in two separate conspiracies to rig bids and commit mail fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions in Northern California, the Department of Justice announced.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 28th, 2011 Last week I got to hear a presentation by Brendan Lowney of Economic Advisors, aptly titled “Groping Toward a Housing Recovery“, which I think is a perfect way of describing our current housing market, so perfect, I borrowed it for the title of this article. Mr. Lowney began his presentation with a very sobering statement, [...]
By News Desk, on June 25th, 2011 PHOENIX—Brett Matheson, 46, pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a $50 million mortgage fraud scheme based in Phoenix. Two others have also entered guilty pleas and are awaiting sentencing.
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By News Desk, on June 25th, 2011 WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice announced late this week that it has filed a lawsuit against the city of New Berlin, Wis., alleging that the city violated the Fair Housing Act by repeatedly taking action to prevent the construction of an affordable housing development by a private developer, MSP Real Estate Inc.
The complaint, [...]
By News Desk, on June 18th, 2011 WASHINGTON – A former senior vice president and head of Colonial Bank’s Mortgage Warehouse Lending Division was sentenced today to eight years in prison for her role in a more than $2.9 billion fraud scheme that contributed to the failures of Colonial Bank and Taylor, Bean & Whitaker (TBW). Colonial Bank was one of the [...]
By Dennis Norman, on June 17th, 2011 Simple economics tells us that when supply exceeds demand prices suffer, just as we have seen in the housing market over the past three-plus years. A report by Brendan Lowney, a macroeconomist with Forest Economic Advisors (FEA) estimates that an excess home inventory of 2.5 million homes exist at this time. He says that this [...]
By Dennis Norman, on June 14th, 2011 The headline today on a CNBC article was “US Housing Crisis is Now Worse than Great Depression” and there are many similar articles in other publications as well…in fact, if you Google “Housing Crisis Worse Than Great Depression” there are over 100 exact matches just in the past month. The writer’s all seem to be [...]
By Dennis Norman, on June 10th, 2011 The results of a survey conducted in eight countries for Genworth Financial was released today and contains some interesting findings. The survey was conducted on existing home-owners as well as people that said they were potential first-time home-buyers in eight countries; U.S., U.K., Ireland, Italy, Australia, Mexico, Canada and India.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 9th, 2011 Robert Shiller
I’m doing this article as I attend a presentation by Robert Shiller, Yale Economics Professor and Co-Founder of the S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices at the S&P Housing Summit 2011, as he discussed “Unusual Factors Influencing the Outlook for the U.S. Housing Market. So it may be a little choppy, but here [...]
By Dennis Norman, on June 8th, 2011 The “State of the Nation’s Housing“ Report for 2011 by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University does not paint a very pretty picture of the housing market, nor does it give us a whole lot to look forward to with regard to the near-term future of the U.S. housing market.
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By Dennis Norman, on June 2nd, 2011 There is a lot of talk in the media today about the poor housing market and how an increase in employment would help bring the housing market back. However, the question is, will a recovery in the job market bring the housing market back, or will a recovery in the housing market bring the job [...]
By News Desk, on May 30th, 2011 Ronald Johannes Sneijder, 48, a former owner of a title and escrow company based in the District of Columbia, pled guilty last week to the lead count in a recently filed indictment, bank fraud, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. [...]
By News Desk, on May 29th, 2011 Last week, a loan originator, the 12th and final defendant in a large-scale mortgage fraud ring, was sentenced in federal court for his role in fraudulent property transactions that were part of a larger mortgage fraud conspiracy involving 21 property deals and more than $10.6 million in loan proceeds. In February, Appolon was convicted of [...]
By News Desk, on May 28th, 2011 This week, in federal court in St. Paul, a jury convicted a 44-year-old Burnsville man of conspiring with others to bilk mortgage lenders out of more than $43 million. Following a six-day trial, the jury found Troy David Chaika guilty on seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of mail fraud, and one count of [...]
By Gerry Loesch, on May 27th, 2011 Where do you begin?
Moisture can come from several sources. However, the most frequent sources of moisture inside the home are the plumbing, roofing, basement seepage and condensation. No matter where the source is it must be found and eliminated.
Moisture damage in some cases may take some time to become obvious. It is easy [...]
By Dennis Norman, on May 24th, 2011 The newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), one of the newest agencies under the Federal Government, created “to make markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans”. Hmm, sounds good, but as usual, I was skeptical. However, thus far, I’m pretty impressed with the CFPB’s approach to changing mortgage disclosure statements in [...]
By Dennis Norman, on May 23rd, 2011 According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive® on behalf of Trulia and RealtyTrac, 45 percent of American adults say the government is not doing enough to prevent foreclosures. Only 17 percent think the government is doing too much and 16 percent say just the right amount is being done.
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By News Desk, on May 22nd, 2011 Ronald Johannes Sneijder, 48, a former owner of a title and escrow company based in the District of Columbia, has been indicted on federal charges relating to mortgage fraud. The total amount of loans was approximately $1,829,000.
The indictment, which was unsealed today, was returned May 13, 2011 in the U.S. District Court for [...]
By Dennis Norman, on May 20th, 2011 UGH…
According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive® on behalf of Trulia and RealtyTrac, 54 percent of American adults believe that recovery in the housing market will not happen until 2014 or later. In a previous survey, six months ago, 42 percent of American adults said they thought the market would turn around by [...]
By Dennis Norman, on May 11th, 2011 Spring storms in April caused 8 areas of the U.S. to be declared a National Disaster area, and another 9 more so far in May. Damage from tornadoes and wind from these storms as well as flooding has caused thousands of homeowners financial hardship. For those affected borrowers in these areas that have FHA loans, [...]
By Dennis Norman, on May 9th, 2011 Do you want to know which real estate markets are predicted to be the best and worst in 2011? If so, watch the short slide show below to find out. The Five Best and Five Worst U.S. Housing Markets in 2011
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By Gerry Loesch, on May 2nd, 2011 Basement seepage, in most cases relates to poor management of surface and roof water. Water causing basement seepage can come from three basic sources. First surface water can be directed to, rather than away from the foundation. Second water collected in gutters and downspouts is not routed away from the foundation. Although rare, the third [...]
By News Desk, on April 29th, 2011 This week, Mary Lee Reinking of Clinton, IA, a former mortgage broker with Crow Valley Mortgage in Bettendorf, Iowa, was sentenced by United States District Judge John A. Jarvey to five years’ probation, including one-year home confinement, in connection with Reinking’s previous guilty plea to one count of wire fraud. Reinking also was ordered to [...]
By Dennis Norman, on April 28th, 2011 A report released this morning by Trulia shows that when it comes to the question “should I rent or buy” the answer is to buy in 80 percent of the 50 largest U.S. cities. Trulia’s “Rent vs. Buy Index” compares the cost of buying and renting a two-bedroom apartment, condominium or townhouse and for the [...]
By News Desk, on April 19th, 2011 Lee Bentley Farkas, the former chairman of a private mortgage lending company, Taylor, Bean & Whitaker (TBW), was convicted today for his role in a more than $2.9 billion fraud scheme that contributed to the failures of Colonial Bank, one of the 25 largest banks in the United States in 2009, and TBW, one of [...]
By Dennis Norman, on April 18th, 2011 The Mortgage Fraud Index from MortgageDaily.com has fallen 69 percent over the past year to the lowest level since early 2008. For the fourth quarter of 2010 the Mortgage Fraud Index was 814, which is down from 2634 the year before and is the lowest level the index has been at since the first quarter [...]
By Dennis Norman, on April 17th, 2011 Over the past year or so there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of stories questioning the manner in which lenders were handling the servicing of their loans, particularly those of underwater borrowers, as well as the foreclosure practices of many including “robo-signing” of foreclosure affidavits. Next came the lawsuits and now, this week, the [...]
By Dennis Norman, on April 11th, 2011 Forty three years ago today, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which included Title VIII, the Fair Housing Act which, as described on HUD’s website, “prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of dwellings, and in other housing-related transactions, based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, [...]
By Dennis Norman, on April 8th, 2011
I first wrote an article on this topic a little over two years ago as the foreclosure rate was rising and borrowers were concerned about where they stood with the IRS with regard to “mortgage forgiveness”. Well, here we are today with the same issues looming over many people, so I thought I would [...]
By Dennis Norman, on April 4th, 2011 According to a study, the Community Preference Survey, conducted for the National Association of Realtors®, Americans favor walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods, with 56 percent of respondents preferring smart growth neighborhoods over neighborhoods that require more driving between home, work and recreation.
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