Watch your mailbox folks. Another scam is coming your way.

ATTORNEY GENERAL HORNE WARNS HOMEOWNERS: MORTGAGE LAWSUIT SCAM HITS ARIZONA

PHOENIX (Monday, August 22, 2011) — Attorney General Tom Horne today issued a warning to consumers to be wary of any notices or advertisements that claim to offer homeowners facing foreclosure “complete forgiveness of the loan” or other monetary relief if they join a class-action lawsuit. Such ploys are likely a pretext to collect illegal up-front fees for foreclosure assistance.

In class action litigation, consumers generally do not have to pay to join, and most reputable firms will not charge a fee for attorneys to review your case or to determine if you are eligible to join a lawsuit.

“The mortgage crisis is only made worse by predators who take advantage of consumers who are already facing the loss of their home,” Horne said. “State and federal law ban almost all types of up-front fees for foreclosure assistance. I am committed to prosecuting anyone who engages in this type of consumer fraud, and it is just as important that consumers be vigilant against these types of scams.”

The California Attorney General recently filed a lawsuit against California lawyer Philip Kramer, the Law Offices of Kramer & Kaslow, plus 19 other lawyer and non-lawyer individuals and companies, for deceptively marketing class action or “mass joinder” lawsuits. The defendants in that case are believed to have taken over $7 million in fees from homeowners in 17 states – including Arizona – after sending out hundreds of thousands of flyers advertising the program. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants advertised nationwide settlements against lenders that did not exist and that many servicers were not provided by lawyers or legal staff.

Notices may be mailed to homeowners or posted on their doors. Typically, the business claims that the fee they are charging is for a forensic audit of your loan documents to see if you are eligible to join the class action litigation. However, the Federal Trade Commission’s Mortgage Assistance Relief Services Rule (“MARS Rule”) contains a broad ban on requesting or collecting up-front fees for almost all types of mortgage assistance, including forensic audits related to foreclosure relief. Arizona’s foreclosure consultant statute also prohibits companies from collecting an up-front fee for assisting homeowners in foreclosure.

Foreclosure rescue companies may promise to refund your fee if you are not eligible to join the litigation. However, the Office’s experience with guaranteed refunds indicates that they are very difficult to obtain, or the company may disappear before the refund is paid. If you are facing foreclosure, refuse to pay up-front fees and instead contact the Arizona Foreclosure Prevention Helpline at (877) 448-1211 for free assistance provided by HUD approved housing counseling agencies.

If you feel you’ve been a victim of a scam or any other type of consumer fraud, please contact the Arizona Attorney General’s Office Consumer Information & Complaints Unit at (602) 542-5763 / (520) 628-6504 / (800) 352-8431.

You can also file a consumer complaint online at:
http://www.azag.gov/consumer/complaintform.html

From CNBC.com….

The Obama administration wants to help more struggling Americans stay in their homes by reducing the amount they owe on their troubled mortgages, a top Treasury official said Saturday.

“We are very definitely trying to facilitate more principal reductions,” said Timothy Massad, Treasury’s acting assistant secretary for financial stability. “It is a very important piece of the overall solution,” he said.

The administration is trying through taxpayer-funded programs to prevent homeowners from losing their homes. Nearly $50 billion has been set aside from the $700 billion bank bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, to help distressed homeowners.

Persistently high unemployment and a weak housing market pose a threat to President Obama’s re-election prospects next year.

So far, one of the programs has helped some 670,000 distressed homeowners win lower mortgage payments. But that has done very little to help the overall housing market, which remains depressed even as other parts of the economy have started to recover.

A glut of houses for sale, foreclosures, tight credit and little demand have impeded the housing recovery. Recent data showed that home prices dropped below the low seen in April 2009 during the financial crisis.
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We can debate this from both sides for days, weeks and months. I will agree with both sides on most of the arguments.

But in the end, what matters most is that more people are able to keep (and stay) in their homes.

That’s my opinion….

Don’t take my word for it, take Fortune Magazine’s.

Here is what Shawn Tully, senior editor-at-large said on March 28th, 2011:

If all the noise you’re hearing about housing has you totally confused, join the crowd. One day you’ll read that owning a home has never been more affordable. The next day you’ll see news that housing starts have plunged to nearly their lowest level in half a century, as headlines announced in March. After four years of falling prices and surging foreclosures, it’s hard to know what to think. Even Robert Shiller and Karl Case can’t agree. The two economists, who together created the widely followed S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price indices, are right now offering sharply contrasting views of housing’s future. Shiller recently warned that the chances were high for a further double-digit drop in U.S. home prices. But in an interview with Fortune, Case took a far brighter view: “The lack of new home building is a huge help that a lot of people are ignoring,” says Case. “People think I’m crazy to be optimistic, but housing is looking like the little engine that could.”

Forget stocks. Don’t bet on gold. After four years of plunging home prices, the most attractive asset class in America is housing.

To see where real estate is truly headed, it’s critical to keep your eye firmly on the fundamentals that, over time, always determine the course of prices and construction. During the last decade’s historic run-up in prices, Fortune repeatedly warned that things were moving too fast. In a cover story titled “Is the Housing Boom Over?,” this writer’s analysis found that the basic forces that govern the market — the cost of owning vs. renting and the level of new construction — were in bubble territory. Eventually reality set in, and prices plummeted. Our current view focuses on those same fundamentals — only now they’re pointing in the opposite direction.

To read the full article, CLICK HERE.

We use a professional short sale negotiator to negotiate with the banks.

The logic behind that strategy is that D.L. Jones & Associates knows REAL ESTATE. Our negotiator knows they banking system, and how they think.

Recently, our bank negotiator sent the following email to one of our short sale “sellers”. Here is is – in it’s entirety… the real truth about short sale approvals.

Short sale approval is not merely determined based on the fact that you have anti-deficiency exemption or are “upside-down” on your home. Short sales are approved based on need as determined by the lender through financial documentation and hardship. Though logically, you would think the bank would automatically want to take the home back in a short sale rather than a foreclosure that is not always true or in their best interest. Everyone would be short selling if that was the case as there are very few people that aren’t upside down/negativity equity or have a viable hardship with the economy and job market in current disruption. Financial documentation requested is very general across the lender board. Also, as your loan is Fannie Mae, there may be a possibility that your loan is insured by Mortgage Insurance, which covers the lender should you default, and allows the MI company to approve or deny your short sale prior to investor approval/denial. When I know more I will let you know, however, the financial documentation will be required to move forward. Though neither the lender, investor or MI company will be able to collect, should you indeed have anti-deficiency protection as can only be determined by a qualified attorney, that does not mean the will automatically approve your short sale and thus the reason we need your financial information and hardship reasoning for being unable to continue paying the mortgage.

The bottom line? Short sales are not easy or automatic and you should never assume that a short sale will be approved.

I’ve been waiting for the appropriate time to embed my all-time favorite move line into this blog.

This is the appropriate time.

The truth is, many buyers and sellers in today’s real estate market can’t handle the truth.

Remember when your parents said “this will hurt me more than it will hurt you”? Perhaps you are too young and were a child long after it became politically incorrect to spank your child. Not me…I lived right in the middle of that era!

I can’t say for sure if the “Real Estate Truth” hurts me more than it hurts you. But I do know that it hurts both of us. It hurts me and all of the agents who work with me because this is how we make our living. It hurts you if you don’t let go of the past and the way things used to be and recognize that 2011 is a totally new world in real estate than just a few years ago.

THE TRUTH FOR SELLERS:

• Your home is not worth what you think it is.
• The $60,000 pool you added 3 years ago makes your home worth $15,000 more than your neighbor’s home that does not have a pool.
• Your home must be IMMACULATE if you expect to get top dollar. I mean IMMACULATE.
• If you try to sell your home without a Realtor, an appraiser may devalue your home by 6% to make it comparable to the homes comparable to yours who did use a Realtor.  Pay me now or pay me later.

THE TRUTH FOR BUYERS:

• You are not the only person interested in buying a “good deal”. There were dozens ahead of you and dozens who will come along behind you.
• You can’t offer 15% below the asking price of a short sale or bank owned home and expect to get it.
• You may have to offer more than the asking price of a home! Trust your Realtor to guide you in properly understanding today’s pricing schemes.

If you think that things do not change, remember that just 10 years ago iPod, iTouch, iPhone and iPad were nothing more than ideas in Steve Jobs’ mind… Today (from what I read) over 45% of Americans own at lease one of these devices. My family owns six of them.

Do not misunderstand this message. We can sell your home (we sold our most recent listing in 16 days and the seller is thrilled!) and we can help you find a “Good Deal” (ask us for a list of happy buyer clients). What we need you to do is to “handle the truth” along the way and trust our guidance on listing prices, offer prices and when you are about to pay too much.

We know what we are doing and that’s the truth!

Dennis Jones, Owner, Designated Broker / Lisa Jones, Owner, Realtor
…and the entire team of 25 real estate professionals who make up D.L. Jones & Associates

What will it take for the U.S. housing market to shake off the doom and gloom? What will it take for housing prices to stabilize? What will it take to stop tempting people to walk away from their mortgages?

The federal government just reported that 4.2 million homeowners are “seriously delinquent” on their mortgages and some 10.9 million borrowers are underwater.

As bleak as all that might sound, there is a way out—one that doesn’t involve another government bailout.

In a recent report published by Reuters after after talking to nearly two-dozen housing experts, mortgage traders, lawyers, securities experts and others, there is broad agreement about what a solution to the mortgage crisis might look like.

They say a fix must allow borrowers to stay in their homes, compensate disgruntled mortgage investors and allow banks to take write down loans without causing a repeat of the financial crisis of 2008.

In essence, it’s something I wrote about over 19 months ago in a post titled: “My Solution to a National Problem…”

It’s called the GRAND COMPROMISE and it could very well be the only way this mess will end.

That was my opinion then, and it’s still my opinion today.

Mortgage rates may be as low as they’ll get — rates are on course to rise, slowly moving toward 5% by the end of next year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s economic forecast, released Tuesday at the group’s annual convention…

Read the entire article by CLICKING HERE.

Yes, that’s their opinion…but it also happens to be mine!

I’m sure you have heard a few horror stories from family and friends who have tried, but failed, at modifying their home mortgage. I sure have.

In this video, Andrea Coombes offers advice from homeowners who’ve already gone through the sometimes grueling government-assistance process known as HAMP, in her Personal Finance Minute.

1. You will always have to disclose that you have had a foreclosure on any future mortgage application. You will have some explaining to do and the prospective lender may not be very understanding.
2. Your credit score will be lowered by up to 300 points which will affect your ability to buy a car, get a credit card, lease an apartment, etc.
3. A foreclosure is the one item that the “credit repair” companies will tell you is virtually impossible to repair.
4. Military and Government security clearance could be at risk after a foreclosure.
5. Many employers run credit checks as a standard part of application screening and foreclosures are one of the top items that can put that new job position in jeopardy.

That’s my opinion…

Now is a great time to buy. And, what’s more, tomorrow will be a great time to own, because the fundamental strength of homeownership hasn’t changed.

Why is now a great time to buy? Here are 10 reasons:

1. You can get a good deal. Prices are down 30 percent on average. They’re at a level that makes sense for people’s income.
2. Mortgages are cheap. At 4.3 percent on average for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, your costs to own are down by a fifth from two years ago.
3. You can save on taxes. When you add up the deductions for mortgage interest and others, the cost of owning can drop below renting for a comparable place.
4. It’ll be yours. The one benefit to owning that never changes is that you can paint your walls orange if you want (generally speaking; there might be some community restrictions). How many landlords will let you do that?
5. You can get a better home. In some markets, it’s simply the case that the nicest places are for-sale homes and condos.
6. It offers some inflation protection. Historically, appreciation over time outpaces inflation.
7. It’s risk capital. If the economy picks up, you stand to benefit from that, even if you’re goal is just to have a nice place to live.
8. It’s forced savings. A part of your payment each month goes to equity.
9. There is a lot to choose from. There are some 4 million homes available today, about a year’s supply. Now’s the time to find something you like and get it.
10. Sooner or later the market will clear. The U.S. is expected to grow by another 100 million people in 40 years. They have to live somewhere. Demand will eventually outpace supply.