Comments on: Foreclosure Nightmare Stories

By: Jennie Morgan

Jennie Morgan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:48:56 +0000

We’re continuing the FIGHT TO KEEP OUR HOME! Believe it or not, it’s been 2 YEARS OF FIGHTING WITH “WELLS FARGO” AND WHILESHIRE the servicer!!!! The Banks can and should obsorb the loss’s since they contributed to this nightmare and on top of that they were paid with the “TARP MONEY” (tax payers money) and the homes were insured!!!!! How many times do these banks get to make up the differences on ONE HOUSE, not to mention thousands of homes???

Here’s another interesting tid bit if anyone is interested. I found a home in Canyon Gate, original purchase in 2004 and 2005 went for $550,000.00 single story. Two weeks ago someone swept it up within 7 days for a mere $143,000.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The guy that originally bought the home could have made the payments too on a $143,000.00 home but of course, the banks wouldn’t work with him, yet they’ll work with someone else. I wonder who it is and where they work???? It makes me wonder if they too work at “WELLS FARGO” like the lady in “MALIBU CALIFORNIA” that worked at the bank and wouldn’t show a $12,000,000.00 house so she could live and party there. Mysteriously she never would allow Real Estate Agents to show the home because she was living there. HMMMMMMM!!!! ??????? Connections, Connections, Connections is what it’s all about and who you know at the banks!!! How sad!!!!

This is what needs to be checked on. Why sell a home to a stranger for pennys but not refinance to the original owner??? If it’s a loss it’s a loss, but I still say they’ve been paid by “TARP” AND “INSURANCE”.

GEORGE KNAPP can you investigate these banks and servicers? As a Real Estate Agent here in Las Vegas my husband and I are seeing this all over Las Vegas. We try to sell some of these homes to clients but we always get beat out because these Banks sell to who THEY WANT TO SELL TOO!!! PENNYS, PENNYS, PENNYS, instead of DOLLARS. This is sooooo sad for the Hardworking Homeowners who will not be able to repurchase a home now for YEARS!!!!! Help these familys save their homes. I’m trying as hard as I can but I have no format. I need help as thousands of others need.

Sincerely,

Jennie Morgan
Realty One Group
1-702-325-4296

I wish George Knapp from the Channel 8 I TEAM would investigate. I’m positive he’d see what I’m seeing all over the valley!!! It’s just WRONG!!!! If the Bank can’t refinance the home at “FAIR MARKET VALUE” for the homeowner, why are they refinancing for a new owner for pennys on the dollar, “LITERALLY”??????

By: Jennie Morgan

Jennie Morgan — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:37:50 +0000

Does anyone know if WELLS FARGO BANK here in Las Vegas is trying to help ANY HOMEOWNERS from FORECLOSURE? If yes, who do we contact? We’ve tried everything but the only thing that has happened to us is losing $3000.00 to the U.S.Justice Foundation! Now we have a court date for March 26, 2009 to attempt to tell the judge what has happened to us just trying to work out anything with WELLS FARGO. We have NO representation because U.S Justice took our money and closed their doors. All we wanted to do was keep our home at “FAIR MARKET VALUE” at a resonable interest rate. That’s it.

By: H Smith

H Smith — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:26:24 +0000

I think Jon Markman is trying to fit everyone into a nice neat little box & you cannot do that! That’s childish, immature & ignorant! Everyone has a different situation! I left my wife (who speaks little english) with a large sum of money to make a down payment on a house in 2004 before I left for overseas. She was taken advantage of by a husband/wife team Liberty Reality/Icon Mortgage here in Las Vegas that would not accept our prequal letter or 709 fico & steered her into an 11/75% ARM. When I came home from overseas we filed a complaint with Nevada Fair Housing Center, Inc & they examined our loan documents & found several violations of the Home Ownership & Equity Protection Act (HOEPA) & (TILA) where they overstated our monthly income. This is a common practice here in Las Vegas, Nevada for Mortgage Brokers to take advantage of Senior Citizens & people who speak English as a second language. Please Comment to seatime37@aol.com

By: Fred K

Fred K — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:17:03 +0000

I bought my house in late 2007 for $400K at 6.5% fix. I put 25% down ($100K). With the current market, I didn’t only lost all my equity but due to foreclosures in the area, my house is only worth about $250K and I owe $299. I retired from the military and currently unemploy. Between my pension, spouse’s income, and others, we are barely getting by or having to use our saving to cover any shortfalls. I called Countrywide in January to see if they have anything that will help responsible people like me who are still current on payment. It was like takling to a wall. All the solutions she mentioned only benefit CW and not me. Later, I spoke to the HOPE credit counselor, we did the budget and she send the file to Countrywide. February, I send a certified letter with my budget breakdown to CW asking them to help me. Today 10 Feb 09, I called CW to discuss more about my issue. We had to go over my budget again. I asked her to pull out the letter I sent but she said she still has to do it verbally. At first her math showed I have positive income so I don’t qualify. I told her the math is not right. We tried again and now it showed I’m negative and still don’t qualify. So I asked her what is the number for me to qualify? she said because I’m already on fix 6.5% interest, I don’t qualify. So basicly, no matter if I’m positive or negative, I don’t qualify period. She just wasted my time. She mentioned doing a short sale, in which I replied why not help me and modify my mortgage? They will likely loose less money helping me then taking a short sale. She said that’s the only solution the company can offer. To sum it up, if you are responsible and doing your best not to add to the foreclosure problem – THERE IS NO PROGRAM TO HELP YOU BUT ONLY PROGRAMS THAT ENCOURAGE YOU TO DUMP THE PROPERTY.

By: H Smith

H Smith — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:24:07 +0000

By Greg Farrell, USA TODAY
LAS VEGAS — In the shadow of Sunrise Mountain, where Rolling Hills Drive turns into Gold Mine Drive, a plain two-story home sits unoccupied, like thousands of other houses here in southern Nevada.
Some of these empty homes have “for sale” signs. Others bear signs saying “foreclosure.” Authorities say hundreds of them, including this one on Rolling Hills Drive, should have a different sign out front, one that reads “fraud.”
Prosecutors contend this house was sold last year to a straw buyer as part of a sprawling mortgage fraud perpetrated by a husband-and-wife team involving 277 properties in greater Las Vegas.
Prosecutors have charged Eve Mazzarella, 30, and Steven Grimm, 45, with bank fraud, alleging the two caused banks to make more than $107 million in dubious loans and netted a profit of at least $15 million. Both defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges. A trial has been scheduled for October.
To the untrained eye, the size, scope and sophistication of the alleged scheme is noteworthy. But to the FBI in Las Vegas, the problem is the opposite: In recent years, there have been so many mortgage fraud cases, the bureau and local prosecutors have had to establish a special task force to combat the problem.
Scott Hunter, the FBI’s supervisory special agent here, describes the region as “mortgage fraud ground zero.”
The problem is so widespread that everyone seems to know someone affected by it. Even one of the FBI’s Las Vegas agents has a connection: Special Agent Henry Schlumpf’s wife was the real estate broker who sold the Rolling Hills Drive house last year to a straw buyer representing Mazzarella and Grimm.
The problem is hardly confined to Nevada. On a national level, mortgage fraud is a pandemic that stretches from California to Rhode Island, and from Alaska to Florida. The FBI currently has 1,380 active investigations into mortgage fraud, compared with 818 for fiscal 2006.
According to the website MortgageDaily.com, reported cases of fraudulent mortgage loans amounted to more than $4 billion in 2007, up from $1.6 billion in 2006.
But the $4 billion number doesn’t come close to describing the losses generated by mortgage fraud. Neighboring homeowners take a financial hit. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Las Vegas, where housing prices appreciated by a staggering 40% in 2004 alone. The surge in values drew investors, speculators and first-time buyers into the market like gamblers to a craps table.
“We’ve got people who walked into neighborhoods who paid $200,000 to $400,000 more than they ever should have paid,” says the FBI’s Hunter. “That story is going on all over Las Vegas. Everybody thought the market was hot, but a lot of that was being manipulated.”
Many of those who overpaid are stuck with mortgages larger than what their homes are worth. Those who took out home-equity lines of credit based on inflated valuations of their homes are now caught in a financial squeeze. Las Vegas had one of the nation’s highest foreclosure rates last year, with 4.2% of its homes being repossessed by banks, up 169% from 2006.
“There’s a close correlation between states with foreclosure problems and states with mortgage fraud problems,” says Sam Garcia of MortgageDaily.com. “There’s a good portion of foreclosures that probably resulted from some form of mortgage fraud.”
Profit or possession
Mortgage fraud comes in two flavors: “fraud for housing” and “fraud for profit.” Fraud for housing occurs when would-be home buyers overstate their income or misrepresent their credit history to secure a mortgage to buy a more expensive house than they can reasonably afford. In most cases, people who commit fraud for housing intend to live in their homes and pay their mortgages.
Fraud for profit is considered the more serious crime, since the goal is to rip off banks. In one common version of these schemes, a fraudster buys a home, gets an inflated appraisal, then resells the home at the artificially high price to a straw buyer who has no intention of living in the house or paying off the mortgage.
Mortgage fraud perpetrators can’t act on their own; they need accomplices to trick a bank into underwriting a loan that’s larger than a property is worth. To pull this off, mortgage fraudsters often work in league with corrupt appraisers, who inflate the value of target properties, says Jenny Brawley, head of mortgage fraud investigations at Freddie Mac.
The fraudster also needs someone to play the role of the buyer. In a true sale, a buyer would never willingly overpay for a home, but mortgage fraud schemes don’t work unless a straw buyer shows up and puts in a sky-high offer for a property.
Straw buyers fall into two categories: willing accomplices who hope to share in the profits; or dupes who are told they can make a quick $5,000 or $10,000 by joining a “real estate investment partnership.”
Once a mortgage fraud perpetrator has his team in place, he needs to figure out how to cover his tracks. Fraudsters know they can’t close a bogus real estate transaction one day, then disappear the next without raising suspicion. To keep the banks at bay, sophisticated con artists pay the mortgage bills for six months or even a year after a sale, creating the illusion of a legitimate real estate transaction.
Until 2006, when the real estate market began to cool in earnest, a fraudster could often resell a property, essentially covering his tracks.
“A lot of these schemes were masked because of an appreciating market,” says Freddie Mac’s Brawley. “The orchestrator of a fraud could flip 50 or 100 houses and do pretty well.”
Case studies
In the past few years, regulators have filed hundreds of cases against mortgage brokers, appraisers and straw buyers. Although the details of each case are unique, they often share similar characteristics:
• Eye-popping price appreciation. How hot were real estate values in Texas in the winter of 2003? So hot that Carlos Paul Gonzalez arranged to buy a home in The Woodlands, a Houston suburb, for $376,850 on Jan. 29, then sell it for $515,795 on Feb. 12.
That sounded too good to be true to federal prosecutors there, who filed an indictment charging Gonzalez and a partner, Ken Russell Browder, with recruiting straw buyers to overbid for a series of properties, including the home in The Woodlands.
The two men have pleaded not guilty in the matter, but in April, a title agent named in the indictment, Jannice Bonner, pleaded guilty to participating in the mortgage fraud scheme.
• Straw buyers. Last December, federal prosecutors in Utah charged five men and one woman with defrauding two lenders out of $13 million in mortgage loans. Prosecutors allege the defendants inflated the values of homes, buying and selling them through straw buyers and a pair of shell companies, Home Owners Group (H.O.G.) and Paragon Investment Group (P.I.G.).
•Professional involvement. In recent years, the FBI has estimated that 80% of mortgage fraud cases involve real estate professionals who couldn’t resist the temptations of easy money. Other cases involve people with criminal backgrounds migrating toward the mortgage business.
The epidemic of mortgage fraud is a reminder that wherever easy money is made, criminal activity soon follows.
“Mortgage fraud has always been here,” says Hunter, “but the level of complexity has gone up. It’s not just white-collar criminals. There are elements inside the real estate industry. You don’t just show up one day and do this. You learn to perfect the craft of mortgage fraud.”
A 40% rise in one year
In terms of mortgage fraud, Las Vegas was bound to become a hotbed. When property values there soared 40% in 2004, speculators saw they could get rich quick without having to visit the city’s casinos.
For Larry Watson and his wife, Anne Marie, their home at the corner of Rolling Hills Drive and Gold Mine Drive had soared in value since they bought it in 1999 for $139,000. For years, they rented out the property, but they say continuing problems with tenants had resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
In February of 2007, the Watsons say, they just wanted out, and listed the home for sale at $310,000 with a local real estate agent, Erin Schlumpf. But by then, the real estate market in Las Vegas had cooled, and for two months, the Watsons got no offers.
In May, Schlumpf stunned them, saying a young man named Jonathan Carter was willing to buy their property for $340,000. But there was a catch: After the closing, the Watsons would have to make a $43,000 payment to a company called Pro Design, effectively reducing the sale price to $297,000.
In June, the Watsons say they got worse news: An appraiser determined that the value of their home was only $290,000, and therefore, the bank wouldn’t approve the $340,000 mortgage application. Schlumpf then said Carter would be willing to buy the house for $295,000, but the catch remained: The Watsons would still have to pay $43,000 to Pro Design.
“I didn’t understand where the $43,000 was going,” says Larry Watson, who works in the information-technology department of Clark County, Nev. “I was advised that Pro Design is a corporation that holds money to be used in the repair of a property. I really got suspicious.”
Nevertheless, exhausted by the process and concerned about the weakening market, the Watsons accepted the deal.
At closing, a payment of $43,000 was made to Pro Design, a company controlled by Steven Grimm, according to Nevada state records, as well as the federal indictment. According to the documents signed at closing, Grimm’s wife, Eve Mazzarella, received a commission as broker and agent for the buyer, and Schlumpf and her boss split a commission for representing the Watsons.
The Watsons never met Carter, the buyer, since he didn’t show up at the closing. But Schlumpf urged them to sell quickly in June because Carter was in a hurry to move into the house, Watson says.
Carter says now he never intended to live in the house. Instead, he told USA TODAY, he was led to believe he’d make money on a real estate investment brokered by Grimm, just as several of his friends had. All he had to do was allow the home to be purchased in his name, and Grimm would handle the mortgage payments.
Shortly after the sale of 1729 Rolling Hills Drive last year, Carter began receiving notices from Amtrust Bank saying that he was behind on his monthly payments.
Carter says he called Grimm to complain. “He was like, ‘Oh, it’s getting taken care of,’ ” says Carter. But Grimm made only one mortgage payment after his call, Carter says, and the bank has been dunning him since. Carter’s attorney, Kirk Kennedy, says the bank has begun foreclosure proceedings.
Schlumpf, wife of an FBI agent, says she can’t comment on the matter, as it’s under investigation. The FBI wouldn’t comment, either. And there is no evidence to suggest that anyone connected to the deal other than Grimm and Mazzarella is under investigation.
Of the 277 properties that Mazzarella and Grimm are accused of using to defraud banks, this is the box score from 1729 Rolling Hills Drive: The Watsons lost $43,000 from the profit they might have earned on their property; Carter’s credit rating is ruined; and Mazzarella and Grimm could end up in jail.
The property was no gold mine after all.

By: H Smith

H Smith — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:21:44 +0000

Fraud and lending in Las Vegas
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
Mortgage fraud is again stepping into the media limelight. NPR’s Morning Edition reports on new FBI investigations which are being carried out in Las Vegas, Nevada: a city which is fast emerging as the mortgage fraud capital of America.
Current turmoil in the city’s property market has led the FBI to uncover a number of schemes involving 14 financial institutions. The tactics which were used included paying fake buyers several thousand dollars to be listed on mortgage applications for several houses in the same neighborhood. Once these loans closed, corrupt appraisers would then exaggerate the property value and the underlying investors would sell and keep the profits.
Such schemes artificially inflated home values throughout the city, and forced many desperate buyers into adjustable rate mortgages which they couldn’t really afford. In some cases this led to a cascade effect of foreclosures. Once one or two homes in a neighborhood were foreclosed on, surrounding property values declined and more homeowners became trapped in costly mortgages they might have otherwise been able to escape.
Investigators suspect Las Vegas is just the vanguard in a growing trend of such schemes, and anticipate similar, albeit less extensive, discoveries across the country over the next year or two.

By: H Smith

H Smith — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:11:48 +0000

HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY ACT OF 2008: Law may be of little help to LV

Lenders would have to approve FHA refinancing

By JOHN G. EDWARDS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
The new housing recovery law gives a glint of hope to homeowners facing foreclosure, but local business leaders doubt it will help many Southern Nevadans.

The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 that was signed into law by President Bush on Wednesday authorizes the Federal Housing Administration to refinance loans for up to 90 percent of a home’s appraised value, which would help homeowners who owe more than their home is worth.

Michele Johnson, CEO of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service, said Thursday she doubts the federal law will help much here.

“Even if it were beneficial for consumers in Nevada, I believe it would be helpful on a very limited basis,” she said.

Lenders with second-home loans would be wiped out and probably won’t agree to the FHA loan arrangements if they don’t also hold the first mortgage on a home, she said.

“How many second-mortgage lenders are going to be willing to eat the balance (on their loan)?” she said. “Probably 70 percent of the homeowners we’re seeing have a second mortgage with a different financial institution (than the first mortgage lender). Most of the (second-home loans) were for down payment on the house.”

In order to take advantage of the new program, a homeowner or his mortgage broker will need to convince the lender to write off the amount that the original loan exceeds the home’s market value, plus 10 percent.

The question is whether the lender is willing to accept a loss in order to recover 90 percent of the home’s value, said Brock Davis, outgoing president of the Southern Nevada Chapter of the Mortgage Bankers Association.

And if the lender is willing, can the institution absorb the loss, Davis asked.

Lenders would need to write off tens of thousands of dollars on each of the FHA refinanced loans, and the lenders may not be able to take a financial hit of that size, analysts say.

Wells Fargo Bank, one of the biggest home lenders in Nevada, is analyzing geographic areas and may approve the FHA refinancing and loan reductions in distressed areas, possibly including parts of Clark County, said Kirk Clausen, regional president of Wells Fargo Bank.

“It could include some forgiveness on some mortgage loans that might be underwater,” Clausen said. “It’s probably too early to commit on any across the board loan forgiveness (of amounts exceeding 90 percent of appraised value).”

The FHA refinance option probably will work for only a small percentage of financially struggling home owners, he said.

Yet, “I think it’s going to do a lot to really stabilize the home mortgage market,” Clausen said.

Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, D-Las Vegas, is chairman of a legislative panel on home mortgages. Conklin said the bill was good for the country, but said it probably won’t help many in Southern Nevada because many mortgage balances exceed home values here by such a large amount and lenders may be unwilling to take such a large hit.

Las Vegas home loans “were really overcooked” and typically exceed the current value of homes by 20 percent or more, he said.

A Las Vegas homeowner may have a $500,000 loan on a house with a current appraised value of $230,000, Conklin said. That would be too big of a loss for most lenders to accept, he said.

If the public believes the law will help the housing market, Davis said, the law may become self-fulfilling by convincing people that the worst is over and it’s time to buy a home.

“Anything right now is a benefit,” said Patty Kelley, president of the Greater Las Vegas Board of Realtors. She noted the law includes a $7,500 tax credit for some first-time buyers. However, she said, it’s too soon to know if that provision will help many.

Bankruptcy trustee Tim Corey said homeowners would have benefited more if Congress had given bankruptcy judges authority to force lenders to reduce the mortgage balances to the value of the home. Several decades ago, bankruptcy judges had that power but it was eliminated first by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and later by the 2005 bankruptcy reform law.

Corey doubted Congress would restore the bankruptcy “cram-down” provision.

The new law “will help a fair amount of people,” said Martin Lobel, a Washington, D.C., attorney and former legislative aide to the late Sen. William Proxmire. “It’s not a total solution to the problem.”

Before the home mortgage crisis ends, Lobel said home prices will need to decline to more appropriate levels that are justified by the local economy.

Contact reporter John G. Edwards at jedwards@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0420.

By: dbighitter

dbighitter — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:41:37 +0000

I live and work here in las vegas. I live in an apartment here and own a house in Mesa, Az. and have moved my parents into it who a retirees from the Midwest. I dont have any trouble paying my bills or paying mortgage because I bought the house when I knew I could afford it and saved up the money for it. Just like people used to do it. Not like most of the people in foreclosure and I say most because some happen due to unseen illness or job loss,who went out and didnt use their heads and let these greedy real estate agents and lenders convince them they could afford these way over priced houses. Now people like me who work and know how to manage their money will have to end up being over taxed to bail out you easily manipulated people. Most of you put yourselves in this situation now suck it up, give up the house go to work and save money so you can buy a house the old way, a fixed 30 year mortgage with 10% or more down. I am not being mean and good luck.

By: H Smith

H Smith — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:43:07 +0000

GAIL BURKS & the Nevada Fair Housing Center, Inc. 3380 W. Sahara Avenue, Suite 150 • Las Vegas, Nevada 89102 is a sham & so is the so-called Mortgage fraud hotline 584-5555! Anybody that doubts me please e-mail me & I will be happy to attach all proving documents! Seatime37@aol.com. I have left countless messages for the NEW mortgage fraud hotline & they never return any calls! Anybody that has lived here for a while knows they have been plagued by corruption just read the newspapers. I recommend not donating any more money to these Las Vegas corrupted backed agencies, she could not even get up out of her office & explain to me why she will not press charges against a certain proven local predatory mortgage broker!

By: James Talmon

James Talmon — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:19:52 +0000

I’ve lived in this city for 14 years. The housing crises is crushing a lot of good hard working people. I have been doing all I can to help. People just want to know if it’s possible for them to keep their home. They want straight forward advice and REAL help. There are several programs that may be able to help them do just that. However, the reality is that not all options will apply to everyone. Each homeowner will have a unique set of circumstances. Sometimes, bankruptcy may be the only option. But it should be the LAST option. If you would like to know more about what we’ve been doing, please visit my website at http://www.jpa-enterprises.info — the four sections that I would recommend you see is our “FAQs” (Frequently Asked Questions); “About Us”; “Agency Programs” and “Basic Qualifications”. If you like to know more, please contact me.