Upside Down Mortgage

Posts Tagged ‘economics’

Subprime Video

The current mortgage rate credit crisis is a golden opportunity for real estate investors to turn a quick profit, provided they're looking in the right areas of the country. Rising foreclosure rates are quickly becoming a problem for banks and communities across the country.

The President, Congress and the Federal Reserve working to make an amicable rate freeze on Adjustable Rate Mortgages to slow the problem. Yet, even with this effort a total of 437,498 foreclosures were filed in the first quarter of 2007. According to Realtytrac.com, this is an increase of 100,000 foreclosure filings compared to the first quarter of 2006. Imagine what the first quarter of 2008 holds for the real estate investing market!
Savvy business investors interested in pre foreclosure investing can turn these rising foreclosure rates into a golden opportunity. Investors can buy a record number of distressed properties in short sales deals, and flip them with minimal renovations for a high return.

States with the Highest Rates of Foreclosures
Areas such as Nevada, Colorado and Georgia are ripe with opportunities for pre foreclosure investing. According to realtytrac.com in 2007, these states reported an average of one foreclosure filing for every 75 households. That is triple the national average of pre foreclosure properties.

New real estate investors can find these pre foreclosure opportunities in even greater numbers in California, Florida and Texas. According to Realtytrac.com, these states have reported the largest totals of foreclosure filings in the country. California alone reported 80,595 foreclosure filings in the first quarter of 2007. This is double the number of foreclosures in the state with the second highest numbers of foreclosures, Florida which came in with 45,156 foreclosures in the first quarter.

Who’s to Blame?
Many real estate investing experts blame the rising foreclosure rates on the practice of subprime lending. Also known as near prime or second chance lending, this practice involves giving higher rate loans to homeowners with spotty credit, lower incomes and other problems that preclude them from better home mortgage loans. Naturally, these homeowners will have a harder time keeping up payments on their property mortgages.

This unprecedented number of foreclosures has created a problem for the banks. Banks do not want to have foreclosed properties on their portfolios. They simply do not have the time or interest in maintaining these homes until they can be sold. In addition, banks must reserve enough cash to cover that mortgage should it foreclose entirely in every single one of those some 400,000 pre foreclosure properties in default. That’s millions, even billions of dollars that the banks can’t use to make their own profits on!

What it Means for Real Estate Investing?
As you can imagine the banks want to sell those properties, those mortgages or to have their homeowners to catch up bad loans. Investors can easily negotiate great short sales with the banks to pick up these pre foreclosures at a discount. Never before has pre foreclosure investing held so many opportunities for success.

Pre foreclosure investing is an excellent way to take advantage of these foreclosure filings. By negotiating with the banks on short sales deals you’ll be able to pick these properties before they are foreclosed on, and you’ll be helping the homeowner avoid bankruptcy.

Foreclosure rates are skyrocketing, and this is merely the first wave of a credit crisis that's been looming for the past three years. As other credit products eventually adjust to realistic market conditions, the number of opportunities for short sales on foreclosed properties is going to increase. Being a savvy investor, that's something you can capitalize on in pre foreclosure investing.

Learn more about protecting your short sale position at Realestateinvestor.com. We feature an instant network of investors, shortsalers and buyers for the real estate investor. In addition our real estate resources, tools, documents and videos are some of the most helpful one the web.

Colin Egbert is an experienced Real Estate Investor with plenty of short sale techniques to aid fellow investors in their quest to succeed and make huge profits. He's the author of the ebook "Getting Started with Short Sales" providing the tools needed to start your own real estate investing business. Colin is also the CEO of Realestateinvestor.com a website dedicated to helping investors make the most of their business.

About the Author:

Colin Egbert is an experienced
Real Estate Investor with plenty of short sale techniques to aid fellow investors in their quest to succeed and make huge profits. He's the author of the ebook "Getting Started with Short Sales" providing the tools needed to start your own real estate investing business. Colin is also the CEO of Realestateinvestor.com a website dedicated to helping investors make the most of their business.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Pre Foreclosure Investing - Rising Foreclosure Rates are a Great Opportunity

Market Meltdown - An Elliott Wave Look at Subprime Sentiment

If you're new around here, you might want to subscribe to our Upside-Down Mortgage RSS feed. It's quite likely the only feed of it's type on the internet!

Mortgage Fraud Risk

Greed, ignorance, and good intentions are the various starting points for mortgage fraud. Whether a person is looking for a home to live in that's nicer than he can legitimately afford, or he's looking to flip a property to make a quick buck, mortgage fraud entails lying or hiding information from the bank to get more favorable loan terms.

There are two main types of mortgage fraud: "fraud for profit" and "fraud for house." While "fraud for profit" schemes are fairly clear-cut in their dubiousness, "fraud for house" is often committed by people who aren't aware of the seriousness of their actions. Some truly don't think of what they're doing as wrong.

"Fraud for house" is committed when a person falsifies her income or credit information in order to qualify for a home loan that she knows she couldn't qualify for based on her true financial circumstances.

Oftentimes this type of fraud seems innocent—after all who'll get hurt if I fudge the numbers just a little bit? However, as we've seen with the record number of foreclosures happening in recent years, too many people have gotten themselves involved with real estate deals that they simply couldn't afford.

A single foreclosure can reduce the property values for everyone on the street, which can lead to entire neighbourhoods with slumping real estate values. Thus, one little lie on an application can have serious consequences: for the bank who never recoups their money, for the homeowners who lose their homes, and for the rest of the economy that takes a hit right alongside the real estate market.

"Fraud for house" cases commonly involve a buyer exaggerating their income on the application form, or in some cases, by getting financial aid from the seller without notifying the lender. This type of loan is known as a "silent second," where the seller offers to help the buyer come up with the down payment, while keeping the bank in the dark. This is problematic because the bank gets a false picture of the buyer's financial resources. The bank then authorizes a loan based on inaccurate information, and risks not ever getting their money back.

Another popular form of mortgage fraud involves what's known as a "straw buyer" or a "nominee loan." In this type of fraud, a buyer uses someone else's credit and income information on their loan application. He may decide to pay a person to use their information, or he might steal somebody's identity to get their data.

The person whose financial information is being used is known as the "straw buyer." She is simply the buyer on paper, and has no intention of ever living in the home or of making the mortgage payments.

For the bank, this situation is very risky. There is a person that they don't know that's living in the home. They could have very low income or a poor credit history, which means that the bank's chance of getting their payments is very slim. Fortunately, if the bank doesn't receive its monthly payments, it's within their rights to go after the straw buyer for remuneration.

Lenders check borrowers' financial information for a reason. They want to make sure that you get a home that you can actually afford. Buying beyond your means can result in a financial disaster for you, and major losses for the bank. While you may have your eye on an upscale property, if it's beyond your means, it's beyond your means. Lying to the bank to get the financing you need is illegal and unethical, no matter how sincere your intentions were.

About the Author:

Complete Calgary real estate listings search: View all Southwest Calgary homes including Signature Park homes for sale. Access photos, virtual tours, neighbourhood info, maps and more at JustinHavre.com.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - "Fraud for House" Mortgage Scams

JKCH-5 Part 1of 6

Loan Modification Watchdog

Two bills designed to address some of the problems resulting from the economic crisis have been signed by President Obama. The first deals with mortgage fraud and the other with helping families who are involved in a foreclosure situation save their homes.

Look out rip-off artists, enforcers of the new mortgage fraud bill means serious business. Almost half a billion federal dollars has been authorized to spend on targeting charges of mortgage fraud. Agencies the likes of the Secret Service, U.S. Postal Service and HUD are all getting additional funding to increase their security measures.

The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act now sanctions the government to go after companies or individuals currently out of reach. Currently, an incidence of mortgage fraud can result in investigation, prosecution, civil penalties and prison time at a federal level, opposed to the prior gentler state penalties previously enforced. This new Act applies to all types of mortgage fraud, no matter how minor the offence.

In the past, these schemes defrauded home owners, realtors, lenders and builders out of billions of dollars each year. The FBI intends to send a message that mortgage fraud will not be tolerated and it is expected that offenders will receive stiff penalties in order to set an example to others.

The second bill, simply entitled, "Helping Families Save Their Homes Act," is intended to simplify the process for homeowners to receive foreclosure financing and modifications to existing loans. It also makes it easier for the lender to offer these types of options and hopefully prevent an impending foreclosure.

The new law also offers protection for renters who find themselves living in a home whose owners are facing foreclosure. Under the old rules, tenants would have to move immediately following foreclosure, now they have the option to continue renting for a term negotiated with the lender. This makes sense on so many levels. Now hundreds of families who otherwise would have found themselves on the street, still have homes. Lenders no longer have to deal with the problems associated with the upkeep of an empty home. Hopefully this will reduce occurrences of complete neighborhoods of foreclosed houses sitting vacant and facing ill repair and vandalism. In many cases, reliable tenants are happy to stay on and maintain the property.

The law provides additional homeless relief, makes better use of local organizations in this role, and allows them more latitude when allocating federal funds for assistance.

Part of the reason that mortgage fraud became so widespread was attributed to the lack of a single watchdog affiliation to oversee the the sketchy subprime loan offerings, underwriting and lending schemes. Instead there were a number of small agencies, each only seeing part of the problem, but no single unit had the power to actually deal with the issue as a whole. Currently, the Obama administration has a plan in the works to establish a single federal agency designed to watch over everyone involved; from the small brokers to the major lenders.

About the Author:

Search Sandy Springs GA condos at TinaFountain.com, the home of Sandy Springs real estate experts.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Mortgage Fraud Bill Signed, Sealed & Delivered