But,Tanta being a Landlord is easy,I mean you kick back and watch the checks come in every month in the sure knowledge that YOUR property will appreciate solidly in the next 5 years! and shoot as long as you have Granite countertops to offer you should be able to get your choice of tenants! just remind them that granite is real solid so their Glassware won't fall off and start a fire when they are cooking meth.
It's a little disconcerting to keep reading these stories when one lives in NYC.
The real estate market here makes about as much sense as what is happening in the financial markets.
In a few of the recent comment threads here, people have joked, "Oh look at the news! X is down! Y is in bankrupcy! Z reported a $3b loss. You know what that means.... market rally!"
Anyway, this is precisely why I stopped being a landlord April 2006. It was kind of like being the only person not peeing in the pool. Of course it was necessary for me to take advantage of the buyer but at least I got mine. Sure enough the hapless buyer has the place back on the market at a lower price than they paid less than two years ago. Sold to my listing realtor.
Back in the early-mid 90s around here, respectable tenants used to ask for credit reports on LANDLORDS before signing a lease.
That isn't a bad idea at all. If the landlord doesn't want to disclose a credit report, you can also ask the landlord to get a "payment history" from the mortgage servicer and give it to you. (You might have a hard time reading it; we've been through that discussion before. But you can probably learn a lot from a steadfast refusal to comply. And if you are having a very hard time interpreting it, it's probably a genuine one.)
The trouble is, in this situation it looks like Ms. Cocky (see link) was probably current at the time the place was rented.
I guess I should say that you can, always, at least verify that the person trying to get you to sign a lease is actually the owner of the property: just check the deed records.
That might save someone from the scam Max alerts us to above.
I am a single family home renter. I filed the CA "Request for Copy of Notice of Default" with the County Recorder. If our landlord defaults, we get a copy of the notice.
The second thing we did, aside from filing our own change of address form, was make sure no mail for the landlord (who used to live in this house) came to us. We saw our mail carrier the first week we were here, and said "hi, we're the new tenants, the John and Jane Doe are in Seattle now. Do you have their new address?" Fortunately, they did have their new address.
The third thing is that we live in a county where you can check delinquent property taxes online. It takes quite a while to get a house into the property tax auction, usually 6 years in CA. However, it's a good indication of problems elsewhere, and you can get to it online. In our case, they were indeed delinquent, and used our deposit to get back to current on the taxes.
Before renting, we also did a Propertyshark check on the property. Wish that was available for more of the country. As an alternative, you can also run a title search before signing. That will catch a lot of fraud related to who owns the house, and will catch most public notices of delinquency and tax problems.
Back in the early-mid 90s around here, respectable tenants used to ask for credit reports on LANDLORDS before signing a lease.
Rental fraud is a subject of great interest to me at the moment as I am temporarily relocating to the DC area for a 2-year work assignment and will become a renter again for the first time in almost 15 years.
I have a good salary (even by DC standards, excellent credit and can afford to pay well for the rental as I will be receiving a housing stipend from my company. Therefore, I can afford to be picky about what property I rent and what landlord I choose to deal with.
Having said that, I could use some advice as to how to spot fraudulent activity or potential shady dealings on the part of the landlord. (This article is a great contribution on that subject, by the way.)
I have visions of me asking the LL for his credit history and him laughing in my face. Is it really a reasonable thing to ask for these days?
I assume those renters could take civil action against the bogus landlord's fraud, but I'm wondering whether there aren't laws that would also bring criminal charges. If there isn't, that seems like a loophole that should be closed.
Thanks for the link, MoT. If I am identifying the parcel correctly, looks like Ms. Dust refinanced that property in February of 2007. So her first payment would have been due in March or April.
So she's also in Option One's sad list of early payment defaults.
Lets start with some good news for renters.
FHA case # 094-514503
As is value: $90,000
Price : $60,000
..................
Purchase price: 38,575
Net price(to HUD):$37,803
Escrow amount: $0 (no repairs required)
Sold for $148,900 on 10/2005 (FHA loan)- ~75% off
Why rent when you can buy a house from FHA with $100(one hundred) D.P.?
I guess based on FHAs statistics people who put $100 DP would never walk away! As our Secretary General Tanta would say "Thank God for FHA!".
If your landlord admits to you that the property you are renting is in litigation, wouldn't you start asking questions?
In addition to a credit check or rental history, it pays to check the Circuit Courts records to find out if the landlord has a history of litigation problems.
As a land title guy, it floors me how little attention people pay to the overall picture- it's all price and financing, but marketability is just as important.
In a thread the other day, I mentioned that someone around here was putting up hand-lettered signs advertising a place "4 sale by owner - no credit check" in a town about twenty miles away. I wonder if this is some variation on a scam.
And speaking of scams, what is the "we buy ugly houses" business about? Is this a bait and switch scam: use the "buy ugly houses" routine as a lure for distressed mortgage holders, and then try to get one or two last payments out of them under guise of "helping?"
In addition to a credit check or rental history, it pays to check the Circuit Courts records to find out if the landlord has a history of litigation problems.
How much personal identify info do I need on the LL to do this? e.g. do I need his SSN or will name and address suffice?
How much personal identify info do I need on the LL to do this? e.g. do I need his SSN or will name and address suffice?
It is, thank heavens, no longer legal for public record documents to contain a person's SSN. Think what a bonanza for identity thieves such a thing would be (and used to be).
Frankly, if I were a legit landlord, I would never give you my SSN so you could "check records." How do I know you aren't trying to defraud me?
You never ask for someone else's SSN. You never give your own to anyone else.
And speaking of scams, what is the "we buy ugly houses" business about?
There are a number of variations on what that's about.
There are one or two real live investment companies that are looking to buy your house, for cash, legitimately. However, if they don't offer you enough to pay off your mortgage, they aren't trying to help you any.
Often it's a "foreclosure rescue scam." They give you some cash to get you to sign over title and move away, telling you they will bring your loan current with the bank so you're out of the FC mess. Then they either try to flip the property or do the rent-skimming thing.
We got out of our last lease as soon as it was up for just this reason. We were getting lots - LOTS - of letters to the owner / former occupants from Downey Savings and Loan. On one of them the first couple of lines was visible through the clear window, and it revealed a payment reset to an amount that was almost $1k more a month than we were paying in rent!
I don't think the accidental landlords were trying to defraud in my case, they were just in way over their heads. I even got my security deposit back, although not the pet deposit. Now we're in another nice rental house, with nice owners who bought back in '97 and thus can carry the mortgage payment with the rent check.
Of course, since I'm in NoVA, both this property and the last one have depreciated by more than I've paid in rent. So much for renting for a year or two until the market picks back up.
If your landlord admits to you that the property you are renting is in litigation, wouldn't you start asking questions?
Well, see, that's the thing. If you have never owned a home, and especially if you're a young person renting for the first time, you may not understand what "in litigation" means in reference to a property.
I'm guessing she came up with some kind of bull like "I'm suing the lender." Hey! Everyone reads about predatory lenders in the papers, right? It might well sound convincing to someone with minimal exposure to these things that the nice lady is being harassed for no reason by an Evil Lender.
After all, she's a licensed relitter with Professional Certification!! Shouldn't she know what she's talking about??
Scotto,you can go to a people search sight such as Zabasearch,and it will link to other sites that will give you a couple of complete criminal and civil searches for under $30.You can frequently pick up SSN's as well...privacy is dead and buried.
To run a credit check on a landlord, you would need their agreement and a SSN. As a formerly honest realtor (I mean formerly realtor, not formerly honest), a good real estate agent could facilitate the process of making sure a landlord was ok, pulling title reports, credit checks, etc. I used to do that for my tenant clients. Also, a helpful realtor could provide an MLS history on the property which might prove illuminating. An agent makes very little on a rental, it's basically just building a relationship with a possible future client.
disclaimer- yes, I know relitters have acted like slime the past few years, but there are some good ones, and they do have their uses.
Scotto writes: How much personal identify info do I need on the LL to do this? e.g. do I need his SSN or will name and address suffice?
Circuit Court records will most likely be indexed by name, so you will need to know the specific name the owner took title under. The tax bill should be the simplest source, but it is best to cross check against the last deed of record (Owners may have transferred the property to a shell company as a litigation shield).
Depending on the recording system used, you can get a good idea of liens, mortgages, taxes and litigation on a property in a relatively sort time.
Edit "first couple of lines was visible" to "first couple of lines were visible. I can haz grammar?
You just can't win today, Jason. I recommend Easter candy.
You were right enough the first time. The subject of the verb is "couple." It is OK in English for that to be considered a singular noun ("the couple was") instead of a plural noun ("the couple were"). You got fooled by an intervening phrase with a plural noun at the end of it.
As I said, just help yourself to some jelly bellies. We aren't fussy about grammar on holidays.
In Nevada you can sue for 3 times your deposit if the landlord does not refund you within 30 days. Hopefully that couple can something back for thier trouble but my guess is that Ms Dust will probably file for bankruptcy.
As every broker, realtor and surveyor knows, we land title types are notoriuosly suspicious and persnickety.
I have been told that no one in the world is more paranoid than a lender who has already lived through RE busts before now, but I bow to your superior persnicketiness.
I'm not trying to suggest that people not be suspicious. I'm just a little burnt-out on certain kinds of "victim blaming" I've run into recently. The glibertarians have a bad habit of immediately rushing to the "most important" part of any story, namely how the victim deserved everything they got because they failed to be a "rational agent" as theory predicts they will be.
This type of situation can be avoided by going to town hall and figuring out two things.
What is your landlords profile? How many homes does he/she own and how when did they buy them. I would not mind renting from someone who upgraded or downgraded and couldn't or didn't want to sell their old home, but I would not buy from anyone with multiple properties or who had not owned the property for less then two years.
How much are the landlord costs?
Figure out what his mortgage likely is and look up taxes and estimate other costs and if you are not covering those costs then he can not affor to rent at market prices and you should move on as this home will go to foreclosure in time.
Follow those two rules and the downside should be greatly limited.
Seriously. Someone like Deb (a realtor) or me (a mortgage lender) has a legal right to run credit checks, an account with a bureau or repository to do it with, and (presumably) the information-security procedures in place to protect that information once we got it.
If you get some dork landlord to hand over their SSN (and date of birth) to let you go online and order a copy of their credit report, you have a very gullible prospective landlord.
The best thing would be to ask the landlord to order his or her own CR, and let you see it. Of course if it's a professional scumbucket, what it ends up showing you is doctored.
As I said, if I were a legitimate landlord, there's no way I'd give you a copy of my CR or my personal info. Your only real option here is to go through a realtor or rental agency who could do a credit check for you, and just tell you whether the owner meets the realtor's or rental agency's credit requirements (and nothing else, because how much your landlord has charged on his Target card isn't your business).
Letting other people see your credit report is terribly dangerous these days. Although most of them are good about not printing entire account numbers, there's a jackpot of info there for people who mean you harm.
I would not mind renting from someone who upgraded or downgraded and couldn't or didn't want to sell their old home, but I would not buy from anyone with multiple properties or who had not owned the property for less then two years.
You and I are very different, then. I would much sooner rent from a professional landlord, who has a lot of properties and has been at this a long time, than from some desperate naive amateur who thinks they can become insta-landlord after they found out they "couldn't sell."
Basically the story tells us that the trust that used to be the essence of things has disappeared from business, at least the real estate business, in the US. And it may be a long time, if ever, in coming back. Economic crises squeeze it out of the system, since desperation is the enemy of honesty. So what to do? Probably more regulation: renters will be expected to get an official certificate from landlords telling them that the landlord owns the property, that if there is a mortgage the payments are up to date, and that this must be re-certified to the renter before he makes each payment, etc., etc. Nothing can be rented without such documentation, etc., etc. Hey, the fallout from this Wall Street binge will really make the country a better place. LOL.
As a current renter (and someone who might be for the next 5 years... I am 27), this is one of the more useful threads for me.
Right now we are in a somewhat pricy apartment complex (but at least it's in the nicest part of town), but I figure with the rent we are paying my family should be able to move into a house. I wouldn't mind staying here except I know that whatever company owns our complex will keep trying to increase our rent even as home prices kaput (I don't think much has sold in my neighborhood... how would I be able to find out?).
Renting sucks big time, but at least we were able to make a few modifications, which will probably be painful removing a couple months before we move out.
I think one of the problems with the housing boom is that it's become way more expensive to live in the pockets of cities/counties that have lower crime rates and better schools. In fact I'd like to see some type of geographical map of areas with "good school" performance and "lower crime rates", and it wouldn't surprise me if these ares have been shrinking at an alarming rate over the past 20 years. (Okay, I'll stop but I'm sounding like one of those "populist" pundits on TV alarming over the destruction of the middle-lower class).
Renting sucks... but I suppose some of these tips could help us find a longer term rental if we wanted to in the next year or so...
Quoting an attorney from the story: "Notices about the foreclosure went to the property address..."
This is standard procedure, and I have no doubt that this how it went down. The renters had adequate notice, they just failed to act upon it.
Counterintuative to what one might think, more often than not, a foreclosure results in a big windfall to the tennnat. The Big dysfuncitional Buercracy that now owns the property will, after a considerable delay, either offer them money to leave or begin a lenghty eviction process where the BFD would have to prove to the Court to that the occupant was given proper notice. It is likely they will end up getting months of free rent. Evidently that isn't enough for these Gold Diggers.
As regards the 'equity skimming' allegations, the test for 'equity skimming' is not whether the owner collected rents and does not pay the mortgage, the test for equity skimming is whether there was a premeditated intention to collect rents and not pay the mortgage. Unless this owner has done this multiple times, it would be all but impossible to convict for equity skimming. And it is the mortgage company that is harmed by Equity skimming, not the tennnat.
Jim writes:
Basically the story tells us that the trust that used to be the essence of things has disappeared from business, at least the real estate business, in the US. And it may be a long time, if ever, in coming back. Economic crises squeeze it out of the system, since desperation is the enemy of honesty.
Actually, I think it might be just the opposite. It was the good times, when caution flew to the wind, that gave such ample opportunity to schemers. It's trust that's being sapped from the system. When people start running credit checks on landlords shysters have a harder time.
Much the same thing happened in the 1920s, with all sorts of schemes (e.g., Ponzi, Florida real estate, stock trusts, etc.)
But it was probably pretty hard to find a sucker in 1936, especially one with any money...
As to the renters, if you're young, you're probably used to moving very frequently. I doubt I could even give a number of how many addresses I had between the ages of 18 and 30. It's hard for me to see this as a particularly big deal. Certainly a pain in the butt. But in a lot of these places, they probably won't have too much trouble finding another rental and it may well be for less.
Tanta, one thing a prospective renter can do is check out their landlord through local rental (landlord) associatons, although I know that not every community has one.
One can inquire about a landlord by asking if they're a member and for how long.
Quoting an attorney from the story: "Notices about the foreclosure went to the property address..."
This is standard procedure, and I have no doubt that this how it went down. The renters had adequate notice, they just failed to act upon it.
It does not matter to what address these notices were sent. It matters to whom they were sent at that address.
If the notice comes to "OCCUPANT" or "RESIDENT" or your own name, you get to open it because it's meant for you. If mail comes to your address with someone else's name on it, you are legally expected to forward it.
My assumption was that notices went to one Bobbie Dust at the property address, the tenants were not comfortable opening someone else's mail, and so they did what they thought was the right thing, namely, giving that mail to Dust.
Are you sure that in Nevada correspondence from a servicer is directed to "OCCUPANT"?
I suspect Dust finally told the Hays in January about this right at the time that the law would have required a notice slapped on the house itself. It hardly matters; she knew she was not paying the mortgage, and she had a duty to tell her tenants that.
Otherwise, you sure sound pretty hostile to tenants here. Could the "D" in your name be "Dust"?
As to the renters, if you're young, you're probably used to moving very frequently
Yeah, but it's still a pain that you shouldn't have to go through because of someone else's fraud. And when I was moving, I was single and not trying to move a family. It's a nice news story because it is unusual and a little shocking.
BTW- I notice the that Article 1 in the Code of Ethics has something about "Honesty to all parties", is there a link to the Code on line? (Just for giggles)
PS How does one eat Peeps without gagging? Lots of liquid?
As to the renters, if you're young, you're probably used to moving very frequently.
I moved quite frequently in my youth, but I was never unceremoniously booted out before the expiration of my lease with no advance notice. I never had to drop everything, take off from work, and start packing and moving.
I also didn't have kids in school districts and things like that.
Look, if your landlord tells you what's going on up front, you do have the choice to take the rental, hoping that the low rent makes up for the possibility that you'll have to scoot out at short notice.
But this is a story about people who were not given a "choice," because the information was withheld from them.
I think jacking around with people just because they're young and renters is a big deal. Did you catch the part about the "notice" coming the day one of the renters was having surgery? Imagine yourself scheduling surgery (hers was apparently emergency), safe in the knowledge that you still have six months on your lease, only to find out you need to leap off the hospital bed and start packing.
What will JPM-Bear be paying for the lush downtown Manhattan HQ we keep hearing about? I mean, if all that paper the Fed is bailing... er... a... backstopping them on, could Chairman Bernanke have engineered the only profitable RE business model currently operating? Rent-Skimming?
If I was a renter and I started suddenly receiving a flurry of email from my landlord's servicer, I'd open enough of it to figure out the reason, then shred it. Who cares if it's illegal? I want to be among the first to know if the landlord isn't paying the mortgage.
tanta -
why are my panties in bunch every time you write 'relitter' ? i'm trying to figure out it myself. i suppose that as a member of the NAR, the GCAAR, and the WDCAAR, i'm getting a little tired of being insulted every single day by people i ostensibly respect.
i find it boorish and beneath you to make sweeping insulting generalizations and then to criticize and label others as racist, classist or otherwise.
i continue to read but i will most likely slow down if i get insulted every time i voluntarily click on this site.
why are my panties in bunch every time you write 'relitter' ?
How funny.
Actually, the reason I use that term is because I refuse to capitalize the other word and use the registered trademark symbol, and I sure don't want to be sued by a bunch of relitters.
Perhaps you can unbunch your panties and, as an expert, explain to us all the story about how that other word came into being?
(1) Pull the title search and find out what mortgages are sitting out there. From the loan docs, you can figure out what the payments should be - yes, even with an Adjustable. (If you can't do it, take it to someone who can - accountant, real estate attoney...)
(2) If it looks 'iffy' on the the payment in comparison to the rent, then try writing the rent check to the landlord AND the lender. That would mean both the landlord and lender have to sign the check to cash it. (Note the property address on the check and the loan account number which should be on the loan docs.)
(3) BTW, the loan docs and note on file in the county records will probably have the owner's Soc Sec number. That lets you run a credit check.
Your only real option here is to go through a realtor or rental agency who could do a credit check for you, and just tell you whether the owner meets the realtor's or rental agency's credit requirements
Thanks Tanta, that makes sense.
But won't the landlord expect me to provide my SSN to him so that he can run a credit check on me? Does that go against your advice above to never hand over your SSN to anyone?
Tanta, one thing a prospective renter can do is check out their landlord through local rental (landlord) associatons, although I know that not every community has one.
One can inquire about a landlord by asking if they're a member and for how long.
If I was a renter and I started suddenly receiving a flurry of email from my landlord's servicer, I'd open enough of it to figure out the reason, then shred it.
I would certainly open it and read it, myself. If anyone questions it, just say you failed to notice that it wasn't for you.
But shred it? Nah, you don't want to do that. You don't want the servicer potentially on your case; you want the servicer on your side. You're handing your landlord an excuse for not being straight with you: you destroyed the landlord's mail.
If you read such a thing, mail it to your landlord with a note asking what the landlord is doing to amend matters, and then go see an attorney or tenant's rights organization about whether you should continue to pay rent or not.
i dont know nor dont care about the origins of the word realtor. i do know that i am one for better or worse.
please dont deflect what is obvious which is your constant negative generalizations about a large group of people. its as wrong as making sweeping statements based on race, color or creed.
sure its fun to bash and everyone is doing now just like they did before and always have.
everyone hates a real estate sales person.
oh yeah and by the way - i have a masters in latin american studies (among others) and have spent a great deal of time in latin american countries, learning about them, working with them and helping shape policy towards them. yep, its a far more corrupt portion of the world than here in the good ole US and people tend take a kill or be killed attitude. the graft is shocking and thus the comment yesterday was appropriate but was dismissed as 'racist.'
i waited a day to write these comments to make sure i meant was i was gonna write and i do.
its your joint and you can do what you want but i dont think the original intent was to use the pulpit to bash groups of people over and over and over again.
As one of the economists who regularly reads and comments here, it is a tossup whether your bunch or mine gets worse treatment. However, since I wear shoes in the temple (market efficiency, the rationality of actors, etc.) perhaps I have a thicker skin about it...
Your contributions here are a valuable part of the mix as someone who is out in the real economy making the wheels go around - hope you have a good Easter and keep hanging around.
But won't the landlord expect me to provide my SSN to him so that he can run a credit check on me?
He has the right to do that in states that construe renting as an acceptable reason to access credit records (all of them, I believe).
If it's a property management company or a landlord you've checked out in some other way, then you might as well. You are, after all, dealing with the party who can report you to the credit bureau if you do not pay as agreed.
If it's just some dude you just met because you saw a sign in his front yard, I'd suggest keeping your SSN and everything else to yourself.
Re: "I am, however, convinced that a lot of "speculators" are suddenly trying to convert themselves into "landlords," and that the results aren't going to be good for anyone--not for the tenants, and not for the lenders."
Our entire financial system which is on the verge of systemic collapse, is full of self-regulated nepotism-loving speculators that thrive on discretionary abuses. The lack of generalized enforcement "everywhere" is directly linked to a system founded on good-ol'-boy nepotism which thrives on linking the wrong, unqualified people to the wrong positions (and in this case investments).
How can we have equitable reforms in our world, when the "police" are mindless retards? Huh? It seems you either end up with retarded over zealous nazis or asleep at the wheel couch potato slugs, and then, either way, you end up with nothing positive being done!
This is a matter of generational social changes and the realities of in-coherent education -- which is resulting in a fragmented world of non-regulated chaos -- turbocharged by policies which are blatantly disregarded and distorted into false and misleading lies.
For more on this type of non-MBS realted OT ranting, se the following entertaining link:
PLAYBOY: Even though you're not a schoolteacher, wouldn't you like to help the young people who dig you from turning into what some of their parents have become?
DYLAN: Well, I must say that I really don't know their parents. I really don't know if anybody's parents are so bad. Now, I hate to come on like a weakling or a coward, and I realize it might seem kind of irreligious, but I'm really not the right person to tramp around the country saving souls. I wouldn't run over anybody that was laying in the street, and I certainly wouldn't become a hangman. I wouldn't think twice about giving a starving man a cigarette. But I'm not a shepherd. And I'm not about to save anybody from fate, which I know nothing about. "Parents" is not the key word here. The key word is "destiny." I can't save them from that.
That will give you the name of the current owner, the date of the last (recorded) sale, the sale price, and the tax assessment. Most times that's all you need. I rented a place a few months back, for instance, and discovered that my landlords have no mortgage at all. So foreclosure is not likely.
If you see a recent sale for way too much money (and almost any recent sale will be for too much), then check the name of the owner in MDLandrec.
This is, like SDAT, free to check, but requires a password. Takes a few minutes.
With this you'll see the terms of any mortgage on the property, and you might see if the owner has, say, six other properties similarly overleveraged. If so, probably best to run.
In Florida, renters are served with process as John and Jane Doe, Then, at the end of the foreclosure process, they can be evicted if they don't leave, without filing eviction proceedings. Also, since is takes at minimum 4 to 6 months to complete a foreclosure, and nowadays, up to 9 months, the foreclosure mills are so busy, the renters would have plenty of time to get out.
I would certainly live out the security deposit and the last month's rent before leaving. In fact, I might be tempted, depending on the circumstances, to not pay any more rent at all and dare the landlord to come after me. In fact, I would figure out what the additional more would cost, and live there at least that long. I wouldn't advise anyone else to do this, but for me, a little self-help would be entirely acceptable, and not cause me to lose any sleep.
Your profession has structural conflicts of interest that make it very mockable: dual agency, pocket listings, payment upon transaction completion.
Until those are resolved, the realty profession in the US will be justifiably be mocked. And don't get me started on the low barriers to entry (1 in 77 Californians was an RE agent or broker in 2006...)
"Are you sure that in Nevada correspondence from a servicer is directed to "OCCUPANT"?"
It is basic foreclosure practice, in every State, to include all interested parties on the mailing list. Two mailings that should (and are 99+% of the time) on mailing lists are 1. the owner(s) at the property address. 2. "occupant" at the property address. If there is a tennat and the "occupant" has not been noticed then the tennancy survives the foreclosure.
--
Do you still not see, Tanta, that financial moral corruption was far more widespread than ever before in US history? It also became more acceptable because some thought that "everyone is doing it," when in fact most were not doing it.
Criminality doesn't need to reach a high level for things to be really bad for honest people and to create a bad society. In this case, a bad economy because trust is still the most important part of a prosperous economy. At some point the cost of keeping crooks off becomes too high. Once economic corruption took roots in India, it has remained very poor for a very long time.
A historical perspective: When British arrived in India, Indias share of the world GDP is estimated at 24% and that of British Isles at 3%. Today, US is close to 24% and India is close to 3%!
dc1000,
Reallitters can't have it both ways; demanding collective respect of a profession and free reign to act unprofessionally and not police your own ranks. Tanta has an excellent point about the registered trademark nonsense and you should be grateful for realitter and not realtwhore as is so common elsewhere.
I rent a single family home w/ a few other friends, all just out of school (23 - 25 years old) in Northern Virginia (Falls Church).
I insisted, based on a similar news article, that the Landlord's certify as part of the lease that they were not in default and that they had adequate resources to pay their mortgage, and that "Landlord shall promptly notify Tenant in writing if Landlord receives any default notice or demand for payment from Landlord's Mortgage Lender". I figured this would give us a small window of time if they did default and provided us the required notice.
Just bringing up the point to the Landlord's made me feel much more comfortable, as they explained how they came about owning the house, why they moved to a new place, and what their plans were for the place in the future, in addition to acknowledging that our rental payment only covered their P&I.
If they had reacted differently when the topic was brought up, I would have probably walked away. So my best advice is to definitly do some homework; a title search can cost less than $200 (or free if you are willing to go to the courthouse), and its free to ask for additional langugage in the lease. While this won't prevent all frauds, its a simple way to do some due dilligence.
Notes are often filed in commercial mtges. Also, notes are often filed in seller financing situations.
in addition, when you have an adjustible mtg, in Fla, at least, a rider is attached which gives you virtually all of the terms of the note.
Also a mtg will have the term of the loan and the mtg amount and the date it was taken out, so you can make some educated guesses at what the mtg rate might be, depending on the rates at that time, and get an educated guess of the monthly payment.
In the counties I work in in Fla, you can get the taxes, if you know the address, and you can get the deed and the mtges also, if it's not too far back. You can also search the name and see how many properties the person owns. Except if the name is Jose Rodriguez, forget it, there are hundreds of people with that name.
Since it keeps coming up here, this SSN, thing, let me say this:
You may not obtain a credit report on someone else just because you somehow found out what that person's SSN is.
You must have WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION from that person.
Anything else can get you in real legal trouble, and no reputable officer of the court would even imply that you can "find" an SSN and run a credit check.
It's worth taking a minute to read the actual story, as posted by a Las Vegas TV station on its website. It concludes with this gem re Bobbie Dust, the realtor who rented out the house.
We contacted the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. It confirmed Bobbie Dust is a member. The association says in its code of ethics realtors are bound by all the rules, even in their own real estate transactions. That includes Article 1, which states that all parties should be treated with honesty. (emphasis added)
lawyerliz, let's not get into UCCs or cases in which a note is incorporated into lien documents. You know perfectly well what I meant.
There is in fact plenty of info on your average adjustable rate mortgage rider.
SSN shouldn't be one of them, ever.
I entered into this post in the spirit of helping people avoid scams. So really, I am insistent on some things here because I have no intention of providing tips to indentity theives or encouraging poor landlords to let themselves get fleeced from the other direction.
My main point: you cannot always invade the privacy of someone just to "protect yourself."
You can, however, order a credit report without written permission in many circumstances where so authorized by statute, such as employment and other business relationships. No way am I advising on this or any other one, get a lawyer. But you don't always need written advice.
How come the bank in FC wouldnt be happy to have a good tenant stay on rather than let the place be empty and stripped and run down?
the sheer numbers of realtors means that there are going to be just as many crooks and cooks as there are in the rest of the world.
what i dont get is that for some reason its become ok on this site for the host to continually slam a group of people as a whole, with the rest of the commenters piling on.
replace realtors with brown people and you'll see what i mean.
and those of you that know me know that i'm a entrepreneur, developer, builder, broker, deal junkie who has a NAR membership along with many others so my offense taking could be deeper if thats all i did all day. i'm more educated than 90% of my associate members (probably more) with a more diverse economic existence.
no, what i'm getting at is that group bashing of any sort should be limited and not endorsed condoned and frankly led by the host.
we're not talking about simply saying these guys are dumb or wrong or mislead. real estate sales people are called things like "scum" and "whores" on a regular basis and we've all gotten used to it. its accepted and ok to keep up the tone.
well for one, this "scum" "whore" doesn't appreciate it and i think if you all looked at this rationally, you'd be in agreement with me.
dc1000- I respect you man, but you voluntarily joined an organization that has a poor record of policing itself. Perhaps you could take this up with the organization to revive its image.
H.L. Mencken, by the way, considered "Realtor" one of the great American euphemisms. Invented by the National Association of Real Estate Boards to lend their trade a dignity they found lacking in the common term "real estate agent," "Realtor" is a registered trademark of that organization and should only be applied to its members (and should always be capitalized). The chutzpa of first coining and then trademarking a noun evidently rubbed Mencken the wrong way, and he took obvious delight in needling the righteous Realtors in his masterwork, The American Language. "The suggestion that 'realtor' is derived from two Spanish words," wrote Mencken, "'real,' meaning royal, and 'toro,' bull, and that it thus connotes 'royal bull,' is spurned by the bearers of the name." Mencken went on to note that the suffix "or" was undoubtedly carefully chosen, since "or" has always carried more dignity than the equivalent "er," citing "author" as weightier than "writer," and "advisor" outgunning "adviser." Such delicate considerations count, no doubt, when you are trademarking a noun. I feel obliged to inform you at this point that the approved, although perhaps not legally enforceable, pronunciation of "Realtor," according to Mencken, is "reel-tor," not "ree-al-tor," and certainly not "real-uh-tor."
Speaking of invading folks privacy in the rental biz, two years ago having just sold my house and moved to a new city, I was looking to rent a condo. I set up an appointment with one Avalon apartment complex. When I showed up for my appointment, they insisted on writing down my drivers license number before showing me any units. They already had my cell phone number--what purpose does the license check serve?
sdtfs: dont get off track here. we're not talking about the performance of the association and its members. we're talking about using degrading, vulgar and offensive language to generalize about a group of people.
As a lifelong renter (dare I say, professional renter?), I can tell you you definitely want to stick with professional landlords. I rented from speculators twice during the run-up, and I'll never do that again. The first one. after we'd lived there about a year and a half and were on a month-to-month lease, made us vacate the house for a day so she could meet the appraiser and refi as an owner-occupier. Then, once the new financing went through, they raised our rent by 15%. They actually seemed surprised and annoyed when we responded with our 30-day notice. Then the next landlord was basically okay until we moved again. That's when we found out that she thought "security deposit" meant "get-into-ready-to-rent-condition fund". Both of them saw the rent we paid as pure profit. They had this incredible sense of entitlement, that as property owners the money should just be rolling in to them. I hate see how bad they'd be now, when they don't have any appreciation anymore.
Speaking of entitlement, who says renting is something for young singles? Isn't that what got into this mess? I'm 38, I have two kids, I have a respectable job, and yes, I rent. I always have and I expect I will for the foreseeable future. Sure, I'd rather own my own place, but I can't afford it. In the scheme of things, being a middle-aged renter really isn't such a terrible injustice. I'd prefer not to have to move every couple years, but it still beats getting waterboarded.
I agree with your point about the use of offensiveness and vulgarity... common use encourages the baser parts of our selfs to come forward, rather than our most thoughtful.
Denigration and insult has its place, but should be reserved so it retains its needed shock value when truly applicable.
brian writes:
I rent a single family home w/ a few other friends, all just out of school...
I insisted, based on a similar news article, that the Landlord's certify as part of the lease that they were not in default and that they had adequate resources to pay their mortgage...
Damn, I lived in a lot of group houses in DC at that age and half the time, I had no idea who the landlord was. Sometimes no one who actually signed a lease still lived in the house. Of course, that was the type of place where we burned the furniture previous tenants had left in the basement in the fireplace. Those were the days. If I could afford the $4.66 for a case of Wiedemann (the patriarch of cheap beers), I felt rich!
I have a funny Wiedemann story. That neighborhood was undergoing gentrification and one day when I'm at the local liquor store, the kind of place that offers its outside walls as urinals for the convenience of the clientele, and this well-dressed woman looks at me and says, "VeedaMann, is that imported?" "Why yes it is, from Bal'more!"
dc1000, don't you think that might be one of the problems here? Nobody here does "know you." You are an anonymous commenter.
This reminds me of that silly thread we had some time ago wherein I was accused of "defaming" an anonymous person who was described anonymously in an anonymous post over at Broker Outhouse.
I have never spent more than a split-second of worry over the nasty terms people use for mortgage lenders. Such things will happen as long as my industry continues to disgrace itself.
Nor have I ever gotten personally offended by the things people say about bloggers. Mostly I find that amusing.
I'm really sorry that you, as a superior specimen with advanced degrees and everything, feel that you are being lumped in with the riff-raff. It does really seem to be ruining your day, as if you personally were being trashed here. I know how you feel. I for one am very well-educated and have a master's degree in an obscure subject that is over most mortgage lenders' heads. That's why I get all worked up about people talking about "predatory lending," because I instantly assume they mean me and they're trying to insult me.
But you know, wouldn't it help to first find the place where I claimed that all RE agents are crooked? I haven't even claimed that all lenders are crooked, and I get more provocation to do that.
Having written posts "defending" Countrywide (like the one I linked to in this article, say) and having gotten denounced for being just a shill for the industry, I have to conclude that people just read whatever they want to read into these things.
Nobody likes getting bad press. But most of us don't take it quite so personally.
Prior to the creation in 1913 of the national income tax, about a third of Uncle Sam's annual revenue came from liquor taxes. (The bulk of Uncle Sam's revenues came from customs duties.) Not so after 1913. Especially after the income tax surprised politicians during World War I with its incredible ability to rake in tax revenue, the importance of liquor taxation fell precipitously.
By 1920, the income tax supplied two-thirds of Uncle Sam's revenues and nine times more revenue than was then supplied by liquor taxes and customs duties combined. In research that I did with University of Michigan law professor Adam Pritchard, we found that bulging income-tax revenues made it possible for Congress finally to give in to the decades-old movement for alcohol prohibition.
Before the income tax, Congress effectively ignored such calls because to prohibit alcohol sales then would have hit Congress hard in the place it guards most zealously: its purse. But once a new and much more intoxicating source of revenue was discovered, the cost to politicians of pandering to the puritans and other anti-liquor lobbies dramatically fell.
Prohibition was launched.
Despite pleas throughout the 1920s by journalist H.L. Mencken and a tiny handful of other sensible people to end Prohibition, Congress gave no hint that it would repeal this folly. Prohibition appeared to be here to stay -- until income-tax revenues nose-dived in the early 1930s.
From 1930 to 1931, income-tax revenues fell by 15 percent.
In 1932 they fell another 37 percent; 1932 income-tax revenues were 46 percent lower than just two years earlier. And by 1933 they were fully 60 percent lower than in 1930.
With no end of the Depression in sight, Washington got anxious for a substitute source of revenue.
That source was liquor sales.
The way to save the subprime liquidity problem and to bail out this systemic financial collapse is to legalize and tax... no, not Easter bunnies, but the fuel behind the bongwater....
How come no has mentioned Assignments of Leases and Rents?
I might have, if I had believed for one minute that this loan had been originated as "non-owner occupied" and therefore probably carried an assignment of rents rider.
dont deflect and minimize. yes people here know dc1000 and my million different jobs. so no, this is not anonomoo world where no one knows anything about anyone. i've shared quite a bit personally here over the years.
my larger point is that there is a mob mentality against a group of people. you aid that mentality by using words like relitter and making a comparison to garbage.
other people have used words like scum and whore over and over again.
your seemingly innocuous play with words actually supports and enables other more vulgar attacks. hey, if tanta can call realtors garbage then its ok to call 'em whores too!
point really is that i think you yourself are above group bash and that you've inadvertently lowered the bar for civility.
How come the bank in FC wouldnt be happy to have a good tenant stay on rather than let the place be empty and stripped and run down?
fred | 03.23.08 - 1:15 pm | #
scotty at the pulpit writes:
Prior to the creation in 1913 of the national income tax, about a third of Uncle Sam's annual revenue came from liquor taxes.
I was doing some research in newspapers from 1913 and a big part of this little city's revenue came from annual liquor licenses. Kind of amazing how easlily prohibition passed.
One other interesting bit, property tax rates were about 20% higher than they are today.
Well, speaking strictly as a third-generation Realtor, I concur with dc1000. It really is beneath the dignity of certain people to condemn an entire profession just because of a few bad apples. If that were permissible for dignified people, then professors, lawyers, mortgage brokers (or is it mortgage hookers?), and just about any other profession you could name, would all be roundly condemned.
Some people are corrupt, and there is no profession immune from corruption. But most people are decent, and most professions are staffed by honest, hard-working people.
But it's not like I haven't met a good number of incompetent or dishonest Realtors over the years. Of course, it goes without saying, they don't stay in the profession very long. 90% of the people who get a real estate license this year will be out of the business in the next two. That's a pretty high turnover rate, and it's illustrative of the fact that they only people who succeed and profit in this business are those who are honest, trustworthy and diligent.
It's not easy to make it in business on a pure commission basis. Those that do--and my mother has been enormously successful at it for 35 years--deserve the respect and admiration they are owed. Those that don't, well, they deserve whatever insulting epithet some may wish to apply to them, but don't lump me in with that group of losers. I'm not about to take lip from some salaried employee who doesn't have the balls to make it on his own.
That said, I really could care less about what any of you think of me or my profession. I made over $75,000 last year, listing and selling repossessed homes, and my living expenses weren't even $25,000. (My mother did substantially better, by the way). The house I live in is paid for, the vehicle I drive is paid for, and I don't carry credit card debt. I have cash in the bank, assets generating income and my family owns controlling interest in a highly profitable corporation worth millions. So you can all kiss my rich white ass.
It's easy to criticize people and condemn professions. It's not dignified, but it is easy. However, at the end of the day, unless you have something more to show for your life than that you lived as a debt-ridden slave, it doesn't really amount to anything other than farting out your mouth.
dc1000 -- For what it's worth, I interpret Tanta's use of "relitter" as mocking a particular Realtor who doesn't deserve to be called a real Realtor, not mocking all Realtors. This type of mocking is common for lots of occupations, see "slumlord", etc. Don't get so worked up about it.
Gosh, I was feeling flush with excitement about the great swells of applications I'm receiving for my rental house.
For a number of years, during the medical underwriting period, it's been difficult to find tenants who are not fugitives from financial, personal or legal problems. That seems to have turned around, and I get to choose among families based on factors like whether they appear likely to breed pit bulls in the basement in order to protect their meth stills.
Now I learn that, should they listen to Tanta, my prospective tenants will be inquiring into my ability to pay my mortgage.
Wouldn't that be a wonderful world, tenants who understand that in fact I don't hold clear title to my property but instead make monthly payments to a bank for the right to build equity. Not the world in which I manage my rental, but sounds good.
I suggest Realtors&tm; use the tactic lawyers have honed to perfection, actually join in and keep the ball rolling until you reach the point where lawyer jokes all sound horribly tired.
Maybe that's what's happening, society needs some new group to take on the mantle. Doctors never worked out, though many tried.
I will observe that one person's "civility" is often another person's "cultural elites insulating themselves from mockery."
Of course that's just an observation. It isn't even an argument. It has no name attached to it. Yet I am willing to bet $20 I get someone pissed off about having been "called" a "cultural elite."
My co-blogger is a lot more genteel with language than I. I'm perfectly ready to agree that probably makes him a better person.
My own interest is in rigor of thought, evidence, analysis, and fact, rather than gentility of discourse. In my life I have seen more bullsh--I mean, ideological mystification serving powerful moneyed interests--coming down the pike in "civilized" language than in a certain lower-rent dialect that occasionally calls a scumbucket a scumbucket. In fact, I tend to think the best thing you can do for honest professionals is not keep giving them ever more rarefied and stilted new titles to distinguish them from the riff-raff. It's to call the riff-raff the riff-raff.
It's why you'd never catch me asking to be called a Certified Mortgage Credit Risk Analysis Specialist Consultant. "Mortgage weenie" is my preferred term. But really, I don't much care what you call me. I care whether my posts and comments make verifiable claims and adhere to the usual rules of logic.
And, forgive me, appeals to authority via one's degrees or last known salary make me more than a touch queasy.
However, at the end of the day, unless you have something more to show for your life than that you lived as a debt-ridden slave, it doesn't really amount to anything other than farting out your mouth.
You had me to this point. So, you take "net worth" literally? The measure of a human being is how much property they (or their ancestors) have managed to accumulate? Maybe this is why people don't have much respect for your profession...
I mean seriously, get over it - the lawyer solution suggested above is one successful strategy - lawyers know all the best lawyer jokes (as to the Aggies I know etc.).
Economists get damn near the bashing here of any group, and I pledge to the CR community I will never cry about you meanies saying bad things about economists (even if some of us have thought that Lareah and now Yun have been full of sh!t since day one).
I recently rented a place, I had a plethora of choices from new landalords. All the best "deals" when checked out all had NOD of filed of significant unpaid property taxes.
I figured the people were trying to rent out the place so they could claim a capital loss since it then became an income property. Other possibility was just to take the rent with no intention of paying the mortgage.
I rented the houses with the lowest cost basis (original purchase price) I could and check it monthly for NOD and I check that the property taxes have been paid. If something starts slipping the landlord and I will have a talk.
The Cromers took extraordinary measures to better their lives. In 1998, Robert spent 10 weeks on unpaid leave riding a Mission Beach roller coaster for more than 20 hours a day in hopes of winning a $50,000 prize. ... While the roller-coaster adventure wasn't a good investment, their first home was. They sold it in 2002 for a hefty profit. By then, they both had real estate licenses.
GO to USPTO and do a TESS trademark search on the word realtor. You get 403 results, with only 4 having to do with the Nat'l Assn of Realtors.
I'll post them. Note that the trademark is on brokerage, not the agents. So, and agent's use is really invoking their principal's authority (the broker) to use the word.
Besides, anyone can write about a realtor without having to mark it as a registered trademark, just as I can say that I had a coke the other day. Not I had a Coke(r) the other day. So let's all get over it and use the word realtor without fear. So long as you're not representing that you are brokers at the same time trying to sell real estate to the readers of this fine blog, you're fine.
Word Mark REALTOR
Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Electronically operated lock boxes. FIRST USE: 20040406. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20040406
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 78426864
Filing Date May 28, 2004
Word Mark REALTOR
Goods and Services IC 036. US 102. G & S: BROKERAGE OF REAL ESTATE, INDUSTRIAL BROKERAGE, FARM BROKERAGE, MORTGAGE BROKERAGE, IN THE APPRAISAL OF REAL ESTATE, MANAGEMENT OF REAL ESTATE, IN THE BUILDING OF STRUCTURES ON REAL ESTATE, IN THE SUBDIVISION OF REAL ESTATE PROPERTIES, AND [ FOR CONSULTATIVE AND ADVISORY SERVICES ] IN COMMUNITY PLANNING FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAW LAND AND SLUM CLEARANCE AREAS. FIRST USE: 19160331. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19160331
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 71540013
Filing Date July 17, 1947
Word Mark REALTORS
Goods and Services IC 036. US 102. G & S: BROKERAGE OF REAL ESTATE, INDUSTRIAL BROKERAGE, FARM BROKERAGE, MORTGAGE BROKERAGE, IN THE APPRAISAL OF REAL ESTATE, MANAGEMENT OF REAL ESTATE, IN THE BUILDING OF STRUCTURES ON REAL ESTATE, IN THE SUBDIVISION OF REAL ESTATE PROPERTIES, AND IN COMMUNITY PLANNING FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAW LAND AND SLUM CLEARANCE AREAS. FIRST USE: 19160331. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19160331
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 71540015
Filing Date July 17, 1947
Word Mark REALTOR.COM
Goods and Services IC 042. US 100 101. G & S: providing an online data base which features information regarding real estate listings which are carried by the applicant's members. FIRST USE: 19951100. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19951100
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 75246554
Filing Date February 24, 1997
I am shocked if it is that
easy to get someone's SSN
Say after me: "SSNs are not secret. SSNs were never intended to be secret. Even if we as a society wanted to make SSNs retroactively secret there is no way to put that cat back in the bag".
Having worked for a number of years in large-scale databases and computer security I don't give my SSN out unless I can help it. But I am under no illusion that it is some sort of secret, and you shouldn't be either. Read Bruce Schneier's blog for a while if you want to learn more about this.
Baron Samedi, there's nothing unusual about giving history a little nudge. For example, let's go back to May 1961.
You're Arturo Espaillat, head of Dominican dictator Trujillo's intelligence service. You learn of a plot to assassinate El Benefactor, but you've got your own ambitions. You not only let it happen, but make it easier in a number of seemingly insignificant ways.
It's called "goosing history." Conjure is very good at it.
My landlords just refinanced the house that I've rented for the past three and a half years, and that has been rented for a long time before that. I'm pretty sure they told the bank that they're living here, as we get all their mail and the deed is recorded with the owner's address as that of the house. I can't figure out if or how this is bad for us in any way, but I'm curious what would happen if I marked "no such person at this address" on one of their bills and sent it back.
"Certified Mortgage Credit Risk Analysis Specialist Consultant". OMG you have more titles than Joseph Stalin. But I don`t think you have any russian medals though. I do.
PS. Is that "real analysis" or "complex analysis"? If it is complex, it looks to me that FHA and NASA have the same job requirements.
As tanta says: I have never spent more than a split-second of worry over the nasty terms people use for mortgage lenders. Such things will happen as long as my industry continues to disgrace itself.
Which got me to wondering, dc1000, being a self-avowed member of the vaunted elite of real estate professionals, would you be so kind as to explain, or detail, some of the frothy exchanges at your monthly meetings relating to your collective feelings or intuitions regarding middling RE deals where people had no hopes of paying for the houses they were buying?
Or was there never any discussion as long as the parties on both sides of the table signed the documents?
Comments like DC's remind me of the protests of bullies/drunks and other victimizers. Though their behavior is atrocious, they will fixate on one small slight/injustice inflicted on them and run with it. If the therapist doesn't call bullsh** on this, the family will end up talking for an hour how they addressed him in a rude tone of voice rather than how he pissed away the rent money.
DC you might have added to the knowlege here by addressing the abuses you see and/or how you've managed to practice ethically in this environment.
Instead (as is typical) you use the tragedy your profession profiteered from as an excuse to feel sorry for yourself.
Finally, this isn't your house and Tanta isn't required to explain herself to you (or any of us for that matter.)
its as wrong as making sweeping statements based on race, color or creed.
See, this is the first error of thought. Two of those attributes are innate. Creed is not. If some group wants to believe completely ludicrous things, I'll judge their collective and individual intelligence on that basis.
the sheer numbers of realtors means that there are going to be just as many crooks and cooks as there are in the rest of the world.
This should not be true. If the public cannot benefit from the assumption that members of the organization are less likely to be crooks, the designation is of no use to the public whatsoever. The whole point of having a self-policing "professional" organization is to hold that the members have an average level of education, knowledge, scruples etcetera greater than a random sampling of the general public.
Of course, it goes without saying, [incompetent or dishonest Realtors] don't stay in the profession very long. 90% of the people who get a real estate license this year will be out of the business in the next two.
So, as a member of the public, if I select a random Realtor(tm), I've got a 90% chance of picking a loser (by one metric)? Great!
One other thing I've noticed. When I visit the websites of doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, architects etcetera, they don't have a "Become a [your-profession-here]" page offering inexperienced applicants an opportunity to, within weeks or months, inflict services on their customers.
There seems to be a sense of humor shortage today. I'm blaming the Peeps. I always got crabby when there were Peeps in my Easter basket.
PS How does one eat Peeps without gagging? Lots of liquid?
You're not supposed to eat them raw, silly. Fire up your hibachi or Weber kettle--impale the peep on skewer and brown it gently, caramelizing the sugar coating and liquifying the center.
ever had a deal like that as buyer's rep. couldnt tell ya. nor did the 50 other agents at our local boutique brokerage.
and when things really got bad with the crap mortgages and seeing people buy over priced condos with bad mortgages - we stopped doing projects like that. didn't like what i saw so i stopped. hated the idea of saddling people with debt so we can could make money.
Anything more than occasional use of "relitter" seems to me, too, inelegant -- and so unworthy of you, whose most compellingly attractive quality is the elegance and internal coherence of your prose.
First, apologies to Tanta for going political even though i know better.
Second, Tanta's comment about glibertarians was spot on. I am a card carrying, dues paying member of the party because of this reason.
Spitzer was the CEO of the State of New York and the former Attorney General of same, yet he effectively admitted that he paid an escort for services that are illegal in the State of New York, and may have also violated the Mann Act by transporting said escort across state lines in the process of purchasing said services.
The WH and Wall Street may well have dumped him with the trash, but he doesn't get to be a victim because of his own bad judgment. To claim he is is a huge disservice to people who truly are victims.
Interesting post and thread as usual, although this story wasn't particularly shocking for me, since in the process of investigating foreclosures and mortgage fraud in my neighborhood I've discovered that this sort of rent-skimming is fairly common, at least in my area (metro Detroit).
In fact, there's a house a few blocks a few blocks up from me of which I'm fairly sure the renters are going to be kicked out sometime in the next 1-3 months because of foreclosure. Here's the timeline: (I've gotten fairly handy with my local register of deeds website)
June 13, 2007 - House sells from one person to a "Ventura Holding Co" for $230,000. (This on a block where the non-fraud homes have been selling for around $150,000.)
June 20, 2007 - Ventura Holding Co sells the house to a buyer for $340,000, with a 100% financed mortgage from Washington Mutual. (Subprime crisis? What subprime crisis? No need to start tightening lending standards just yet!)
Sept, 2007 - I happen to look up the deeds for this home, and figure that this is another sure-fire Early Payment Default in the neighborhood. I also realize what a POS company WaMu is and start shorting their stock. (This thread also helps: Calculated Risk: WaMu and The Rep War )
Feb, 2008 - Sure enough, the notice of trustee sale for the property comes through on Realtytrac.
So, I'm thinking maybe I should go up and chat with the renters, maybe let them know that they probably don't need to worry about making any more rent payments. In return, I'd ask them not to trash the house whenever they do leave. Any other suggestions?
Realtwhores do seem to have made quite a nasty name for themselves in the past decade. At the start and end of the day all they care about is the commission.
Indeed, a surprisingly large number of the questions on the state qualifying exams I am familiar with relate to when an agent may and may not be entitled to a commission.
If the realtwhore can collect a higher commission by steering a buyer into a bad deal they will do it. Buyer's agents now commonly sort listings by coop commission, and only the properties with the highest coop commissions will be shown. And don't get me started on all the BS that listing agents get away with....
Of course this is a cultural phenomena, and the same could be said of many professions. We value material wealth, and not morality, and we reap what we sow. The realtwhore up thread bragging about their income seems genuinely clueless to this. How could they be bad people if they financially successful?
Finally, this isn't your house and Tanta isn't required to explain herself to you (or any of us for that matter.)
I appreciate your coming to my defense, but good heavens why shouldn't I have to account for myself if I've blown it?
I have not yet been convinced that I did blow it here. Nor do I intend to let this turn into some endless defensive back-and-forth.
But I have nothing but contempt for bloggers--not to mention newspapers--who get challenged by their readers for having gotten something wrong and who trot out that "I don't have to justify nothin' to you, dude" thingy.
What I don't think I have to account for is someone else's psychodramas.
In the marketplace of ideas, it's really easy to avoid writers like me if you find me so upsetting. I never claimed to be trying to win a universal popularity contest. I've read writers who are careful never to offend anyone or step on any toes or say anything that could possibly get you sued. I can't remember what those writers wrote--it was too damned vacuous to be memorable--but I can remember turning the page or closing the window pretty quickly.
dc1000 would like you to think that if I were just nicer with my language, he/she would pay more attention to what I'm saying. But I sincerely doubt that. I think he/she is looking for an excuse to ignore what I'm saying. Feeling victimized is a good one.
Ralph, I refused to touch that nonsense about comparing relitters to brown people because it doesn't deserve to be dignified with an answer.
The writers I think I am most influenced by are those--like the late great Molly Ivins--who can speak "two languages" at once, and occasionally combine them in startling ways. Certainly, a very old strategy for getting people to rethink their assumptions about the world is to startle them with a properly-timed infelicity. It's a risky move: you can just end up sounding banal and vulgar. But what's life without risk?
But really, dc1000 isn't complaining about the term "relitter." His/her gripe is that a "profession" is being denigrated.
I am perfectly capable of sticking in the knife in prose of such impeccable elegance and gentility that you won't see it coming.
Maybe I should try that for a while. The "relitter" schtick may well be getting a bit old, anyway.
Deacon, I'll refrain from making speeches about mysogyny, but I can GUARANTEE you you'll get laid more if you avoid using the word whore in mixed company.
And you'll be doing your Mom/sister/daughters/grandmother a favor if you avoid using it even when there's noone to stop you
Baron Samedi, I should have added that those who goose history--unlike you--have no politics. They are not interested in "why," only the "how."
Spitzer's poor judgment and fascination with nubile young women was used against him, but let's be clear on one thing: the material was not released because someone suffered a sudden attack of righteousness.
but really tanta i'm complaining about mob mentality, generalizations, and a lack of civility on this topic. and not that a profession was being slammed but rather a group of people as a whole.
my point about my resume was not to show you how great i am but rather that i'm not really a realtor through and through. my identity is in no way tied to being a realtor.
but i AM one. so when the scum whore comments come out yeah it goads me, but what seems worse is that its accepted. its not acceptable. really.
My apologies if I erroneously attributed your post to be in defense of Interested Times post, however when you said "I've no doubt that Bush's people gave history a nudge" you have discounted Spitzer's actions as to the outcome, and given greater weight to the unconfirmed actions of the WH. It was not an unreasonable conclusion to arrive at.
Spitzer's poor judgment and fascination with nubile young women was used against him, but let's be clear on one thing: the material was not released because someone suffered a sudden attack of righteousness.
mp | 03.23.08 - 3:19 pm | #
Exactly mp. Where is this righteousness when thousands of innocent Iraqi children were forced into prostitution and slavery in Syria right now... hey Mr Bush ?
(man... I'm so sorry for going political... but certain things need to be said)
Baron Samedi, this type of com makes discussion difficult. Suffice it to say that I am a user of Kenneth Burke's method: scene, act, agent, agency, and purpose.
There are very few things on this little apple that happen by accident. I am sure that, given Spitzer's relative sophistication in covering his nasty deed, he was not a "first timer."
I am not an apologist for the Republican Party and if there was any collusion between the RP, the WH and Wall Street to injure Spitzer, I hope it becomes public. I am very much a political creature, but i try to be an honest one.
In Hawaii, if you have a lease, and your landlord sells the property to another party, the terms (including length) of the lease remain enforceable and transfer to the new owner, unless mutually agreed to be modified/canceled by both parties.
Thus, you cannot have your apt/condo/house sold out from under you.
What I have not been able to figure out if this also holds true if 'the bank' is the new owner.
The issue with the Spitzer prosecution is not whether Spitzer deserved the punishment he got but whether law enforcement resources were used for politically motivated opposition research and smears. It is highly unethical, and a grave threat to our democracy, for government resources to be used for political purposes. You can't even have the government mail out a political letter. If the prosecution of Spitzer was politically motivated (which seems likely on comparison with Vitter) it was a very serious crime, far worse than Spitzer's.
If the prosecution of Spitzer was politically motivated (which seems likely on comparison with Vitter) it was a very serious crime, far worse than Spitzer's.
Fair Economist | 03.23.08 - 3:44 pm | #
dc1000 - I honestly suggest you grow a thicker skin. As a lawyer, I hear sweeping denunciations of my profession every day. Sometimes I correct obviously incorrect statement, but mostly I let it roll off. I give you this advice because I think this country is entering a period of extreme hostility toward R-persons. You don't want to walk around hurt and offended all the time.
With earnings results from 99% of the companies reporting (for Q4 2007) and calculating the actual dollar-amount of earnings based on the most-recent as-reported EPS estimate, it appears as though 2007 earnings will be about $146.84 billion less than in 2006.
That's it. Although the financial sector and a couple of specific companies lost a lot of money last year, the net loss to SP500 as-reported earnings amounted to less than a single quarter's earnings.
dc1000 I do seem to recall that you were quite the negotiating shark when whittling down your accounts payable (perhaps on a money-losing transaction). Professionals honor their commitments and don't need to renegotiate. Did I remember correctly?
On whether taking a deed on an overleveraged home is always a scam. Simply stated, it is often a scam, but not always. The typical scamster gives the homeowner a few bucks and promises to make the payments and save homeowener's credit. But scamster makes no payments and rents the house for the six months or more it takes the bank to foreclose. (servicers don't start foreclosure proceeding the minute a payment is missed). HOWEVER, there are some win-win possibilities that arise because of the extreme illiquidity of the market. Suppose homeowner has a house worth approximately the amount of the mortgage, but due to job loss, illness etc. she can't pay the mortgage--even though the mortgage is at a fixed rate and the house is a 3BR, 2BA in a location where with a little capital investment it can rent for positive cash flow. If an investor gives the homeowner a few thousand bucks for a deed, and in fact intends to and does make the payments and adds the house to his rental portfolio, it is win-win. True one might say why couldn't the original homeowner rent it--the reality is they don't know how, they are not in that business, they are already 2-3 months behind and can't cure, etc. And as previously mentioned,in this context due on sale clauses will not be enforced--the buyer simply changes the "autopay" option to his bank routing and account number, and makes sure ins. and taxes are paid timely.
Reality suggests that the entire economic system is massively corrupt, so it really doesn't matter who you are or what you do. Simply a matter of degree. It's just so damned obvious in real estate or law, or medicine, or government, or education, or corporate america, or...
Data on the five-fold growth of derivatives to $516 trillion in five years comes from the most recent survey by the Bank of International Settlements, the world's clearinghouse for central banks in Basel, Switzerland. The BIS is like the cashier's window at a racetrack or casino, where you'd place a bet or cash in chips, except on a massive scale: BIS is where the U.S. settles trade imbalances with Saudi Arabia for all that oil we guzzle and gives China IOUs for the tainted drugs and lead-based toys we buy.
To grasp how significant this five-fold bubble increase is, let's put that $516 trillion in the context of some other domestic and international monetary data:
U.S. annual gross domestic product is about $15 trillion
U.S. money supply is also about $15 trillion
Current proposed U.S. federal budget is $3 trillion
U.S. government's maximum legal debt is $9 trillion
U.S. mutual fund companies manage about $12 trillion
World's GDPs for all nations is approximately $50 trillion
Unfunded Social Security and Medicare benefits $50 trillion to $65 trillion
Total value of the world's real estate is estimated at about $75 trillion
Total value of world's stock and bond markets is more than $100 trillion
BIS valuation of world's derivatives back in 2002 was about $100 trillion
BIS 2007 valuation of the world's derivatives is now a whopping $516 trillion
Moreover, the folks at BIS tell me their estimate of $516 trillion only includes "transactions in which a major private dealer (bank) is involved on at least one side of the transaction," but doesn't include private deals between two "non-reporting entities." They did, however, add that their reporting central banks estimate that the coverage of the survey is around 95% on average.
thinking outloud writes:
Reality suggests that the entire economic system is massively corrupt, so it really doesn't matter who you are or what you do. Simply a matter of degree.thinking outloud | 03.23.08 - 4:07 pm | #
and, to continue your circular reasoning, any harm you inflict is therefore excusable.
It used to be argued that ignorance was a sin against God, meaning you didn't have the right to NOT know what you were doing.
Anonymous said: "Comments like DC's remind me of the protests of bullies/drunks and other victimizers. Though their behavior is atrocious, they will fixate on one small slight/injustice inflicted on them and run with it...."
Speaking as the poster who probably holds the record for being called "moron" while the bullies got a pass from CR and Tanta for their behavior, I find this post to have hit the high-water mark for hypocrisy on this blog.
I have lot against economists who purposely mislead the public, but there are few that I respect a lot too, e.g., David Rosenberg (whom I quote from time-to-time) and Paul Kasriel. The fact is that we DO HAVE too many bad economists, I mean really bad people providing justifications and reasons for very bad policies. McCulley sucks.
To call onself a mortgage broker now is no longer something mortgage brokers want to do, so they look for fancy acronyms as we talked about a couple of days ago.
If calling onself a Realtor also takes the same nosedive, I recommend that the Nat'l Assoc of Realtors get busy in making sure their local state associations are holding their members to the standards set forth in the Realtor Code of Ehics.
Over and over again we keep hearing from NAR that the difference between a Realtor and a non-Realtor is their code.
Okay, so prove it.
Instead of all these NAR press releases encouraging people to buy, buy, buy, let's see press releases about how they're enforcing their code.
I, too, am so tired of hearing the Used House Salespeople compared to "whores" in this discussion.
One profession is a noble, ancient profession, that helps people in need (often at personal risk), and the other is a commissioned salesman with implicit conflicts of interest.
Instead of all these NAR press releases encouraging people to buy, buy, buy, let's see press releases about how they're enforcing their code.
Interesting point. Do you think the Nevada Association of Realtors will put out a press release denouncing Bobbie "Cockie" Dust and kicking her sorry butt out of the "profession"?
Cal writes:
I recently rented a place, I had a plethora of choices from new landalords. All the best "deals" when checked out all had NOD of filed of significant unpaid property taxes.
I figured the people were trying to rent out the place so they could claim a capital loss since it then became an income property. Other possibility was just to take the rent with no intention of paying the mortgage.
I rented the houses with the lowest cost basis (original purchase price) I could and check it monthly for NOD and I check that the property taxes have been paid. If something starts slipping the landlord and I will have a talk.
It's ironic that some renters are doing more financial analysis and due diligence than the owners of some of these properties ever did.
no comparison there at all. thanks though. yes, we had a business that went under. mistakes were made all around. rather than file chapter 11 and stick everyone with whatever the trustee figured out and spread out over 6 years we negotiated a settlement with the creditors.
the deal was that we got a little hair cut on the payables, got more time to pay and then i personally guaranteed the debt that was previously corporate debt that i could have gone chapter 11 with.
but i didnt.
you'll have more luck attacking someone else's integrity than mine.
Does anybody know ANY Realtor who is presently showing homes and at the same time warning the potential buyers that there is a "good possibilty" that the home they purchase today will be worth considerably less within 1 to 2 years?
If you don't know any, why not? Is it that you don't know any Realtors, you haven't asked them for their opinion, or could it be simply that they are just scum that will not disclose important "possibilities" in order to make a commission?
Would a doctor operate on you without first explaining the potential dangers? NEVER!!!
Realtors, (by far, most of them) SUCK. Not all, but the overwhelming majority, are self-interested, back stabbing fools pretending to be professionals and trying to be paid as doctors.
It's not just in Hawaii, if you are leasing property with a written lease the buyer of property is stuck with you unless you freely agree to go. However a mtg which was filed prior to your lease is superior to your rights as a renter and hence can evict you, stupid as that may be if you make your payments and take good care of the house and the alternative is ruination of a vacant house. If the mtg is to be filed afterwards, then the mtgee will typically ask the renter to subordinate their interests to the mtgee's. Done all the time in a commercial setting. Which leads to an interesting question. If the renter was already there, and the owner claimed it was owner occupied, so the renter with say a long written lease, never subordinates. . well I think this renter would have a good defense against eviction. Probably nobody would want to pay to litigate this.
So, is the moral of the story that the growing real-estate downturn is making life for renters unbearable, and that to avoid the increasing risks of negligent landlords tenants should immediately start buying their own properties to take back control?
What an irony if declining prices, and financial chaos, lead many people to conclude that the only option is to buy for themselves.
Speaking as the poster who probably holds the record for being called "moron" while the bullies got a pass from CR and Tanta for their behavior, I find this post to have hit the high-water mark for hypocrisy on this blog.
Sebastian, I do indeed wish people would quit calling you "moron." That is, in fact, a direct personal attack.
Plus, it goads you to keep shooting back, which junks up threads with flame wars.
Plus, it gives you an inflated sense of the influence you wield around here.
That's, unfortunately, dc1000's other problem. He/she spent years downplaying the bubble, assuring us that DC was immune and that "boutique" customers were a whole different matter from the garden variety "subprime" commoners. Part of the reason I'm so terribly unsympathetic is that, in hindsight, that "brave" speaking truth to the power of the Bear Cave seems to have been . . . wrong. We were right; dc1000 was wrong. I'm not here to rub it in, but I'm damned sure not here to let someone try to claim he was some kind of hero for having "gone against the grain" so heroically for so long.
Your record, Sebastian, is actually worse than dc1000's, but you'll never give up on your own self-mythologizing as the lonely voice of reason in a clique of groupthinkers. This is one reason why I wish people wouldn't give you so much attention when you interrupt the conversation to make silly claims. You appear to thrive on negative attention, which is the hallmark of the brat.
You, like Jas, have rendered yourself not worth defending, unfortunately. I'm not sure which Sebastian we have today, the 30-something genius stockpicker or the grey-haired veteran who remembers what the market was doing when Kennedy was shot, but your endless reinventions of yourself are part of your gig. So I suggest you just invent another Sebastian, one who is supremely indifferent to childish taunts and incapable of carrying a grudge because he refuses to store those childish insults in his memory that long.
I used to teach the first course for realtors. It was reasonably difficult, stretched out over a semester, as I taught it. Also, the state test was a little bit hard. It was also the real estate paralegal course.
I told them about amortization and quarter quarter sections, had them fill out deeds and mtges, went over what various contract terms meant, the kinds of tenancies and much much more. Don't know if any of it stuck, but I tried. When they protested it was too hard, I would say, well, if I make it too easy, you won't pass that hard test, and what good would it do you, since you want to pass the test, and that would shut them up. Which is not to say that Fla realitors have covered themselves in honor and glory.
And tho I've told and heard my share of lawyer jokes, I've gotten a wee bit tired of them of late.
When I showed up for my appointment, they insisted on writing down my drivers license number before showing me any units. They already had my cell phone number--what purpose does the license check serve?
I think that's just for the safety of the person showing you around the complex.
First, it's treating tenants as second-class citizens that helped get us into this mess in the first place. People don't move somewhere, putting down several thousand dollars for rent, deposits, moving costs etc. on the assumption that they might have to move in three months. And what about people who are elderly or disabled, for whom moving is especially difficult?
Second, every state has different rules. Please, please, when writing about particular aspects of the foreclosure process, let people know which state you're referring to. There's very little information on tenants' rights in foreclosure out there, so people are taking anything they can find. In California, for instance, tenants can sue the lender for return of the security deposit, while in Massachusetts, tenants must sue the former landlord. And tenants who live in communities with rent control/just cause eviction laws may be protected against foreclosure evictions and should check with local tenants organizations or the rent board.
Third, I've not for many years been able to rent without having to hand over my SSN to the landlord for a credit check. Tenants who won't do that will have a real problem renting, unless state legislatures make it specifically illegal to ask for this information.
Fourth, tenants cannot, repeat cannot, stay 'round for the court eviction. An unlawful detainer filing is reported to tenant screening services and will reduce tenants with evictions on their records to living in trailers. In Minnesota, for instance, tenants are served as part of the foreclosure action and the foreclosure shows up on the report as an eviction. This may be true in several other states, as well. (This is common in judicial foreclosure.)
And, finally, be very nervous if you find a landlord who is willing to rent for a large upfront payment, isn't going to do a credit check, and wants you to move in immediately. Oddly enough, finding that the previous tenants had lived in the place for a long time should send you to the county recorder to check things out, as those tenants may have received a copy of the notice of default and decided not to stay around to see what happened.
Tanta,
I hope I don't say anything else stupid around here (cause I know I already have). I don't ever want to be "bitch-slapped" like that. But thank you, cause it was a long time coming.
I tried to think of another term so I wouldn't offend anyone, but I couldn't think of one that fit any better.
Good point. For instance, most people are unaware that the designation "live-work" or "loft" have little to no legal protections for renters outside of a handful of metropolitan areas like New York, St. Louis, and Oakland, CA.
For instance, in Los Angeles, there are no legal protections for live-work tenants outside of whatever is in the lease. Too many assume they have the same protections as they would under a more traditional apartment rental. They don't.
Hey, at least Sebastian gets slapped around for his facts and opinions, and not just for his membership in a group. I hope he isn't driven out, because he does provide an antidote to groupthink, even if it is annoying. And I consider him a useful leading indicator.
His pointer to the S&P spreadsheet today was interesting; it shows bottom-up predicted earnings quite a bit higher than top-down. I assume this to mean that the number crunchers are expecting quite a few downside surprises in the next few quarters.
Here's some more bull bait. What if the high new unemployment numbers we're seeing are significantly due to American Axle? Those striking workers can't file, but the laid off ones at 30+ affected GM plants can, as can those from the parts suppliers also being affected. GM's using the strike to whittle down inventory, so it could go a bit longer. But when it settles, boom, big employment uptick.
Mr. Blinder suggests that mortgage originators be required to hold onto a portion of the loans they make, with the investment banks who securitize them also retaining a chunk. That way, they dont simply play hot potato, he says.
Mr. Grantham agrees. There is just a terrible risk created when you can underwrite a piece of junk and simply pass it along to someone else, he says.
Ratings agencies have similarly been under fire ever since the credit crisis began to unfold, and new regulations may force them to distance themselves from the investment banks whose products they were paid to rate.
Do you think the Nevada Association of Realtors will put out a press release denouncing Bobbie "Cockie" Dust and kicking her sorry butt out of the "profession"?
Now that would get some respect-- and might make some of the scumbags responsible for the profession's miserable reputation at least pause a few seconds before they send a demand for rent on a house they've just lost to foreclosure.
By the way, my jaw is still on the floor from JD's 12:14 post. Gold diggers??? I'm suffering some serious brain boggle here. Watch the video of the story that NW posted. Jennifer Hays had just suffered a miscarriage when this Dusty creature called to tell them to move out. That was the reason for the surgery. So, yeah, I'm sure it was no hardship at all to have to move unexpectedly. Who needs more than a few days for that anyway, right?
Tanta called it-- when the Hays dropped off the letters from the bank (along with their rent) they asked if there was a problem with the house and Dust told them, "Well, actually, we're in litigation over the house, I've sued them and I'm expecting to get a lot of money from them."
If I shared a professional affiliation with Dust and her ilk I'd be raising Holy hell with the ethics committee. If they wouldn't pull their licenses I'd resign faster than you can say 'trademark'. And relitter is a much more polite name than the one I'd have for my former 'colleagues'.
DC1000,
Realtors are salespeople and salespeople have bulleyes on them. I'm not a salesperson, but I just spent the last month dodging bullets from some people who didn't want me re-engineering their hosed up processes. I spent the rest of my time motivating and consoling some youngsters we were paying $5k a week. So it goes...
Much of the malfeasance in real estate I've witnessed is from desperate RE agents who are living on debt and dreams. I think those make up most of the fun stories we read here.
I am surprised at the free pass beancounters have received during this mess. Who was it that was supposed to verify the accurate valuation of debt instruments.
On the other hand, your panties might be in a bunch from executing too many armbars.
I don't know where the rest of you grew up, but in my childhood there were any number of colorful, apt metaphors for what the military calls a "dressing down." There were clocks that got cleaned; there were wagons that got fixed. You were called on the carpet, you were raked over the coals, you were handed a certain cushy body part. A former colleague of mine could use the phrase "having had one's priorities reestablished" in a way that left no doubt what had transpired between him and his boss.
I'm sure our loyal readers are full of fun and family-friendly folk-wisdom for this sort of thing. Let's retire "bitch slap" for good.
In My County (Sonoma) you can not be part of the MLS without becoming a member of the CAR,and the NAR.The ostensible reason is of course that Realtors agree to abide by a code of Ethics.In reality it is just another trade group that wants to keep information asymmetric to make a dollar,unfortunately real estate was a bubble,there was a lot of money to be made quickly,and it attracted many fast buck artists who are moving on to new careers selling moondust or heating oil futures.None of my friends who are "Realtors" pay much attention to the CAR or NAR pronouncements,belonging is necessary to do business,nothing more...and both organizations grew fat and lazy off of membership fees in ways similar to sick unions.the poobahs get sweet salaries and benefits,get their names in the news and justify their existence by telling their members what swell folks they are.as far as enforcement,I know a lot of people in the biz who would love to see it,but who also know that speaking out would kill their ability to make a living,So they do a good job,ethically and keep their mouths shut...because badmouthing another realtor is actionable,and you will be disciplined for doing it.
Hmmph..think I'll get offended too. I'm an old-fart real estate broker, frequently called "realtor" by folks who assume I am, tho I am not.
Nawww...lifes too short. As quickly as the first 65 years passed, I'm not gonna waste so much time the second 65.
My business card lists my name followed by the initials "JM" to tease my fellow brokers & agents who ask what quatlification that designates.
"JUST ME"
" BEIJING, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Domestic companies relies too heavily on bank loans, reflecting the undeveloped corporate direct financing market. Financial risks thus would concentrate in the banking system, said a central bank report here on Friday."
Tanta said: "...Plus, it gives you an inflated sense of the influence you wield around here."
Oh, I know how little influence I wield here. The strongest influence is held by CR, who has put his readers on a horse that's not going to take them where he says it will.
With your assistance.
then: "...I'm not sure which Sebastian we have today, the 30-something genius stockpicker or the grey-haired veteran who remembers what the market was doing when Kennedy was shot, but your endless reinventions of yourself are part of your gig..."
Well, how you got there I have no idea, having never pretended to be any particular age, but having simply lived through different ages, phases of life and careers and relating things I've picked up over the years. (In fact, I just recently told MaxedOutMama that I thought stock-picking was a weak point for me.)
Finally: "So I suggest you just invent another Sebastian, one who is supremely indifferent to childish taunts and incapable of carrying a grudge because he refuses to store those childish insults in his memory that long."
A constructive criticism, at least, but it would be my first re-invention.
Dc1000, the good readers of this blog who graduated from the eighth grade would respect you twice as much if you made occasional use of the "shift" key on your keyboard. It is quite useful for capitalizing the first letter of sentences and proper nouns.
Nonetheless, I believe that's the point of trademarking: to control the use of the term and keep one's competitors from using it.
Actually, you can cannot control any one but a direct competitor's use of the mark. So I guess someone dealing in real estate can't call themselves a realtor without being a member.
But I could open up Realtor Cheese Shop, and they would have basis for a complaint.
They request that people capitalize it and indicate it as a trademark just as Xerox does, because once it becomes a generic term, they lose protection. That's why monopolistic success can be bad for trademark protection.
Google is an absurd word, chosen at least partly because it would be free of any trademark claims. The first time they heard the verb form, I'm sure they were all flattered. All except the lawyers. Once it can be argued "googling" means searching on the Internet, the mark is in danger.
from rge writes:
I'd like to point out how constrained I believe efforts by FED and US gov't will be to bailout or dampen impact of impending crisis:
(1) MUST EMBRACE MORAL HAZARD. I agree that wiping out shareholders in highly insolvent financials will avoid the moral hazard issue; but, (especially as this is a very,very time sensitive matter) it will also incentivize a systemic extortion. Shareholders being reduced to zero, will encourage them to block all timeliness in the unwinding and cleanup to eke value. They will contrive by any means necessary, including judicial injunction and intervention, poison pill etc. methods to squeeze any value whatsoever. Inevitably this will slow the collapse of individual institutions which will then delay the cleanup AND exposes remaining players to heightened systemic risk. All delays contribute to delay of recovery. Therefore, I believe moral hazard will be a price paid, though shareholders will inevitably lose.
(2) FED TOOLBOX NEARLY EMPTY. Fed is getting very close to having expended all gunpowder. With FF rates at 2.25%, but 3-mo treasuries trading between 0 and 0.5, they are effectively at the zero bound (Paul Krugman's liquidity trap). Innovations such as TAF and TSLF and taking MBS as collateral have reduced their balance sheet effectiveness by half.
Had they been truly effective, we would have seen AAA MBS paper pricing immediately rise significantly--as FED's purpose would have been to increase liquidity AND help skirt insolvency by accepting collateral at above street value. Unfortunately the securities price rise has been so far insignificant. Also if some of this non-bank collateral to be accepted at discount window were to be effective you would have noticed fast and furious action to buy them between financials, innovative means to acquire options on others collateral would have been apparent if this FED move had created value. All this would have contributed to elevating price. Didn't happen.
(3)INFLATION OR MONETIZATION OF DEBT. As FED has effectively expended means to save economy by monetary policy AKA rate cutting; they may move to use the remainder of their balance sheet to support financials. But will another $400 B, even if used to accept seriously impaired securities, make any further difference? NO. If having exhausted ability to cut rates, accept impaired collateral to the extent of their own balance sheet, what remains? I believe only currency devaluation by printing. But this method has as many offsetting hazards as remedies. Price instability would act to further erode confidence and amplify panic. SO, Congress may have to step in with borrowed funds to directly purchase mortgages. (With present debt and future obligations in tow). It will lead to significantly higher taxes, significantly lower services, and budget burdened with disproportional interest payments.
(4) COLLATERAL ASSET OBLIGATIONS AND NEGATIVE CASH FLOW. Will US gov't become suddenly expert in property maintenance? If US gov't or Fed purchase mortgages at whatever negotiated price, they still must take possession of the underlying asset. This asset requires expeditures to maintain. Every homeowners knows that landscaping, minor repairs, security, insurance, utilities, and taxes require yearly cash infusions (often 1%+ of asset price nominal value). Whoever buys mortgages, buys these negative cash flows for however long it takes to sell. Also, transitioning the asset via a sale will incur add'l expenses i.e. title change, title search & clearing, legal costs to discharge liens, AND(in securitized title case) clearing ownership among the numerous title holders. In short, they will bog down with the encumbering nuances to producing a clean, marketable asset. An incentive to extort the gov't will exist by any having a prior claim...unless some super power to discharge outside of judiciary were created. Expediency would require desperate (maybe tyrannical) means of bypassing judiciary.
(5) REMEDY AS FUNCTION OF TIME. These efforts to restore market function and erase credit crisis are heavily dependent on time. With waves of rate resets to occur over time, the structure with which to expedite the discharge of defaults and assign new ownership must be TIMELY. Even US gov't probably has not the means to absorb ALL losses. They must assume and then liquidate to private investors quickly to stay solvent themselves. The very nature of residential and commercial real estate is NOT a timely process. Thus, the US gov't must create a superceding clearing house power that will discharge assets quickly and deal with issues later or not at all; OR the scale of defaults will overwhelm any such curative structure.
It is my opinion that for these reasons the FED (as last line of defence) is exceeded by the scale of impending market dynamics to be of any real effect. US gov't will have to act as final backstop but is also severely constrained by budget excesses, future promised obligations, reduced taxing power, and present operating costs. True remedy will dilute federal power very significantly.
There May be NO solution. Certainly, there can be no soft asset price fall. We are not in a bottoming process yet. It MAY be inevitable that there be a severe collapse. It WILL require real change in our institutions. We may HAVE to endure the mother of all meltdowns.
Thanks for the derivatives post, with $516 trillion in context. It's like that scene in one of the Austin Powers movies, where Dr. Evil made some ransom demand all out of proportion to the historical period. The World Leaders laughed: "there isn't that much money in the whole world!"
The OTC derivatives market is much the same. It's people making bets with money they don't have--that nobody has. If they win (or, when they won), they collect(ed) their winnings. When they lose, we cover their losses. The term for this is "moral hazard," and it's at the root of every problem discussed on this board, from the Realtors to the Mortgage Jokers on up. Covering moral hazard is what the fed last week did, I think, in allowing "investment banks" to borrow direct through the discount window.
There are lots of questions left to ask. But it's not true that overleveraging through the opaque derivatives markets is a new thing. I wrote about it in 1999 (archived here: One Bank Under God | | AlterNet ), and the people I quoted then--especially Jane D'Arista at the Financial Markets Center--had been working hard for years to warn that deregulation+"financial innovation" (as it's still called) = Big Trouble With a Capital D.
Yeah, I'm glad that somebody brought up the salesperson thing.
Some people can sell, some people can't. People who can sell (and it is possible to do this ethically) are valuable. Most RE agents can't sell and they get out of the business--20% typically sell 80% of the properties. People who can sell can be taught to sell better. People who can't sell--well, I don't think they can be taught. My multiply degreed husband can't sell, and he is smart enough to know it. When he has ham radio equipment to sell at one of their conventions, he sits me down at a table with a list of what it is and whether it works or not (sometimes people want parts, I guess) and I, who can sell, and sold encyclopedias door to door once many years ago, with modest success, do my thing.
Selling doesn't take a degree. It helps to know something about what you are selling of course, hence the courses. Selling is very very valuable; indeed it is essential for all the businesses I can think of. So people who have sweated for degrees naturally resent people who can make good money, sometimes superb money selling stuff. Hence some of the resentment towards RE sellers. Of course, the mkt got so hot that it attracted what real sales people refer to as "order takers", like people who stand at cash registers and take money. No work, no convincing, no trying to match up what a buyer wants with what's out there. Or figuring out that the buyer may say he wants x, but really does want and be more happy with y. X and Y may be one shirt rather than another. Or, x might be a house that the buyer can, with some sweat perhaps, with a little luck actually afford, rather than a huge McMansion.
I think that at least 10 or 20 % of the name calling and resentment is due to the fact that the degreed think sales people get a free pass. Which is not to say that there weren't (and still are) some really awful, really stupid, really unethical realtors out there, who have hopefully gone out of business or will shortly.
If you want to learn survival techniques in the new America check these people out. I just may attend. We may all need to learn how to live off the grid.
The only other thing I want to add to this, is yes 'renters beware' - but the downside risk you would encounter even in a worst case scenario is orders of magnitude less than the risk to a homeowner.
Maybe because I've been in the military for so many years now, and so can do this with my eyes closed, but if someone said 'you have thirty days to move out' I could find a new place with the same features and commuting distance - heck, I could probably be in same neighborhood, if I wanted to - and be relocated in the space of little over a week.
It would probably cost me about thousand dollars in moving expenses, and I would have to be able to support the negative float on paying the new deposit before getting the old one back - but these are trivial compared to say, the issues Ms. Ortiz had in yesterday's WaPo article.
"This popping of the bubble in real estate has been much more pronounced than anybody would have expected," Gumbinger said. "If property prices are falling, think how property tax revenues have to fall. There is a troubling connection between the decline in one market, especially one as wide as real estate, and government's ability to operate."
What the OFHEO did Wednesday was make a "significant portion" of those tied-up reserves available to Fannie and Freddie to do what they do for a living -- which is to buy up loans that meet their criteria, either repackaging them into mortgage-backed bonds or putting them on their own shelf for a while.
The multiplier effect involved works similarly to a bank receiving a large new deposit.
The amount of lending that can be accomplished ends up being significantly greater than the deposit itself.
In this case, OFHEO is freeing $200 billion on Fannie and Freddie's books, and authorizing the two to push their own mortgage-investment holdings to as high as $2 trillion.
lawyer liz posits:So people who have sweated for degrees naturally resent people who can make good money, sometimes superb money selling stuff. Hence some of the resentment towards RE sellers.
I don't think that's it at all. It has to do with transparency and asymmetrical access to information and level playing fields. Imagine if the used car buying experience were as unecessarilly opaque, overpriced and under regulated.
Lawyerliz:
You mentioned teaching a course for REs in Fla. Are they state licensed there?
IN NYS such professions as Massage Therapist and Interior Designers are licensed but not Realtors.
BTW one major reason Massage Therapists were licensed it to keep the whores out of that business. Is this why Realtors are not licensed?
lawyerliz, you know, I've worked around some of the best salespeople in the business. Loan officers, account executives, RE agents, you name it.
One thing the really good ones all have in common, in my experience, is that they are not thin-skinned. They do not take the customer's refusal personally. They do not nurse wounds in the dark over having been called a "salesperson." In fact, the good ones are so able to separate out their own egos from the deal that they can analyze the customer's needs and desires and point of view quite accurately.
I have, I admit, met a few people in sales jobs who constantly crave reinforcement of being treated like an "expert" and whose egos need special handling 24/7 by everyone else in the joint. They never last long, unless they get promoted to branch manager. Then, of course, the whole branch goes to hell.
I don't happen to think salespeople "get a free pass." I'm just always shocked when they display no sales skills. Like trying to persuade people that your point of view is valid, rather than just demanding attention, and recognizing when you've lost your audience. Surely these skills are transferrable to the internet . . . ?
We have some people who post here regularly whom I'm sure are first-class salespeople. They just don't make a big deal about it.
Re: The latest action to relax capital requirements, coupled with actions earlier this month, is expected to make it possible for the government-sponsored Fannie and Freddie to either purchase or guarantee roughly $2 trillion in mortgages this year, OFHEO said.
Last year, the two government-sponsored enterprises took in $1.32 trillion in mortgages, according to OFHEO spokeswoman Stephanie Mullen.
As of February 29, 2008, the registrant had 36,293,018 shares of capital stock outstanding. The capital stock of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati is not listed on any securities exchange or quoted on any automated quotation system, only may be owned by members and former members and is transferable only at its par value of $100 per share.
We have never purchased any asset-backed security, have not purchased any adjustable-rate mortgage-backed security in the last ten years, and have historically limited (by decision, not policy) our purchases of private-issued mortgage-backed securities to a small percentage of our total mortgage-backed securities. We believe these types of securities historically have tended to provide a less favorable risk/return tradeoff (including credit risk) than the kinds of mortgage-backed securities we have purchased.
you know very well that the issue is when an interest in land is conveyed by a common grantor to more than one overlapping person
if O leases P to L and then provides B with a lien on P and lies or omits about the lease to L, then the regular rules (race, notice, race/notice) apply and B's lien is or is not superior accordingly.
This is why every state I know of allows the recordation of leaseholds for more than one year and some for leaseholds of any duration and certain licenses.
Hairdresser: 2.01: Licensure Requirements
(1) Hairdresser/Cosmetologist - Type 1. An Operator - Type 2 who has had a minimum of two years experience as such or who has had a minimum of two years experience as a junior assistant instructor, may apply to the Board for examination and licensure as a hairdresser/cosmetologist - Type 1. The applicant must file an application with the Board accompanied by required fees and may be registered by the Board as a hairdresser/ cosmetologist - Type 1. A hairdresser/cosmetologist - Type 1 may provide cosmetology services unsupervised in a salon for compensation and may supervise operators, manicurists, and aestheticians. The license must be renewed on the date determined by the Board.
(2) Operator - Type 2. A person who has successfully completed a course of at least six months, which course must have included 1000 hours of professional training in a cosmetology school approved by the Board may apply to the Board for examination and licensure as an operator. The applicant must file an application with the Board accompanied by required fees and achieve a passing score on a practical and written examination satisfactory to the Board.
RE Agent: 24 hours of approved classes, waived if you have attended a RE class in law school. Sample tests are available onlie for less than $20 and "gauranteed" results courses for $59.
All realtors, brokers, financial planners, and especially appraisers, should be required to have 4 year business degrees with accounting and ethics training. We should also maintain, that no one will be grandfathered in -- if you can't do the math or be ethical fuck you!
o they did not free up $200B. they decreased the $20B excess regulatory capital by 1/3 and this will allow an additional $200B of mortgage purchases or guarantees because, believe it or not, FF operate with 2x the leverage of a normal bank.
this is separate from the use of moral suasion to convince FF to raise more capital, either debt or equity or hybrid, which again can be used on leverage.
What NYS licenses it the term here "massage therapist". That way those who want a massage without benefits know who to use.
Those who wish to provide massage with benefits can use almost any other term except say interior designer.
There have been a number of professions added over they years. From what I understand standards seen to improve quickly then from when there was "self-regulation" by the industry. On the NYS licensing website complaints are listed.
I think that many of those who provide a service used by the average person should be licensed. This includes REs and Stockbrokers etc.
March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Forget lower interest rates. For the Federal Reserve to keep the financial markets from imploding it needs to buy troubled mortgage bonds from banks and securities firms, say the world's biggest Treasury investors
As a long time real estate agent, broker and brokerage owner, I have never considered the business a "profession" and few of the better agents I've met do either. I merely smile when my compatriots plump on and on about making the thing a "profession". It ain't never gonna be.
NAR is less about increasing the "professionalism" of its members, and more about collecting coin from the rank and file at the bottom to lobby the gov't for goodies that benefit the brokers at the top.
We are in SALES, and the good ones make lots and lots of money.
Thank you LawyerLiz. Nobody collects a dime until somebody makes a sale.
After noting that the porftolio cap has been lifted, the fine print in Fannie's monthly summary explains, "The size of our portfolio also may be constrained by market opportunities and regulatory capital requirements."
Thanks to consent orders put in place in 2004, in the wake of accounting and management scandals that forced both companies to restate several years of earnings, the GSEs are required to keep 30 percent more capital on hand for a rainy day than previously stipulated by law.
That means Fannie and Freddie have been struggling to scrape up additional capital to cover mounting losses on bad loans and other investments, including hedges against changing interest rates.
Those capital requirements may put the brakes on what is a much bigger business for Fannie and Freddie than buying up loans -- guarantees and securitizations. In addition to buying up loans, the GSEs provide liquidity to mortgage markets by bundling up loans that meet their underwriting standards and selling them as guaranteed securities to other investors.
Most of Fannie's $2.9 trillion "book of business" at the end of January consisted of $2.44 trillion in outstanding MBS and other guarantees. The story is much the same at Freddie Mac. While Fannie and Freddie both grew their book of business at an ambitious annual rate of around 25 percent in December, things slowed down considerably in January -- to 9 percent at Fannie and 5 percent at Freddie.
With Fannie reporting a $3.6 billion fourth quarter loss today and Freddie expected to have equally bad news tomorrow, don't expect OFHEO will hurry to lift the 30 percent additional capital requirements that are proving to be the real constraint on the GSEs' growth.
OFHEO director James Lockhart today sounded triumphant about the orders that put the requirements in place in 2006, saying that in retrospect, they have helped ensure Fannie and Freddie "are in a much better capital position to deal with today's difficult and volatile market conditions and their significant losses."
Tanta--they are, by definition, not salespeople. They are as I said "order takers". Nope, they're not thin skinned and neither am I.
I can sell, but I prefer to do something else. And I'd consider myself in only the 50th percentile, sales-ability-wise. Altho you can regard banging heads together (in the nicest possible way) at a closing (non fraudulent of course) bedcause the buyer and seller have come to hate each other (for very valid reasons not relevant to the closing) as selling.
Yes, Florida requires you to take a course and pass a test which was reasonably hard. I would guess that the people who pass, promptly forget 50-90% of what they've learned. I haven't taught it for a while. Realors remember the I want my commission part of that very well. Some of them don't want to even run around and deliver last minute papers or come to the closing to get a check.
Google (a million millions) may indeed be an absurd word, but at the rate derivatives are multiplying, it just might become more ubiquitous than the search engine.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo) reduced surplus regulatory capital requirements for the mortgage companies from 30 per cent to 20 per cent and secured a commitment that they will each soon raise a "significant" amount of new capital to allow them to buy and guarantee more mortgages.
Ofheo said the move was an attempt to give Fannie and Freddie the flexibility to support the highly distressed market for so-called "jumbo" mortgages greater than $417,000, as well as the capacity to refinance more subprime home loans and conduct loan modifications for struggling borrowers.
Dan Alpert, managing partner of Westwood Capital, an investment bank, said: "Washington believes this is a liquidity crisis. But this is a credit crisis brought on by the falling value of underlying housing assets."
doom writes:
Does anybody know ANY Realtor who is presently showing homes and at the same time warning the potential buyers that there is a "good possibilty" that the home they purchase today will be worth considerably less within 1 to 2 years?
If you don't know any, why not? Is it that you don't know any Realtors, you haven't asked them for their opinion, or could it be simply that they are just scum that will not disclose important "possibilities" in order to make a commission?
Yeah...I know one. Me. I now have 5 "ready", eager and qualified buyers in the $350k range to $4mm range...all waiting to buy as I have continued to advise them that patience will pay off for them. So we wait, and watch...
And all my buyers who purchased during the crazy bubble days heard from me how these prices cannot sustain themselves, and to be prepared to see some of their equity investment be reduced temporarily during a downturn. But my buyers all purchase w/ a min of 20% down (many 40% 0r 50%), for the purpose of establishing their own residence, and our market is pretty stable (still stable...yes, it's down, but not bleeding). All my buyers seemed to understand that risk, and knew that a loss is only realized if forced to sell.
Now my income is mainly due to sellers. Thankfully, properties are still selling in Pasadena/San Marino.
Residental leases are almost never filed in Florida, tho they could be.
Hmm, so you do have the notice thing.
But the tenants are in possession so you can argue actual notice.
See the possession exception in most title policies.
Also, most of the time, the lender does not know the names of the renters in possession, so they don't get an eviction on their record, at least in Florida.
And yes, I find RE agents incredibly annoying, but some of them do some actual work for their money, and I must be nice to them so I don't drive them away (a sales job?), and lose their business. . . . but oops, there is no business. . .
And by the way, I personally alternate gardening with blogging. Come in to blog when the mosquitoes start to chomp. As everyone knowz mosquitoes here can carry away horses, and the cockroaches really do fly.
Oh, I know how little influence I wield here. The strongest influence is held by CR, who has put his readers on a horse that's not going to take them where he says it will.
Perhaps you can unbunch your panties and, as an expert, explain to us all the story about how that other word came into being?
Tanta | 03.23.08 - 12:39 pm |
Thankfully, properties are still selling in Pasadena/San Marino.
I guess technically as long as one house sells they are still selling. Pasadena medians are off -24.72% y-o-y and what off ~50% sales rate vs. Feb 2006?
I thought whores were self regulated by supply and demand metrics on first thought, but this is more a matter of the mutual benefit of exchange.
If you have un-regulated pimp-like realtors being middlemen in non-arms length deals between buyer and seller, then at some point the middleman will serve less of a function and the market will become more efficient.
As we see with Mr. Spitzer, pimps can be of use and act as go-betweens to help transactions be more efficient and less problematic. As with FSBOs. one often sees a seller attempt to sell the goods, but then a pimp makes a pitch to help speed up efficiency in efforts to find a larger supply of potential buyers.
These pimps can be useful to a pot, but they need greater accountability and more required education. Fewer pimps, whom are more educated, more regulated will increase costs for all deals, but the chance of matching unqualified buyers and sellers decreases.
Google (a million millions) may indeed be an absurd word, but at the rate derivatives are multiplying, it just might become more ubiquitous than the search engine.
Bill Melater
I really didn't want to comment - but... sometimes things have to nudged back in the right direction:
What's a Google?
"Googol" is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.
Version 1: The whole world was asleep. Everything was quiet, nothing moved, nothing grew. The animals slept under the earth. One day the rainbow snake woke up and crawled to the surface of the earth (from Australia).
Version 2: IN the week or so since the Federal Reserve Bank of New York pushed Bear Stearns into the arms of JPMorgan Chase, there has been much buzz about why the deal went down precisely as it did.
Do the Bear Stearns and Countrywide deals represent a regulatory template? Both had the same types of winners and losers. Bondholders won, while stockholders and credit insurance owners lost.
Its pretty clear that some major losses are floating around out there on busted credit default swap positions.
The only tool left may be for the Fed to help facilitate a Resolution Trust Corp.-type agency that would buy bonds backed by home loans, said Bill Gross.
Mortgage bonds rallied last week. Yields on the securities fell to an average of 1.25 percentage points more than Treasuries from 1.57 percentage points on March 14, according to Merrill Lynch & Co.'s Mortgage Master Index. The so-called spread is still twice as wide as the average for all of 2007.
Investors, averse to holding most any debt except Treasuries, drove rates on three-month bills to 0.387 percent on March 20, the lowest since 1954. Rates on the securities, the safest assets next to cash, tumbled 0.59 percentage point last week to 0.57 percent. They were as high as 4.29 percent as recently as Oct. 15.
The Fed, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank are exploring the feasibility of using taxpayers' money to shore up the mortgage-backed securities market, the Financial Times reported on March 22, without saying where it obtained the information. A Federal Reserve official denied to Bloomberg News that day that it's in discussions to buy mortgage debt.
In a sense they've done that already with Bear Stearns,'' Michael Materasso, senior portfolio manager and co-chairman of the fixed-income policy committee at Franklin Templeton Investments, said of the government taking on the risk of owning mortgage securities.This was not just a temporary situation. The process has begun, the question is how far can it go?'
The Resolution Trust Corporation was a United States Government-owned asset management company mandated to liquidate assets (primarily real estate-related assets, including mortgage loans) that had been assets of savings and loan associations ("S&Ls") declared insolvent by the Office of Thrift Supervision, as a consequence of the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s. It also took over the insurance functions of the former Federal Home Loan Bank Board. It was created by the Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), adopted in 1989. In 1995, its duties were transferred to the Savings Association Insurance Fund of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
"Measures to reduce preventable foreclosures could help not only stressed borrowers but also their communities and, indeed, the broader economy," he said.
He said banks may stand to earn more in the long run if they reduce loan amounts, since doing so may reduce defaults or foreclosures.
After costly foreclosure proceedings, banks are recovering less than 50% of loan values, he noted.
He also urged investors who bought mortgage-backed bonds to accept "short payoffs" of loans by letting borrowers refinance at a lower principal.
He added that investors may be able to share in future home price increases under a proposal by the Office of Thrift Supervision, which would let borrowers refinance at current home values while giving the lender a "negative equity" certificate that could be redeemed if the house is sold.
OTS has not formally released its plan, but gave an overview of the work in progress last month.
Rob Dawg writes:
Thankfully, properties are still selling in Pasadena/San Marino.
I guess technically as long as one house sells they are still selling
Okay, I apologize in advance for the really long post to follow, but RD made me do it!!
There were 50 closed sales in Pasadena and San Marino for the mo of Feb. I didn't even include Altadena, San Gabriel, Alhambra, South Pasadena, Sierra Madre, Eagle Rock (all part of our general area...which would have greatly increased the number.
Which one sale were you referring to?
Sold\t02/07/08\t22103065\t369,900\t \t2019 N Summit Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/15/08\t22098547\t470,000\t \t1690 Belmont Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/07/08\t22101898\t602,500\t \t201 N Orange Grove Blvd #510\tPasadena
Sold\t02/08/08\t22101975\t1,100,000\t \t345 Patrician Way\tPasadena
Sold\t02/12/08\t22102782\t1,295,000\t \t1439 Lida St\tPasadena
Sold\t02/13/08\t22104688\t1,962,000\t \t1437 Rutherford Dr\tPasadena
Sold\t02/22/08\t22103570\t2,050,000\t \t524 Glen Ct\tPasadena
Sold\t02/14/08\t22103571\t311,000\t \t125 N Allen Ave #123\tPasadena
Sold\t02/01/08\t22099507\t330,000\t \t981 E Villa St #4\tPasadena
Sold\t02/28/08\t22094843\t380,000\t \t1953 Olive Way\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t12104575\t407,000\t \t230 S Madison Ave #104\tPasadena
Sold\t02/07/08\t22102618\t510,000\t \t569 N Sierra Bonita Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/05/08\t407140371\t530,000\t \t3750 Arboleda\tPasadena
Sold\t02/01/08\t22096873\t546,000\t \t433 N Altadena Dr #2\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22101005\t599,000\t \t1660 N Oxford Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/02/08\t22101009\t600,000\t \t1929 E Beverly Dr\tPasadena
Sold\t02/13/08\t22099135\t625,000\t \t2236 E Woodlyn Rd\tPasadena
Sold\t02/15/08\t22099166\t645,000\t \t1479 N Harding Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/21/08\t408004394\t742,500\t \t640 Chester\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22097056\t747,000\t \t1739 Brigden Rd\tPasadena
Sold\t02/08/08\t407125213\t805,000\t \t3565 Greenhill\tPasadena
Sold\t02/27/08\t22103831\t1,090,000\t \t993 S Los Robles Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/07/08\t22103189\t1,499,000\t \t985 N Los Robles Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/14/08\t12099837\t300,000\t \t1115 Cordova St #100\tPasadena
Sold\t02/15/08\t22103678\t720,000\t \t505 Avenue 64\tPasadena
Sold\t02/22/08\t22102253\t728,500\t \t1590 La Loma Rd\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22102490\t1,050,000\t \t211 S Orange Grove Blvd #8\tPasadena
Sold\t02/27/08\t22097373\t293,000\t \t330 S Mentor Ave #305\tPasadena
Sold\t02/26/08\t22101376\t325,000\t \t284 S Madison Ave #102\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22095830\t360,000\t \t497 S El Molino Ave #107\tPasadena
Sold\t02/26/08\t22103783\t365,000\t \t1299 Cordova St #304\tPasadena
Sold\t02/21/08\t22102614\t427,000\t \t259 N Holliston Ave #13\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22104475\t440,000\t \t330 S Oakland Ave #4\tPasadena
Sold\t02/25/08\t22098328\t460,000\t \t840 E Green #125\tPasadena
Sold\t02/22/08\t22103878\t525,000\t \t844 Magnolia Ave #10\tPasadena
Sold\t02/22/08\t408003526\t525,000\t \t844 Magnolia #10\tPasadena
Sold\t02/06/08\t22104179\t530,000\t \t840 E Green St #127\tPasadena
Sold\t02/06/08\t22100674\t530,000\t \t840 E Green St #127\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22094327\t539,000\t \t240 S Mentor Ave #5\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22094498\t689,900\t \t3937 Elma Rd\tPasadena
Sold\t02/22/08\t407160377\t707,000\t \t610 Mercedes\tPasadena
Sold\t02/20/08\t22103347\t725,000\t \t748 Locust St #404\tPasadena
Sold\t02/01/08\t22100194\t750,000\t \t1118 Las Riendas Way\tPasadena
Sold\t02/01/08\t22098848\t787,500\t \t934 S Euclid Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/05/08\t22098743\t3,450,000\t \t1151 S El Molino Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/27/08\t487167343\t805,000\t \t2225 Los Robles\tSan Marino
Sold\t02/20/08\t22103788\t1,050,000\t \t1335 Bellwood Rd\tSan Marino
Sold\t02/15/08\t417132399\t1,105,000\t \t555 Sierra Madre\tSan Marino
Sold\t02/01/08\t22099773\t1,180,000\t \t1885 Robin Rd\tSan Marino
Thursday, February 21, 2008
OTS Plan: Negative Equity Certificates
This is certainly innovative:
Obviously, it would be in FHA's interest to low-ball the current valuation as much as possible anyway. I gather the OTS is assuming that with that in place, even if the FHA loan went into FC in the future, there wouldn't be that much of a deficiency for the FHA lender. The certificate would be worthless, but there you go.
Tanta | Homepage | 02.21.08 - 3:01 pm | #
I cannot believe the OTS would for a second consider letting anyone hold one at par!
Tanta | Homepage | 02.21.08 - 3:05 pm | #
This OTS plan, certainly, would weed out the flippers, who presumably would just mail in the keys rather than take the refi.
Tanta | Homepage | 02.21.08 - 3:10 pm | #
Tanta writes:
Will the original lender have to write off an amount equal to the NEC at the time the loan is refinanced under this plan?
Well, that's kind of the whole point of it.
Look, today, without this plan in place, a lender who "forgave" debt and released the lien would have to write off 100% of the forgiven principal.
If you didn't release the lien, you could probably get away with carrying that lien as an asset, equal to the amount you think it's likely worth, to offset the write-off.
What does the OTS think these things are likely worth? About 2 cents.
So the lender writes off the full $100 in "forgiven" principal (an expense against bad debt) and carries an asset with a book value of two dollars. Or sells the "asset" to someone else for two dollars. That's a net write-off of 98%.
Tanta | Homepage | 02.21.08 - 6:19 pm | #
I did not make you do anything. That cut'n'paste mess posted above is all your own fault and caused solely because you had the audacity to describe the Pasadena market as "still selling" as if the subregion hadn't been participating in the largest decline in sales in modern history. You tried to polish a turd and got caught. Own up and move on.
Under the plan, the homeowner would be able to refinance the mortgage with the U.S. Federal Housing Administration, based on the current value of the home. So instead of a US$240,000 mortgage, he would now have a US$198,000 mortgage (we're assuming US$2,000 was paid in cash).
The FHA would buy the US$240,000 loan from Bank ABC, giving it US$200,000 and a "negative equity certificate" for the remaining US$40,000. Were the homeowner to eventually sell the home, the FHA loan would be paid off first, then the original lender, up to the value of the certificate. Any money left over would go to the homeowner.
The homeowner wins because he is now paying down a smaller debt and if interest rates are the same or lower than when he first bought the home he also has lower monthly payments.
Bank ABC wins because it gets most of the money back from the original loan and may still recover the rest. This is far better than the borrower walking away from the now-onerous original mortgage, as a growing number of homeowners are currently doing.
"It beats foreclosure," Jaret Seiberg, an analyst at Stanford Policy Research, told the Washington Post.
This will help lenders limit their losses and avoid an "avalanche of borrowers who choose to walk away from the mortgage," Scott Polakoff, the OTS senior deputy director, told Bloomberg News.
The "negative equity certificates" would be tradable, and creators of the proposal anticipate there would be a market for them. Initially the certificates would be worth pennies on the dollar, but as the housing market recovers and home values rise, so too would the value of these certificates.
How does this help solve the subprime mess? It affixes a known value to mortgages that are in the greatest danger of going into default.
Huge investment vehicles have been built around such risky mortgages, and because no one knows what they're really worth (their value will keep declining as long as home values fall), financial institutions around the world are facing hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars in potential losses.
Even if these mortgages end up being worth 83 percent of their face value (as in the example above), it at least has a known value. And with "negative equity certificates," there's also a chance the mortgages could end up being worth more.
The White House and members Congress have yet to comment on the proposal.
"We have got some good initial indications of interest and we are just hoping for this to be part of the solution," an OTS spokesman told the Financial Times.
we went thru that weeks ago. never happen. neg equity certs are almost surely unrecordable in most states. if not recorded no one would ever know who got what when. in addition, its ripe for fraud, as there would be cash side deals or pmts for "as is furniture" and similar crap to avoid having to pay off the neg eq cert.
you had the audacity to describe the Pasadena market as "still selling" as if the subregion hadn't been participating in the largest decline in sales in modern history. You tried to polish a turd and got caught. Own up and move on.
Rob Dawg | Homepage | 03.23.08 - 8:50 pm | #
Not sure what you mean exactly...I said myself that the market is down, just not "bleeding". I am also advising buyers to wait it out, that patience will pay off. What's your beef?
Your "one house" comment is very misleading. I would not argue with you that we are in the largest housing downturn in history, but I do know firsthand that different markets are responding differntly (very differently). My brother's neighborhood in Simi Valley has been getting butchered for 2 years now. OTOH I had a $550k listing in San Gabriel that got 11 offers (2 weeks ago). I sold my own house 2 mos ago, and had 3 offers. It seems a bit surreal when that happens in this environment.....But I am assuming that the real pain will come later in 2008...
A social security number isn't necessary for purchasing property in the United States. Were that true, no non-resident could purchase property here. And a false social security number can result in a credit report just as easily as a real one. (The credit bureaus don't, so far as I know, check with the SSA to see if the number is good. In fact, they may be barred from such information.)
You need a SS# to close or you have to deal with "FIRPTA". 10% withholding, unless you do all sorts of estimating stuff, which I have never actually had to do. I no longer remember what FIRPTA stands for except the first word is Federal and the last word is act.
Remarks of John M. Reich, Director
Office of Thrift Supervision
to the Independent Community Bankers Association
Annual Convention
Orlando, Florida
March 5, 2008
Good morning. Its wonderful to be here in Orlando with
my good friends at ICBA.
There are a number of details that still need to be worked
out. We are currently working with representatives of
Treasury, our fellow regulators, FHA, Congressional leaders
and staff members, and with investor and industry groups to
refine our proposal. So, I want to share our thoughts in
general terms, understanding that it is a work in progress.
See Also: Congress enacted the 10-year rule for mortgage-revenue bonds in 1988. The rule requires state and local housing finance agencies (HFA) to use principal repayments and prepayments from mortgages to retire MRBs within 10 years. The rule is costing HFAs billions of dollars each year.
Position
SIFMA supports repeal of the 10-year rule for mortgage revenue bonds.
Under H.R.1562, loans financed by qualified mortgage revenue bonds and Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds may also be used to acquire or replace existing mortgages without regard to the existing walls rule or the 10-year rule under present law.
ERIKA MILLER, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: The board members and management of financial companies will be squarely in the spotlight at upcoming annual meetings, when they face angry stockholders. Rich Ferlauto is the shareholder advocate at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. His group, whose pension funds hold shares in many financial firms, is vowing to hold company directors responsible for not sufficiently managing sub-prime risk.
LaRouche Declares:
Paulson Is `F**king Incompetent'
by John Hoefle
Within the space of a week, the Federal Reserve announced the emission of $400 billion in cash to bail out the bankrupt U.S. banking system, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson released a report by the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) which maintained that the system was fundamentally sound, except for a few excesses which need to be curbed
Gee, thanks for the address of Blockshopper. Very interesting. In Coral Springs in Broward County foreclosures are half of sales. Supposed to be a nice area. . .
You're right, but someone who can't get an SSN can obtain a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and there's a withholding exemption specifically for mortgage holders. (I looked it up; I don't remember this stuff.)
It's substantive (it's not really a procedural statute) is to ensure that all persons whereever situated, regardless of citizenship or residence, pay US federal income tax on profits or gains related to US real property.
Obviously its too complex to go into here (dont even ask) and is subject to various treaty overrides.
But that's what all that mumbo jumbo means in closing stuff, that we want proof you're not subject to FIRPTA taxation, because if you are then we may be required to withhold.
One of the (many) weirder aspects of this mess, to me, is banks kicking tenants who've never missed a payment out of rental properties after foreclosure, then letting the property sit idle for month after month because the bank wants to price the house at the fantasy end of the range. The one REO on my block was a rental (appropriate internet searches turned up an Assignment of Rents, so I assume no occupancy fraud, though the numbers and dates I turned up leave me wondering if any payments were made following a refi). Many houses are sold while someone's living in the house, there's no reason why a bank can't reach a suitable arrangement with a paying tenant, maybe give the tenant a break on rent, let him/her know what's going on, in exchange for allowing entry. Locally (SF Bay Area) there are a few communities with "for-cause-only" eviction laws. I remember Oakland, one such community, threatening over the last year to sue banks for ignoring such laws.
My Bay Area 'burb has high owner occupancy, so I doubt rent control will ever happen no matter how high the registered D:R ratio gets, but it'd be nice to see tenants gain foreclosure-related protection, separate from the "for-cause-eviction" laws typically tied to rent control. As an owner, I think such a law would have helped my block.
On the...expanded thread..."ream a new a-hole" would be another expression to add to the list.
What I'd be looking for is a recent sale just before the renter came in. This smells of foreclosure/mortgage fraud cases I've been handling in L.A. It could well be that it was a distressed sale where buyer rode in to rescue the seller with a "I'll take over payments and negotiate with the lender and you quitclaim the property to me." No negotiation ever occurs. The "buyer" never makes payments and rents the property out until the FC catches up and by then the fraud artist has pocketed a few months of rent. Oh, and also look for a well-timed BK by the beneficiary of the quitclaim which would stall the FC. Yes, they are pond scum.
It's late in the thread, but I couldn't resis mocking this one from Gawain's Ghost: I'm not about to take lip from some salaried employee who doesn't have the balls to make it on his own.
The problem with eviction protections outside rent control laws is that the landlord can evict the tenant by raising the rent. In 1988 the California Association of Realtors got the state legislature to exempt all single family houses from rent control. While many of the local ordinances still protect tenants of those houses under their rent control provisions, one lender raised the rent to $10,000 a month to oust the tenants.
And lenders evict because they don't want to have to take care of the property while waiting to sell it. The reduced sale price, they believe, is less than it would cost to collect rents and keep the place up. (Many cities in California though are passing laws to require that the lenders do things like mow the lawns etc. and have instituted heavy fines for allowing the houses to deteriorate.)
Rob Dawg = Guy who sold house 2 or 3 years ago expecting prices to fall to 1978 levels in 3 months after selling home. To save money (market rent is probably more than his old mortgage payment) he moves into a trailer or his mother-in-laws house in anticipation prices will crash and he can walk in and scoop up his old house for 40k. Now pissed off that he lives in a trailer with his mother-in-law and is sitting on dollars that are rapidly falling in value, he realizes that he may have made a mistake by selling home and blames realtors and mortgage brokers for his blunder.
Should have studied past real estate cycles before getting cozy in mother-in-laws' garage, there Rob Dawg. I recommend reading Henry George's "Progress and Poverty" dude. You'll see where you went wrong.
Real estate markets are notoriously slow on downside corrections due to a) the lack of short selling b) the tenacity to which borrowers cling to mortgaged property and c) the very slow process of foreclosure.
The world goes on and people sooner or later can no longer handle their mother-in-law's garage no matter how much they are saving on housing expense.
About (and a bit more than) 15 years ago I was a telemarketer - before that became one of the most hated words in the language.
I was (I thought) raising money for charity. If asked, I told the absolute truth - that I was a disabled single parent and not only did a portion of the money go to a charity (Did not know it at the time, but that part was pretty iffy. The charity was pretty much a scam and only got 10% of profits anyway - but I did not know that when I was working there.) but the commission I earned was the only honest work I could do. I was completely straight with the customers - and usually the top salesman. Then the business changed. The boss stole our client list and started doing the same thing. We started calling people more frequently (instead of once a year - once every three months) and others got into the business. People on "sucker lists" were being called 20 or more times a night. It was still possible to make money if - and only if - you were willing to lie your a** off. I wasn't.
Wasn't the first time I had walked away from a job for ethical reasons. I say that, not to put myself on a pedestal, but to point that out as an option - one many people never consider.
I don't doubt that there are ethical realtors - but I do doubt that in the recent environment, there are a high percentage that are successful. A lot of decent folks have left that business lately.
I'm sure Ms. Dust will fight like hell to keep her license.
But,Tanta being a Landlord is easy,I mean you kick back and watch the checks come in every month in the sure knowledge that YOUR property will appreciate solidly in the next 5 years! and shoot as long as you have Granite countertops to offer you should be able to get your choice of tenants! just remind them that granite is real solid so their Glassware won't fall off and start a fire when they are cooking meth.
First? Really?
It's a little disconcerting to keep reading these stories when one lives in NYC.
The real estate market here makes about as much sense as what is happening in the financial markets.
In a few of the recent comment threads here, people have joked, "Oh look at the news! X is down! Y is in bankrupcy! Z reported a $3b loss. You know what that means.... market rally!"
Facetiousness is clearly the new prescience.
I am sure the real-whore is sitting in church today...
Happy Easter everybody!
The new scam in my town is to find a house that has been forclosured.
Take the for sale sign down and call a locksmith to change the locks.
Advertise the rental.
Take the deposit and rent and get a bogus lease signed.
Then take the money and RUN!
Most real-whores have so many listings and so few showings that they wont notice for weeks or months.
What a great country!
On Wall Street they call this flim-flammery...Finance.
(forgive my spelling errors)
Back in the early-mid 90s around here, respectable tenants used to ask for credit reports on LANDLORDS before signing a lease.
Mnnnummmfff. Cadbury Orange Creme Eggs.
Anyway, this is precisely why I stopped being a landlord April 2006. It was kind of like being the only person not peeing in the pool. Of course it was necessary for me to take advantage of the buyer but at least I got mine. Sure enough the hapless buyer has the place back on the market at a lower price than they paid less than two years ago. Sold to my listing realtor.
I know I'm exposing my abysmal ignorance (not that I haven't already done so multiple times), but whatinhell is a relitter?
A relitter is in most cases a used home salesma
From the Story:
"After we saw that (that the home was in foreclosure), then everything in the past made sense. She wanted us to move in so fast," Travis said.
I believe you are right, Tanta, the realtor had already stopped payments on the mortgage when she recruited this couple as tenants.
Back in the early-mid 90s around here, respectable tenants used to ask for credit reports on LANDLORDS before signing a lease.
That isn't a bad idea at all. If the landlord doesn't want to disclose a credit report, you can also ask the landlord to get a "payment history" from the mortgage servicer and give it to you. (You might have a hard time reading it; we've been through that discussion before. But you can probably learn a lot from a steadfast refusal to comply. And if you are having a very hard time interpreting it, it's probably a genuine one.)
The trouble is, in this situation it looks like Ms. Cocky (see link) was probably current at the time the place was rented.
There was fraud on the way up and there will be just as much on the way down it's an American right damn it.
know I'm exposing my abysmal ignorance (not that I haven't already done so multiple times), but whatinhell is a relitter?
A pun on a certain common mispronunciation of "realtor," with intention to mock.
Max gets the same effect out of "real whore."
Looks like Ms. Dust has another one in foreclosure as well
Search her name here:
404 - File or directory not found.
I guess I should say that you can, always, at least verify that the person trying to get you to sign a lease is actually the owner of the property: just check the deed records.
That might save someone from the scam Max alerts us to above.
I am a single family home renter. I filed the CA "Request for Copy of Notice of Default" with the County Recorder. If our landlord defaults, we get a copy of the notice.
The second thing we did, aside from filing our own change of address form, was make sure no mail for the landlord (who used to live in this house) came to us. We saw our mail carrier the first week we were here, and said "hi, we're the new tenants, the John and Jane Doe are in Seattle now. Do you have their new address?" Fortunately, they did have their new address.
The third thing is that we live in a county where you can check delinquent property taxes online. It takes quite a while to get a house into the property tax auction, usually 6 years in CA. However, it's a good indication of problems elsewhere, and you can get to it online. In our case, they were indeed delinquent, and used our deposit to get back to current on the taxes.
Before renting, we also did a Propertyshark check on the property. Wish that was available for more of the country. As an alternative, you can also run a title search before signing. That will catch a lot of fraud related to who owns the house, and will catch most public notices of delinquency and tax problems.
Back in the early-mid 90s around here, respectable tenants used to ask for credit reports on LANDLORDS before signing a lease.
Rental fraud is a subject of great interest to me at the moment as I am temporarily relocating to the DC area for a 2-year work assignment and will become a renter again for the first time in almost 15 years.
I have a good salary (even by DC standards, excellent credit and can afford to pay well for the rental as I will be receiving a housing stipend from my company. Therefore, I can afford to be picky about what property I rent and what landlord I choose to deal with.
Having said that, I could use some advice as to how to spot fraudulent activity or potential shady dealings on the part of the landlord. (This article is a great contribution on that subject, by the way.)
I have visions of me asking the LL for his credit history and him laughing in my face. Is it really a reasonable thing to ask for these days?
What else should I know about landlords?
Thanks!
I assume those renters could take civil action against the bogus landlord's fraud, but I'm wondering whether there aren't laws that would also bring criminal charges. If there isn't, that seems like a loophole that should be closed.
just check the deed records.
Is this something you have to do in person at the county records office or is there a way to do it remotely?
Thanks for the link, MoT. If I am identifying the parcel correctly, looks like Ms. Dust refinanced that property in February of 2007. So her first payment would have been due in March or April.
So she's also in Option One's sad list of early payment defaults.
Lets start with some good news for renters.
FHA case # 094-514503
As is value: $90,000
Price : $60,000
..................
Purchase price: 38,575
Net price(to HUD):$37,803
Escrow amount: $0 (no repairs required)
Sold for $148,900 on 10/2005 (FHA loan)- ~75% off
Why rent when you can buy a house from FHA with $100(one hundred) D.P.?
I guess based on FHAs statistics people who put $100 DP would never walk away! As our Secretary General Tanta would say "Thank God for FHA!".
Is this something you have to do in person at the county records office or is there a way to do it remotely?
Most jurisdictions are online these days. See the link above to the county in question.
In our case, they were indeed delinquent, and used our deposit to get back to current on the taxes.
I guess this is an indication that your LL may have cash flow problems. Does that motivate you to take any additional actions?
If your landlord admits to you that the property you are renting is in litigation, wouldn't you start asking questions?
In addition to a credit check or rental history, it pays to check the Circuit Courts records to find out if the landlord has a history of litigation problems.
As a land title guy, it floors me how little attention people pay to the overall picture- it's all price and financing, but marketability is just as important.
In a thread the other day, I mentioned that someone around here was putting up hand-lettered signs advertising a place "4 sale by owner - no credit check" in a town about twenty miles away. I wonder if this is some variation on a scam.
And speaking of scams, what is the "we buy ugly houses" business about? Is this a bait and switch scam: use the "buy ugly houses" routine as a lure for distressed mortgage holders, and then try to get one or two last payments out of them under guise of "helping?"
In addition to a credit check or rental history, it pays to check the Circuit Courts records to find out if the landlord has a history of litigation problems.
How much personal identify info do I need on the LL to do this? e.g. do I need his SSN or will name and address suffice?
ONe other thing: Homes that have been rented for a long term already.
EG, our house that we rent was rented for a previous long term tennant, one before that, etc.
Here is the local news story via video: Clip Syndicate Video: Home Foreclosure Crisis
You really can't make some of this stuff up. They show the actual text from this lowlife and she misspelled "cocky" as "cockie".
How much personal identify info do I need on the LL to do this? e.g. do I need his SSN or will name and address suffice?
It is, thank heavens, no longer legal for public record documents to contain a person's SSN. Think what a bonanza for identity thieves such a thing would be (and used to be).
Frankly, if I were a legit landlord, I would never give you my SSN so you could "check records." How do I know you aren't trying to defraud me?
You never ask for someone else's SSN. You never give your own to anyone else.
And speaking of scams, what is the "we buy ugly houses" business about?
There are a number of variations on what that's about.
There are one or two real live investment companies that are looking to buy your house, for cash, legitimately. However, if they don't offer you enough to pay off your mortgage, they aren't trying to help you any.
Often it's a "foreclosure rescue scam." They give you some cash to get you to sign over title and move away, telling you they will bring your loan current with the bank so you're out of the FC mess. Then they either try to flip the property or do the rent-skimming thing.
We got out of our last lease as soon as it was up for just this reason. We were getting lots - LOTS - of letters to the owner / former occupants from Downey Savings and Loan. On one of them the first couple of lines was visible through the clear window, and it revealed a payment reset to an amount that was almost $1k more a month than we were paying in rent!
I don't think the accidental landlords were trying to defraud in my case, they were just in way over their heads. I even got my security deposit back, although not the pet deposit. Now we're in another nice rental house, with nice owners who bought back in '97 and thus can carry the mortgage payment with the rent check.
Of course, since I'm in NoVA, both this property and the last one have depreciated by more than I've paid in rent. So much for renting for a year or two until the market picks back up.
-Jaso
Edit "first couple of lines was visible" to "first couple of lines were visible. I can haz grammar?
-Jaso
If your landlord admits to you that the property you are renting is in litigation, wouldn't you start asking questions?
Well, see, that's the thing. If you have never owned a home, and especially if you're a young person renting for the first time, you may not understand what "in litigation" means in reference to a property.
I'm guessing she came up with some kind of bull like "I'm suing the lender." Hey! Everyone reads about predatory lenders in the papers, right? It might well sound convincing to someone with minimal exposure to these things that the nice lady is being harassed for no reason by an Evil Lender.
After all, she's a licensed relitter with Professional Certification!! Shouldn't she know what she's talking about??
Scotto,you can go to a people search sight such as Zabasearch,and it will link to other sites that will give you a couple of complete criminal and civil searches for under $30.You can frequently pick up SSN's as well...privacy is dead and buried.
To run a credit check on a landlord, you would need their agreement and a SSN. As a formerly honest realtor (I mean formerly realtor, not formerly honest), a good real estate agent could facilitate the process of making sure a landlord was ok, pulling title reports, credit checks, etc. I used to do that for my tenant clients. Also, a helpful realtor could provide an MLS history on the property which might prove illuminating. An agent makes very little on a rental, it's basically just building a relationship with a possible future client.
Scotto writes: How much personal identify info do I need on the LL to do this? e.g. do I need his SSN or will name and address suffice?
Circuit Court records will most likely be indexed by name, so you will need to know the specific name the owner took title under. The tax bill should be the simplest source, but it is best to cross check against the last deed of record (Owners may have transferred the property to a shell company as a litigation shield).
Depending on the recording system used, you can get a good idea of liens, mortgages, taxes and litigation on a property in a relatively sort time.
Edit "first couple of lines was visible" to "first couple of lines were visible. I can haz grammar?
You just can't win today, Jason. I recommend Easter candy.
You were right enough the first time. The subject of the verb is "couple." It is OK in English for that to be considered a singular noun ("the couple was") instead of a plural noun ("the couple were"). You got fooled by an intervening phrase with a plural noun at the end of it.
As I said, just help yourself to some jelly bellies. We aren't fussy about grammar on holidays.
In Nevada you can sue for 3 times your deposit if the landlord does not refund you within 30 days. Hopefully that couple can something back for thier trouble but my guess is that Ms Dust will probably file for bankruptcy.
Time to hit blockbuster and rent Pacific Heights...
i think there's some good learning to do.
Too early to jump into income property; wait until the "dust" (hah) settles.
Our local paper has a full page ad from local realtors assuring everyone that housing prices will double in ten years. They have no shame!
Tanta,
As every broker, realtor and surveyor knows, we land title types are notoriuosly suspicious and persnickety.
Viewing with alarm, only double?
LOL!!!
I have to acknowledge the said "nearly double".
As every broker, realtor and surveyor knows, we land title types are notoriuosly suspicious and persnickety.
I have been told that no one in the world is more paranoid than a lender who has already lived through RE busts before now, but I bow to your superior persnicketiness.
I'm not trying to suggest that people not be suspicious. I'm just a little burnt-out on certain kinds of "victim blaming" I've run into recently. The glibertarians have a bad habit of immediately rushing to the "most important" part of any story, namely how the victim deserved everything they got because they failed to be a "rational agent" as theory predicts they will be.
How shameful! Ms. Dust will be admitted to the Housing Bubble Hall of Shame! Welcome, asstard!
What do you expect when you allow hoards of people flooding the country from Western Europe in wooden boats?
Frankly, if I were a legit landlord, I would never give you my SSN so you could "check records." How do I know you aren't trying to defraud me?
You never ask for someone else's SSN. You never give your own to anyone else.
Exactly, that's why I was surprised to hear that people would be able to run credit checks on prospective landlords.
Don't you need a SSN to run a credit check?
This type of situation can be avoided by going to town hall and figuring out two things.
Figure out what his mortgage likely is and look up taxes and estimate other costs and if you are not covering those costs then he can not affor to rent at market prices and you should move on as this home will go to foreclosure in time.
Follow those two rules and the downside should be greatly limited.
OT; Good short story here:
"A Coordinated Effort to Destroy Effective Regulation"
Economist's View: "A Coordinated Effort to Destroy Effective Regulation"
Don't you need a SSN to run a credit check?
Yes. Which is why "you" can't run one.
Seriously. Someone like Deb (a realtor) or me (a mortgage lender) has a legal right to run credit checks, an account with a bureau or repository to do it with, and (presumably) the information-security procedures in place to protect that information once we got it.
If you get some dork landlord to hand over their SSN (and date of birth) to let you go online and order a copy of their credit report, you have a very gullible prospective landlord.
The best thing would be to ask the landlord to order his or her own CR, and let you see it. Of course if it's a professional scumbucket, what it ends up showing you is doctored.
As I said, if I were a legitimate landlord, there's no way I'd give you a copy of my CR or my personal info. Your only real option here is to go through a realtor or rental agency who could do a credit check for you, and just tell you whether the owner meets the realtor's or rental agency's credit requirements (and nothing else, because how much your landlord has charged on his Target card isn't your business).
Letting other people see your credit report is terribly dangerous these days. Although most of them are good about not printing entire account numbers, there's a jackpot of info there for people who mean you harm.
I have been told that no one in the world is more paranoid than a lender who has already lived through RE busts before...
Sadly, these are in short supply.
BTW, thanks to you and CR for all of your work.
I am going to go sit in the corner now and reflect on my "glibertarian" way of thinking.
I would not mind renting from someone who upgraded or downgraded and couldn't or didn't want to sell their old home, but I would not buy from anyone with multiple properties or who had not owned the property for less then two years.
You and I are very different, then. I would much sooner rent from a professional landlord, who has a lot of properties and has been at this a long time, than from some desperate naive amateur who thinks they can become insta-landlord after they found out they "couldn't sell."
Basically the story tells us that the trust that used to be the essence of things has disappeared from business, at least the real estate business, in the US. And it may be a long time, if ever, in coming back. Economic crises squeeze it out of the system, since desperation is the enemy of honesty. So what to do? Probably more regulation: renters will be expected to get an official certificate from landlords telling them that the landlord owns the property, that if there is a mortgage the payments are up to date, and that this must be re-certified to the renter before he makes each payment, etc., etc. Nothing can be rented without such documentation, etc., etc. Hey, the fallout from this Wall Street binge will really make the country a better place. LOL.
As a current renter (and someone who might be for the next 5 years... I am 27), this is one of the more useful threads for me.
Right now we are in a somewhat pricy apartment complex (but at least it's in the nicest part of town), but I figure with the rent we are paying my family should be able to move into a house. I wouldn't mind staying here except I know that whatever company owns our complex will keep trying to increase our rent even as home prices kaput (I don't think much has sold in my neighborhood... how would I be able to find out?).
Renting sucks big time, but at least we were able to make a few modifications, which will probably be painful removing a couple months before we move out.
I think one of the problems with the housing boom is that it's become way more expensive to live in the pockets of cities/counties that have lower crime rates and better schools. In fact I'd like to see some type of geographical map of areas with "good school" performance and "lower crime rates", and it wouldn't surprise me if these ares have been shrinking at an alarming rate over the past 20 years. (Okay, I'll stop but I'm sounding like one of those "populist" pundits on TV alarming over the destruction of the middle-lower class).
Renting sucks... but I suppose some of these tips could help us find a longer term rental if we wanted to in the next year or so...
Quoting an attorney from the story: "Notices about the foreclosure went to the property address..."
This is standard procedure, and I have no doubt that this how it went down. The renters had adequate notice, they just failed to act upon it.
Counterintuative to what one might think, more often than not, a foreclosure results in a big windfall to the tennnat. The Big dysfuncitional Buercracy that now owns the property will, after a considerable delay, either offer them money to leave or begin a lenghty eviction process where the BFD would have to prove to the Court to that the occupant was given proper notice. It is likely they will end up getting months of free rent. Evidently that isn't enough for these Gold Diggers.
As regards the 'equity skimming' allegations, the test for 'equity skimming' is not whether the owner collected rents and does not pay the mortgage, the test for equity skimming is whether there was a premeditated intention to collect rents and not pay the mortgage. Unless this owner has done this multiple times, it would be all but impossible to convict for equity skimming. And it is the mortgage company that is harmed by Equity skimming, not the tennnat.
Tanta,
Don't you think this is realy a matter of the balance between technical incomprehensiblity and over simplification?
Jim writes:
Basically the story tells us that the trust that used to be the essence of things has disappeared from business, at least the real estate business, in the US. And it may be a long time, if ever, in coming back. Economic crises squeeze it out of the system, since desperation is the enemy of honesty.
Actually, I think it might be just the opposite. It was the good times, when caution flew to the wind, that gave such ample opportunity to schemers. It's trust that's being sapped from the system. When people start running credit checks on landlords shysters have a harder time.
Much the same thing happened in the 1920s, with all sorts of schemes (e.g., Ponzi, Florida real estate, stock trusts, etc.)
But it was probably pretty hard to find a sucker in 1936, especially one with any money...
As to the renters, if you're young, you're probably used to moving very frequently. I doubt I could even give a number of how many addresses I had between the ages of 18 and 30. It's hard for me to see this as a particularly big deal. Certainly a pain in the butt. But in a lot of these places, they probably won't have too much trouble finding another rental and it may well be for less.
Tanta, one thing a prospective renter can do is check out their landlord through local rental (landlord) associatons, although I know that not every community has one.
One can inquire about a landlord by asking if they're a member and for how long.
Does anyone know the best place to find out the price at which recent real estate transactions have closed escrow?
I am trying to get the spread between listing prices and closed prices.
Quoting an attorney from the story: "Notices about the foreclosure went to the property address..."
This is standard procedure, and I have no doubt that this how it went down. The renters had adequate notice, they just failed to act upon it.
It does not matter to what address these notices were sent. It matters to whom they were sent at that address.
If the notice comes to "OCCUPANT" or "RESIDENT" or your own name, you get to open it because it's meant for you. If mail comes to your address with someone else's name on it, you are legally expected to forward it.
My assumption was that notices went to one Bobbie Dust at the property address, the tenants were not comfortable opening someone else's mail, and so they did what they thought was the right thing, namely, giving that mail to Dust.
Are you sure that in Nevada correspondence from a servicer is directed to "OCCUPANT"?
I suspect Dust finally told the Hays in January about this right at the time that the law would have required a notice slapped on the house itself. It hardly matters; she knew she was not paying the mortgage, and she had a duty to tell her tenants that.
Otherwise, you sure sound pretty hostile to tenants here. Could the "D" in your name be "Dust"?
As to the renters, if you're young, you're probably used to moving very frequently
Yeah, but it's still a pain that you shouldn't have to go through because of someone else's fraud. And when I was moving, I was single and not trying to move a family. It's a nice news story because it is unusual and a little shocking.
BTW- I notice the that Article 1 in the Code of Ethics has something about "Honesty to all parties", is there a link to the Code on line? (Just for giggles)
PS How does one eat Peeps without gagging? Lots of liquid?
As to the renters, if you're young, you're probably used to moving very frequently.
I moved quite frequently in my youth, but I was never unceremoniously booted out before the expiration of my lease with no advance notice. I never had to drop everything, take off from work, and start packing and moving.
I also didn't have kids in school districts and things like that.
Look, if your landlord tells you what's going on up front, you do have the choice to take the rental, hoping that the low rent makes up for the possibility that you'll have to scoot out at short notice.
But this is a story about people who were not given a "choice," because the information was withheld from them.
I think jacking around with people just because they're young and renters is a big deal. Did you catch the part about the "notice" coming the day one of the renters was having surgery? Imagine yourself scheduling surgery (hers was apparently emergency), safe in the knowledge that you still have six months on your lease, only to find out you need to leap off the hospital bed and start packing.
What will JPM-Bear be paying for the lush downtown Manhattan HQ we keep hearing about? I mean, if all that paper the Fed is bailing... er... a... backstopping them on, could Chairman Bernanke have engineered the only profitable RE business model currently operating? Rent-Skimming?
If I was a renter and I started suddenly receiving a flurry of email from my landlord's servicer, I'd open enough of it to figure out the reason, then shred it. Who cares if it's illegal? I want to be among the first to know if the landlord isn't paying the mortgage.
tanta -
why are my panties in bunch every time you write 'relitter' ? i'm trying to figure out it myself. i suppose that as a member of the NAR, the GCAAR, and the WDCAAR, i'm getting a little tired of being insulted every single day by people i ostensibly respect.
i find it boorish and beneath you to make sweeping insulting generalizations and then to criticize and label others as racist, classist or otherwise.
i continue to read but i will most likely slow down if i get insulted every time i voluntarily click on this site.
dunno thats just me i guess
why are my panties in bunch every time you write 'relitter' ?
How funny.
Actually, the reason I use that term is because I refuse to capitalize the other word and use the registered trademark symbol, and I sure don't want to be sued by a bunch of relitters.
Perhaps you can unbunch your panties and, as an expert, explain to us all the story about how that other word came into being?
(1) Pull the title search and find out what mortgages are sitting out there. From the loan docs, you can figure out what the payments should be - yes, even with an Adjustable. (If you can't do it, take it to someone who can - accountant, real estate attoney...)
(2) If it looks 'iffy' on the the payment in comparison to the rent, then try writing the rent check to the landlord AND the lender. That would mean both the landlord and lender have to sign the check to cash it. (Note the property address on the check and the loan account number which should be on the loan docs.)
(3) BTW, the loan docs and note on file in the county records will probably have the owner's Soc Sec number. That lets you run a credit check.
Your only real option here is to go through a realtor or rental agency who could do a credit check for you, and just tell you whether the owner meets the realtor's or rental agency's credit requirements
Thanks Tanta, that makes sense.
But won't the landlord expect me to provide my SSN to him so that he can run a credit check on me? Does that go against your advice above to never hand over your SSN to anyone?
Tanta, one thing a prospective renter can do is check out their landlord through local rental (landlord) associatons, although I know that not every community has one.
One can inquire about a landlord by asking if they're a member and for how long.
Thanks mp, that sounds like a good idea to me.
If I was a renter and I started suddenly receiving a flurry of email from my landlord's servicer, I'd open enough of it to figure out the reason, then shred it.
I would certainly open it and read it, myself. If anyone questions it, just say you failed to notice that it wasn't for you.
But shred it? Nah, you don't want to do that. You don't want the servicer potentially on your case; you want the servicer on your side. You're handing your landlord an excuse for not being straight with you: you destroyed the landlord's mail.
If you read such a thing, mail it to your landlord with a note asking what the landlord is doing to amend matters, and then go see an attorney or tenant's rights organization about whether you should continue to pay rent or not.
i dont know nor dont care about the origins of the word realtor. i do know that i am one for better or worse.
please dont deflect what is obvious which is your constant negative generalizations about a large group of people. its as wrong as making sweeping statements based on race, color or creed.
sure its fun to bash and everyone is doing now just like they did before and always have.
everyone hates a real estate sales person.
oh yeah and by the way - i have a masters in latin american studies (among others) and have spent a great deal of time in latin american countries, learning about them, working with them and helping shape policy towards them. yep, its a far more corrupt portion of the world than here in the good ole US and people tend take a kill or be killed attitude. the graft is shocking and thus the comment yesterday was appropriate but was dismissed as 'racist.'
i waited a day to write these comments to make sure i meant was i was gonna write and i do.
its your joint and you can do what you want but i dont think the original intent was to use the pulpit to bash groups of people over and over and over again.
those subprime home owners are scumbag. why we need to bailout those scumbag again?
dc1000,
Get. Over. It.
As one of the economists who regularly reads and comments here, it is a tossup whether your bunch or mine gets worse treatment. However, since I wear shoes in the temple (market efficiency, the rationality of actors, etc.) perhaps I have a thicker skin about it...
Your contributions here are a valuable part of the mix as someone who is out in the real economy making the wheels go around - hope you have a good Easter and keep hanging around.
But won't the landlord expect me to provide my SSN to him so that he can run a credit check on me?
He has the right to do that in states that construe renting as an acceptable reason to access credit records (all of them, I believe).
If it's a property management company or a landlord you've checked out in some other way, then you might as well. You are, after all, dealing with the party who can report you to the credit bureau if you do not pay as agreed.
If it's just some dude you just met because you saw a sign in his front yard, I'd suggest keeping your SSN and everything else to yourself.
Re: "I am, however, convinced that a lot of "speculators" are suddenly trying to convert themselves into "landlords," and that the results aren't going to be good for anyone--not for the tenants, and not for the lenders."
How can we have equitable reforms in our world, when the "police" are mindless retards? Huh? It seems you either end up with retarded over zealous nazis or asleep at the wheel couch potato slugs, and then, either way, you end up with nothing positive being done!
This is a matter of generational social changes and the realities of in-coherent education -- which is resulting in a fragmented world of non-regulated chaos -- turbocharged by policies which are blatantly disregarded and distorted into false and misleading lies.
PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: BOB DYLAN
Playboy Interview
DYLAN: Nope.
DYLAN: Well, I must say that I really don't know their parents. I really don't know if anybody's parents are so bad. Now, I hate to come on like a weakling or a coward, and I realize it might seem kind of irreligious, but I'm really not the right person to tramp around the country saving souls. I wouldn't run over anybody that was laying in the street, and I certainly wouldn't become a hangman. I wouldn't think twice about giving a starving man a cigarette. But I'm not a shepherd. And I'm not about to save anybody from fate, which I know nothing about. "Parents" is not the key word here. The key word is "destiny." I can't save them from that.
BTW, the loan docs and note on file in the county records will probably have the owner's Soc Sec number. That lets you run a credit check.
I am shocked if it is that easy to get someone's SSN
Scotto | 03.23.08 - 11:03 am |:
Here's what to check in Maryland. You don't need no stinkin' SS numbers or nothing like that
Take the address you wish to rent and plug it into SDAT -- real property data search.
Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation
That will give you the name of the current owner, the date of the last (recorded) sale, the sale price, and the tax assessment. Most times that's all you need. I rented a place a few months back, for instance, and discovered that my landlords have no mortgage at all. So foreclosure is not likely.
If you see a recent sale for way too much money (and almost any recent sale will be for too much), then check the name of the owner in MDLandrec.
MDLandRec.Net A Digital Image Retrieval System for Land Records in Maryland
This is, like SDAT, free to check, but requires a password. Takes a few minutes.
With this you'll see the terms of any mortgage on the property, and you might see if the owner has, say, six other properties similarly overleveraged. If so, probably best to run.
Good luck. Let us know how it goes.
ede
In Florida, renters are served with process as John and Jane Doe, Then, at the end of the foreclosure process, they can be evicted if they don't leave, without filing eviction proceedings. Also, since is takes at minimum 4 to 6 months to complete a foreclosure, and nowadays, up to 9 months, the foreclosure mills are so busy, the renters would have plenty of time to get out.
I would certainly live out the security deposit and the last month's rent before leaving. In fact, I might be tempted, depending on the circumstances, to not pay any more rent at all and dare the landlord to come after me. In fact, I would figure out what the additional more would cost, and live there at least that long. I wouldn't advise anyone else to do this, but for me, a little self-help would be entirely acceptable, and not cause me to lose any sleep.
(3) BTW, the loan docs and note on file in the county records will probably have the owner's Soc Sec number.
Aren't you the one who claims to be a lawyer? A real JD??
The "note" is not on file in the county records.
It is NO LONGER LEGAL to put a borrower's SSN on a recorded document like a mortgage or deed of trust.
Graham. Leach. Bliley. Et Al. Check it out.
If your lender even puts your ACCOUNT NUMBER on your mortgage prior to recording it, you should complain to the authorities.
And don't listen to people who claim to be lawyers on the internet unless they appear to be making sense.
dc1000 --
Your profession has structural conflicts of interest that make it very mockable: dual agency, pocket listings, payment upon transaction completion.
Until those are resolved, the realty profession in the US will be justifiably be mocked. And don't get me started on the low barriers to entry (1 in 77 Californians was an RE agent or broker in 2006...)
"Are you sure that in Nevada correspondence from a servicer is directed to "OCCUPANT"?"
It is basic foreclosure practice, in every State, to include all interested parties on the mailing list. Two mailings that should (and are 99+% of the time) on mailing lists are 1. the owner(s) at the property address. 2. "occupant" at the property address. If there is a tennat and the "occupant" has not been noticed then the tennancy survives the foreclosure.
--
Do you still not see, Tanta, that financial moral corruption was far more widespread than ever before in US history? It also became more acceptable because some thought that "everyone is doing it," when in fact most were not doing it.
Criminality doesn't need to reach a high level for things to be really bad for honest people and to create a bad society. In this case, a bad economy because trust is still the most important part of a prosperous economy. At some point the cost of keeping crooks off becomes too high. Once economic corruption took roots in India, it has remained very poor for a very long time.
A historical perspective: When British arrived in India, Indias share of the world GDP is estimated at 24% and that of British Isles at 3%. Today, US is close to 24% and India is close to 3%!
Jas
dc1000,
Reallitters can't have it both ways; demanding collective respect of a profession and free reign to act unprofessionally and not police your own ranks. Tanta has an excellent point about the registered trademark nonsense and you should be grateful for realitter and not realtwhore as is so common elsewhere.
i dont know nor dont care about the origins of the word realtor.
Oh, come on. We got people all fired up about "Certified Mortgage Planning Specialist" the other day.
I want someone to look into the R-word. C'mon, someone can do it.
I rent a single family home w/ a few other friends, all just out of school (23 - 25 years old) in Northern Virginia (Falls Church).
I insisted, based on a similar news article, that the Landlord's certify as part of the lease that they were not in default and that they had adequate resources to pay their mortgage, and that "Landlord shall promptly notify Tenant in writing if Landlord receives any default notice or demand for payment from Landlord's Mortgage Lender". I figured this would give us a small window of time if they did default and provided us the required notice.
Just bringing up the point to the Landlord's made me feel much more comfortable, as they explained how they came about owning the house, why they moved to a new place, and what their plans were for the place in the future, in addition to acknowledging that our rental payment only covered their P&I.
If they had reacted differently when the topic was brought up, I would have probably walked away. So my best advice is to definitly do some homework; a title search can cost less than $200 (or free if you are willing to go to the courthouse), and its free to ask for additional langugage in the lease. While this won't prevent all frauds, its a simple way to do some due dilligence.
Notes are often filed in commercial mtges. Also, notes are often filed in seller financing situations.
in addition, when you have an adjustible mtg, in Fla, at least, a rider is attached which gives you virtually all of the terms of the note.
Also a mtg will have the term of the loan and the mtg amount and the date it was taken out, so you can make some educated guesses at what the mtg rate might be, depending on the rates at that time, and get an educated guess of the monthly payment.
In the counties I work in in Fla, you can get the taxes, if you know the address, and you can get the deed and the mtges also, if it's not too far back. You can also search the name and see how many properties the person owns. Except if the name is Jose Rodriguez, forget it, there are hundreds of people with that name.
Since it keeps coming up here, this SSN, thing, let me say this:
You may not obtain a credit report on someone else just because you somehow found out what that person's SSN is.
You must have WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION from that person.
Anything else can get you in real legal trouble, and no reputable officer of the court would even imply that you can "find" an SSN and run a credit check.
OK, Tanta, I'll play. Here's a history of the word "realtor."
Field Guide to the History of the National Association of REALTORS®
Reel-Um-In?
It's worth taking a minute to read the actual story, as posted by a Las Vegas TV station on its website. It concludes with this gem re Bobbie Dust, the realtor who rented out the house.
We contacted the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. It confirmed Bobbie Dust is a member. The association says in its code of ethics realtors are bound by all the rules, even in their own real estate transactions. That includes Article 1, which states that all parties should be treated with honesty. (emphasis added)
lawyerliz, let's not get into UCCs or cases in which a note is incorporated into lien documents. You know perfectly well what I meant.
There is in fact plenty of info on your average adjustable rate mortgage rider.
SSN shouldn't be one of them, ever.
I entered into this post in the spirit of helping people avoid scams. So really, I am insistent on some things here because I have no intention of providing tips to indentity theives or encouraging poor landlords to let themselves get fleeced from the other direction.
My main point: you cannot always invade the privacy of someone just to "protect yourself."
OK, Tanta, I'll play. Here's a history of the word "realtor."
Careful, mp. If you don't use the caps and the symbol, you could get sued.
You can, however, order a credit report without written permission in many circumstances where so authorized by statute, such as employment and other business relationships. No way am I advising on this or any other one, get a lawyer. But you don't always need written advice.
How come the bank in FC wouldnt be happy to have a good tenant stay on rather than let the place be empty and stripped and run down?
the sheer numbers of realtors means that there are going to be just as many crooks and cooks as there are in the rest of the world.
what i dont get is that for some reason its become ok on this site for the host to continually slam a group of people as a whole, with the rest of the commenters piling on.
replace realtors with brown people and you'll see what i mean.
and those of you that know me know that i'm a entrepreneur, developer, builder, broker, deal junkie who has a NAR membership along with many others so my offense taking could be deeper if thats all i did all day. i'm more educated than 90% of my associate members (probably more) with a more diverse economic existence.
no, what i'm getting at is that group bashing of any sort should be limited and not endorsed condoned and frankly led by the host.
we're not talking about simply saying these guys are dumb or wrong or mislead. real estate sales people are called things like "scum" and "whores" on a regular basis and we've all gotten used to it. its accepted and ok to keep up the tone.
well for one, this "scum" "whore" doesn't appreciate it and i think if you all looked at this rationally, you'd be in agreement with me.
it starts at the top.
dc1000- I respect you man, but you voluntarily joined an organization that has a poor record of policing itself. Perhaps you could take this up with the organization to revive its image.
Quite amusing, from anonymous's link above:
H.L. Mencken, by the way, considered "Realtor" one of the great American euphemisms. Invented by the National Association of Real Estate Boards to lend their trade a dignity they found lacking in the common term "real estate agent," "Realtor" is a registered trademark of that organization and should only be applied to its members (and should always be capitalized). The chutzpa of first coining and then trademarking a noun evidently rubbed Mencken the wrong way, and he took obvious delight in needling the righteous Realtors in his masterwork, The American Language. "The suggestion that 'realtor' is derived from two Spanish words," wrote Mencken, "'real,' meaning royal, and 'toro,' bull, and that it thus connotes 'royal bull,' is spurned by the bearers of the name." Mencken went on to note that the suffix "or" was undoubtedly carefully chosen, since "or" has always carried more dignity than the equivalent "er," citing "author" as weightier than "writer," and "advisor" outgunning "adviser." Such delicate considerations count, no doubt, when you are trademarking a noun. I feel obliged to inform you at this point that the approved, although perhaps not legally enforceable, pronunciation of "Realtor," according to Mencken, is "reel-tor," not "ree-al-tor," and certainly not "real-uh-tor."
Speaking of invading folks privacy in the rental biz, two years ago having just sold my house and moved to a new city, I was looking to rent a condo. I set up an appointment with one Avalon apartment complex. When I showed up for my appointment, they insisted on writing down my drivers license number before showing me any units. They already had my cell phone number--what purpose does the license check serve?
I have never since considered any Avalon rental.
Fair Credit Reporting Act
sdtfs: dont get off track here. we're not talking about the performance of the association and its members. we're talking about using degrading, vulgar and offensive language to generalize about a group of people.
thats why we dont do it by memory. i checked and its the employment purposes use that requires notice and consent, not the other way around.
anyway, thats why you dont do this without legal advice. better than mine, apparently.
Tanta, I should have known that Mencken worked on this one. You have out-Menckened me.
I am in tatters, stunned and surprised.
How come no has mentioned Assignments of Leases and Rents?
goes back to time out corner and puts on dunce cap
"...degrading, vulgar and offensive..."
Huh? like, "litterbug" or "kitty litter"?
I'm sticking with real-UGH-tor.
Good luck. Let us know how it goes.
ede
ed ericson | Homepage | 03.23.08 - 12:50 pm | #
Ed - thanks, I will definitely check out those resources.
-Scott
"i'm more educated than 90% of my associate members"
Prove to us you have a GED and the use capital letters?
As a lifelong renter (dare I say, professional renter?), I can tell you you definitely want to stick with professional landlords. I rented from speculators twice during the run-up, and I'll never do that again. The first one. after we'd lived there about a year and a half and were on a month-to-month lease, made us vacate the house for a day so she could meet the appraiser and refi as an owner-occupier. Then, once the new financing went through, they raised our rent by 15%. They actually seemed surprised and annoyed when we responded with our 30-day notice. Then the next landlord was basically okay until we moved again. That's when we found out that she thought "security deposit" meant "get-into-ready-to-rent-condition fund". Both of them saw the rent we paid as pure profit. They had this incredible sense of entitlement, that as property owners the money should just be rolling in to them. I hate see how bad they'd be now, when they don't have any appreciation anymore.
Speaking of entitlement, who says renting is something for young singles? Isn't that what got into this mess? I'm 38, I have two kids, I have a respectable job, and yes, I rent. I always have and I expect I will for the foreseeable future. Sure, I'd rather own my own place, but I can't afford it. In the scheme of things, being a middle-aged renter really isn't such a terrible injustice. I'd prefer not to have to move every couple years, but it still beats getting waterboarded.
While this won't prevent all frauds, its a simple way to do some due dilligence.
brian | 03.23.08 - 12:59 pm | #
Brian - thanks for sharing this advice.
-Scott
dc1000,
I agree with your point about the use of offensiveness and vulgarity... common use encourages the baser parts of our selfs to come forward, rather than our most thoughtful.
Denigration and insult has its place, but should be reserved so it retains its needed shock value when truly applicable.
One person's opinion.
brian writes:
I rent a single family home w/ a few other friends, all just out of school...
I insisted, based on a similar news article, that the Landlord's certify as part of the lease that they were not in default and that they had adequate resources to pay their mortgage...
Damn, I lived in a lot of group houses in DC at that age and half the time, I had no idea who the landlord was. Sometimes no one who actually signed a lease still lived in the house. Of course, that was the type of place where we burned the furniture previous tenants had left in the basement in the fireplace. Those were the days. If I could afford the $4.66 for a case of Wiedemann (the patriarch of cheap beers), I felt rich!
I have a funny Wiedemann story. That neighborhood was undergoing gentrification and one day when I'm at the local liquor store, the kind of place that offers its outside walls as urinals for the convenience of the clientele, and this well-dressed woman looks at me and says, "VeedaMann, is that imported?" "Why yes it is, from Bal'more!"
and those of you that know me
dc1000, don't you think that might be one of the problems here? Nobody here does "know you." You are an anonymous commenter.
This reminds me of that silly thread we had some time ago wherein I was accused of "defaming" an anonymous person who was described anonymously in an anonymous post over at Broker Outhouse.
I have never spent more than a split-second of worry over the nasty terms people use for mortgage lenders. Such things will happen as long as my industry continues to disgrace itself.
Nor have I ever gotten personally offended by the things people say about bloggers. Mostly I find that amusing.
I'm really sorry that you, as a superior specimen with advanced degrees and everything, feel that you are being lumped in with the riff-raff. It does really seem to be ruining your day, as if you personally were being trashed here. I know how you feel. I for one am very well-educated and have a master's degree in an obscure subject that is over most mortgage lenders' heads. That's why I get all worked up about people talking about "predatory lending," because I instantly assume they mean me and they're trying to insult me.
But you know, wouldn't it help to first find the place where I claimed that all RE agents are crooked? I haven't even claimed that all lenders are crooked, and I get more provocation to do that.
Having written posts "defending" Countrywide (like the one I linked to in this article, say) and having gotten denounced for being just a shill for the industry, I have to conclude that people just read whatever they want to read into these things.
Nobody likes getting bad press. But most of us don't take it quite so personally.
Prior to the creation in 1913 of the national income tax, about a third of Uncle Sam's annual revenue came from liquor taxes. (The bulk of Uncle Sam's revenues came from customs duties.) Not so after 1913. Especially after the income tax surprised politicians during World War I with its incredible ability to rake in tax revenue, the importance of liquor taxation fell precipitously.
By 1920, the income tax supplied two-thirds of Uncle Sam's revenues and nine times more revenue than was then supplied by liquor taxes and customs duties combined. In research that I did with University of Michigan law professor Adam Pritchard, we found that bulging income-tax revenues made it possible for Congress finally to give in to the decades-old movement for alcohol prohibition.
Before the income tax, Congress effectively ignored such calls because to prohibit alcohol sales then would have hit Congress hard in the place it guards most zealously: its purse. But once a new and much more intoxicating source of revenue was discovered, the cost to politicians of pandering to the puritans and other anti-liquor lobbies dramatically fell.
Prohibition was launched.
Despite pleas throughout the 1920s by journalist H.L. Mencken and a tiny handful of other sensible people to end Prohibition, Congress gave no hint that it would repeal this folly. Prohibition appeared to be here to stay -- until income-tax revenues nose-dived in the early 1930s.
From 1930 to 1931, income-tax revenues fell by 15 percent.
In 1932 they fell another 37 percent; 1932 income-tax revenues were 46 percent lower than just two years earlier. And by 1933 they were fully 60 percent lower than in 1930.
With no end of the Depression in sight, Washington got anxious for a substitute source of revenue.
That source was liquor sales.
mp out-Mencken-ed?!
whocoodanode!
How come no has mentioned Assignments of Leases and Rents?
I might have, if I had believed for one minute that this loan had been originated as "non-owner occupied" and therefore probably carried an assignment of rents rider.
dc1000, you'd best drop it. As a frequenter of this place, you should know by now that trifling with Tanta is extremely dangerous business.
You will lose.
dc1000 writes: "i don't know nor don't care about the origins of the word realtor."
Cadbury established their brand in the Victorian era by making chocolate with guaranteed zero percent rat droppings. Cadillac almost wrecked their brand by slapping it on a Chevy (the Cimarron). What have you done for the Realtor© brand lately? Is the NAR chief economist still talking crazy?
tanta,
dont deflect and minimize. yes people here know dc1000 and my million different jobs. so no, this is not anonomoo world where no one knows anything about anyone. i've shared quite a bit personally here over the years.
my larger point is that there is a mob mentality against a group of people. you aid that mentality by using words like relitter and making a comparison to garbage.
other people have used words like scum and whore over and over again.
your seemingly innocuous play with words actually supports and enables other more vulgar attacks. hey, if tanta can call realtors garbage then its ok to call 'em whores too!
point really is that i think you yourself are above group bash and that you've inadvertently lowered the bar for civility.
How come the bank in FC wouldnt be happy to have a good tenant stay on rather than let the place be empty and stripped and run down?
fred | 03.23.08 - 1:15 pm | #
That's a very very good question.
scotty at the pulpit writes:
Prior to the creation in 1913 of the national income tax, about a third of Uncle Sam's annual revenue came from liquor taxes.
I was doing some research in newspapers from 1913 and a big part of this little city's revenue came from annual liquor licenses. Kind of amazing how easlily prohibition passed.
One other interesting bit, property tax rates were about 20% higher than they are today.
Well, speaking strictly as a third-generation Realtor, I concur with dc1000. It really is beneath the dignity of certain people to condemn an entire profession just because of a few bad apples. If that were permissible for dignified people, then professors, lawyers, mortgage brokers (or is it mortgage hookers?), and just about any other profession you could name, would all be roundly condemned.
Some people are corrupt, and there is no profession immune from corruption. But most people are decent, and most professions are staffed by honest, hard-working people.
But it's not like I haven't met a good number of incompetent or dishonest Realtors over the years. Of course, it goes without saying, they don't stay in the profession very long. 90% of the people who get a real estate license this year will be out of the business in the next two. That's a pretty high turnover rate, and it's illustrative of the fact that they only people who succeed and profit in this business are those who are honest, trustworthy and diligent.
It's not easy to make it in business on a pure commission basis. Those that do--and my mother has been enormously successful at it for 35 years--deserve the respect and admiration they are owed. Those that don't, well, they deserve whatever insulting epithet some may wish to apply to them, but don't lump me in with that group of losers. I'm not about to take lip from some salaried employee who doesn't have the balls to make it on his own.
That said, I really could care less about what any of you think of me or my profession. I made over $75,000 last year, listing and selling repossessed homes, and my living expenses weren't even $25,000. (My mother did substantially better, by the way). The house I live in is paid for, the vehicle I drive is paid for, and I don't carry credit card debt. I have cash in the bank, assets generating income and my family owns controlling interest in a highly profitable corporation worth millions. So you can all kiss my rich white ass.
It's easy to criticize people and condemn professions. It's not dignified, but it is easy. However, at the end of the day, unless you have something more to show for your life than that you lived as a debt-ridden slave, it doesn't really amount to anything other than farting out your mouth.
dc1000 -- For what it's worth, I interpret Tanta's use of "relitter" as mocking a particular Realtor who doesn't deserve to be called a real Realtor, not mocking all Realtors. This type of mocking is common for lots of occupations, see "slumlord", etc. Don't get so worked up about it.
Gosh, I was feeling flush with excitement about the great swells of applications I'm receiving for my rental house.
For a number of years, during the medical underwriting period, it's been difficult to find tenants who are not fugitives from financial, personal or legal problems. That seems to have turned around, and I get to choose among families based on factors like whether they appear likely to breed pit bulls in the basement in order to protect their meth stills.
Now I learn that, should they listen to Tanta, my prospective tenants will be inquiring into my ability to pay my mortgage.
Wouldn't that be a wonderful world, tenants who understand that in fact I don't hold clear title to my property but instead make monthly payments to a bank for the right to build equity. Not the world in which I manage my rental, but sounds good.
What do you guys expect from a profession that does not even require a high school diploma and takes 2 weeks to obtain the licence?
Increase the industry standards and maybe you will be taken seriously
Tanta said: "dc1000, don't you think that might be one of the problems here? Nobody here does "know you." You are an anonymous commenter."
Who's tried to be open and straightforward, not descending into snarkiness or sarcasm, from what I've read of his posts.
Not that it matters, of course, in an entertainment medium like this.
But, in all fairness, maybe he did bring this on himself by joining such a reprehensible organization.
Perhaps a different organization of high moral standing and character. On this Easter Sunday, the Catholic priesthood comes to mind.
A model of probity, if you will.
Sebastia
Sorta off-topic.
Why was Eliot Spitzer (politically) Assassinated?
YouTube - The Assassination of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer
Some of you might know this already...
dc1000,
I suggest Realtors&tm; use the tactic lawyers have honed to perfection, actually join in and keep the ball rolling until you reach the point where lawyer jokes all sound horribly tired.
Maybe that's what's happening, society needs some new group to take on the mantle. Doctors never worked out, though many tried.
Catholic priests a model of "probity?" Obviously, you aren't acquainted with any Jesuits.
So you can all kiss my rich white ass.
It's easy to criticize people and condemn professions. It's not dignified, but it is easy...
Gawain's Ghost
I can see dignity is something you prize highly. dc1000, that should certainly warm your heart, to find a compatriot here.
I will observe that one person's "civility" is often another person's "cultural elites insulating themselves from mockery."
Of course that's just an observation. It isn't even an argument. It has no name attached to it. Yet I am willing to bet $20 I get someone pissed off about having been "called" a "cultural elite."
My co-blogger is a lot more genteel with language than I. I'm perfectly ready to agree that probably makes him a better person.
My own interest is in rigor of thought, evidence, analysis, and fact, rather than gentility of discourse. In my life I have seen more bullsh--I mean, ideological mystification serving powerful moneyed interests--coming down the pike in "civilized" language than in a certain lower-rent dialect that occasionally calls a scumbucket a scumbucket. In fact, I tend to think the best thing you can do for honest professionals is not keep giving them ever more rarefied and stilted new titles to distinguish them from the riff-raff. It's to call the riff-raff the riff-raff.
It's why you'd never catch me asking to be called a Certified Mortgage Credit Risk Analysis Specialist Consultant. "Mortgage weenie" is my preferred term. But really, I don't much care what you call me. I care whether my posts and comments make verifiable claims and adhere to the usual rules of logic.
And, forgive me, appeals to authority via one's degrees or last known salary make me more than a touch queasy.
Why, oh why, do people take offense where none is intended?
However, at the end of the day, unless you have something more to show for your life than that you lived as a debt-ridden slave, it doesn't really amount to anything other than farting out your mouth.
You had me to this point. So, you take "net worth" literally? The measure of a human being is how much property they (or their ancestors) have managed to accumulate? Maybe this is why people don't have much respect for your profession...
Are all real estate folks this whiny?
I mean seriously, get over it - the lawyer solution suggested above is one successful strategy - lawyers know all the best lawyer jokes (as to the Aggies I know etc.).
Economists get damn near the bashing here of any group, and I pledge to the CR community I will never cry about you meanies saying bad things about economists (even if some of us have thought that Lareah and now Yun have been full of sh!t since day one).
mp,
first, let's define our terms...
I recently rented a place, I had a plethora of choices from new landalords. All the best "deals" when checked out all had NOD of filed of significant unpaid property taxes.
I figured the people were trying to rent out the place so they could claim a capital loss since it then became an income property. Other possibility was just to take the rent with no intention of paying the mortgage.
I rented the houses with the lowest cost basis (original purchase price) I could and check it monthly for NOD and I check that the property taxes have been paid. If something starts slipping the landlord and I will have a talk.
Interesting Times, interesting video.
I've no doubt that Bush's people gave history a nudge.
This:
Page not found
is pretty funny:
The Cromers took extraordinary measures to better their lives. In 1998, Robert spent 10 weeks on unpaid leave riding a Mission Beach roller coaster for more than 20 hours a day in hopes of winning a $50,000 prize. ... While the roller-coaster adventure wasn't a good investment, their first home was. They sold it in 2002 for a hefty profit. By then, they both had real estate licenses.
Can you can guess where they are now?
GO to USPTO and do a TESS trademark search on the word realtor. You get 403 results, with only 4 having to do with the Nat'l Assn of Realtors.
I'll post them. Note that the trademark is on brokerage, not the agents. So, and agent's use is really invoking their principal's authority (the broker) to use the word.
Besides, anyone can write about a realtor without having to mark it as a registered trademark, just as I can say that I had a coke the other day. Not I had a Coke(r) the other day. So let's all get over it and use the word realtor without fear. So long as you're not representing that you are brokers at the same time trying to sell real estate to the readers of this fine blog, you're fine.
One
Word Mark REALTOR
Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Electronically operated lock boxes. FIRST USE: 20040406. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20040406
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 78426864
Filing Date May 28, 2004
Two
Word Mark REALTOR
Goods and Services IC 036. US 102. G & S: BROKERAGE OF REAL ESTATE, INDUSTRIAL BROKERAGE, FARM BROKERAGE, MORTGAGE BROKERAGE, IN THE APPRAISAL OF REAL ESTATE, MANAGEMENT OF REAL ESTATE, IN THE BUILDING OF STRUCTURES ON REAL ESTATE, IN THE SUBDIVISION OF REAL ESTATE PROPERTIES, AND [ FOR CONSULTATIVE AND ADVISORY SERVICES ] IN COMMUNITY PLANNING FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAW LAND AND SLUM CLEARANCE AREAS. FIRST USE: 19160331. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19160331
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 71540013
Filing Date July 17, 1947
Three (it's the plural)
Word Mark REALTORS
Goods and Services IC 036. US 102. G & S: BROKERAGE OF REAL ESTATE, INDUSTRIAL BROKERAGE, FARM BROKERAGE, MORTGAGE BROKERAGE, IN THE APPRAISAL OF REAL ESTATE, MANAGEMENT OF REAL ESTATE, IN THE BUILDING OF STRUCTURES ON REAL ESTATE, IN THE SUBDIVISION OF REAL ESTATE PROPERTIES, AND IN COMMUNITY PLANNING FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAW LAND AND SLUM CLEARANCE AREAS. FIRST USE: 19160331. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19160331
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 71540015
Filing Date July 17, 1947
Four
Word Mark REALTOR.COM
Goods and Services IC 042. US 100 101. G & S: providing an online data base which features information regarding real estate listings which are carried by the applicant's members. FIRST USE: 19951100. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19951100
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 75246554
Filing Date February 24, 1997
Say after me: "SSNs are not secret. SSNs were never intended to be secret. Even if we as a society wanted to make SSNs retroactively secret there is no way to put that cat back in the bag".
Having worked for a number of years in large-scale databases and computer security I don't give my SSN out unless I can help it. But I am under no illusion that it is some sort of secret, and you shouldn't be either. Read Bruce Schneier's blog for a while if you want to learn more about this.
Cranky
Why was Eliot Spitzer (politically) Assassinated?
Interesting Times | Homepage | 03.23.08 - 1:53 pm
Interesting Times, interesting video.
I've no doubt that Bush's people gave history a nudge.
mp | 03.23.08 - 2:09 pm
***
My brain just shriveled up and died.
Sic semper, I was kidding when I suggested that you could get sued for using the R-word improperly.
Nonetheless, I believe that's the point of trademarking: to control the use of the term and keep one's competitors from using it.
There seems to be a sense of humor shortage today. I'm blaming the Peeps. I always got crabby when there were Peeps in my Easter basket.
Say after me: "SSNs are not secret.
Of course they were not meant to be "secret."
They were also not meant to be a universal account number or a secret password to confidential information.
Blame the credit-granting industry for having made your SSN a dangerous thing. Don't blame the SSA.
Baron Samedi, there's nothing unusual about giving history a little nudge. For example, let's go back to May 1961.
You're Arturo Espaillat, head of Dominican dictator Trujillo's intelligence service. You learn of a plot to assassinate El Benefactor, but you've got your own ambitions. You not only let it happen, but make it easier in a number of seemingly insignificant ways.
It's called "goosing history." Conjure is very good at it.
My landlords just refinanced the house that I've rented for the past three and a half years, and that has been rented for a long time before that. I'm pretty sure they told the bank that they're living here, as we get all their mail and the deed is recorded with the owner's address as that of the house. I can't figure out if or how this is bad for us in any way, but I'm curious what would happen if I marked "no such person at this address" on one of their bills and sent it back.
You could grind those Peeps up with some borax to get rid of pesky ants.
(don't use your coffee grinder)
To search Los Angeles County records:
Los Angeles County Assessor's Office - Property Assessment Information System
Parcel Viewer
"Certified Mortgage Credit Risk Analysis Specialist Consultant". OMG you have more titles than Joseph Stalin. But I don`t think you have any russian medals though. I do.
PS. Is that "real analysis" or "complex analysis"? If it is complex, it looks to me that FHA and NASA have the same job requirements.
As tanta says: I have never spent more than a split-second of worry over the nasty terms people use for mortgage lenders. Such things will happen as long as my industry continues to disgrace itself.
Which got me to wondering, dc1000, being a self-avowed member of the vaunted elite of real estate professionals, would you be so kind as to explain, or detail, some of the frothy exchanges at your monthly meetings relating to your collective feelings or intuitions regarding middling RE deals where people had no hopes of paying for the houses they were buying?
Or was there never any discussion as long as the parties on both sides of the table signed the documents?
Comments like DC's remind me of the protests of bullies/drunks and other victimizers. Though their behavior is atrocious, they will fixate on one small slight/injustice inflicted on them and run with it. If the therapist doesn't call bullsh** on this, the family will end up talking for an hour how they addressed him in a rude tone of voice rather than how he pissed away the rent money.
DC you might have added to the knowlege here by addressing the abuses you see and/or how you've managed to practice ethically in this environment.
Instead (as is typical) you use the tragedy your profession profiteered from as an excuse to feel sorry for yourself.
Finally, this isn't your house and Tanta isn't required to explain herself to you (or any of us for that matter.)
its as wrong as making sweeping statements based on race, color or creed.
See, this is the first error of thought. Two of those attributes are innate. Creed is not. If some group wants to believe completely ludicrous things, I'll judge their collective and individual intelligence on that basis.
the sheer numbers of realtors means that there are going to be just as many crooks and cooks as there are in the rest of the world.
This should not be true. If the public cannot benefit from the assumption that members of the organization are less likely to be crooks, the designation is of no use to the public whatsoever. The whole point of having a self-policing "professional" organization is to hold that the members have an average level of education, knowledge, scruples etcetera greater than a random sampling of the general public.
Of course, it goes without saying, [incompetent or dishonest Realtors] don't stay in the profession very long. 90% of the people who get a real estate license this year will be out of the business in the next two.
So, as a member of the public, if I select a random Realtor(tm), I've got a 90% chance of picking a loser (by one metric)? Great!
One other thing I've noticed. When I visit the websites of doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, architects etcetera, they don't have a "Become a [your-profession-here]" page offering inexperienced applicants an opportunity to, within weeks or months, inflict services on their customers.
Can you can guess where they are now?
San Quentin?
Short version
1 out 10 = REALTOR®
9 out of 10 = relitter
There seems to be a sense of humor shortage today. I'm blaming the Peeps. I always got crabby when there were Peeps in my Easter basket.
PS How does one eat Peeps without gagging? Lots of liquid?
You're not supposed to eat them raw, silly. Fire up your hibachi or Weber kettle--impale the peep on skewer and brown it gently, caramelizing the sugar coating and liquifying the center.
ever had a deal like that as buyer's rep. couldnt tell ya. nor did the 50 other agents at our local boutique brokerage.
and when things really got bad with the crap mortgages and seeing people buy over priced condos with bad mortgages - we stopped doing projects like that. didn't like what i saw so i stopped. hated the idea of saddling people with debt so we can could make money.
Tanta,
Anything more than occasional use of "relitter" seems to me, too, inelegant -- and so unworthy of you, whose most compellingly attractive quality is the elegance and internal coherence of your prose.
mp,
First, apologies to Tanta for going political even though i know better.
Second, Tanta's comment about glibertarians was spot on. I am a card carrying, dues paying member of the party because of this reason.
Spitzer was the CEO of the State of New York and the former Attorney General of same, yet he effectively admitted that he paid an escort for services that are illegal in the State of New York, and may have also violated the Mann Act by transporting said escort across state lines in the process of purchasing said services.
The WH and Wall Street may well have dumped him with the trash, but he doesn't get to be a victim because of his own bad judgment. To claim he is is a huge disservice to people who truly are victims.
Nowhere did you see me describe Spitzer as a "victim," did you? You missed my point.
At the end of the day, Baron Samedi, the goosers of this world have no politics, only an agenda.
Interesting post and thread as usual, although this story wasn't particularly shocking for me, since in the process of investigating foreclosures and mortgage fraud in my neighborhood I've discovered that this sort of rent-skimming is fairly common, at least in my area (metro Detroit).
In fact, there's a house a few blocks a few blocks up from me of which I'm fairly sure the renters are going to be kicked out sometime in the next 1-3 months because of foreclosure. Here's the timeline: (I've gotten fairly handy with my local register of deeds website)
June 13, 2007 - House sells from one person to a "Ventura Holding Co" for $230,000. (This on a block where the non-fraud homes have been selling for around $150,000.)
June 20, 2007 - Ventura Holding Co sells the house to a buyer for $340,000, with a 100% financed mortgage from Washington Mutual. (Subprime crisis? What subprime crisis? No need to start tightening lending standards just yet!)
Sept, 2007 - I happen to look up the deeds for this home, and figure that this is another sure-fire Early Payment Default in the neighborhood. I also realize what a POS company WaMu is and start shorting their stock. (This thread also helps: Calculated Risk: WaMu and The Rep War )
Feb, 2008 - Sure enough, the notice of trustee sale for the property comes through on Realtytrac.
So, I'm thinking maybe I should go up and chat with the renters, maybe let them know that they probably don't need to worry about making any more rent payments. In return, I'd ask them not to trash the house whenever they do leave. Any other suggestions?
Realtwhores do seem to have made quite a nasty name for themselves in the past decade. At the start and end of the day all they care about is the commission.
Indeed, a surprisingly large number of the questions on the state qualifying exams I am familiar with relate to when an agent may and may not be entitled to a commission.
If the realtwhore can collect a higher commission by steering a buyer into a bad deal they will do it. Buyer's agents now commonly sort listings by coop commission, and only the properties with the highest coop commissions will be shown. And don't get me started on all the BS that listing agents get away with....
Of course this is a cultural phenomena, and the same could be said of many professions. We value material wealth, and not morality, and we reap what we sow. The realtwhore up thread bragging about their income seems genuinely clueless to this. How could they be bad people if they financially successful?
Finally, this isn't your house and Tanta isn't required to explain herself to you (or any of us for that matter.)
I appreciate your coming to my defense, but good heavens why shouldn't I have to account for myself if I've blown it?
I have not yet been convinced that I did blow it here. Nor do I intend to let this turn into some endless defensive back-and-forth.
But I have nothing but contempt for bloggers--not to mention newspapers--who get challenged by their readers for having gotten something wrong and who trot out that "I don't have to justify nothin' to you, dude" thingy.
What I don't think I have to account for is someone else's psychodramas.
In the marketplace of ideas, it's really easy to avoid writers like me if you find me so upsetting. I never claimed to be trying to win a universal popularity contest. I've read writers who are careful never to offend anyone or step on any toes or say anything that could possibly get you sued. I can't remember what those writers wrote--it was too damned vacuous to be memorable--but I can remember turning the page or closing the window pretty quickly.
dc1000 would like you to think that if I were just nicer with my language, he/she would pay more attention to what I'm saying. But I sincerely doubt that. I think he/she is looking for an excuse to ignore what I'm saying. Feeling victimized is a good one.
Ralph, I refused to touch that nonsense about comparing relitters to brown people because it doesn't deserve to be dignified with an answer.
Thanks for the compliment, jm.
The writers I think I am most influenced by are those--like the late great Molly Ivins--who can speak "two languages" at once, and occasionally combine them in startling ways. Certainly, a very old strategy for getting people to rethink their assumptions about the world is to startle them with a properly-timed infelicity. It's a risky move: you can just end up sounding banal and vulgar. But what's life without risk?
But really, dc1000 isn't complaining about the term "relitter." His/her gripe is that a "profession" is being denigrated.
I am perfectly capable of sticking in the knife in prose of such impeccable elegance and gentility that you won't see it coming.
Maybe I should try that for a while. The "relitter" schtick may well be getting a bit old, anyway.
Deacon, I'll refrain from making speeches about mysogyny, but I can GUARANTEE you you'll get laid more if you avoid using the word whore in mixed company.
And you'll be doing your Mom/sister/daughters/grandmother a favor if you avoid using it even when there's noone to stop you
if dc1000 is bitchin, it's probably from his champagne hangover.
Baron Samedi, I should have added that those who goose history--unlike you--have no politics. They are not interested in "why," only the "how."
Spitzer's poor judgment and fascination with nubile young women was used against him, but let's be clear on one thing: the material was not released because someone suffered a sudden attack of righteousness.
And your wife and/or girlfriend (see paragraph one).
but really tanta i'm complaining about mob mentality, generalizations, and a lack of civility on this topic. and not that a profession was being slammed but rather a group of people as a whole.
my point about my resume was not to show you how great i am but rather that i'm not really a realtor through and through. my identity is in no way tied to being a realtor.
but i AM one. so when the scum whore comments come out yeah it goads me, but what seems worse is that its accepted. its not acceptable. really.
DC I really don't think the defamation of realtors has been a major (or even a minor) focus of this blog.
If you want to see racist like defamation of realtors take a trip over to Housing Panic.
mp,
My apologies if I erroneously attributed your post to be in defense of Interested Times post, however when you said "I've no doubt that Bush's people gave history a nudge" you have discounted Spitzer's actions as to the outcome, and given greater weight to the unconfirmed actions of the WH. It was not an unreasonable conclusion to arrive at.
bs
Spitzer's poor judgment and fascination with nubile young women was used against him, but let's be clear on one thing: the material was not released because someone suffered a sudden attack of righteousness.
mp | 03.23.08 - 3:19 pm | #
Exactly mp. Where is this righteousness when thousands of innocent Iraqi children were forced into prostitution and slavery in Syria right now... hey Mr Bush ?
(man... I'm so sorry for going political... but certain things need to be said)
What was that dc1000? YAWN
Hey, dc as a card carrying member of the economist profession (member of the AEA, etc.) I can see your point.
Jas really p.oes me at times with the economist rant, but sitting with the NAR folks isn't my calling either.
You are an individual, but a member of an enabling bunch. Fault is what folks are trying to find, because they don't want to look in the mirror.
Just like we are all subprime, it's all our fault.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Derivatives...
What Created This Monster?
Baron Samedi, this type of com makes discussion difficult. Suffice it to say that I am a user of Kenneth Burke's method: scene, act, agent, agency, and purpose.
There are very few things on this little apple that happen by accident. I am sure that, given Spitzer's relative sophistication in covering his nasty deed, he was not a "first timer."
So, one must ask the question. Why now?
Sorry mp, crossed posts.
I am not an apologist for the Republican Party and if there was any collusion between the RP, the WH and Wall Street to injure Spitzer, I hope it becomes public. I am very much a political creature, but i try to be an honest one.
bs
In Hawaii, if you have a lease, and your landlord sells the property to another party, the terms (including length) of the lease remain enforceable and transfer to the new owner, unless mutually agreed to be modified/canceled by both parties.
Thus, you cannot have your apt/condo/house sold out from under you.
What I have not been able to figure out if this also holds true if 'the bank' is the new owner.
The issue with the Spitzer prosecution is not whether Spitzer deserved the punishment he got but whether law enforcement resources were used for politically motivated opposition research and smears. It is highly unethical, and a grave threat to our democracy, for government resources to be used for political purposes. You can't even have the government mail out a political letter. If the prosecution of Spitzer was politically motivated (which seems likely on comparison with Vitter) it was a very serious crime, far worse than Spitzer's.
If the prosecution of Spitzer was politically motivated (which seems likely on comparison with Vitter) it was a very serious crime, far worse than Spitzer's.
Fair Economist | 03.23.08 - 3:44 pm | #
Try explaining that to the average American.
Things you don't hear at parties: "I was a dentist for a while in the '90s."
dc1000 - I honestly suggest you grow a thicker skin. As a lawyer, I hear sweeping denunciations of my profession every day. Sometimes I correct obviously incorrect statement, but mostly I let it roll off. I give you this advice because I think this country is entering a period of extreme hostility toward R-persons. You don't want to walk around hurt and offended all the time.
FT Woods posted: "Derivatives...
What Created This Monster?"
And here's an indication of how small a monster it was.
This is a link to the most-recent Standard & Poor's SP500 earnings/estimates spreadsheet.
http:// www2.standardandpoors.com...SP500EPSEST.XLS
With earnings results from 99% of the companies reporting (for Q4 2007) and calculating the actual dollar-amount of earnings based on the most-recent as-reported EPS estimate, it appears as though 2007 earnings will be about $146.84 billion less than in 2006.
That's it. Although the financial sector and a couple of specific companies lost a lot of money last year, the net loss to SP500 as-reported earnings amounted to less than a single quarter's earnings.
A myth, like most monsters.
Sebastia
US ponders: How deep is economic abyss?
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
Sorry, here's the link:
http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/xls/index/SP500EPSEST.XLS
S.
dc1000 I do seem to recall that you were quite the negotiating shark when whittling down your accounts payable (perhaps on a money-losing transaction). Professionals honor their commitments and don't need to renegotiate. Did I remember correctly?
On whether taking a deed on an overleveraged home is always a scam. Simply stated, it is often a scam, but not always. The typical scamster gives the homeowner a few bucks and promises to make the payments and save homeowener's credit. But scamster makes no payments and rents the house for the six months or more it takes the bank to foreclose. (servicers don't start foreclosure proceeding the minute a payment is missed). HOWEVER, there are some win-win possibilities that arise because of the extreme illiquidity of the market. Suppose homeowner has a house worth approximately the amount of the mortgage, but due to job loss, illness etc. she can't pay the mortgage--even though the mortgage is at a fixed rate and the house is a 3BR, 2BA in a location where with a little capital investment it can rent for positive cash flow. If an investor gives the homeowner a few thousand bucks for a deed, and in fact intends to and does make the payments and adds the house to his rental portfolio, it is win-win. True one might say why couldn't the original homeowner rent it--the reality is they don't know how, they are not in that business, they are already 2-3 months behind and can't cure, etc. And as previously mentioned,in this context due on sale clauses will not be enforced--the buyer simply changes the "autopay" option to his bank routing and account number, and makes sure ins. and taxes are paid timely.
Reality suggests that the entire economic system is massively corrupt, so it really doesn't matter who you are or what you do. Simply a matter of degree. It's just so damned obvious in real estate or law, or medicine, or government, or education, or corporate america, or...
Probity & perfidy
Live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my real a tor
Oh Lord, why don't we ?
Data on the five-fold growth of derivatives to $516 trillion in five years comes from the most recent survey by the Bank of International Settlements, the world's clearinghouse for central banks in Basel, Switzerland. The BIS is like the cashier's window at a racetrack or casino, where you'd place a bet or cash in chips, except on a massive scale: BIS is where the U.S. settles trade imbalances with Saudi Arabia for all that oil we guzzle and gives China IOUs for the tainted drugs and lead-based toys we buy.
To grasp how significant this five-fold bubble increase is, let's put that $516 trillion in the context of some other domestic and international monetary data:
U.S. annual gross domestic product is about $15 trillion
U.S. money supply is also about $15 trillion
Current proposed U.S. federal budget is $3 trillion
U.S. government's maximum legal debt is $9 trillion
U.S. mutual fund companies manage about $12 trillion
World's GDPs for all nations is approximately $50 trillion
Unfunded Social Security and Medicare benefits $50 trillion to $65 trillion
Total value of the world's real estate is estimated at about $75 trillion
Total value of world's stock and bond markets is more than $100 trillion
BIS valuation of world's derivatives back in 2002 was about $100 trillion
BIS 2007 valuation of the world's derivatives is now a whopping $516 trillion
Moreover, the folks at BIS tell me their estimate of $516 trillion only includes "transactions in which a major private dealer (bank) is involved on at least one side of the transaction," but doesn't include private deals between two "non-reporting entities." They did, however, add that their reporting central banks estimate that the coverage of the survey is around 95% on average.
thinking outloud writes:
Reality suggests that the entire economic system is massively corrupt, so it really doesn't matter who you are or what you do. Simply a matter of degree.thinking outloud | 03.23.08 - 4:07 pm | #
and, to continue your circular reasoning, any harm you inflict is therefore excusable.
It used to be argued that ignorance was a sin against God, meaning you didn't have the right to NOT know what you were doing.
Anonymous said: "Comments like DC's remind me of the protests of bullies/drunks and other victimizers. Though their behavior is atrocious, they will fixate on one small slight/injustice inflicted on them and run with it...."
Speaking as the poster who probably holds the record for being called "moron" while the bullies got a pass from CR and Tanta for their behavior, I find this post to have hit the high-water mark for hypocrisy on this blog.
Sebastia
--
AllenM,
I have lot against economists who purposely mislead the public, but there are few that I respect a lot too, e.g., David Rosenberg (whom I quote from time-to-time) and Paul Kasriel. The fact is that we DO HAVE too many bad economists, I mean really bad people providing justifications and reasons for very bad policies. McCulley sucks.
Sorry,
Jas
To call onself a mortgage broker now is no longer something mortgage brokers want to do, so they look for fancy acronyms as we talked about a couple of days ago.
If calling onself a Realtor also takes the same nosedive, I recommend that the Nat'l Assoc of Realtors get busy in making sure their local state associations are holding their members to the standards set forth in the Realtor Code of Ehics.
Over and over again we keep hearing from NAR that the difference between a Realtor and a non-Realtor is their code.
Okay, so prove it.
Instead of all these NAR press releases encouraging people to buy, buy, buy, let's see press releases about how they're enforcing their code.
I, too, am so tired of hearing the Used House Salespeople compared to "whores" in this discussion.
One profession is a noble, ancient profession, that helps people in need (often at personal risk), and the other is a commissioned salesman with implicit conflicts of interest.
I mean, there really is no comparison.
Instead of all these NAR press releases encouraging people to buy, buy, buy, let's see press releases about how they're enforcing their code.
Interesting point. Do you think the Nevada Association of Realtors will put out a press release denouncing Bobbie "Cockie" Dust and kicking her sorry butt out of the "profession"?
Should I hold my breath, here?
Cal writes:
I recently rented a place, I had a plethora of choices from new landalords. All the best "deals" when checked out all had NOD of filed of significant unpaid property taxes.
I figured the people were trying to rent out the place so they could claim a capital loss since it then became an income property. Other possibility was just to take the rent with no intention of paying the mortgage.
I rented the houses with the lowest cost basis (original purchase price) I could and check it monthly for NOD and I check that the property taxes have been paid. If something starts slipping the landlord and I will have a talk.
It's ironic that some renters are doing more financial analysis and due diligence than the owners of some of these properties ever did.
clyde:
no comparison there at all. thanks though. yes, we had a business that went under. mistakes were made all around. rather than file chapter 11 and stick everyone with whatever the trustee figured out and spread out over 6 years we negotiated a settlement with the creditors.
the deal was that we got a little hair cut on the payables, got more time to pay and then i personally guaranteed the debt that was previously corporate debt that i could have gone chapter 11 with.
but i didnt.
you'll have more luck attacking someone else's integrity than mine.
Does anybody know ANY Realtor who is presently showing homes and at the same time warning the potential buyers that there is a "good possibilty" that the home they purchase today will be worth considerably less within 1 to 2 years?
If you don't know any, why not? Is it that you don't know any Realtors, you haven't asked them for their opinion, or could it be simply that they are just scum that will not disclose important "possibilities" in order to make a commission?
Would a doctor operate on you without first explaining the potential dangers? NEVER!!!
Realtors, (by far, most of them) SUCK. Not all, but the overwhelming majority, are self-interested, back stabbing fools pretending to be professionals and trying to be paid as doctors.
Com'on leave dc alone, it's becoming boring.
It's not just in Hawaii, if you are leasing property with a written lease the buyer of property is stuck with you unless you freely agree to go. However a mtg which was filed prior to your lease is superior to your rights as a renter and hence can evict you, stupid as that may be if you make your payments and take good care of the house and the alternative is ruination of a vacant house. If the mtg is to be filed afterwards, then the mtgee will typically ask the renter to subordinate their interests to the mtgee's. Done all the time in a commercial setting. Which leads to an interesting question. If the renter was already there, and the owner claimed it was owner occupied, so the renter with say a long written lease, never subordinates. . well I think this renter would have a good defense against eviction. Probably nobody would want to pay to litigate this.
Instead of all these NAR press releases encouraging people to buy, buy, buy, let's see press releases about how they're enforcing their code.
You want info about the NAR and enforcement? Well, just google NAR enforcement! The first hit is:
Designated REALTORS® Dues Formula - Enforcement Kit
So, is the moral of the story that the growing real-estate downturn is making life for renters unbearable, and that to avoid the increasing risks of negligent landlords tenants should immediately start buying their own properties to take back control?
What an irony if declining prices, and financial chaos, lead many people to conclude that the only option is to buy for themselves.
"A pun on a certain common mispronunciation of "realtor," with intention to mock."
heh, thanks... funny how my three favorite mispronounciations all have to do with the building/construction industries.
Realator
Ashphalt
Masonary
Speaking as the poster who probably holds the record for being called "moron" while the bullies got a pass from CR and Tanta for their behavior, I find this post to have hit the high-water mark for hypocrisy on this blog.
Sebastian, I do indeed wish people would quit calling you "moron." That is, in fact, a direct personal attack.
Plus, it goads you to keep shooting back, which junks up threads with flame wars.
Plus, it gives you an inflated sense of the influence you wield around here.
That's, unfortunately, dc1000's other problem. He/she spent years downplaying the bubble, assuring us that DC was immune and that "boutique" customers were a whole different matter from the garden variety "subprime" commoners. Part of the reason I'm so terribly unsympathetic is that, in hindsight, that "brave" speaking truth to the power of the Bear Cave seems to have been . . . wrong. We were right; dc1000 was wrong. I'm not here to rub it in, but I'm damned sure not here to let someone try to claim he was some kind of hero for having "gone against the grain" so heroically for so long.
Your record, Sebastian, is actually worse than dc1000's, but you'll never give up on your own self-mythologizing as the lonely voice of reason in a clique of groupthinkers. This is one reason why I wish people wouldn't give you so much attention when you interrupt the conversation to make silly claims. You appear to thrive on negative attention, which is the hallmark of the brat.
You, like Jas, have rendered yourself not worth defending, unfortunately. I'm not sure which Sebastian we have today, the 30-something genius stockpicker or the grey-haired veteran who remembers what the market was doing when Kennedy was shot, but your endless reinventions of yourself are part of your gig. So I suggest you just invent another Sebastian, one who is supremely indifferent to childish taunts and incapable of carrying a grudge because he refuses to store those childish insults in his memory that long.
I used to teach the first course for realtors. It was reasonably difficult, stretched out over a semester, as I taught it. Also, the state test was a little bit hard. It was also the real estate paralegal course.
I told them about amortization and quarter quarter sections, had them fill out deeds and mtges, went over what various contract terms meant, the kinds of tenancies and much much more. Don't know if any of it stuck, but I tried. When they protested it was too hard, I would say, well, if I make it too easy, you won't pass that hard test, and what good would it do you, since you want to pass the test, and that would shut them up. Which is not to say that Fla realitors have covered themselves in honor and glory.
And tho I've told and heard my share of lawyer jokes, I've gotten a wee bit tired of them of late.
When I showed up for my appointment, they insisted on writing down my drivers license number before showing me any units. They already had my cell phone number--what purpose does the license check serve?
I think that's just for the safety of the person showing you around the complex.
A few comments:
First, it's treating tenants as second-class citizens that helped get us into this mess in the first place. People don't move somewhere, putting down several thousand dollars for rent, deposits, moving costs etc. on the assumption that they might have to move in three months. And what about people who are elderly or disabled, for whom moving is especially difficult?
Second, every state has different rules. Please, please, when writing about particular aspects of the foreclosure process, let people know which state you're referring to. There's very little information on tenants' rights in foreclosure out there, so people are taking anything they can find. In California, for instance, tenants can sue the lender for return of the security deposit, while in Massachusetts, tenants must sue the former landlord. And tenants who live in communities with rent control/just cause eviction laws may be protected against foreclosure evictions and should check with local tenants organizations or the rent board.
Third, I've not for many years been able to rent without having to hand over my SSN to the landlord for a credit check. Tenants who won't do that will have a real problem renting, unless state legislatures make it specifically illegal to ask for this information.
Fourth, tenants cannot, repeat cannot, stay 'round for the court eviction. An unlawful detainer filing is reported to tenant screening services and will reduce tenants with evictions on their records to living in trailers. In Minnesota, for instance, tenants are served as part of the foreclosure action and the foreclosure shows up on the report as an eviction. This may be true in several other states, as well. (This is common in judicial foreclosure.)
And, finally, be very nervous if you find a landlord who is willing to rent for a large upfront payment, isn't going to do a credit check, and wants you to move in immediately. Oddly enough, finding that the previous tenants had lived in the place for a long time should send you to the county recorder to check things out, as those tenants may have received a copy of the notice of default and decided not to stay around to see what happened.
Tanta,
I hope I don't say anything else stupid around here (cause I know I already have). I don't ever want to be "bitch-slapped" like that. But thank you, cause it was a long time coming.
I tried to think of another term so I wouldn't offend anyone, but I couldn't think of one that fit any better.
peon in chief,
Good point. For instance, most people are unaware that the designation "live-work" or "loft" have little to no legal protections for renters outside of a handful of metropolitan areas like New York, St. Louis, and Oakland, CA.
For instance, in Los Angeles, there are no legal protections for live-work tenants outside of whatever is in the lease. Too many assume they have the same protections as they would under a more traditional apartment rental. They don't.
Hey, at least Sebastian gets slapped around for his facts and opinions, and not just for his membership in a group. I hope he isn't driven out, because he does provide an antidote to groupthink, even if it is annoying. And I consider him a useful leading indicator.
His pointer to the S&P spreadsheet today was interesting; it shows bottom-up predicted earnings quite a bit higher than top-down. I assume this to mean that the number crunchers are expecting quite a few downside surprises in the next few quarters.
Here's some more bull bait. What if the high new unemployment numbers we're seeing are significantly due to American Axle? Those striking workers can't file, but the laid off ones at 30+ affected GM plants can, as can those from the parts suppliers also being affected. GM's using the strike to whittle down inventory, so it could go a bit longer. But when it settles, boom, big employment uptick.
Mr. Blinder suggests that mortgage originators be required to hold onto a portion of the loans they make, with the investment banks who securitize them also retaining a chunk. That way, they dont simply play hot potato, he says.
Mr. Grantham agrees. There is just a terrible risk created when you can underwrite a piece of junk and simply pass it along to someone else, he says.
Ratings agencies have similarly been under fire ever since the credit crisis began to unfold, and new regulations may force them to distance themselves from the investment banks whose products they were paid to rate.
SIFMA lives!!!
Do you think the Nevada Association of Realtors will put out a press release denouncing Bobbie "Cockie" Dust and kicking her sorry butt out of the "profession"?
Now that would get some respect-- and might make some of the scumbags responsible for the profession's miserable reputation at least pause a few seconds before they send a demand for rent on a house they've just lost to foreclosure.
By the way, my jaw is still on the floor from JD's 12:14 post. Gold diggers??? I'm suffering some serious brain boggle here. Watch the video of the story that NW posted. Jennifer Hays had just suffered a miscarriage when this Dusty creature called to tell them to move out. That was the reason for the surgery. So, yeah, I'm sure it was no hardship at all to have to move unexpectedly. Who needs more than a few days for that anyway, right?
Seriously, watch that video that NW posted. Clip Syndicate Video: Home Foreclosure Crisis
Tanta called it-- when the Hays dropped off the letters from the bank (along with their rent) they asked if there was a problem with the house and Dust told them, "Well, actually, we're in litigation over the house, I've sued them and I'm expecting to get a lot of money from them."
If I shared a professional affiliation with Dust and her ilk I'd be raising Holy hell with the ethics committee. If they wouldn't pull their licenses I'd resign faster than you can say 'trademark'. And relitter is a much more polite name than the one I'd have for my former 'colleagues'.
DC1000,
Realtors are salespeople and salespeople have bulleyes on them. I'm not a salesperson, but I just spent the last month dodging bullets from some people who didn't want me re-engineering their hosed up processes. I spent the rest of my time motivating and consoling some youngsters we were paying $5k a week. So it goes...
Much of the malfeasance in real estate I've witnessed is from desperate RE agents who are living on debt and dreams. I think those make up most of the fun stories we read here.
I am surprised at the free pass beancounters have received during this mess. Who was it that was supposed to verify the accurate valuation of debt instruments.
On the other hand, your panties might be in a bunch from executing too many armbars.
doom, I hate "bitch slap," personally.
I don't know where the rest of you grew up, but in my childhood there were any number of colorful, apt metaphors for what the military calls a "dressing down." There were clocks that got cleaned; there were wagons that got fixed. You were called on the carpet, you were raked over the coals, you were handed a certain cushy body part. A former colleague of mine could use the phrase "having had one's priorities reestablished" in a way that left no doubt what had transpired between him and his boss.
I'm sure our loyal readers are full of fun and family-friendly folk-wisdom for this sort of thing. Let's retire "bitch slap" for good.
In My County (Sonoma) you can not be part of the MLS without becoming a member of the CAR,and the NAR.The ostensible reason is of course that Realtors agree to abide by a code of Ethics.In reality it is just another trade group that wants to keep information asymmetric to make a dollar,unfortunately real estate was a bubble,there was a lot of money to be made quickly,and it attracted many fast buck artists who are moving on to new careers selling moondust or heating oil futures.None of my friends who are "Realtors" pay much attention to the CAR or NAR pronouncements,belonging is necessary to do business,nothing more...and both organizations grew fat and lazy off of membership fees in ways similar to sick unions.the poobahs get sweet salaries and benefits,get their names in the news and justify their existence by telling their members what swell folks they are.as far as enforcement,I know a lot of people in the biz who would love to see it,but who also know that speaking out would kill their ability to make a living,So they do a good job,ethically and keep their mouths shut...because badmouthing another realtor is actionable,and you will be disciplined for doing it.
Hmmph..think I'll get offended too. I'm an old-fart real estate broker, frequently called "realtor" by folks who assume I am, tho I am not.
Nawww...lifes too short. As quickly as the first 65 years passed, I'm not gonna waste so much time the second 65.
My business card lists my name followed by the initials "JM" to tease my fellow brokers & agents who ask what quatlification that designates.
"JUST ME"
OT
a bit of contagion in the east. from the 'only good news' lately chinese press -
"Central bank warns systematic risks in Chinese banking system"
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" BEIJING, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Domestic companies relies too heavily on bank loans, reflecting the undeveloped corporate direct financing market. Financial risks thus would concentrate in the banking system, said a central bank report here on Friday."
Tanta slapdown of dc1000 and Sebastian (cybil). LMAO!!
"Can't we all get a bong?" - bacon dreamz
Tanta said: "...Plus, it gives you an inflated sense of the influence you wield around here."
Oh, I know how little influence I wield here. The strongest influence is held by CR, who has put his readers on a horse that's not going to take them where he says it will.
With your assistance.
then: "...I'm not sure which Sebastian we have today, the 30-something genius stockpicker or the grey-haired veteran who remembers what the market was doing when Kennedy was shot, but your endless reinventions of yourself are part of your gig..."
Well, how you got there I have no idea, having never pretended to be any particular age, but having simply lived through different ages, phases of life and careers and relating things I've picked up over the years. (In fact, I just recently told MaxedOutMama that I thought stock-picking was a weak point for me.)
Finally: "So I suggest you just invent another Sebastian, one who is supremely indifferent to childish taunts and incapable of carrying a grudge because he refuses to store those childish insults in his memory that long."
A constructive criticism, at least, but it would be my first re-invention.
S.
Dc1000, the good readers of this blog who graduated from the eighth grade would respect you twice as much if you made occasional use of the "shift" key on your keyboard. It is quite useful for capitalizing the first letter of sentences and proper nouns.
Nonetheless, I believe that's the point of trademarking: to control the use of the term and keep one's competitors from using it.
Actually, you can cannot control any one but a direct competitor's use of the mark. So I guess someone dealing in real estate can't call themselves a realtor without being a member.
But I could open up Realtor Cheese Shop, and they would have basis for a complaint.
They request that people capitalize it and indicate it as a trademark just as Xerox does, because once it becomes a generic term, they lose protection. That's why monopolistic success can be bad for trademark protection.
Google is an absurd word, chosen at least partly because it would be free of any trademark claims. The first time they heard the verb form, I'm sure they were all flattered. All except the lawyers. Once it can be argued "googling" means searching on the Internet, the mark is in danger.
from rge writes:
I'd like to point out how constrained I believe efforts by FED and US gov't will be to bailout or dampen impact of impending crisis:
(1) MUST EMBRACE MORAL HAZARD. I agree that wiping out shareholders in highly insolvent financials will avoid the moral hazard issue; but, (especially as this is a very,very time sensitive matter) it will also incentivize a systemic extortion. Shareholders being reduced to zero, will encourage them to block all timeliness in the unwinding and cleanup to eke value. They will contrive by any means necessary, including judicial injunction and intervention, poison pill etc. methods to squeeze any value whatsoever. Inevitably this will slow the collapse of individual institutions which will then delay the cleanup AND exposes remaining players to heightened systemic risk. All delays contribute to delay of recovery. Therefore, I believe moral hazard will be a price paid, though shareholders will inevitably lose.
(2) FED TOOLBOX NEARLY EMPTY. Fed is getting very close to having expended all gunpowder. With FF rates at 2.25%, but 3-mo treasuries trading between 0 and 0.5, they are effectively at the zero bound (Paul Krugman's liquidity trap). Innovations such as TAF and TSLF and taking MBS as collateral have reduced their balance sheet effectiveness by half.
Had they been truly effective, we would have seen AAA MBS paper pricing immediately rise significantly--as FED's purpose would have been to increase liquidity AND help skirt insolvency by accepting collateral at above street value. Unfortunately the securities price rise has been so far insignificant. Also if some of this non-bank collateral to be accepted at discount window were to be effective you would have noticed fast and furious action to buy them between financials, innovative means to acquire options on others collateral would have been apparent if this FED move had created value. All this would have contributed to elevating price. Didn't happen.
(3)INFLATION OR MONETIZATION OF DEBT. As FED has effectively expended means to save economy by monetary policy AKA rate cutting; they may move to use the remainder of their balance sheet to support financials. But will another $400 B, even if used to accept seriously impaired securities, make any further difference? NO. If having exhausted ability to cut rates, accept impaired collateral to the extent of their own balance sheet, what remains? I believe only currency devaluation by printing. But this method has as many offsetting hazards as remedies. Price instability would act to further erode confidence and amplify panic. SO, Congress may have to step in with borrowed funds to directly purchase mortgages. (With present debt and future obligations in tow). It will lead to significantly higher taxes, significantly lower services, and budget burdened with disproportional interest payments.
(4) COLLATERAL ASSET OBLIGATIONS AND NEGATIVE CASH FLOW. Will US gov't become suddenly expert in property maintenance? If US gov't or Fed purchase mortgages at whatever negotiated price, they still must take possession of the underlying asset. This asset requires expeditures to maintain. Every homeowners knows that landscaping, minor repairs, security, insurance, utilities, and taxes require yearly cash infusions (often 1%+ of asset price nominal value). Whoever buys mortgages, buys these negative cash flows for however long it takes to sell. Also, transitioning the asset via a sale will incur add'l expenses i.e. title change, title search & clearing, legal costs to discharge liens, AND(in securitized title case) clearing ownership among the numerous title holders. In short, they will bog down with the encumbering nuances to producing a clean, marketable asset. An incentive to extort the gov't will exist by any having a prior claim...unless some super power to discharge outside of judiciary were created. Expediency would require desperate (maybe tyrannical) means of bypassing judiciary.
(5) REMEDY AS FUNCTION OF TIME. These efforts to restore market function and erase credit crisis are heavily dependent on time. With waves of rate resets to occur over time, the structure with which to expedite the discharge of defaults and assign new ownership must be TIMELY. Even US gov't probably has not the means to absorb ALL losses. They must assume and then liquidate to private investors quickly to stay solvent themselves. The very nature of residential and commercial real estate is NOT a timely process. Thus, the US gov't must create a superceding clearing house power that will discharge assets quickly and deal with issues later or not at all; OR the scale of defaults will overwhelm any such curative structure.
It is my opinion that for these reasons the FED (as last line of defence) is exceeded by the scale of impending market dynamics to be of any real effect. US gov't will have to act as final backstop but is also severely constrained by budget excesses, future promised obligations, reduced taxing power, and present operating costs. True remedy will dilute federal power very significantly.
There May be NO solution. Certainly, there can be no soft asset price fall. We are not in a bottoming process yet. It MAY be inevitable that there be a severe collapse. It WILL require real change in our institutions. We may HAVE to endure the mother of all meltdowns.
Bob in MA,
Is that why a "coke" in TX winds up being a Dr. Pepper?
PeonInChief wrote:"... I've not for many years been able to rent without having to hand over my SSN to the landlord for a credit check."
I've been under this impression myself. But, this being the case, how do so many illegals manage to rent? Indeed, buy?
jd:
Thanks for the derivatives post, with $516 trillion in context. It's like that scene in one of the Austin Powers movies, where Dr. Evil made some ransom demand all out of proportion to the historical period. The World Leaders laughed: "there isn't that much money in the whole world!"
The OTC derivatives market is much the same. It's people making bets with money they don't have--that nobody has. If they win (or, when they won), they collect(ed) their winnings. When they lose, we cover their losses. The term for this is "moral hazard," and it's at the root of every problem discussed on this board, from the Realtors to the Mortgage Jokers on up. Covering moral hazard is what the fed last week did, I think, in allowing "investment banks" to borrow direct through the discount window.
There are lots of questions left to ask. But it's not true that overleveraging through the opaque derivatives markets is a new thing. I wrote about it in 1999 (archived here: One Bank Under God | | AlterNet ), and the people I quoted then--especially Jane D'Arista at the Financial Markets Center--had been working hard for years to warn that deregulation+"financial innovation" (as it's still called) = Big Trouble With a Capital D.
Yeah, I'm glad that somebody brought up the salesperson thing.
Some people can sell, some people can't. People who can sell (and it is possible to do this ethically) are valuable. Most RE agents can't sell and they get out of the business--20% typically sell 80% of the properties. People who can sell can be taught to sell better. People who can't sell--well, I don't think they can be taught. My multiply degreed husband can't sell, and he is smart enough to know it. When he has ham radio equipment to sell at one of their conventions, he sits me down at a table with a list of what it is and whether it works or not (sometimes people want parts, I guess) and I, who can sell, and sold encyclopedias door to door once many years ago, with modest success, do my thing.
Selling doesn't take a degree. It helps to know something about what you are selling of course, hence the courses. Selling is very very valuable; indeed it is essential for all the businesses I can think of. So people who have sweated for degrees naturally resent people who can make good money, sometimes superb money selling stuff. Hence some of the resentment towards RE sellers. Of course, the mkt got so hot that it attracted what real sales people refer to as "order takers", like people who stand at cash registers and take money. No work, no convincing, no trying to match up what a buyer wants with what's out there. Or figuring out that the buyer may say he wants x, but really does want and be more happy with y. X and Y may be one shirt rather than another. Or, x might be a house that the buyer can, with some sweat perhaps, with a little luck actually afford, rather than a huge McMansion.
I think that at least 10 or 20 % of the name calling and resentment is due to the fact that the degreed think sales people get a free pass. Which is not to say that there weren't (and still are) some really awful, really stupid, really unethical realtors out there, who have hopefully gone out of business or will shortly.
whoa. RGE trumps me.
thanks for the comments.
If you want to learn survival techniques in the new America check these people out. I just may attend. We may all need to learn how to live off the grid.
WordPress.com
Happy Holiday. I hope I will be able to say that next year.
jd
lawyerliz-
Thanks for the reply.
The only other thing I want to add to this, is yes 'renters beware' - but the downside risk you would encounter even in a worst case scenario is orders of magnitude less than the risk to a homeowner.
Maybe because I've been in the military for so many years now, and so can do this with my eyes closed, but if someone said 'you have thirty days to move out' I could find a new place with the same features and commuting distance - heck, I could probably be in same neighborhood, if I wanted to - and be relocated in the space of little over a week.
It would probably cost me about thousand dollars in moving expenses, and I would have to be able to support the negative float on paying the new deposit before getting the old one back - but these are trivial compared to say, the issues Ms. Ortiz had in yesterday's WaPo article.
"This popping of the bubble in real estate has been much more pronounced than anybody would have expected," Gumbinger said. "If property prices are falling, think how property tax revenues have to fall. There is a troubling connection between the decline in one market, especially one as wide as real estate, and government's ability to operate."
What the OFHEO did Wednesday was make a "significant portion" of those tied-up reserves available to Fannie and Freddie to do what they do for a living -- which is to buy up loans that meet their criteria, either repackaging them into mortgage-backed bonds or putting them on their own shelf for a while.
The multiplier effect involved works similarly to a bank receiving a large new deposit.
The amount of lending that can be accomplished ends up being significantly greater than the deposit itself.
In this case, OFHEO is freeing $200 billion on Fannie and Freddie's books, and authorizing the two to push their own mortgage-investment holdings to as high as $2 trillion.
lawyer liz posits:So people who have sweated for degrees naturally resent people who can make good money, sometimes superb money selling stuff. Hence some of the resentment towards RE sellers.
I don't think that's it at all. It has to do with transparency and asymmetrical access to information and level playing fields. Imagine if the used car buying experience were as unecessarilly opaque, overpriced and under regulated.
Lawyerliz:
You mentioned teaching a course for REs in Fla. Are they state licensed there?
IN NYS such professions as Massage Therapist and Interior Designers are licensed but not Realtors.
BTW one major reason Massage Therapists were licensed it to keep the whores out of that business. Is this why Realtors are not licensed?
lawyerliz, you know, I've worked around some of the best salespeople in the business. Loan officers, account executives, RE agents, you name it.
One thing the really good ones all have in common, in my experience, is that they are not thin-skinned. They do not take the customer's refusal personally. They do not nurse wounds in the dark over having been called a "salesperson." In fact, the good ones are so able to separate out their own egos from the deal that they can analyze the customer's needs and desires and point of view quite accurately.
I have, I admit, met a few people in sales jobs who constantly crave reinforcement of being treated like an "expert" and whose egos need special handling 24/7 by everyone else in the joint. They never last long, unless they get promoted to branch manager. Then, of course, the whole branch goes to hell.
I don't happen to think salespeople "get a free pass." I'm just always shocked when they display no sales skills. Like trying to persuade people that your point of view is valid, rather than just demanding attention, and recognizing when you've lost your audience. Surely these skills are transferrable to the internet . . . ?
We have some people who post here regularly whom I'm sure are first-class salespeople. They just don't make a big deal about it.
Why can't whore be in the massgae business?
Re: The latest action to relax capital requirements, coupled with actions earlier this month, is expected to make it possible for the government-sponsored Fannie and Freddie to either purchase or guarantee roughly $2 trillion in mortgages this year, OFHEO said.
Last year, the two government-sponsored enterprises took in $1.32 trillion in mortgages, according to OFHEO spokeswoman Stephanie Mullen.
Question: Do some people spend their entire day AND evening posting on this blog?
Answer: Yes, some people have NO life and gets a tad boring trying to find the relevant posts.
FEDERAL HOME LOAN BANK OF CINCINNATI
As of February 29, 2008, the registrant had 36,293,018 shares of capital stock outstanding. The capital stock of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati is not listed on any securities exchange or quoted on any automated quotation system, only may be owned by members and former members and is transferable only at its par value of $100 per share.
Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati 10-K
We have never purchased any asset-backed security, have not purchased any adjustable-rate mortgage-backed security in the last ten years, and have historically limited (by decision, not policy) our purchases of private-issued mortgage-backed securities to a small percentage of our total mortgage-backed securities. We believe these types of securities historically have tended to provide a less favorable risk/return tradeoff (including credit risk) than the kinds of mortgage-backed securities we have purchased.
lawyerliz
you know very well that the issue is when an interest in land is conveyed by a common grantor to more than one overlapping person
if O leases P to L and then provides B with a lien on P and lies or omits about the lease to L, then the regular rules (race, notice, race/notice) apply and B's lien is or is not superior accordingly.
This is why every state I know of allows the recordation of leaseholds for more than one year and some for leaseholds of any duration and certain licenses.
Massachusetts licenses both.
Hairdresser: 2.01: Licensure Requirements
(1) Hairdresser/Cosmetologist - Type 1. An Operator - Type 2 who has had a minimum of two years experience as such or who has had a minimum of two years experience as a junior assistant instructor, may apply to the Board for examination and licensure as a hairdresser/cosmetologist - Type 1. The applicant must file an application with the Board accompanied by required fees and may be registered by the Board as a hairdresser/ cosmetologist - Type 1. A hairdresser/cosmetologist - Type 1 may provide cosmetology services unsupervised in a salon for compensation and may supervise operators, manicurists, and aestheticians. The license must be renewed on the date determined by the Board.
(2) Operator - Type 2. A person who has successfully completed a course of at least six months, which course must have included 1000 hours of professional training in a cosmetology school approved by the Board may apply to the Board for examination and licensure as an operator. The applicant must file an application with the Board accompanied by required fees and achieve a passing score on a practical and written examination satisfactory to the Board.
RE Agent: 24 hours of approved classes, waived if you have attended a RE class in law school. Sample tests are available onlie for less than $20 and "gauranteed" results courses for $59.
All realtors, brokers, financial planners, and especially appraisers, should be required to have 4 year business degrees with accounting and ethics training. We should also maintain, that no one will be grandfathered in -- if you can't do the math or be ethical fuck you!
o they did not free up $200B. they decreased the $20B excess regulatory capital by 1/3 and this will allow an additional $200B of mortgage purchases or guarantees because, believe it or not, FF operate with 2x the leverage of a normal bank.
this is separate from the use of moral suasion to convince FF to raise more capital, either debt or equity or hybrid, which again can be used on leverage.
Anon
Why can't whore be in the massgae business?
What NYS licenses it the term here "massage therapist". That way those who want a massage without benefits know who to use.
Those who wish to provide massage with benefits can use almost any other term except say interior designer.
There have been a number of professions added over they years. From what I understand standards seen to improve quickly then from when there was "self-regulation" by the industry. On the NYS licensing website complaints are listed.
I think that many of those who provide a service used by the average person should be licensed. This includes REs and Stockbrokers etc.
Concentrate on the Trader's --
By Daniel Kruger
March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Forget lower interest rates. For the Federal Reserve to keep the financial markets from imploding it needs to buy troubled mortgage bonds from banks and securities firms, say the world's biggest Treasury investors
As a long time real estate agent, broker and brokerage owner, I have never considered the business a "profession" and few of the better agents I've met do either. I merely smile when my compatriots plump on and on about making the thing a "profession". It ain't never gonna be.
NAR is less about increasing the "professionalism" of its members, and more about collecting coin from the rank and file at the bottom to lobby the gov't for goodies that benefit the brokers at the top.
We are in SALES, and the good ones make lots and lots of money.
Thank you LawyerLiz. Nobody collects a dime until somebody makes a sale.
After noting that the porftolio cap has been lifted, the fine print in Fannie's monthly summary explains, "The size of our portfolio also may be constrained by market opportunities and regulatory capital requirements."
Thanks to consent orders put in place in 2004, in the wake of accounting and management scandals that forced both companies to restate several years of earnings, the GSEs are required to keep 30 percent more capital on hand for a rainy day than previously stipulated by law.
That means Fannie and Freddie have been struggling to scrape up additional capital to cover mounting losses on bad loans and other investments, including hedges against changing interest rates.
Those capital requirements may put the brakes on what is a much bigger business for Fannie and Freddie than buying up loans -- guarantees and securitizations. In addition to buying up loans, the GSEs provide liquidity to mortgage markets by bundling up loans that meet their underwriting standards and selling them as guaranteed securities to other investors.
Most of Fannie's $2.9 trillion "book of business" at the end of January consisted of $2.44 trillion in outstanding MBS and other guarantees. The story is much the same at Freddie Mac. While Fannie and Freddie both grew their book of business at an ambitious annual rate of around 25 percent in December, things slowed down considerably in January -- to 9 percent at Fannie and 5 percent at Freddie.
With Fannie reporting a $3.6 billion fourth quarter loss today and Freddie expected to have equally bad news tomorrow, don't expect OFHEO will hurry to lift the 30 percent additional capital requirements that are proving to be the real constraint on the GSEs' growth.
OFHEO director James Lockhart today sounded triumphant about the orders that put the requirements in place in 2006, saying that in retrospect, they have helped ensure Fannie and Freddie "are in a much better capital position to deal with today's difficult and volatile market conditions and their significant losses."
Tanta--they are, by definition, not salespeople. They are as I said "order takers". Nope, they're not thin skinned and neither am I.
I can sell, but I prefer to do something else. And I'd consider myself in only the 50th percentile, sales-ability-wise. Altho you can regard banging heads together (in the nicest possible way) at a closing (non fraudulent of course) bedcause the buyer and seller have come to hate each other (for very valid reasons not relevant to the closing) as selling.
Yes, Florida requires you to take a course and pass a test which was reasonably hard. I would guess that the people who pass, promptly forget 50-90% of what they've learned. I haven't taught it for a while. Realors remember the I want my commission part of that very well. Some of them don't want to even run around and deliver last minute papers or come to the closing to get a check.
That is, when there were closings. . . Sigh.
Bob_in_MA
Google (a million millions) may indeed be an absurd word, but at the rate derivatives are multiplying, it just might become more ubiquitous than the search engine.
US home loan financiers allowed to expand funding
From ireland.com
Thursday, 20th March, 2008
eircom net - Error page
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo) reduced surplus regulatory capital requirements for the mortgage companies from 30 per cent to 20 per cent and secured a commitment that they will each soon raise a "significant" amount of new capital to allow them to buy and guarantee more mortgages.
Ofheo said the move was an attempt to give Fannie and Freddie the flexibility to support the highly distressed market for so-called "jumbo" mortgages greater than $417,000, as well as the capacity to refinance more subprime home loans and conduct loan modifications for struggling borrowers.
Dan Alpert, managing partner of Westwood Capital, an investment bank, said: "Washington believes this is a liquidity crisis. But this is a credit crisis brought on by the falling value of underlying housing assets."
doom writes:
Does anybody know ANY Realtor who is presently showing homes and at the same time warning the potential buyers that there is a "good possibilty" that the home they purchase today will be worth considerably less within 1 to 2 years?
If you don't know any, why not? Is it that you don't know any Realtors, you haven't asked them for their opinion, or could it be simply that they are just scum that will not disclose important "possibilities" in order to make a commission?
Yeah...I know one. Me. I now have 5 "ready", eager and qualified buyers in the $350k range to $4mm range...all waiting to buy as I have continued to advise them that patience will pay off for them. So we wait, and watch...
And all my buyers who purchased during the crazy bubble days heard from me how these prices cannot sustain themselves, and to be prepared to see some of their equity investment be reduced temporarily during a downturn. But my buyers all purchase w/ a min of 20% down (many 40% 0r 50%), for the purpose of establishing their own residence, and our market is pretty stable (still stable...yes, it's down, but not bleeding). All my buyers seemed to understand that risk, and knew that a loss is only realized if forced to sell.
Now my income is mainly due to sellers. Thankfully, properties are still selling in Pasadena/San Marino.
Residental leases are almost never filed in Florida, tho they could be.
Hmm, so you do have the notice thing.
But the tenants are in possession so you can argue actual notice.
See the possession exception in most title policies.
Also, most of the time, the lender does not know the names of the renters in possession, so they don't get an eviction on their record, at least in Florida.
And yes, I find RE agents incredibly annoying, but some of them do some actual work for their money, and I must be nice to them so I don't drive them away (a sales job?), and lose their business. . . . but oops, there is no business. . .
And by the way, I personally alternate gardening with blogging. Come in to blog when the mosquitoes start to chomp. As everyone knowz mosquitoes here can carry away horses, and the cockroaches really do fly.
Oh, I know how little influence I wield here. The strongest influence is held by CR, who has put his readers on a horse that's not going to take them where he says it will.
Smooth as 20grit,
Perhaps you can unbunch your panties and, as an expert, explain to us all the story about how that other word came into being?
Tanta | 03.23.08 - 12:39 pm |
in case anyone missed it
And re: Roubini's thing: maybe I will need my produce, such as it is. I really shouldn't read anything written there before bedtime.
Thankfully, properties are still selling in Pasadena/San Marino.
I guess technically as long as one house sells they are still selling. Pasadena medians are off -24.72% y-o-y and what off ~50% sales rate vs. Feb 2006?
Re: "self-regulation"
I thought whores were self regulated by supply and demand metrics on first thought, but this is more a matter of the mutual benefit of exchange.
If you have un-regulated pimp-like realtors being middlemen in non-arms length deals between buyer and seller, then at some point the middleman will serve less of a function and the market will become more efficient.
As we see with Mr. Spitzer, pimps can be of use and act as go-betweens to help transactions be more efficient and less problematic. As with FSBOs. one often sees a seller attempt to sell the goods, but then a pimp makes a pitch to help speed up efficiency in efforts to find a larger supply of potential buyers.
These pimps can be useful to a pot, but they need greater accountability and more required education. Fewer pimps, whom are more educated, more regulated will increase costs for all deals, but the chance of matching unqualified buyers and sellers decreases.
Google (a million millions) may indeed be an absurd word, but at the rate derivatives are multiplying, it just might become more ubiquitous than the search engine.
Bill Melater
I really didn't want to comment - but... sometimes things have to nudged back in the right direction:
What's a Google?
"Googol" is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.
Corporate Information - Company Overview
And that's 1010( or 10^100 if your prefer ); a million million is 1012.
Googol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Meanwhile back at the ranch...
-K
And that's 1010( or 10^100 if your prefer ); a million million is 1012.
Oops.. thats 10**100 (or 10^100)...
Sorry.
-K
fred,
Is that you?
re: 12:39 pm
I'd like the CD version of this thread...
all along i thought i knew what bs was, and now it's been outlawed.
In the Feds Cross Hairs: Exotic Game
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: March 23, 2008
Version 1: The whole world was asleep. Everything was quiet, nothing moved, nothing grew. The animals slept under the earth. One day the rainbow snake woke up and crawled to the surface of the earth (from Australia).
Version 2: IN the week or so since the Federal Reserve Bank of New York pushed Bear Stearns into the arms of JPMorgan Chase, there has been much buzz about why the deal went down precisely as it did.
Do the Bear Stearns and Countrywide deals represent a regulatory template? Both had the same types of winners and losers. Bondholders won, while stockholders and credit insurance owners lost.
Its pretty clear that some major losses are floating around out there on busted credit default swap positions.
this may be the best thread ever...
and i'm the best Reador of it
Fed's Next Move May Be to Buy Mortgages, Treasury Investors Bet
Fed May Buy Mortgages Next, Treasury Investors Bet (Update4) - Bloomberg.com
The only tool left may be for the Fed to help facilitate a Resolution Trust Corp.-type agency that would buy bonds backed by home loans, said Bill Gross.
Mortgage bonds rallied last week. Yields on the securities fell to an average of 1.25 percentage points more than Treasuries from 1.57 percentage points on March 14, according to Merrill Lynch & Co.'s Mortgage Master Index. The so-called spread is still twice as wide as the average for all of 2007.
Investors, averse to holding most any debt except Treasuries, drove rates on three-month bills to 0.387 percent on March 20, the lowest since 1954. Rates on the securities, the safest assets next to cash, tumbled 0.59 percentage point last week to 0.57 percent. They were as high as 4.29 percent as recently as Oct. 15.
The Fed, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank are exploring the feasibility of using taxpayers' money to shore up the mortgage-backed securities market, the Financial Times reported on March 22, without saying where it obtained the information. A Federal Reserve official denied to Bloomberg News that day that it's in discussions to buy mortgage debt.
In a sense they've done that already with Bear Stearns,'' Michael Materasso, senior portfolio manager and co-chairman of the fixed-income policy committee at Franklin Templeton Investments, said of the government taking on the risk of owning mortgage securities.This was not just a temporary situation. The process has begun, the question is how far can it go?'
Resolution Trust Corporation
Resolution Trust Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Resolution Trust Corporation was a United States Government-owned asset management company mandated to liquidate assets (primarily real estate-related assets, including mortgage loans) that had been assets of savings and loan associations ("S&Ls") declared insolvent by the Office of Thrift Supervision, as a consequence of the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s. It also took over the insurance functions of the former Federal Home Loan Bank Board. It was created by the Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), adopted in 1989. In 1995, its duties were transferred to the Savings Association Insurance Fund of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
"Measures to reduce preventable foreclosures could help not only stressed borrowers but also their communities and, indeed, the broader economy," he said.
He said banks may stand to earn more in the long run if they reduce loan amounts, since doing so may reduce defaults or foreclosures.
After costly foreclosure proceedings, banks are recovering less than 50% of loan values, he noted.
He also urged investors who bought mortgage-backed bonds to accept "short payoffs" of loans by letting borrowers refinance at a lower principal.
He added that investors may be able to share in future home price increases under a proposal by the Office of Thrift Supervision, which would let borrowers refinance at current home values while giving the lender a "negative equity" certificate that could be redeemed if the house is sold.
OTS has not formally released its plan, but gave an overview of the work in progress last month.
Rob Dawg writes:
Thankfully, properties are still selling in Pasadena/San Marino.
I guess technically as long as one house sells they are still selling
Okay, I apologize in advance for the really long post to follow, but RD made me do it!!
There were 50 closed sales in Pasadena and San Marino for the mo of Feb. I didn't even include Altadena, San Gabriel, Alhambra, South Pasadena, Sierra Madre, Eagle Rock (all part of our general area...which would have greatly increased the number.
Which one sale were you referring to?
Sold\t02/07/08\t22103065\t369,900\t \t2019 N Summit Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/15/08\t22098547\t470,000\t \t1690 Belmont Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/07/08\t22101898\t602,500\t \t201 N Orange Grove Blvd #510\tPasadena
Sold\t02/08/08\t22101975\t1,100,000\t \t345 Patrician Way\tPasadena
Sold\t02/12/08\t22102782\t1,295,000\t \t1439 Lida St\tPasadena
Sold\t02/13/08\t22104688\t1,962,000\t \t1437 Rutherford Dr\tPasadena
Sold\t02/22/08\t22103570\t2,050,000\t \t524 Glen Ct\tPasadena
Sold\t02/14/08\t22103571\t311,000\t \t125 N Allen Ave #123\tPasadena
Sold\t02/01/08\t22099507\t330,000\t \t981 E Villa St #4\tPasadena
Sold\t02/28/08\t22094843\t380,000\t \t1953 Olive Way\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t12104575\t407,000\t \t230 S Madison Ave #104\tPasadena
Sold\t02/07/08\t22102618\t510,000\t \t569 N Sierra Bonita Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/05/08\t407140371\t530,000\t \t3750 Arboleda\tPasadena
Sold\t02/01/08\t22096873\t546,000\t \t433 N Altadena Dr #2\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22101005\t599,000\t \t1660 N Oxford Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/02/08\t22101009\t600,000\t \t1929 E Beverly Dr\tPasadena
Sold\t02/13/08\t22099135\t625,000\t \t2236 E Woodlyn Rd\tPasadena
Sold\t02/15/08\t22099166\t645,000\t \t1479 N Harding Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/21/08\t408004394\t742,500\t \t640 Chester\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22097056\t747,000\t \t1739 Brigden Rd\tPasadena
Sold\t02/08/08\t407125213\t805,000\t \t3565 Greenhill\tPasadena
Sold\t02/27/08\t22103831\t1,090,000\t \t993 S Los Robles Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/07/08\t22103189\t1,499,000\t \t985 N Los Robles Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/14/08\t12099837\t300,000\t \t1115 Cordova St #100\tPasadena
Sold\t02/15/08\t22103678\t720,000\t \t505 Avenue 64\tPasadena
Sold\t02/22/08\t22102253\t728,500\t \t1590 La Loma Rd\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22102490\t1,050,000\t \t211 S Orange Grove Blvd #8\tPasadena
Sold\t02/27/08\t22097373\t293,000\t \t330 S Mentor Ave #305\tPasadena
Sold\t02/26/08\t22101376\t325,000\t \t284 S Madison Ave #102\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22095830\t360,000\t \t497 S El Molino Ave #107\tPasadena
Sold\t02/26/08\t22103783\t365,000\t \t1299 Cordova St #304\tPasadena
Sold\t02/21/08\t22102614\t427,000\t \t259 N Holliston Ave #13\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22104475\t440,000\t \t330 S Oakland Ave #4\tPasadena
Sold\t02/25/08\t22098328\t460,000\t \t840 E Green #125\tPasadena
Sold\t02/22/08\t22103878\t525,000\t \t844 Magnolia Ave #10\tPasadena
Sold\t02/22/08\t408003526\t525,000\t \t844 Magnolia #10\tPasadena
Sold\t02/06/08\t22104179\t530,000\t \t840 E Green St #127\tPasadena
Sold\t02/06/08\t22100674\t530,000\t \t840 E Green St #127\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22094327\t539,000\t \t240 S Mentor Ave #5\tPasadena
Sold\t02/29/08\t22094498\t689,900\t \t3937 Elma Rd\tPasadena
Sold\t02/22/08\t407160377\t707,000\t \t610 Mercedes\tPasadena
Sold\t02/20/08\t22103347\t725,000\t \t748 Locust St #404\tPasadena
Sold\t02/01/08\t22100194\t750,000\t \t1118 Las Riendas Way\tPasadena
Sold\t02/01/08\t22098848\t787,500\t \t934 S Euclid Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/05/08\t22098743\t3,450,000\t \t1151 S El Molino Ave\tPasadena
Sold\t02/27/08\t487167343\t805,000\t \t2225 Los Robles\tSan Marino
Sold\t02/20/08\t22103788\t1,050,000\t \t1335 Bellwood Rd\tSan Marino
Sold\t02/15/08\t417132399\t1,105,000\t \t555 Sierra Madre\tSan Marino
Sold\t02/01/08\t22099773\t1,180,000\t \t1885 Robin Rd\tSan Marino
"Pasadena and San Marino"
Asians.
Very nice and expensive parts of LA. San Marino in particular mandates very large lots for homes. Too much heat and smog for me though.
Back to Ms Tanta:
Calculated Risk: OTS Plan: Negative Equity Certificates
Thursday, February 21, 2008
OTS Plan: Negative Equity Certificates
This is certainly innovative:
Obviously, it would be in FHA's interest to low-ball the current valuation as much as possible anyway. I gather the OTS is assuming that with that in place, even if the FHA loan went into FC in the future, there wouldn't be that much of a deficiency for the FHA lender. The certificate would be worthless, but there you go.
Tanta | Homepage | 02.21.08 - 3:01 pm | #
I cannot believe the OTS would for a second consider letting anyone hold one at par!
Tanta | Homepage | 02.21.08 - 3:05 pm | #
This OTS plan, certainly, would weed out the flippers, who presumably would just mail in the keys rather than take the refi.
Tanta | Homepage | 02.21.08 - 3:10 pm | #
Tanta writes:
Will the original lender have to write off an amount equal to the NEC at the time the loan is refinanced under this plan?
Well, that's kind of the whole point of it.
Look, today, without this plan in place, a lender who "forgave" debt and released the lien would have to write off 100% of the forgiven principal.
If you didn't release the lien, you could probably get away with carrying that lien as an asset, equal to the amount you think it's likely worth, to offset the write-off.
What does the OTS think these things are likely worth? About 2 cents.
So the lender writes off the full $100 in "forgiven" principal (an expense against bad debt) and carries an asset with a book value of two dollars. Or sells the "asset" to someone else for two dollars. That's a net write-off of 98%.
Tanta | Homepage | 02.21.08 - 6:19 pm | #
I did not make you do anything. That cut'n'paste mess posted above is all your own fault and caused solely because you had the audacity to describe the Pasadena market as "still selling" as if the subregion hadn't been participating in the largest decline in sales in modern history. You tried to polish a turd and got caught. Own up and move on.
Under the plan, the homeowner would be able to refinance the mortgage with the U.S. Federal Housing Administration, based on the current value of the home. So instead of a US$240,000 mortgage, he would now have a US$198,000 mortgage (we're assuming US$2,000 was paid in cash).
The FHA would buy the US$240,000 loan from Bank ABC, giving it US$200,000 and a "negative equity certificate" for the remaining US$40,000. Were the homeowner to eventually sell the home, the FHA loan would be paid off first, then the original lender, up to the value of the certificate. Any money left over would go to the homeowner.
The homeowner wins because he is now paying down a smaller debt and if interest rates are the same or lower than when he first bought the home he also has lower monthly payments.
Bank ABC wins because it gets most of the money back from the original loan and may still recover the rest. This is far better than the borrower walking away from the now-onerous original mortgage, as a growing number of homeowners are currently doing.
"It beats foreclosure," Jaret Seiberg, an analyst at Stanford Policy Research, told the Washington Post.
This will help lenders limit their losses and avoid an "avalanche of borrowers who choose to walk away from the mortgage," Scott Polakoff, the OTS senior deputy director, told Bloomberg News.
The "negative equity certificates" would be tradable, and creators of the proposal anticipate there would be a market for them. Initially the certificates would be worth pennies on the dollar, but as the housing market recovers and home values rise, so too would the value of these certificates.
How does this help solve the subprime mess? It affixes a known value to mortgages that are in the greatest danger of going into default.
Huge investment vehicles have been built around such risky mortgages, and because no one knows what they're really worth (their value will keep declining as long as home values fall), financial institutions around the world are facing hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars in potential losses.
Even if these mortgages end up being worth 83 percent of their face value (as in the example above), it at least has a known value. And with "negative equity certificates," there's also a chance the mortgages could end up being worth more.
The White House and members Congress have yet to comment on the proposal.
"We have got some good initial indications of interest and we are just hoping for this to be part of the solution," an OTS spokesman told the Financial Times.
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we went thru that weeks ago. never happen. neg equity certs are almost surely unrecordable in most states. if not recorded no one would ever know who got what when. in addition, its ripe for fraud, as there would be cash side deals or pmts for "as is furniture" and similar crap to avoid having to pay off the neg eq cert.
you had the audacity to describe the Pasadena market as "still selling" as if the subregion hadn't been participating in the largest decline in sales in modern history. You tried to polish a turd and got caught. Own up and move on.
Rob Dawg | Homepage | 03.23.08 - 8:50 pm | #
Not sure what you mean exactly...I said myself that the market is down, just not "bleeding". I am also advising buyers to wait it out, that patience will pay off. What's your beef?
Your "one house" comment is very misleading. I would not argue with you that we are in the largest housing downturn in history, but I do know firsthand that different markets are responding differntly (very differently). My brother's neighborhood in Simi Valley has been getting butchered for 2 years now. OTOH I had a $550k listing in San Gabriel that got 11 offers (2 weeks ago). I sold my own house 2 mos ago, and had 3 offers. It seems a bit surreal when that happens in this environment.....But I am assuming that the real pain will come later in 2008...
Kidbuck--
A social security number isn't necessary for purchasing property in the United States. Were that true, no non-resident could purchase property here. And a false social security number can result in a credit report just as easily as a real one. (The credit bureaus don't, so far as I know, check with the SSA to see if the number is good. In fact, they may be barred from such information.)
You need a SS# to close or you have to deal with "FIRPTA". 10% withholding, unless you do all sorts of estimating stuff, which I have never actually had to do. I no longer remember what FIRPTA stands for except the first word is Federal and the last word is act.
Remarks of John M. Reich, Director
Office of Thrift Supervision
to the Independent Community Bankers Association
Annual Convention
Orlando, Florida
March 5, 2008
Good morning. Its wonderful to be here in Orlando with
my good friends at ICBA.
There are a number of details that still need to be worked
out. We are currently working with representatives of
Treasury, our fellow regulators, FHA, Congressional leaders
and staff members, and with investor and industry groups to
refine our proposal. So, I want to share our thoughts in
general terms, understanding that it is a work in progress.
See Also: Congress enacted the 10-year rule for mortgage-revenue bonds in 1988. The rule requires state and local housing finance agencies (HFA) to use principal repayments and prepayments from mortgages to retire MRBs within 10 years. The rule is costing HFAs billions of dollars each year.
Position
SIFMA supports repeal of the 10-year rule for mortgage revenue bonds.
Under H.R.1562, loans financed by qualified mortgage revenue bonds and Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds may also be used to acquire or replace existing mortgages without regard to the existing walls rule or the 10-year rule under present law.
More Ot:
Friday, March 21, 2008
Trouble at the Top-Prelude To Proxy Fights
Nightly Business Report . NBR Transcripts-March 21, 2008 | PBS
ERIKA MILLER, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: The board members and management of financial companies will be squarely in the spotlight at upcoming annual meetings, when they face angry stockholders. Rich Ferlauto is the shareholder advocate at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. His group, whose pension funds hold shares in many financial firms, is vowing to hold company directors responsible for not sufficiently managing sub-prime risk.
Justia Federal District Court Filings and Dockets
Anyone know anything about HGMC?
Foreclosures in Miramar, Florida - 2006 | Blockshopper South Florida
LaRouche Declares: Paulson Is `F**king Incompetent'
LaRouche Declares:
Paulson Is `F**king Incompetent'
by John Hoefle
Within the space of a week, the Federal Reserve announced the emission of $400 billion in cash to bail out the bankrupt U.S. banking system, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson released a report by the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) which maintained that the system was fundamentally sound, except for a few excesses which need to be curbed
Gee, thanks for the address of Blockshopper. Very interesting. In Coral Springs in Broward County foreclosures are half of sales. Supposed to be a nice area. . .
Kookmaster Lyndon LaRouche is still alive?
Re: Gee, thanks for the address of Blockshopper
Happy Easter!
Has anyone seen Warsh?
Lawyerliz--
You're right, but someone who can't get an SSN can obtain a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and there's a withholding exemption specifically for mortgage holders. (I looked it up; I don't remember this stuff.)
o
Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act
It's substantive (it's not really a procedural statute) is to ensure that all persons whereever situated, regardless of citizenship or residence, pay US federal income tax on profits or gains related to US real property.
Obviously its too complex to go into here (dont even ask) and is subject to various treaty overrides.
But that's what all that mumbo jumbo means in closing stuff, that we want proof you're not subject to FIRPTA taxation, because if you are then we may be required to withhold.
One of the (many) weirder aspects of this mess, to me, is banks kicking tenants who've never missed a payment out of rental properties after foreclosure, then letting the property sit idle for month after month because the bank wants to price the house at the fantasy end of the range. The one REO on my block was a rental (appropriate internet searches turned up an Assignment of Rents, so I assume no occupancy fraud, though the numbers and dates I turned up leave me wondering if any payments were made following a refi). Many houses are sold while someone's living in the house, there's no reason why a bank can't reach a suitable arrangement with a paying tenant, maybe give the tenant a break on rent, let him/her know what's going on, in exchange for allowing entry. Locally (SF Bay Area) there are a few communities with "for-cause-only" eviction laws. I remember Oakland, one such community, threatening over the last year to sue banks for ignoring such laws.
My Bay Area 'burb has high owner occupancy, so I doubt rent control will ever happen no matter how high the registered D:R ratio gets, but it'd be nice to see tenants gain foreclosure-related protection, separate from the "for-cause-eviction" laws typically tied to rent control. As an owner, I think such a law would have helped my block.
On the...expanded thread..."ream a new a-hole" would be another expression to add to the list.
What I'd be looking for is a recent sale just before the renter came in. This smells of foreclosure/mortgage fraud cases I've been handling in L.A. It could well be that it was a distressed sale where buyer rode in to rescue the seller with a "I'll take over payments and negotiate with the lender and you quitclaim the property to me." No negotiation ever occurs. The "buyer" never makes payments and rents the property out until the FC catches up and by then the fraud artist has pocketed a few months of rent. Oh, and also look for a well-timed BK by the beneficiary of the quitclaim which would stall the FC. Yes, they are pond scum.
It's late in the thread, but I couldn't resis mocking this one from Gawain's Ghost:
I'm not about to take lip from some salaried employee who doesn't have the balls to make it on his own.
This from someone who works for his MOM.
Happy Easter!
Has anyone seen Warsh?
Anonymous
I think he's with Kriste
Tom--
The problem with eviction protections outside rent control laws is that the landlord can evict the tenant by raising the rent. In 1988 the California Association of Realtors got the state legislature to exempt all single family houses from rent control. While many of the local ordinances still protect tenants of those houses under their rent control provisions, one lender raised the rent to $10,000 a month to oust the tenants.
And lenders evict because they don't want to have to take care of the property while waiting to sell it. The reduced sale price, they believe, is less than it would cost to collect rents and keep the place up. (Many cities in California though are passing laws to require that the lenders do things like mow the lawns etc. and have instituted heavy fines for allowing the houses to deteriorate.)
Rob Dawg = Guy who sold house 2 or 3 years ago expecting prices to fall to 1978 levels in 3 months after selling home. To save money (market rent is probably more than his old mortgage payment) he moves into a trailer or his mother-in-laws house in anticipation prices will crash and he can walk in and scoop up his old house for 40k. Now pissed off that he lives in a trailer with his mother-in-law and is sitting on dollars that are rapidly falling in value, he realizes that he may have made a mistake by selling home and blames realtors and mortgage brokers for his blunder.
Should have studied past real estate cycles before getting cozy in mother-in-laws' garage, there Rob Dawg. I recommend reading Henry George's "Progress and Poverty" dude. You'll see where you went wrong.
Real estate markets are notoriously slow on downside corrections due to a) the lack of short selling b) the tenacity to which borrowers cling to mortgaged property and c) the very slow process of foreclosure.
The world goes on and people sooner or later can no longer handle their mother-in-law's garage no matter how much they are saving on housing expense.
I forgot to mention that "Denial" is not just a river in Egypt....
About (and a bit more than) 15 years ago I was a telemarketer - before that became one of the most hated words in the language.
I was (I thought) raising money for charity. If asked, I told the absolute truth - that I was a disabled single parent and not only did a portion of the money go to a charity (Did not know it at the time, but that part was pretty iffy. The charity was pretty much a scam and only got 10% of profits anyway - but I did not know that when I was working there.) but the commission I earned was the only honest work I could do. I was completely straight with the customers - and usually the top salesman. Then the business changed. The boss stole our client list and started doing the same thing. We started calling people more frequently (instead of once a year - once every three months) and others got into the business. People on "sucker lists" were being called 20 or more times a night. It was still possible to make money if - and only if - you were willing to lie your a** off. I wasn't.
Wasn't the first time I had walked away from a job for ethical reasons. I say that, not to put myself on a pedestal, but to point that out as an option - one many people never consider.
I don't doubt that there are ethical realtors - but I do doubt that in the recent environment, there are a high percentage that are successful. A lot of decent folks have left that business lately.
I'm sure Ms. Dust will fight like hell to keep her license.
Hi all--
On the relitters/realwhores terminology debate:
Can we call them "Shi'ite Realtors"-- and pronounce it as we please?
(...in memoriam to the late great Molly, in hopes she'll RITGL)