Inland Empire

 You may have read my recent post Foreclosure Recovery Scams in Your Area . In that post I mentioned talking with Graciela Carvajal of ACORN Housing in San Bernardino, CA . She told me that there is such a large population of minorities in this area who don’t understand not only the loan process but the foreclosure process it makes them ideal victims. During our conversation she also mentioned that since she’s Hispanic she monitors the Spanish media and is amazed and concerned by the number of advertisements for obvious scams.  Why am I addressing this point again? Well, yesterday I received a call ... Read Full Story

In the current market many homeowners are finding themselves faced with foreclosure proceedings. With the hope of catching-up the delinquent payments dwindling the only option left often becomes selling the home… quickly . Many areas have seen home values drop so that sales prices will not cover the loan balance. Don´t despair. Your lender may be willing to work with you on a short sale transaction, i.e. you can sell the home for current market value but the sale is lender approved as to what they will accept for a pay-off of the loan. If a short sale offer is submitted for your home ... Read Full Story

There are so many mortgage & real estate scams to look out for, and they've probably always existed, but the current housing and mortgage crisis seems to be bringing out the unethical and immoral with new vigor. Each of these scams seems to be more dastardly than the next but to be honest it just depends on which one you have read about most recently. One of the predatory stings seems to involve someone representing himself as a contractor who is hired to make the necessary repairs required before a reverse mortgage can go through.Reverse mortgages have more built-in borrower safeguards than most types ... Read Full Story

There was a time when being "out of touch" as just the norm, we didn't realize there was a problem. There was pagers, voice mai;, even others who could write down phone messages for us. Imagine being without our cell phone now! Yeah, we have problems with dropped calls, areas we can't get a sgnial, dropping them in the toilet, but we deal & can't imagine being out of touch. Even if we don't need them as 'road warriors', we need to be able to be reached by our kids, spouses, volunteer obligations. Let's face it in the 21st century we couldn't live without ... Read Full Story

A recently issued report by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute (MARI) states that mortgage fraud climbed 42% in the first quarter of 2008. The lender criteria has tightened considerably so that some feel it is necessary to 'tweak' applications. The most common situations cited were General Application Misrepresentation such as debt & asset misstatements, invalid social security numbers, incorrect addresses and Employment & Income falsification. Loan applications are at an 8 year low according to the Mortgage Bankers Association and this supposedly makes the so-called 'professionals' push for clients. Maybe understandable but is this just another another area where it has consumer education is ... Read Full Story