Las Vegas real estate, mortgage, appraisal blog

At least if you're Senator Chris Dodd or Senator Kent Conrad you do. Each of the Senators as well as a member of Senator Barack Obama's campaign team received "sweetheart" loans for being in the "Friends of Angelo" VIP program with Countrywide. The campaign member resigned but not before it became known that it was Jim Johnson, a former CEO of Fannie Mae.

All are claiming they did not know of the special rates but when competing companies could not match, it should have been obvious.

An article in Appraisal Scoop brought some interesting information about Senator Dodd to the fore.

The Associate Press and Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, June 13, that Sen. Dodd reportedly received special treatment from Countrywide Mortgage when he refinanced both his Washington townhouse and his principal residence, saving about $2,000 a year in interest payments on the townhouse and $700 a year on his home in Connecticut.

The savings in interest for both home loans totaled about $75,000 over the life of the loans. How very interesting it is that a senator who is trying to flesh out a plan to rescue homeowners may have benefited from the actions of a leading offender in the mortgage meltdown.

1. Sen. Dodd, tries to ram regulation down appraisers throats in the form of a surety bond. How in the world could a man conceive of such a diabolical plan unless there was money to be made from it? The only thing of surety about that bond is that it would cost us all a lot of money and open us up to litigation. No money has changed hands yet, but I am willing to bet a USB flash drive that Sen. Dodd knows someone, or is related to someone, who would stand to make a lot of money on that little scheme.
2. Sen. Dodd received preferential treatment from Countrywide Mortgage, a leading offender in the mortgage meltdown and a company that is currently high on the implode-o-meter. Sen. Dodd is a "Friend of Angelo." Sen. Dodd has lately criticized Countrywide. Probably not a good idea. I wonder who outed him?
3. Sen. Dodd is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. A high position of power, a mover and shaker. Nothing is going to happen on Capitol Hill concerning the mortgage meltdown if Sen. Dodd doesn't bless it. The stars are aligned,  pigs are flying, and the hounds have been loosed. It appears, yet again, there is no space between money and politics.

There is no place in our senate for such a duplicitous political player. This man is not in touch with what is happening in the real world, as evidenced on the one hand by the ignominy of the surety bond issue and on the other by profiting from special relationships with abusive lenders.

 

The FHA is sending out letters to hundreds of thousands of homeowners in an effort to help reduce foreclosures, according to a release from HUD. These letters, 280,000 of which were mailed in February, are hoping to ultimately reach 850,000 homeowners who are facing losing their homes.

"This letter might be the most important piece of mail many of these families will receive all year," said HUD Secretary Steve Preston. "This information could not only help save their current home, it could help provide them with long term financial security. This outreach campaign will ensure families are aware of the safe mortgage alternative offered by FHA."

FHA-insured loans are backed by the full faith and credit of the government, which typically allows lenders to offer mortgage products at a lower, more affordable interest rate. More than 90 percent of FHA-backed mortgages are 30-year, fixed rate products. FHA also provides a one-of-a-kind loss mitigation program that helps protect borrowers against foreclosure. Finally, FHASecure, which allows borrowers who are current and delinquent on their loans to refinance with the FHA, is saving tens of thousands of families on average $400 a month compared to their exotic subprime loans.

As much as all of these programs seem very promising to current homeowners, loan limits until now have been much more modest. These increases not only allow many homeowners to get out of mortgages they can no longer afford but mean that the government is backing them, funded by the money of taxpayers. That may not be a huge concern, but if the foreclosure trend continues after the loans are refinanced with the FHA...

Letters are being sent to homeowners who have already faced or are experiencing the first reset of their adjustable rate mortgages. Through the end of the year, FHA can insure home loans valued between $271,050 and $729,750. Normally these loan limits are set between $200,160 and $362,790 but were expanded through President Bush's Economic Stimulus Package. Bipartisan FHA Modernization legislation awaiting final action by the Senate and House of Representatives would permanently increase the loan limits to an acceptable level.

So what exactly are homeowners being told? Here is a copy of the letter being sent out:

Dear Homeowner,

Do you need help with your mortgage?

Your area is experiencing a disturbing home foreclosure rate that has accelerated in recent months. News reports cite the damaging effects of "sub prime loans" as a major factor in the unsettled market. By focusing on education and safe mortgage alternatives, though, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is working diligently to address this unacceptable foreclosure trend.

Over the past few months, FHA has worked with mortgage loan servicers to identify solutions for the crisis facing current homeowners. Your current mortgage does not have to be FHA insured for you to benefit from our help. If you are facing financial difficulties due to a recent or imminent mortgage reset, or other housing-related difficulty, I urge you to contact us at 1 (800) CALL-FHA or to visit www.fha.gov. There you will have the opportunity to learn about foreclosure prevention, legal rights, and credit counseling, among other topics.

Many homeowners may also be able to take advantage of our recently announced FHASecure program. This new program allows eligible homeowners to refinance into a secure, fixed-rate FHA loan even if they are in default.

Additionally, a new partnership between mortgage companies and non-profit housing counselors called HOPE NOW is available to you. Their mission is simple: reach out to homeowners who may be having difficulty paying their mortgages. For more information or to see if your mortgage company is a member of this caring coalition please go to www.hopenow.com.

Again, please contact us at 1 (800) CALL-FHA (800-225-5342) or go to www.fha.gov. As part of the federal government, the Federal Housing Administration wants to help you protect and preserve the American dream - your home.

Sincerely,

Brian D. Montgomery
Assistant Secretary for Housing
Federal Housing Commissioner

A recent article on Bloomberg.com reported that the FBI has a new focus. Instead of covering the crimes they normally do, agents are being put to work combating mortgage fraud.

Bill Carter, an FBI spokesman in Washington, said the shift was made after an analysis of how agents are spending their time. The FBI traditionally has moved investigators to address urgent needs, he said. About 150 agents were working on more than 1,300 mortgage cases before the change.

``If you're seeing a significant crime problem, you have to move resources,'' Carter said yesterday. ``We've got a big problem with mortgage fraud.''

Agents are being pulled off other cases and being told not to open new ones.

The 26 field offices were told to temporarily suspend opening new cases dealing with price fixing, mass marketing, wire fraud, mail fraud and environmental crimes, Carter said. Current cases aren't being dropped, he said. The FBI has 56 field offices and about 12,000 agents.

Carter said the bureau is ``not walking away'' from pending investigations. ``We're just saying, `Don't open any new cases,''' he said.

The affected FBI offices are in states including Florida, Georgia, California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota, he said. All are considered mortgage fraud ``hot spots,'' he said.

The problem isn't that agents are being reassigned, it's that there are nowhere near enough of them to handle everything.

At the FBI, white-collar fraud became less of a priority when President George W. Bush ordered the agency to concentrate on national security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Lawmakers have also criticized the Bush administration for reducing funding for crime fighting.

``It comes as no surprise that law enforcement is spread too thin to cover all the bases,'' Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat and member of the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the FBI, said in an e-mailed statement. ``Over the past several years, the administration has reassigned as many as 2,400 FBI agents from fighting crime to combating terrorism without replacing them.''

Las Vegas is pursuing water from White Pine County's Snake Valley. While the proposed water to be pumped out of Snake Valley would supply enough for more than 170,000 homes, local residents and environmentalists have been protesting.

The vast and sparsely populated watershed on the Nevada-Utah border is home to many of the authority’s harshest critics, including ranch families who have lived in the area for generations.

“We know there are a lot of very vocal people who live in Snake Valley. We’ve seen that in the other hearings,” said Kay Brothers, deputy general manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Even with locals and others protesting, Brothers says that there's no reason to think that they'll be denied completely.

In a letter sent last week to State Engineer Tracy Taylor, the Southern Nevada Water Authority requested a hearing “as soon as possible” on its nine applications for groundwater in Snake Valley.

“Obviously, I think we’ll get some water,” Brothers said. “There’s quite a bit of unappropriated water in Snake Valley, so I can’t imagine we won’t get some water.”

Taylor’s review process will begin July 15 with a half-day administrative hearing in Carson City to establish procedures and document-filing deadlines for a larger hearing later this year or early next year.

The complete article can be found at the Reno-Gazette Journal.

The Las Vegas Sun recently had some rather heartwarming news about one of the city's long forgotten landmarks. The Fifth Street School is going to be reopening its doors, but instead of the courthouse and homeless it will be housing students once again. The Nevada School of the Arts as well as the American Institute of Architects and the Cultural Affairs Division of the city will be having offices there. Even the UNLV's School of Architecture will have a spot, with around 30 students in the building each semester.

Only within the past few weeks could you drive by and see the renewed vibrancy of the building, which has benefited from more than two years of renovation at a cost of $9.5 million.

“We’re going to be in the thick of things downtown,” said Robert Dorgan, director of the Downtown Design Center. “To actually use the city as our library and walk around projects as they’re being developed and to be in proximity to those decision-makers, it’s just a phenomenal opportunity.”

Having local government nearby will be a great way for these students to understand what they'll work with once they are out of school.

“This is going to be a highly public, highly visible classroom,” Dorgan said. “Students will be in kind of a fishbowl.”

Dorgan imagines a time when the students’ proximity to city decision-makers leads to more informed, perhaps better decisions.

“There are all kinds of planning decisions being made and I think this will be a great opportunity for city officials to see just what we can do to help that dialogue, to look in as an objective third party with no stake, and no constituency to play to,” he said. “I think it will be good for the city to know what UNLV can contribute.”