stopforeclosuresources.com

The fallout that followed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 left many Gulf Coast residents homeless or facing foreclosure — or both. Temporary relief from the devastation was granted in the form of a foreclosure moratorium at the time….(read more)

If you’re attending the &nbspannual 2008 USFN National Default Servicing Seminar in Texas this week, you can catch RealtyTrac Vice President of Marketing Rick Sharga speaking on the latest foreclosure legislation at a 9 a.m. panel discussion titled “In the News: Current Issues Affecting the Default Servicing Industry.”

“The housing slump — accompanied by a surge in foreclosures — in the midst of a presidential election year has pushed foreclosure prevention legislation to the top of many politicians’ priority lists,” Sharga said in a statement. “The U.S. House and Senate both recently passed legislation aimed at providing relief to homeowners facing foreclosure, and many states have passed or proposed similar measures. Many of the laws being considered, or already enacted, could have a significant impact on the default servicing industry. In addition, the Executive Branch has also attempted to address the issue via programs such as HOPE NOW and FHASecure, which are designed to provide lifelines to distressed homeowners.”

Foreclosure activity increased 112 percent in the first quarter of 2008, according to the RealtyTrac U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, and Sharga noted that myriad state and federal governmental entities, including the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee and Banking Committee, Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, FBI and New York State Banking Department, have requested in-depth foreclosure data from RealtyTrac to help inform public policy decisions.

Analysts at the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., are reporting consumer confidence among Californians at the lowest level recorded since it began tracking the economic indicator back in 2002….(read more)

Ed McMahon, who for decades appeared as Johnny Carson’s sidekick on “The Tonight Show,” is the latest casualty of an ever-growing foreclosure crisis that is gripping the nation.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that McMahon was $644,000 in arrears on a $4.8 million loan for a home in Beverly Hills, California.

The 85-year old McMahon fell and broke his neck 18 months ago and defaulted on $4.8 million in mortgage loans with Recon Trust, a unit of Countrywide Financial Corp., which filed a notice of default in February.

McMahon’s home has been on the market for about two years and is listed for $6.25 million. The Hollywood dream home has six bedrooms, five bathrooms and is located on a hilltop and is part of a gated community called “The Summit,” according to the Associated Press.

Home prices on existing single-family homes continued to sink further into the abyss nationally during the first quarter of 2008, according to two leading industry indicators….(read more)

WATCH:
Here in Cleveland, watch the market for the best deals!  Some sellers are against the wall and will sell well under market value. Other sellers are really the relocation companies or the banks backing a short sale. Learn the market, learn the values, watch and…

WAIT:
Know when it’s time to hop on a property. Check the history of the price reductions.  Check them every 30 days? Every 40 days?  When it’s close to your price, make an OFFER just BEFORE the price is reduced. If you don’t, other savvy buyers will jump in and grab it.

BUY: 
NOW! The Cleveland market will correct and you will have instant built-in equity. Other locations — including Las Vegas, much of California and Florida — have two corrections to make.&nbsp The first adjustment is for over-inflated “bubble” prices. The second is a natural correction to a normal market. Here in Cleveland, we only have the normal correction to go through.

Over the past three months, my clients and I have presented nine contracts to pre-foreclosure, REO and short sale sellers. Out of those nine contracts, nine have been beat by better offers. In the Northern Seattle area there currently very few REO properties, and in terms of real short sales, I have seen under 10 that are decent over the past month. I wish I had the finesse to illustrate the how important it is to negotiate a Win/Win offer. I can simply say writing a contract for bottom dollars in the hope of catching a whale is only going to bring up a boot. The Seattle market is not what you see on the news, hear on the radio, or read in the paper in terms of the rest of the nation’s foreclosure woes. The money in this town has just shifted from buying retail to buying wholesale, and there are a lot of hungry wallets burning holes for positive equity investments.

Here are some things to keep in mind when investing in the Seattle market:

1. Land is an extremely limited resource in this city. Seattle did not experience the “urban sprawl” boom seen in so many other cities plagued with foreclosure woes.
   
2. The Seattle metro area has a strong economic foundation with many companies doing extraordinarily well due to international business.
   
3. Seattle has one of the most highly educated populations in the country.
   
4. Our median household income is about $72,000 annually — among the highest in the country.
   
5. Because of the lack of “urban sprawl” in Seattle we do not have the inventory of foreclosure homes that the rest of the country has. I say this all the time to my buyers, at auction there is a huge crowd competing over six to 10 properties. Even then these homes are being purchased at 20 percent less then market value.

So, Boston believes it is a great city. But does it have great public art?

The Tax Foundation is a non-partisan tax research group in Washington, DC. It produces a substantial amount of research on federal and state taxes, including an annual State Business Tax Climate Index. Its president, Scott Hodge, was one of the panelists at our May 29th Policy Primer, Keys to State Competitiveness, the audio of which is available in the multimedia section of our website, www.TexasPolicy.com. In this week’s Texas PolicyCast, we get Hodge’s thoughts on that topic, as well as the Texas business tax climate in general.

With food prices skyrocketing in recent months, Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison have proposed separate measures that would roll back America’s ill-advised ethanol policies. On this week’s Texas PolicyCast, Kathleen Hartnett White, former Chair of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and Director of the Foundation’s Center for Natural Resources, details the folly of attempting to turn food into fuel.