Tune in Wednesday night. Oppenheim highlights the new rules homeowners need to learn in a Back to School Workshop.

What: ABC’s and D for Deflation Foreclosure Defense Workshop

When: Wednesday, September 1, 2010 – 6:00 to 7:00 PM

Who: Learn the new way of thinking for a new economy! Homeowners facing foreclosure or underwater mortgages, real estate professionals, buyers and sellers

Where: The Oppenheim Law Online TV Channel

Or come in person

2500 Weston Road, Suite 404, Weston, FL 33331

Cost: Free with advanced registration

RSVP: To register email roy@oplaw.net or call 954.384.6114

Oppenheim Law will broadcast September’s Foreclosure Workshop online through the Oppenheim Law TV Channel. Participants are invited to ask questions and comment on the presentation through chat or Oppenheim Law’s Twitter account @OPLaw. For more details see the Oppenheim Law Website.

Florida Real Estate Attorney and Legal Blogger Roy Oppenheim discusses the current deflationary economy and what new rules homeowners need to learn. Getting rid of devaluing assets (like a home) and conserving cash is a strategy Oppenheim discusses in his real estate workshops.

What: ABC’s and D for Deflation Foreclosure Defense Workshop

When: Wednesday, September 1, 2010 – 6:00 to 7:00 PM

Who: Learn the new way of thinking for a new economy! Homeowners facing foreclosure or underwater mortgages, real estate professionals, buyers and sellers

Where: The Oppenheim Law Online Stream

Or come in person

2500 Weston Road, Suite 404, Weston, FL 33331

Cost: Free with advanced registration

RSVP: To register email roy@oplaw.net or call 954.384.6114

Oppenheim Law will broadcast September’s Foreclosure Workshop online through the Oppenheim Law Strategic Default Channel. Participants are invited to ask questions and comment on the presentation through Oppenheim Law’s Twitter account @OPLaw. For more details see the Oppenheim Law Website.

The county had 3,759 homeowners in some stage of foreclosure in July, up 77 percent from June and 42 percent from a year ago. Palm Beach County had the 11th-highest foreclosure rate of Florida’s 67 counties.

Foreclosure defense attorney and legal blogger Roy Oppenheim told the Sun Sentinel he is noticing expensive mortgages going into default more frequently.

“This is like the second shoe dropping,” he said. “A lot of people with higher incomes have been seriously, seriously hurt.”

Want to learn more about mediation and foreclosure? Join Oppenheim Law for our free monthly foreclosure defense workshop the first Wednesday of each month and check out the entire Sun-Sentinel foreclosure story in the Oppenheim Law Newsroom. Find Oppenheim Law on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute real estate news.

McCollum’s economic crimes division is investigating the Law Offices of David J. Stern of Plantation, the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson of Fort Lauderdale and Shapiro & Fishman of Boca Raton and Tampa for possible unfair and deceptive actions in handling foreclosure cases.

Florida attorneys including foreclosure defense attorney and legal blogger Roy Oppenheim questioned the timing of the investigation, suggesting it was politically motivated by McCollum, a Republican candidate for governor. In a Mason-Dixon poll taken only a week ago, McCollum trailed by 6 points – 31 percent to 37 percent.

“Why didn’t he do this two years ago?” Oppenheim asked. “He knows the allegations have been out there. He knows complaints have been made. I think the timing is a little off. I’m thrilled he’s doing this, but I would have preferred he do this one-and-a-half years ago. Many people who didn’t have attorneys didn’t have the support of his office.”

Oppenheim also wishes McCollum would extend his investigation to lenders and mortgage holders for filing faulty foreclosures.

“He’s investigating the law firms, but he should be investigating the banks,” Oppenheim said. “He should also be looking into banks trespassing onto peoples’ properties. The law firms are the scapegoats. I see them as pawns.”

Check out the entire Daily Business Review article in the Oppenheim Law Newsroom

Small wonder that HAMP has turned into an embarrassing failure for the Obama administration.

This past weekend, I was in our Nation’s capital. It is always interesting to see things from the inside looking out, as opposed to from the outside looking in. It is like being in a house of mirrors.

One thing is apparent: the Beltway economy is not suffering like places such as Florida, Nevada, and Detroit. As a result, our elected representatives and the administration may not truly understand the depth of the housing crisis. I think they still blame the greed of “over ambitious” homeowners and speculators as opposed to the real driving force: Wall Street, the over-sized “too big to fail” banks and themselves. The buzz, of course, was the fact that Fannie Mae may have been playing its own political three card “monty” with homeowners over the past year. Simply put: whistleblower Caroline Herron, a former Fannie Mae executive and consultant, is suggesting the administration pushed for temporary modifications knowing full well that many of the loan modifications would fail prior to becoming permanent. In fact, Congress is now pushing for hearings.

Fannie Mae executives bungled their responsibilities of the federal government’s massive foreclosure-prevention campaign, creating a bureaucratic muddle characterized by “mismanagement and gross waste of public funds,” according to the suit Herron filed. The suit alleges that the homeowner-relief effort was marred by delays, missteps and executives’ preoccupation with their institution’s short-term financial interests. “It appeared that Fannie Mae officers were focused on maximizing incentive payments available to Fannie Mae under various federal programs – even if this meant wasting taxpayer money and delaying the implementation of high-priority Treasury programs,” Herron claims in the lawsuit.

The problem started with a skewed financial incentive at the heart of HAMP. The government paid Fannie bonuses for trial modifications that lasted three months, but apparently provided no incentive to move those homeowners into permanent modifications. Under pressure to show that they could turn a profit after the massive bailouts of 2008 and continuing bailouts in 2009, Fannie Mae executives apparently focused on earning those bonus payments.

The result: very few permanent modifications.

Herron charges that Fannie Mae continued in headlong pursuit of “trial mods” knowing many had little chance of becoming permanent. As late as September 2009, barely one percent of trial modifications had converted to permanent modifications by the end of their three-month trial, a Congressional oversight panel found. Nevertheless, Fannie Mae preferred doing trials, Herron alleges, because it was eligible to receive incentive payments from the Treasury Department for trial modifications booked before the end of 2009.

As of February 2010, 83 percent of the one million active modifications being handled by HAMP were trials rather than permanent arrangements. The allegations suggest that the modifications resemble the sub-prime loan market prior to 2008. Government incentives pushed Fannie not only to prioritize trial mods over permanent settlements, but also to pull borrowers with no hope of rescue into the program in order to profit off of them.

Herron’s lawsuit accuses Fannie executives of “actively working against” the borrower. In fact, she alleges that Fannie was reluctant to move quickly in processing the modifications.
Small wonder that HAMP has turned into an embarrassing failure for the Obama administration. Although the President promised 3 million modifications, only now approximately 300,000 have been successful.

Roy Oppenheim
From the Trenches

Long considered a cornerstone of the American dream, homeownership has been sliding since the housing bubble burst in 2006. New projections say the rate could plummet to about 62%, compared with 69.4% in 2004. Homeownership rates haven’t been that low since 1960, when they hit 61.9%.

14 Million Underwater, Deutsche Banks Predicts 20% Increase by 2011

In other real estate news, more than 14 million homeowners are underwater on their mortgage today and Deutsche Bank expects that number to increase to 20 million by the end of 2011. The bank also expects a rise in strategic defaults.

Foreclosure Workshop Shares Tips to Learn from the Wealthy

Roy Oppenheim shared what homeowners can learn from the wealthy during his monthly Strategic Foreclosure Workshop this week. Hundreds participated as Oppenheim shed some light on strategic defaults, short sales and loan modifications strategies.

The global nature of our country’s real estate market came into focus when reporters from the BBC and Croatian National TV looking to do a feature commentary on Florida foreclosures and local real estate trends contacted Oppenheim Law.

Roy Oppenheim sat down with Croatian TV correspondent Branka Slavica to explain how the foreclosure defense attorneys at Oppenheim Law are helping homeowners defend foreclosure, avoid deficiency judgments, execute short sales and successfully complete strategic defaults.

Check out the video below for the full Croatian TV report on Florida foreclosures and for more information on how Oppenheim Law is helping homeowners escape underwater mortgages through  options such as short sales, loan modifications, deeds in lieu, and strategic default, tune in next Wednesday to our Free Strategic Foreclosure Workshop at 6 PM.

What can Florida homeowners learn from the wealthy when it comes to strategic defaults? Oppenheim Law discusses strategic default August 4 at 6 PM during the next Free Strategic Foreclosure Workshop.

According to The New York Times, more than 1 in 7 homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent compared to 1 in 12 for mortgages below the million-dollar mark. These numbers indicate many of the country’s wealthiest homeowners are strategically dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.

What: Strategic Defaults: What Can We Learn from the Wealthy?

When: Wednesday, August 4, 2010 – 6:00 to 7:00 PM

Who: Homeowners facing foreclosure or underwater mortgages, real estate professionals, buyers and sellers

Where: The Oppenheim Law Online Stream

Or come in person: 2500 Weston Road, Suite 404, Weston, FL 33331

Cost: Free with advanced registration

RSVP: To register email roy@oplaw.net or call 954.384.6114

Attend the event in Weston, FL or watch from the comfort of home. Oppenheim Law will broadcast August’s Strategic Default Workshop online through the Oppenheim Law Strategic Default Channel. Participants are invited to ask questions and comment on the presentation by registering for a free account with our streaming service.

Check out the video below for a preview of next week’s workshop. See you then!

Foreclosure defense attorney Roy Oppenheim joined CBS 4 Chief Consumer Investigator Al Sunshine to analyze South Florida’s foreclosure numbers in order to  help homeowners determine what they may  expect in the coming months.

RealtyTrac reports foreclosures are continuing to rise in South Florida, even when compared to last year’s staggering numbers. With more than 277,000 filings, the State of Florida is now number two nationally behind only California. Broward County ranks third in Florida foreclosure filings, with 1 out of every 21 units in some form of foreclosure.

“In Florida there is clearly a backlog, and I don’t see the problem getting much better,” Oppenheim said in the report. “I don’t see it getting much worse, but the idea everyone is saying that the problem is getting better is nonsense.”

Check out the video below for the full interview including Oppenheim’s assessment of government-backed foreclosure programs. For the latest in South Florida real estate trends and foreclosure defense advice, follow Oppenheim Law on Twitter @OPLaw.

Save the Date! Oppenheim Law’s next foreclosure defense workshop is Wednesday, August 4 @ 6:00 pm. The theme is “Strategic Default: What We Can Learn from the Wealthy” hosted by Roy Oppenheim. Stay tuned for more information.

As housing sales hit an all time low, The South Florida Law Blog and Oppenheim Law bring our readers a fresh perspective on the Florida real estate landscape and legal trends. We also serve as an expert source to local and national media outlets.

Investing, renting, buying or selling real estate in today’s market is a tricky course to follow, we know, we’re on the frontlines and in the trenches defending homeowners.

So we wanted to take note of the other excellent resources and personalities to follow in the news. House Keys, written by Sun-Sentinel real estate reporter Paul Owers, and It’s Your Money, written by Sun-Sentinel personal finance reporter Harriet Johnson Brackey.

Connected to Oppenheim Law on Twitter, @OPLaw? You can follow Paul Owers, @paulowers, and Harriet Johnson Brackey, @HarrietBrackey, as well for the latest in business news and views on personal finance, real estate and foreclosure defense.

Have a favorite source for legal advice, real estate tips or personal finance? Share it in the comments section!