Buying in the murky foreclosure waters is not quite as dangerous as swimming with the sharks thanks to Foreclosure Title Insurance, says Florida foreclosure defense attorney Roy Oppenheim.

More than 500,000 foreclosure filings entered Florida’s books in 2009, and those properties now saturate the South Florida real estate market. While these economic times are challenging for most, they can be the best time for some South Floridians to capitalize on an unprecedented opportunity who want to purchase foreclosures.

Foreclosure buyers can now add a perk to their deals with Foreclosure Title Insurance. Check out how South Florida real estate investors can protect themselves with Florida Foreclosure Title Insurance.

Unlike the flippers of the past, these folks are true professionals as this IS their business. They are not cops, firemen or teachers by day and flippers by night.

In fact, OppenheimLaw and Weston Title represent a number of these types of professional groups. They are all well funded and clearly taking advantage of the fact that the Banks are drowning in too much stuff and thus many times are clueless to the true value of an asset.

Further, as we have explained before, the Banks would rather get back cold cash now than continue trying to make old loans work through loan modifications, when they know the likelihood of re-default remains high.  That is why we at OppenheimLaw and our sister title company, Weston Title, are calling 2010 the “Year of the Short Sale.”  Banks actually still do about 20% better according to a recent Federal Reserve study when they allow a short sale to proceed as opposed to the Bank proceeding all the way through the foreclosure process. Of course with millions of homes that have already been foreclosed upon by the Banks, the Banks have to somehow get rid of their unwanted inventory.

One word of caution: if you are thinking of becoming a “professional flipper” do your homework; and do not think for a moment that there is a title company out there that will allow you to use the funds from the final buyer as your source of funds to purchase the property at the courthouse’s steps or in a short sale. That practice is now dead.

Thus, if you are in a position to look at flipping as your way to help bail yourself out from being underwater to treading water with your head up high… call me!

Roy Oppenheim

From the Trenches

Many people may be hesitant to believe that business is booming, but there is a particular profession that is; namely, Property Preservationists for distressed properties.

As reported in the August 13^th Sun-Sentinel, foreclosures have tripled across the nation since 2005.  More and more of these properties are becoming REOs, or “real estate owned,” meaning the bank holds the deed. Before hitting the market, these foreclosed properties need a visit from a Property Preservationist for a ”deep cleaning.”  “Property Preservationists” swoop in to handle various tasks such as removing trash, mowing the lawn, boarding up windows, even asking squatters to find a new place of residence. One such Preservationist “deep cleans” between 10 and 20 REOs in a typical week, in addition to inspecting 90 structures and securing 20 others.

“Nobody likes to see me. But when a house’s teeth go bad, who else is going to clean out the rot,” states Nick Hazel, one such Preservationist. In 2009, 1 in every 33 homes in Florida is at risk for a visit by Hazel as 3 out of 100 homes are in foreclosure. Nationally, 1 in 84 is at risk.

Today, as many of my friends celebrate Good Friday and I continue to celebrate Passover, my office is a virtual ghost town. So I actually had a moment to take stock on changes that are occurring in our collective lives. First and foremost it is just hard to believe that the White House held a Passover Seder last night. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/obama-to-host-seder-dinner/ The Seder is the ceremonial meal whereby Jews retell  their miraculous story of their departure from Egypt while having a rather long ceremonial meal conducted in a certain order.  In some ways the Passover story can serve as an allegory for the Obama Administration in that just over a year ago it would have seemed that only by a “miracle” would we be sitting here right now with our first African American President.

President Obama Hosts First Ever Passover Seder at the White House

Further, as someone deeply entrenched in the real estate economy, as a foreclosure defense lawyer and owner of Weston Title, I would never have envisioned a sitting President calling on homeowners to refinance their homes.   And yesterday that is exactly what the President did! http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123932215927307049.html The President explained the low interest rate climate created by the Bailout and how families can actually create their own stimulus of the economy by pumping back the money they save through refinancing– directly into the economy.

But even before the President gave his three cheers to mortgage refinancing, we have been seeing an up tick in activity in the real estate market in general and in terms of banks contacting us to help them close their refinances. In fact, earlier in the week, I thought for a moment it was Christmas when all the phone lights on my office phone were lit up like a Christmas Tree. I had to use my cell phone to call out of the office.

The buyers who are closing are bottom fishers looking for great deals from short sales, foreclosures, builder specs and generally first time home buyers who have now concluded that buying is cheaper than renting.  Some high end buyers are anticipating a wave of inflation that may be here sooner than any one can imagine.

So with all the change that is going on… one thing that has not changed– and will not change is how capitalistic market forces that are merely reflections of our collective greed and fear are  working well once again.

Have a great weekend!

In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that 18 percent of all U.S. households will refinance in 2009. That is a whopping 72 percent increase from last year or almost $2 trillion! Interest on these loans will average about 4.7 percent – rates I have not seen in my entire career nor has anyone since the 1950s!

So let our homeowner self-bailout begin! I always said it would be South Florida’s new home buyers and the folks who had maintained good credit that would lead us back to normalcy. But, don’t kid yourself… without the stimulus package the lenders would still be on life support. Now at least we are all seeing and feeling less of a chill as the spring thaw begins. So start shopping around for what will likely be the best mortgage deal you will likely see in your lifetime!

Interested in buying or selling a home in South Florida? Take advantage of these low South Florida morgage rates and contact us at Weston Title for more information.

Long before the Florida foreclosure meltdown and “double sold mortgage” became a widely used term, I represented a commercial pilot for a major airline who owned real estate in the Florida Keys. This client had a great house but wanted to live closer to mainland Florida so that he could be closer to work.

His decision? To sell his house. Nothing unusual… right?
Back then it took a few months to find a buyer, for the buyer to find a mortgage and then a few more weeks to close.

As the closing agent at Weston Title, my staff requested a pay-off letter from the lender and – to our utter surprise and the first time in my career – two banks lay claim to the loan.  In other words the originating bank had sold the loan at least once, or twice, or maybe even more. Who really knows?

But as this client’s real estate defense counsel we could not figure out who owned the loan. Well… the real estate client lost the sale. We advised for him to rent out the property and place the monthly mortgage payments in escrow. He basically followed our advice, save the escrow.

Soon after, the banks started foreclosure. It became ugly and quite a mess. We counter-claimed and got real nasty. Even the judge and mediator could not believe the story. How could a well respected national bank have lost control of their real estate collateral and literally throw their good customer, a well respected professional, under the bus without any concern?

The banks ended up suing each other in federal court. It took years for the matter to resolve itself. In the interim, my client’s credit went down the tubes, his wife got terribly sick from the stress and little did I know it would take until now for me to start connecting the dots.

Yes we settled… my client was appropriately awarded damages, the house eventually sold, and I was paid well for my efforts too!  This scenario should have been a one-time case in my career… an honest mistake by a large bank that mishandled the matter. Ok. That is how I viewed this case for ten years. Well I was wrong.

That was then…this is now.

What we had was the “tippy tip” of a massive iceberg completely submerged and covered by a real estate market that had run amuck due to unfettered greed, poor regulation, complacency, and out right corruption.

So you say what is he talking about? The story is slowly breaking… It started this past Sunday in Gretchen Morgenson’s column on the front page of the New York Times Business Section. She alleges that due to “sloppy bookkeeping” surprise, a few sub-prime mortgages, or for that matter, mortgages were maybe sold more than once into investment pools.

WHAT??  Just bad paperwork?? Fat chance!

According to the well-respected foreclosure defense attorney, April Charney, quoted in the Times piece, and with whom I spent eight hours with in a foreclosure crisis seminar yesterday, these loans were sold systematically and more than once into different investment pools.

It was simple. No one was checking… no one really cared. All incentives, all the way down the line, encouraged this trangressive behavior. Remember how Wall Street bonuses were always paid at year’s-end not after a loan was seasoned? Meaning after a borrower has paid on the loan for a year or two!  In fact, on Wall Street, a loan was seasoned and bonuses paid all the way down the line after a borrower made even one payment!

Do I hear Madoff on steroids? Maybe? Maybe definitely! Maybe that is why Madoff is still at home and not in jail. What does he really know about a ponzi scheme that makes him look like yesterday’s news?

Bear Stearns in the fall of 2007 started seeing the writing on the walls. Internally warning of “double sold mortgages.” Well, I guess they rang the alarm a little too late.

In fact, Aunt Fanny and Uncle Freddy are refusing to buy back loans unless the lender can prove they, and only they, own the loan. That means the lender needs to produce the original note along with all the assignments appropriately endorsed. Shouldn’t be hard?

Why then, should the federal government all of a sudden be concerned if the lender has the note? Judges, until recently, didn’t seem to take notice, except for a few bankruptcy judges in California. The answer is simple. They are slowly catching on that the new money in the investment pools was simply being used to pay for loans that did not exist.

While the party music played and everyone kept on dancing… then all a sudden, the music stopped… oops not enough chairs for everyone.

NBC Nightly News new media journalist Mara Schiavocampo will be exploring these issues deeper this week. So, I guess you can say you heard it here first — from the trenches.

Lets begin.

First, Staci Calvert, one of my long term staff members who is a senior real estate closer for our title company: Weston Title, came over to me and said she had never seen a 30 year fixed loan close at 4.75 percent! Well folks it happened!  It was a refinance. In addition, as reported in the Wall Street Journal today and other major publications, first time homebuyers and people previously priced out of the market are coming back in to pick up bargains.

You see until now, incomes could not support the old inflated hosing prices. Now the two markets: incomes and real estate prices are converging quickly so that buyers can once again afford to buy.  Add to that, the new, low interest rates and we could all be back in business.

Some commentators have added that foreclosure sales were down in January too. I hate to break the news; but, the decrease in foreclosure sales is likely due to the foreclosure moratoriums imposed by some states and banks during the Thanksgiving to New Year’s holiday season.

Thus, if the bail out really focuses on trimming foreclosures, then maybe – just maybe – we may well see some stabilization in the real estate market. Or maybe, this is just wishful thinking on a Wednesday morning.