Property Tax Assessment Another Scam

February 6, 2009 jd

warning-signw3

Now we have a company in Los Angles taking peoples money for something they can do with a simple call to their local tax assessors office. An official looking letter from a firm calling themselves Property Tax Assessment, with a PO Box wants you to send them $179.00 by February 27, 2009 for them to do what you can do with a simple call.

If you don’t send them the money by the 27^th you will have to pay them an additional $30.00. Wow, how to word a scam letter to the hilt! In a specific example, one letter which I read states they can save the home owner $1,005.22. Notice the twenty two cents. Now they must have done some kind of research to come up with that close a figure, don’t you think?

But wait, in the letter they state “upon receipt of your service fee, Property Tax Reassessment will thoroughly review your individual property value” Now just a minute, if you send a letter out with a value to the penny, didn’t you do some research before you sent the letter?

Here’s an excerpt from the Examiner which also has a copy of the front and back of the form if you hadn’t gotten one of these scam letters and want to see what it looks like.

“The cunning company takes advantage of the fact that parcel numbers are a matter of public record to create a devious come on that may not be illegal but is certainly deceptive.

You can choose to pay someone to help you with your property tax assessment appeal, but why would you if it’s free? Trickery could induce you to pony up.

The single-page, double-sided mailing (front) (back) from “Property Tax Reassessment, P.O. Box 25519, Los Angeles, CA 90025” comes with the home owner’s address, the correct parcel number and a claim that the property may be over assessed”

When you get mailings like this, report it to your assessor, tax collector and your local district attorney. Offers to reduce your property tax with a fee attached is a warning sign, so call the county officials and do not respond to the letter.

Only a $500,000 Salary?

February 6, 2009 jd

John Thain after leaving Bank of America

Geez, I can’t get by with $500,000 if I have to run a big corporation like GM, or Bank of America into bankruptcy, woops, I mean run these companies!

Here is what some of the CEO‘s of these large companies made as they ran their companies into the ground according to The New Times

First a little update.

“Executives at companies that have already received money from the Treasury Department would not have to make any changes. But analysts and administration officials are bracing for a huge wave of new losses, largely because of the deepening recession, and many companies that have already received federal money may well be coming back”

Crucial details remained unclear on Tuesday night, including whether the restrictions would apply to all companies that receive money under the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, or whether they would apply only to the “exceptional” companies that were being rescued from collapse.”

The Times went on to list some executives from severely troubled companies and their current salaries.

The chief executive of Bank of America Kenneth D. Lewis, , took home more than $20 million in 2007. Of that, $5.75 million was in salary and bonuses.

Vikram Pandit, who became chief executive of Citigroup in December of 2007 and previously held other senior positions at the bank, made $3.1 million.

The chief executive of General Motors, Richard Wagoner, made $14.4 million, much of it in stock, options and other non-cash benefits. He earned a $1.6 million salary.

Then there’s John Thain CEO of Merrill Lynch who gave billions of dollars to his employees just before his company went under and was taken over by Bank of America. He spent 1.2 million remodeling his office including a $1,450 parchment waste basket.

Darn, at $500,000 a year, the top dogs will not be able to buy parchment waste baskets for $1,450. How about they use a paper bag from the grocery store instead, that’s parchment, sort of.

By the way, in 2004, Bill Gates of Microsoft received a pay raise and with bonus made $901,667. The rest of his wealth came from the company making money and receiving his wealth from stock growth and dividends. What a concept, company makes money, CEO makes money.

Real Estate

Now What? Who Owns This House?

February 4, 2009 jd 2 Comments

So what do you think about people renting out a home that is not theirs? Seems like one way to make money in this economy if you’re looking for free room and board at the local jail house.

Yet this is what happened in West Natomas, in a gated neighborhood that has million dollar homes and such neighbors as the owners of the Sacramento Kings, former Kings star Mike Bibby and other such people with fame and money.

At issue is a 3,361 square foot, 4 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom home that has been vacant for some time. Police investigating the case found that the home had been purchased at auction last Thursday by Aurora Loan Services Inc. of Littleton, Colo, and that Aurora did not know who Phillis Powers was or why someone was living in their home.

However, when police approached the people living in the house, the couple produced a contract allowing them to rent the home for $1,500 a month. The contract had the name of Sacramento real estate broker Phillis Powers. (Hopefully she wouldn’t be a broker much longer.)

To make matters more bizarre, there were two printed signs in the front window claiming the home was the “Private Property of sovereign Woman of republic of California” and that federal and state employees could not access the property.

The sign also mentioned “freeman” which may be a reference to the radical anti-government group that gained fame in 1996 during an 81 day standoff with federal authorities in Montana.

So now, along with everything else that’s happening, we have to watch out for scammers renting homes that they don’t own. Don’t tell the politicians in Sacramento about this, they might use this technique to balance the budget.

For some more of this bizarre story
Sacramento Bee

Real Estate

How Not to Face Foreclosure!

February 2, 2009 jd

From a scene that could have come out of a movie, a husband and wife loaded up with guns, ammunition, and homemade bombs and fought off Otero County, New Mexico, Sheriff Deputies that initially tried to serve the foreclosure notice.

Then they got into a battle with the New Mexico State Police SWAT team comprised of nearly 100 officers. At the end, the wife was dragged out of the home by a bomb robot and the husband was found dead with a rifle at his side.

According to Alamogordon Daily News

“Sgt. Andrew Tingwall said the woman, whom police would not identify, was heavily armed and wearing a bulletproof vest. She was arrested and charged with assault with intent to commit a violent felony on a police officer.

He said officers decided to use the robot to grasp her ankle and pull her out of the house.

Officers pulled her away from where she was lying face down,” Tingwall said. “She had two pistols in her pockets and (was) lying on a shotgun.” Police medical members rendered first aid to the woman. Tingwall said she was taken immediately to a hospital.

“At approximately 2 a.m., SWAT officers made an approach of the residence behind a Dona Ana County bomb robot. The approaching officers discovered that there was a male subject with a rifle lying deceased behind a vehicle.”

The wife is facing felony charges with assault with intent to commit a violent felony on a police officer. She may face additional charges according to the police.

So the score, husband dead, wife in jail, house foreclosed. Facing foreclosure is not easy, but this is not the way to go!

Real Estate

California Sales and Other News

January 30, 2009 jd

sold

Well, the latest news from the California Association of REALTORSÂ® (C.A.R.) states that sales in December of 2008 increased 84.9 percent compared with the same period last year. On the other hand, median home prices fell 41.5 percent during the same period. The median price in December was $281,100 compared to $480,820 in December 2007 according to C.A.R. By the way, in my previous blog I stated that DataQuick’s figures showed a 48 percent increase in sales from a year ago. Maybe we should average the two figures! I think what C.A.R. is comparing is the month of December 2007 to the month of December 2008. You have to be careful to about news stories, no?

“Sales have continued to be strong, exceeding 500,000 units for the fourth consecutive month and year-to-date sales are nearly 27percent above last year” said C.A.R. President James Liptak. (More percentages)

Several things have helped to bring buyers into the market. Declining interest rates have dropped along with declining home prices. In addition home building has dropped to a 17 year low which, while it hurts the economy, it also slows the flow of new homes into the market. First time home buyers are now able to afford a home. Investors are flooding into the market place, knowing that this is a buying opportunity of a lifetime.

By the way, I ranted in an earlier blog about banks being bailed out and how they used the money to help their own bottom line instead of you and I. Here’s an example of what we helped bail out with our money. Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch because it seemed to the bank to be a way to expand their holdings. John Thain was CEO of Merrill Lynch at that time and was allowed to continue as a one of Bank of America’s managers He has since been fired when B of A found out that he had given billions (not millions) of dollars in bonuses to Merrill Lynch employees in his last days as CEO there, while his company was going under and had to be rescued.

You know of course, that the government has given Bank of America 20 billion dollars in rescue monies and another 118 billion is sitting there, if they need it. They need the money because of their acquisitions of FleetBoston Financial, Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. So continuing with the saga of John Thain, John then spent 1.2 million dollars remodeling his office, including $1,450 for a parchment wastebasket. So this is where part of our rescue monies have gone, to pay for a $1,450 parchment waste basket! Read the full story of John Thain at MSNBC

Real Estate

Beware of Foreclosure Scams

January 27, 2009 jd

It seems when people are distressed, there is always someone to help out and someone to take advantage of them. Now there are a lot of swindlers out there trying to take advantage of people who are on the verge of losing their home. If you are like me, I tend to trust people which is a good thing, but can also be bad, so be careful.

If you happen to fall into their trap, you can lose your money, ruin your credit and in most cases have no hope to avoid foreclosure. If you think you are facing foreclosure, be careful and be sure to read the following article from the Los Angeles Times. Here is part of the article.

“The scams typically work like this: Swindlers target homeowners who are behind on their payments, promising to help them renegotiate their mortgages and avoid foreclosure in exchange for a fee. Then, typically, the swindlers take the money and disappear leaving the homeowners in worse straits than when they begun.

The scammers have popped up everywhere in the last year as the real estate market has spiraled down.

From the ubiquitous orange signs on freeway off-ramps that blare “Modify Your Payment” to men impersonating bank executives going door to door, homeowners in trouble are being targeted relentlessly.”

Real Estate

Home Sales Up 48%

January 25, 2009 jd

Custom home built by O'Dell Construction

In a flash of good news in an otherwise depressing economy, residential sales have increased locally and in most of the State to forty eight percent over this time last year. Although there doesn’t seem to be an end to foreclosures, it has resulted in making home purchases attractive to investors and affordable to first time home buyers.

An article from the Appealdemocrat.com states in part:

“Foreclosures and a three-year price plunge continue to drive a rise in home sales in the Mid-Valley and elsewhere in recession-wracked California.

Yuba and Sutter counties more than doubled the number of freestanding houses sold in December compared to a year earlier, according to a report Wednesday from MDA DataQuick of San Diego.

*****
A glut of foreclosed homes has slashed median home prices in Yuba-Sutter and throughout the Central Valley, as defaults have mounted on high-risk mortgage loans that linked artificially low early payments to much larger ones later. DataQuick reported an 48 percent jump in home sales across California from a year earlier, to 38,000 houses and condominiums”

Real Estate

Banks Help Themselves Not Borrowers

January 20, 2009 jd

So why am I so mad at banks? Because they have gotten federal bailout monies to start the lending process for borrowers who are distressed and to create new loans. Instead, they have used the money to fatten their bottom line. Have you tried to get a loan for a home lately? Even if you want an equity loan, you need to have a credit score in the upper 700’s, full documentation of your assets and income.
Now how does this grab you for arrogance? A direct quote from a the chairman of Whitney National Bank of New Orleans, quoted from the New York Times:

“At the Palm Beach Ritz-Carlton last November, John C. Hope III, the chairman of Whitney National Bank in New Orleans, stood before a ballroom full of Wall Street analysts and explained how his bank intended to use its $300 million in federal bailout money.

Make more loans?” Mr. Hope said. “We’re not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans.”

I’ve talked to several people with good credit scores and good income and the banks seem to just put off the loans. In short, the banks do not want to make loans, they want to buy assets. For example, Bank of America has recently bought Countryside, Merrill Lynch and in 2002 they bought FleetBoston Financial for $48 billion. Now, they have received $20 billion to shore up its purchase. Here’s a quote from the BBC News:

“The objective of this program is to foster financial market stability and thereby to strengthen the economy and protect American jobs, savings and retirement security,” the US Treasury said.

In addition to the $20bn cash injection, the Treasury will “provide protection against the possibility of unusually large losses on an asset pool of approximately $118bn of loans”.

If that dosn’t make you mad, let’s start a bank.

Real Estate

Foreign Investors Confident In U.S. Real Estate

January 19, 2009 jd

We may be all doom and gloom about our real estate market, but foreign investors aren’t. It’s good to remember that real estate always has it’s up and downs. I can remember paying $19,000 for my first house I had built when I moved to Nevada County. It had hardwood floors, a real fire place, custom cabinets and it was 1,900 square feet. Now it’s worth much, much more then that. Like I’ve said many times, when times are good, people think it will be good forever, and when its bad, its bad forever.

So anyhow, here’s a quote from The Dallas Morning News

“Foreign investors are more confident about the U.S. real estate market and expect to spend significantly more this year than in 2008, according to survey results released this week by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate.

Foreign lenders plan to increase real estate loans by 54 percent globally and 58 percent in the United States based on transactions completed as of October, the report found. Foreign equity investors plan to increase their investment activity by 40 percent globally and 73 percent in the United States.”

If you have time, read the full article, foreign investors know the United States is a great place to buy real estate. I do too.

Real Estate

Update Nevada County Real Estate

January 14, 2009 jd

Well, I wish I could say prices are going up, but they are not, they’re going down. There have been 141 price changes this month so far, including 24 today. Price reductions vary, but some have reductions of $225,000. A further example of price reductions is a home in Alta Sierra listed at $250,000. The shock is that the bank has a first of $400,000 and they have agreed to a short sale, taking the loss of $150,000!

The positive signs are that the interest rates are at an all time low. As a consequence, mortgage applications have increased as indicated by an article in Realtors Magazine

Here is an excerpt from their article today.

“The Mortgage Bankers Association weekly index of application volume rose to 1,324.8, an increase on a seasonally adjusted basis from 1,143.8 last week. On an unadjusted basis, the index rose 95.7 percent compared to the previous week and was up 52.4 percent compared with the same a week a year ago”

In more good news, the credit market seems to be loosing up. Companies are selling bonds at a pace not seen since last spring. It’s getting easier for companies to issue commercial paper, the short-term loans necessary for quick access to cash. For a full report, see the San Francisco Chronicle article.

San Francisco Chronicle

These are hopeful signs that we are approaching the light at the end of the tunnel, hopefully, that’s not a train!