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Archive for February 2012
Two More Bad Real Estate Agents Meet Long Arm of the Law
Four people in Northern California have pleaded guilty to a mortgage fraud scheme that lined their pockets with more than $20 million. Among them, two real estate agents by the names of Cristeta Lagarejos and Nelda Asuncion. They cooperated in the fraud.
Hopefully, the California DRE will pursue both of these people. Asuncion’s license has been expired since 2008. Lagarejos license expires on the 12th of next month, but it should not be renewed by the state. Interestingly enough, Lagarejos has no notes against her for disciplinary action according the license lookup service provided by the DRE.
The case involved a couple, Ronald Nelson and his wife Edith, both from Discovery Bay. They used straw buyers to purchase more than a dozen properties in Northern California and they obtained loans on additional properties that they owned.
All four people have entered guilty pleas to federal charges of bank fraud and tax evasion. Good riddance!
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And Another Agent Horror Story – Time to Increase Licensing Requirements
As anyone who reads this blog knows, I think it is far too easy to get a real estate license. You don’t have to look too hard to find one example after another of agents who shouldn’t be involved in California real estate.
This past week, the FBI arrested a San Diego County agent, his wife and several other people who were allegedly involved in a loan fraud scheme from Read the rest of this entry »
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Getting Top Dollar for Your Home in a Down Market
Everyone wants a bargain. That makes it difficult for home sellers in this market to get what they think they deserve from their home. But there are some things that you can do that will help significantly. One of them is having your home inspected before you sell it and then making needed repairs.
Selling a home in this market can take a lot of time. That’s especially true if you are not trying to sell your home by having the lowest priced. Because it can take so long to find a buyer, once you receive an offer, you probably don’t want to have the house fall out of escrow as a result of the inspection. As a Read the rest of this entry »
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Foreclosures Likely to Rise as Direct Result of State Settlement with Banks
It is no small irony that this past week’s announcement of a settlement between the nation’s five largest lenders and 49 states is actually expected to cause a spike in foreclosure activity. The settlement negotiations directly involved the procedures that banks use when foreclosing. But now that those talks are done, and an agreement has been reached, these same banks now feel that they are on firm legal footing to proceed with many foreclosures that they had held off on. The end result is likely to be a big increase in the number of foreclosures in California in the coming few months.
The banks involved in the negotiations had been reluctant to foreclose on properties because any increase in foreclosure activity was likely to bring added Read the rest of this entry »
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The Worst Kept House I’ve Ever Seen
Anyone who works in real estate can tell you that when it comes to short sales and bank owned properties, you get to see a lot of houses in very tough shape. I’ve been in houses with broken water pipes… with the water still turned on, with all of the electrical wiring pulled out, with all of the appliances having been stolen, and the list goes on and on. But the worst houses are often the ones that people are still living in. The sad thing is, that at least in some of these cases, if the owners would just clean up their homes a little, they might not have to do a short sale at all.
This is the junk in the yard near the house.
You never know what you will find when you go to a house that people are still living in. I’m betting that some of the agents who read this blog will have walked into a few homes where the junk is piled to the ceiling and there are pathways through the junk to walk on. Or worse, junk piled to the ceiling and no pathway through it.
Last week, I was showing a client a home and it was the worst that I’ve ever been in. And that is saying a lot. Fortunately, I had warned my client that the exterior of the home was in bad shape and there was some junk in the front yard. But it did have a very nice rose garden.
When I stepped through the front door though, I was completely unprepared for what I found. Not only were there pathways through the junk, but there were bird cages everywhere. Some of them were huge. And they were all full of very live, chirping and squawking birds.
They were in the dining room. The living room. The bedrooms. But that wasn’t the half of it. We then stepped out into a back yard that covered around 11,000 square feet. That’s where the real fun began.
About half of the yard was covered in junk. That’s what the first picture above is. The other half was covered in more bird cages. Actually, these cages were the size of a small house and there were three or four of them. There were pigeons, chickens and parrots. One cage was full of gray parrots. I don’t have any idea what these are worth, but I’m betting that it was a pretty penny.
Back yard of the same house. Large objects in the background are bird cages.
The sad thing about this is that the house itself wasn’t a bad layout. In fact, the interior wasn’t in horrible shape. Even the kitchen was large and functional. Clear out the junk, throw up some new paint and water the lawn and the owners may have been in the black on the house. Sell some of the birds, and they may have been able to pay down their loan enough to refinance.
When you see this sort of thing, it’s very sad.
Needless to say, my client decided to move on to another property.
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