MERS Wins Again

This should be the end of challenges to MERS. From HW:

One of the more popular claims made by homeowners suing the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, failed to get passed the California Court of Appeals this past week.

In the Taasen v. Family Lending Services case, the appellate court upheld a lower court’s decision by finding even though MERS did not have physical possession of the original note, it still could initiate a non-judicial foreclosure as long as it was the nominated beneficiary of the deed of trust, MERS said.

“MERS’ authority to assign mortgages has been upheld in hundreds of lawsuits,” said Janis Smith, vice president of corporate communications for MERS. “Not only has the notion that MERS doesn’t have authority to assign been routinely rejected as baseless by courts, including multiple courts in the California system, it’s also an ineffective strategy for avoiding foreclosure after default.”

The case involves an argument often made by homeowners that MERS cannot foreclose on a homeowner unless they possess the actual note.

 

$150,000,000

Thanks to daytrip who sent this in from the real estalker:

…from Lenny Lemmetellya, an unimpeachable source deep inside the Platinum Triangle real estate game, the lavish and downright legendary Los Angeles (CA) estate known as Owlwood is quietly being shopped around with an astronomical (but not surprising) asking price of $150,000,000.

The sprawling Holmby Hills spread (above), set between Sunset Boulevard and the famously clannish Los Angeles Country Club, has over the years been owned by a long list of high profile people. Owlwood‘s current owner, however, is a relatively low profile lady named Dawn Arnall, the billionaire widow of sub-prime mortgage mega-mogul Roland Arnall, who went to meet The Great Loan Processor in the Sky in 2008.

Long before he acted as George W. Bush’s a U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands (2006-2008), Roland Arnall founded Ameriquest, the company that pretty much invented stated income home loans, otherwise known as “no-doc” or “liar’s loans” in which little (or even no) verification of income or financial resources was required to secure a mortgage. Although his fortune has been greatly reduced by the recent mortgage meltdown and near collapse of the American economy, at one point Mister Arnall’s estimated net worth ran up to around three billion bucks. Perhaps due to declining health and/or wisely prescient of the economic collapse just around the corner, Mister Arnall got out of the sub-prime mortgage business in 2007 when he sold most or all of his interest in Ameriquest to Citigroup for an undisclosed amount of money.

An old video tour, back when it was listed for $39.9M:

Stale & Bleak

As summer winds down, the only listings left are those that have been picked over – and the majority have been kicked around for months. 

Here is the rundown of the current active listings of detached homes from Carlsbad to La Jolla:

REOs – 10

Short sales – 30

“Traditional” – 1,007

Total = 1,047

I guess we can call this a non-distressed market?

But it appears to also be an un-motivated market too, because anyone who is close to having the right price has sold by now – at least anyone whose list price was within 5% to 10% of being right.

Yet the majority of elective sellers aren’t willing to adjust their price enough to get in the game.

571 of the 1,007 houses for sale were listed for sale prior to June 1st, and their average is 160 days on market.

They are missing the hottest market in years.  There have been 17% fewer houses listed this year, compared to 2011, and mortgage rates are setting new-record lows every day.

For those buyers hoping to spend less than $1,000,000, the news couldn’t be much more bleak.  Ignoring the majority because they are crusty and stale by now, let’s focus on the 436 houses listed since June 1, 2012.

Of those 436, there are 327 of those priced over $1,000,000, which leaves just 109 houses for sale priced under $1,000,000 that have been on the market for less than 53 days in NSDCC (an area that has approximately 80,000 houses total).

 

Fast Help For Realtors

Hat tip to T&W for sending this in from dsnews.com:

Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Stockton) recently introduced a bill to speed up the short sale process by requiring subordinate mortgage lien holders to make a decision on a short sale within 45 days.

McNerney’s bill proposes that if the lender does not make a decision within the given time period, the short sale will be approved on the 46th day.

The bill, titled Fast Help For Homeowners (FHFH) Act, received strong support from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

“Second mortgage lien holders frequently hold up and cancel the short sale transaction while trying to collect the largest possible payout in exchange for releasing the homeowner’s lien, even though the secondary lien holder often gets nothing if the home ends up going into foreclosure,” said NAR President Moe Veissi, in a statement. “While efforts have been made to improve primary lien holders’ response times, issues still abound with second and subsequent lien holders, and this legislation is a step in the right direction.”

The NAR also stated that its members continue to report delays in completing short sale transactions due to drawn out response times for whether or not an offer was accepted.

Lowball Time Yet?

To be able to land a successful lowball, it would be nice if the frenzy would die down a little. While it seems like the market should be cooling off, you hear about ones like this in an area where those without a view are under $1,000,000.

How much did the previous sales price of $2.7M (in 2007) play into the equation?

Quad-Amputee Smart Home

We have been following the incredible work being done by the Stephen Siller Tunnel-to-Towers Foundation, and the Gary Sinise Foundation to build homes for amputees coming home from the war.

Here is their latest project:

Thinking of Refinancing?

Hat tip to shadash for bringing this up, and to Kingside for the clarification – from CAR:

New Anti-Deficiency Protection for Refinance Loans Made After January 1, 2013

Starting January 1, 2013, a new California law will protect homeowners who default on their refinance loans from personal liability for any deficiency following foreclosure.

Existing anti-deficiency law protects a borrower from personal liability for the difference between the principal balance and what the lender receives at foreclosure if the loan is a purchase money loan secured by an owner-occupied property with one-to-four residential units.

The new law, Senate Bill 1069, extends that anti-deficiency protection to include any loan used to refinance the purchase money loan, plus any loan fees, costs, and related expenses for the refinance. The anti-deficiency protection, however, does not extend to any “cash out” in a refinance, which is when the lender advances new principal not applied to any obligation owed under the purchase money loan.

This new law only applies to refinance loans or other credit transactions used to refinance a purchase money loan, or subsequent refinances of a purchase money loan, that are executed on or after January 1, 2013.

For purposes of this law, any payment of principal shall be deemed to be applied first to the principal balance of the purchase money loan, and then to the principal balance of any new advance and interest payments shall be applied to any interest due and owing.

C.A.R. supported Senate Bill 1069 in the legislative process as many homeowners do not realize that, by refinancing, they lose their anti-deficiency protection for a purchase money loan. Senate Bill 1069 is similar to Senate Bill 1178 sponsored by C.A.R. in 2010, but vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.

Trashing Home = 270 Days in Jail

From the nctimes.com:

For crimes associated with trashing their foreclosed Winchester home, a former San Diego police officer and his wife each received a sentence of 270 days in jail and five years on probation.

In rendering the sentence, Judge Mark Mandio at the Southwest Justice Center decided against handing out the maximum punishment of four years in prison to Robert Conrad Acosta, 40, and Monique Evette Acosta, 37.

A jury convicted the couple in May of defrauding their lender by ripping out fixtures in the home and attempting to sell them after they were kicked out in June 2010 for failing to make mortgage payments.

Mandio cited their lack of prior convictions and the damage that long-term incarceration could do to them and their family as reasons for giving them lighter sentences.

“This was an act of anger,” Mandio said. “I think it was out of character for each of these individuals.”

Apparently incensed that they were getting booted from the home on Via Laguna, the Acostas tore the house apart, taking nearly everything of value and leaving the property in shambles.

Jurors saw a video and photographs taken after the family’s departure that showed piles of rubble, empty doorways where doors were removed, damaged rock facings, spray-painted walls, tile grouting saturated with black hair dye and loose wires sticking from walls from which light fixtures had been taken. The kitchen literally was gutted for everything of worth.

The swimming pool was filed with cypress trees that had been cut down and dumped there along with other debris.

The Acostas contended they had a right to take the items from the house because they had purchased them. However, the deed of trust that ran with the outstanding loan on the property prohibited the removal of permanent fixtures regardless of who installed them, according to evidence presented at trial.

Investigators discovered Robert Acosta had advertised many of the items for sale on the online marketplace Craig’slist and the couple were arrested.

While awaiting trial, Robert Acosta resigned from his position with the San Diego Police Department.

During Friday’s sentencing proceeding, the judge rejected requests by the Acostas’ defense attorneys for a reduction in their convictions from felonies to misdemeanors.

(more…)

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