Yalda's Blog

Countrywide and Landsafe Class Action Lawsuit

Yalda Alawi (WestUSA Realty Revelation) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:20:42 -0600

I wonder how much of this is still occurring? I deal with banks, including Countrywide, daily negotiating short sales. I have had Countrywide order 3 appraisals for the subject property - all with in 5 days of each other. I don't recall having the appraiser ever show up, but I know the cost of those appraisals has been tacked on to the balance of the loan. Hmmmmm.............

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SEATTLE - A group of Washington homeowners this week filed a lawsuit against Countrywide, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and the nation's largest mortgage company, claiming the mortgage giant illegally rigged the appraisal process in a scheme to boost profits at the expense of homeowners and independent appraisers.

Filed under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Practices Act (RICO), the suit claims that Countrywide forces homeowners to use its wholly owned subsidiary LandSafe, for appraisals. The company then turns around and subcontracts the work to independent appraisers while charging homeowners as much as 200 percent of the actual cost of the appraisal. Download Hagens_Berman_ClassAction

The suit also contends that if independent appraisers do not accept Countrywide's fee structure or appraisal guidelines, they stand the risk of being blacklisted for further work by the industry giant.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, seeks to represent all homeowners who purchased or refinanced their home through Countrywide and LandSafe, and asks the court to award plaintiffs damages.

According to the suit, LandSafe turns the appraisal work to a third-party, demands they follow the developed fee structure and if they refuse, adds them to a field review list that identifies appraisers Countrywide will not work with.

The lawsuit claims LandSafe subcontracts much if its appraisal work to a network of independent appraisers, but offers them rates as low as $140 per appraisal. The company then marks the costs of the appraisal back as high as $410 when invoicing homeowners.

Plaintiffs claim the practice is damaging to homeowners who pay the inflated fee and appraisers, who are forced to work below market standards or risk losing work in the future.

If you purchased or refinanced your home through Countrywide and LandSafe you can join this suit. You can also contact attorneys at (206) 623-7292.

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Yalda Alawi

Phoenix Real Estate

Great Realtor Newsletter

Yalda Alawi (WestUSA Realty Revelation) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:05:06 -0500

Hello everyone,

The very first piece of marketing that I signed up for when I got my license was this awesome newsletter. I have been using them for over four years, and all my clients, past clients, COI, and potential leads love it!! I thought I would share it with fellow agents. I get a new newsletter every month, one month geared towards buyers, and one month geared towards sellers. It is emailed to me, which I post up on my website and email to my database. A great way to make you look very professional!

Go to http://www.resulti.com/ and check it out. If you want to see my old issues you can find them on my website http://www.myrealpro.com/Home_Owner_Newsletter/page_1102457.html . If you do sign up, please let them know you heard it from me. Money well spent!!

With a smile,

Yalda Alawi

Phoenix Real Estate

Hello

Yalda Alawi (WestUSA Realty Revelation) — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 14:18:17 -0600

Hello :)

I am looking forward to having this group grow and prosper.

I specialize in Chandler and Gilbert Real Estate. If you have any questions about those two cities, please feel free to contact me anytime.

Housing at the Tipping Point

Yalda Alawi (WestUSA Realty Revelation) — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 14:41:32 -0500

By Martin Crutsinger - AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON — Housing prices, slumping after a five-year boom, are projected to decline in half of the nation's metropolitan areas, with the Northeast, Florida and California among the areas hardest hit.

The forecast by Moody's Economy.com, a private research firm, presents one of the starkest views yet of the housing slowdown that has been gathering force in recent months.

The West Chester, Pa., forecasting firm projects that the median sales price for an existing home will decline in 2007 by 3.6 percent, which would be the first decline for an entire year in home prices since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The forecast is included in a 195-page report, "Housing at the Tipping Point," which The Associated Press obtained before its general release on Wednesday.

The report projected that 133 of the nation's 279 metropolitan areas would suffer price declines. That is quite a contrast from the past five years when low mortgage rates pushed sales to five consecutive annual records and prices in the hottest sales areas skyrocketed.

But this year, the once red-hot housing market has cooled significantly. Some analysts are worried that the slowdown could become so severe that it could drag the entire country into a recession, much as the bursting of the stock market bubble in 2000 led to the 2001 slump.

The housing report said the biggest percentage price decline will be in Danville, Ill., where prices have already fallen by 18.7 percent from the peak in the second quarter of 2005 to a low-point in the first three months of this year. That setback occurred because of layoffs in autos and other manufacturing industries, which depressed the local economy.

The second biggest decline is projected to occur in the Fort Myers, Fla., area, a fall of 18.6 percent from the peak in the final three months of last year to a low-point for prices that is projected to occur in the second quarter of 2007.

The 133 areas with slumping prices are concentrated in the states of California and Florida and the Northeast corridor from southern Maine to just south of Washington, D.C., as well as boom areas of Nevada and Arizona and some depressed sections of the Midwest such as Detroit.

Of the areas with falling prices, 72 were forecast to hit their lowpoint by the end of this year with the rest seeing a trough for prices in 2007, 2008 or even as late as 2009.

But even in areas which have already hit a lowpoint for prices, the rebound in prices is not expected to occur quickly.

"Prices are going to go down and stay down for awhile. It will take at least a couple of years to work off the excesses of the last decade," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com and the principal author of the report.

Not all parts of the country will experience price declines. The report said Texas, the Southeastern states other than Florida and much of the Midwest Farm Belt should be immune from price declines although price increases were expected to be modest.

The report said the most vulnerable areas for price declines were those regions where red-hot markets attracted speculators known as "flippers" who purchased homes in hopes of selling them fast for a quick profit.

"Housing's downturn has turned even more dramatic with the rapid flight of the flipper from the market," the report said. "These investors have gone from sending home sales and prices shooting higher to driving sales and prices lower."

The report described the current environment as a "correction" and not a "crash" but it cautioned that there were downside risks that could make the slowdown more serious.

A big threat is that the fall in home prices could have a significant impact on consumer spending patterns. The so-called wealth effect pushed consumer spending higher during the housing boom as soaring home prices made homeowners feel more wealthy and thus more inclined to spend money. But falling home prices could have the reverse effect and depress consumer spending.

"We believe the housing downturn will weigh on the economic expansion but will not break it. But there are risks," Zandi said.

The slowdown in housing occurred as a result of a two-year campaign by the Federal Reserve to push interest rates higher as a way of slowing the economy enough to keep inflation under control.

The Fed has kept rates unchanged for the past two months and many economists believe the central bank has finished its rate hikes as long as inflation pressures keep falling.

The belief that the current economic slowdown is restraining inflation has helped push mortgage rates lower with the 30-year mortgage now at a six-month low of 6.31 percent, an improvement that is expected to help put a floor on housing's fall.

Source: Moody's Economy http://www.economy.com/

Four Reasons Why That House Didn't Sell....

Yalda Alawi (WestUSA Realty Revelation) — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 16:18:13 -0500

Boy, are you lucky you are not the seller of that house. You know the one—it’s been sitting on the market for so long that you forgot what it looked like without the For Sale sign in front of it. They decreased the price several times, there are people stopping by to look at it, but the stubborn For Sale sign remains. You feel bad watching the poor Realtor holding it open to no avail.

What gives? Well, it could be:

Its Price

There are soooo many reasons why setting the listing price too high is a bad idea. Fewer buyers will even want to look at the home. Fewer Realtors will bother showing it. Buyers who can afford the higher price will want a bigger, better home. Buyers who would want that home will not be able to afford its price. An overpriced home almost always ends up sitting on the market for too long, the seller needlessly ends up paying months of additional mortgage payments, and then is usually forced to sell the home for less than its fair market value.

Why, oh, why then overprice it? Different sellers have different reasons, but they ultimately have one thing in common: they are counting that a clueless buyer will show up and pay what is asked. Fortunately for the buyer, there is the Internet. And there are the buyer’s agents. Today’s homebuyers are more informed than ever before, so sellers who overprice their homes should brace for a long, long time on the market. Also considering our current market, there are hundreds of homes available in a Buyer's price range, why would they go over their range?

Its Location

There should be no surprise here—the location of a home is extremely important. A home closer into town, like in Ahwatukee, will have a better chance of selling than a home further out, like in Queen Creek. Personally I like the homes in Chandler and Gilbert - a nice in between location. And when I say location, I don’t mean only the part of town that the home is in, but its immediate surroundings as well. If the neighboring properties are unkept, with overgrown lawns and peeling paint, your home’s appeal will decrease as well. Unfortunately, there is little to be done about the home’s location (unless the home has wheels), so usually the only remedy is to price it properly. Remember, there’s a buyer for every home, if the price is right.

Its Condition

There once was a time when people actually had free time. It seems that we didn’t work quite as much as today, moms didn’t have to schlep kids from one after school activity to another all the time, and days just seemed to have more hours. So it was no wonder that there were families who bought fixer-uppers, and working in their free time little by little, remodeled the ugly ducklings into beautiful swans. But today’s buyers are different. People are so busy that very few have time (or desire) to do this. The only folks actively looking for fixer-uppers are investors searching for bargains. Regular buyers are looking for homes that are in sparkling condition and ready to move into. What usually gets sellers in trouble here is not that they don’t want to prepare their home for sale properly, but when you live in a home for a long time it becomes hard to be objective about its condition. In other words, what a longtime occupant of the home considers a perfectly acceptable condition may not be acceptable to someone seeing it for the first time.

This is why it’s a good idea to have a neutral third party look at the home first and suggest improvements before it goes up for sale. I, for example, offer this type of service for free to homeowners in our area. Checklist in hand, I walk through each room and recommend cost-effective improvements that can maximize the home’s value and minimize the time on the market. Everyone thinking of selling soon should have a similar “checkup” performed. That includes both inside and outside 'check ups'.

Its Marketing

Have you heard of the 3-P marketing strategy? Put the sign in the yard, Place the listing in the MLS, and then Pray. As you can imagine, in our noisy world this marketing “plan” is not enough to attract enough qualified buyers. This is why sharp listing agents will have aggressive marketing plans that will include a number of different methods of advertising, such as the MLS, the Internet, print ads, open houses, broker tours, local mailings, brochures, networking with other agents, working with relocation services, etc. The more exposure the home gets, the better. Wise sellers discuss the agent’s marketing plan before listing the house, and hopefully get it in writing. With more than 80% of home Buyers turning to the Internet to look for homes, a tech savvy agent with a true internet presense will be a home seller's best ally.

The bottom line is—there’s a buyer for every home. If a home is not selling, an honest re-evaluation of its price, location, condition and marketing should reveal the underlying cause and enable the seller to take corrective action.

With almost 39,000 Active Homes for Sale in the Valley, and 2,600 in Chandler, and another 2,600 in Gilbert, the competition is stiff. Your home must stand out, both in appearance and price, compared to all the rest.

What are Mortgage Points?

Yalda Alawi (WestUSA Realty Revelation) — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 17:52:56 -0500

Let's demystify these "points" you hear about in every mortgage commercial you see or read. Points are a type of fee borrowers typically pay up front in connection with obtaining a loan. One point (short for "percentage point") is equal to 1 percent of the loan amount. For example, on a $150,000 loan, one point would cost $1,500. ($150,000 x .01)

Now there are two types of points: Origination Points and Discount Points. Origination points are charged in order to cover the lender's cost associated with issuing you the loan. The number of origination points charged may vary from lender to lender, and can sometimes be negotiable. The more difficult and time consuming issuing the loan is for the lender, the more you might pay. Discount points have a different purpose. They are designed to lower your interest rate. As a rule of thumb, paying one discount point will lower your interest rate by 0.25 percent on a fixed-rate mortgage. It will vary from loan to loan however. For example, a lender may offer you a mortgage with 6.50 percent interest rate and zero discount points, or 6.25 percent if you pay one discount point, or 6.00 percent if you pay 2 points, and so on. Furthermore, you can agree to pay points to lower the rate to something more agreeable. That is something you should also keep in mind especially if your closing costs are covered by the Seller or New Home Builder. Again, please note that this is just a general rule, and the actual cost of reducing the interest rate fluctuates with the market and type of loan.

Discount points can also be "negative." In the above example, 6.50 percent was the interest rate you would get if you opted to pay zero points. But if you agreed to a higher interest rate of 6.75 percent, then the lender would pay you one discount point. You would not receive this amount in cash, and you would not be able to use it toward the down payment, but you could use it toward your closing costs. This type of loan is often referred to as a "premium loan." The no-points and no-closing- cost loans you see advertised on TV and on the Net usually fall into this category. You pay a higher rate, but your closing costs are covered.

I recently showed homes in Chandler, Gilbert, and Queen Creek where the New Home Builder was paying for the buyer's entire closing costs. They offered such a large incentive that there is even money for the buyer to reduce the interest rate he is offered. If you have been thinking of buying but were told you couldn't buy, especially if you didn't have enough funds to cover your closing costs - give me a call. I will gladly explain any of the information I provided here and review your situation specifically to see if there is anything I can offer to help you. Not all agents and lenders are familiar with all the options out there for home buyers. In the Real Estate industry you really have to have the right people, who have knowledge and experience, to help guide the way.

Blame it on the Builders

Yalda Alawi (WestUSA Realty Revelation) — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:32:56 -0500

The Phoenix real estate market has changed considerably since last year - from a HOT SELLERS MARKET with only 7,000 active listings, to a BUYERS MARKET with over 40,000 active listings. What does that mean? That there are more homes for sale and buyers have many to choose from. Only the homes priced competitively and looking their very best will sell - and leave the rest in the dust.

But who is kicking everyone's butt?? The NEW HOME BUILDERS!! They saw an awesome year last year, with waiting lists and lotteries - people actually camping out over night for a chance to grab one of the few lots released. But the market changed - for numerous reasons - and now they have many 'spec' homes. "Spec" homes are homes that have already been built or soon to be finished - and the builder needs to get rid of these homes PRONTO. So what do they do?? They offer amazing incentives - $25,000 in upgrades, some places even offered to $50,000 in upgrades. Now they are going past that and DROPPING THE PRICES. Dropping the prices WELL BELOW what regular home sellers in the area are selling the same home for. I have seen homes that were being sold just a few months ago for $370,000 now being sold for $300,000. YES, ITS TRUE!! Brand new never lived in homes. How can the poor 'single home owner' compete? Honestly, they really can't and that is why they are hurting - and hurting very bad.

This affects the area values, too. When those homes sell at those low prices, the appraisals for other homes get affected, too. If you are trying to sell a 1900 sq ft home for $250,000 but the builders are selling 2100 sq ft homes for $225,000 - what can you do? Any lender will look at that and it will affect the future appraisal of homes.

Some sellers - those who need to sell and have the room in the equity of their home are dropping their prices, too. They are not making the same money that they would have made 3 or 6 months ago. But what can you do? They need to sell.

Those that don't 'need' to sell are taking the home off the market - waiting this 'selling frenzy' to pass - or are renting them out until the frenzy is over. Why the selling frenzy? Many reason but one of them is the investors that came and gobbled up the homes last year are selling them now.

Phoenix metro still has the growth - 375 new people, net, move to the Valley each day! But it will take some time to move the inventory of homes before prices start going up steadily. Some estimate about 18 months.

My advice? If you don't NEED to sell, don't sell now. Wait.... Don't follow the herd.

If you MUST sell? Be realistic about the price - look at the recently sold homes and price below that - and take a look at what builders in your area are selling, too. And be realistic about the time it will take to sell it. Long gone are the "sold in one week" homes. Average selling time is about 90 to 120 days - if priced right from the beginning and marketed correctly.

A yard sign and input into the MLS won't just cut it anymore. You need National, Local, and Neighborhood Exposure - and don't forget the all important WEB EXPOSURE. With over 80% of all buyers turning to the NET before starting to buy, you need to make sure your home is all over the net. A truly TECH SAVVY agent will help with that - a tech savvy agent like yours truly :).