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Latest REOs
- $199,900 :: 3125 Watermarke Pl, Irvine CA, 92612
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- $889,900 :: 14 Upland, Irvine CA, 92602
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“$35,000 in legal fees and locksmith bills as well as increased security and cleaning.”
Why not just say 34000 in legal fees? To continue the previous discussion on lawyers, simply put, they are way too expensive for limited skill. I don’t see why lawyers make so much. Its like the 6% commission…we all were used to it until redfin and discount brokerages. I know there are some do it yourself law firms but I can’t wait till true pricing discounts happen.
I have spoken with some lawyers who are amazed at the rates they can charge. It isn’t the ones who charge by the hour that make the real money though. The ones that take cases on a percentage of the judgment hit the real home runs.
“The ones that take cases on a percentage of the judgment hit the real home runs.”
Right, because litigation can cost tens of thousands (even millions in complex economic litigation), and a lawyer can eat all of it if he loses. So lawyers socialize the cost of one case upon another through high contingency fees. If plaintiffs had to pay legal bills up front to litigate their cases, their rates would be lower, but the poor and even middle class could never be able to pursue their legitimate claims.
As Eddie Felson said, “25% of something big is better than 100% of nothing.”
I’m not going to defend the female loan mod attorney’s ludicrous case, but let’s not disparage all lawyers because of horror stories. Remember, for every BS case, there’s a lawyer on the other side fighting against it.
At least lawyers have state bars that can take away their licenses. RE agents have nothing other than the penal code.
On the other hand, no realtor will send me a $2500 bill to cover the cost of a phone call.
Yeah, good luck with do-it-yourself law. Might want to look into saving money with DIY brain surgery as well.
One reason even brokers get their own agents is you have someone to sue if something goes horribly wrong. That 6% is insurance.
Who do you sue when you commit malpractice in your own legal case? Trust me, practicing law is not as easy as it looks on Boston Legal.
JDSoCal is correct.
I have assisted clients who signed financial assets over INCLUDING A PENSION to an soon-to-be ex-spouse.
I have assisted a woman who LOST PHYSICAL AND LEGAL CUSTODY OF HER DAUGHTER - even though she had a pre-existing court order from Kern County - ALL BECAUSE SHE WANTED TO SELF-REPRESENT ($$$).
Please, unless you understand and know courtroom protocols and terminology, know how to draft legal documents, draft Declarations, and Motions: Please do not self-represent.
~Misstrial
You are both right. In today’s system, you’d be insane to self-represent.
Of course, it is in attorney’s best interest to ensure that the law is always too complex for a normal person to understand. That way they can charge as much as $800/hr for phone calls, $35 for running a document through a copier, and $25,000 for customizing a document that they use all the time.
Look, I’m a software engineer—I know all about complex systems. I know that talking to clients is time-consuming, that not every call goes some where that leads to payment for the time, all that.
I even know that taking something I use all the time and customizing it for a particular client can be very costly and time consuming.
I recognize that it takes a lot of training to be proficient in the field. But really… is it 8x as hard as every other technical profession on the planet?
If I take a difficult project that will keep me busy for a month, it won’t cost my client $100,000 + expenses. On the other hand, it is a very simple legal problem that can be solved for “only $100,000”.
It seems like, if you’re going to have one time in your life that you need to hire an attorney, it is already cheaper to just become one and represent yourself, and stop having your access to justice dangled over your head by vultures who know that you have know choice because they rigged the system to make sure you didn’t.
We have about 15M unemployed people in America. Shouldn’t it be possible to get some of them to drive around and check on these houses? You could check on 15 homes/day, say once a week, that’s ~100 homes per squat-spotter (squatters in this case are people who never had any right to be in the home, or who had been evicted, not the wait-til-foreclosure type).
Say there are a million REOs out there (I don’t know the number and would rather guess than google). You’d need 10k spotters nationwide. Plus, it would be concentrated in the hardest hit areas, providing well targeted stimulus.
That banks can’t keep squatters out shows how poorly they run the operations side of their business. Most showed to be delinquent in the underwriting of their loans, many are sloppy at best, maliciously careless at worst in the foreclosure process, and they can’t manage their property portfolio. What are they good at?
“What are they good at?”
Collecting their bonuses.
I grew up thinking that bonuses were a form of compensation that rewarded hard work and excellent decision making skills. Boy was I wrong. I wasted most of my college years slaving away in dimly lit labs late in the evenings and through many weekends; meanwhile the ‘business majors’ partied hard and now that they’ve established careers in the financial industry they’re doing very well for themselves.
Don’t kid yourself; the streets aren’t full of unemployed banksters desperately seeking work (that story does make nice headlines however). I know plenty of thirty-somethings who work in the financial industry in NYC who haven’t even flinched through the downturn. Sure their starting salaries were relatively low, but ten years into their careers and 90% of them are doing very well.
I live in NYC and I think your shot against the bankers is undeserved. If the Bush tax cuts aren’t extended, they may have their a marginal tax rate going to 39.6% from 36%. This means a banker with $1m bonus will now only net $604k instead of $640k. Which means they just get a Lincoln Town Car not a stretch limo to the Hamptons. Think what that stress does when you are trading CDO’s? Have you no sympathy or decency for these hardworking middle class people? They have it rough (though not as rough at the 44 million Americans living in poverty I suppose)
The Bush tax cuts, while good on paper, should expire IMHO (and I’m a registered Repuke who’s more of a Libertarian).
This is the only way we can have a good ol’ reset of this pathetic damn economy. I’m only thinking about a damn reset, not the fact that tax cuts are good for average J6Ps by keeping what they’ve earned.
Hey, I have an idea winston. We could have a large band of thugs check out these homes, thugs like, say, the OCSD or even better, the LASD, and they could beat people and then jail them for slave labor.
Of course the thugs will all make $100,000+ per year with full benefits and 3% per year of retirement credit at 50 years of age. They are HEROES.
Here is part of your dream winston, do you have the fortitude to watch it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH9k8L3oDa4
Saw the video. Looks like people blaming all cops because of some bad ones. I don’t expect perfection, but accountability, yeah. Lots of things not seen and this is teh extreme. So what. It all happens. Hold em accountable later. You wanna change culture? Good luck.
Winstongator,
How dare you propose a plan to put lots of people to work for preventative measures and lay-off some high price lawyers and banksters for fees after the fact. People are unwilling to pay for an ounce of prevention, but willing to pay a pound for a cure or at least a claim for a cure.
Make work jobs are a waste. They destroy viable jobs. If it makes financial sense, let the bank hire these people. If it isnt profitable, the private sector wont touch a failed business venture. In your twisted “ounce of prevention” logic, you are sentencing everyone to invest, via govt, in a money losing venture. Such is the mindset of most Americans.
The “its an investment in our future” argument is complete bs.
Banks don’t want to keep the system going using their current set of high price employees. You scrach me, I scrach you. The arrangement works well for them, but you and I pick up the tab via taxes and bailouts. It would be much cheaper to keep the squatter outs then have a legal process to do a civil eviction. A FC on a good non-defective GSE backed loan is money on the front end of origination, service and extra for the FC fees for the banks and lawyers. It will be just another service fee. Better to write preforming loans using preventatve measures—requiring down payment, reasonable DTI ratio, employment history, credit history, etc. I banks held on to the loans, they would have a vested interest to write preforming loans. The govt. loan modifications, refinancing are removing liablity from the banks and transfer the resurection of non-preforming loans to the taxpayers.
provider,
Sorry about your house troubles.
Please keep us posted. Some dreams are nightmares.
Whoa, if it isn’t profitable, the private sector wont’ touch it. Isn’t this blog dedicated to the housing bubble - a venture so unprofitable that it nearly crippled the world economy?
Where have you been? ‘sentencing everyone to invest..in a money losing venture’? Don’t we own the GSE’s, and large stakes in Citi & other banks? I think we’re the biggest shareholder in Citi, and the FDIC and GSE’s own a bunch of properties. So, it would be in the gov’t's, and thus ours, to be proactive about property maintenance.
They wouldn’t be make-work. Watching REO and abandoned properties serves a real benefit, and it isn’t something that would require a cop/security for every property.
I might have been exaggerating the numbers a little, but there’s a significant amount of work to be done to reduce damage to and clean-up even gov’t owned REO’s.
The private sector took these because the government made it a good deal. There were two possibilities:
1: it works out, and they make outsized profits.
2: it goes belly-up (quite likely) and the government steps in and mops up virtually all of the losses, and very few companies actually suffer.
Sure, we let 2 or 3 big firms fail, but then we step in and save everybody else. All that matters is that you aren’t among the first to go insolvent.
Damn you, Irvine Renter! I innocently clicked on that link to read about poor pathetic Randy Quaid, and got sucked into the TMZ black hole. Once you enter, you just can’t stop. Now I’ve spent an hour with “‘Memba Them?” I am wasting my life.
Oh, and that 1988 Biopic about LBJ was awesome. Quaid deserved that Golden Globe. He is much more talented than his brother.
Welcome to TMZ. BTW…they are extemely accuarate. They had MJ dead before anyone else. I have to read TMZ before IR each morning.
You know what makes me want to squat? THIS SITE, and I plan on squatting in the near future, you you my dear blog, have helped coach me in the proper way to do, as well as continue to point out the benefits of doing it. Moral hazard? PAhlease. Lord save me from your followers.
Swiller,
This site is just comment on the current squatter enhancement programs by the banksters and their co-conspirators in the govt, and media-self interest group lackeys. Moral hazard for the banksters and politicians are just for the common folks and not them. Bailout of billion for the banksters: absolute necessary for the economy. Squatting or late payment for common folk: a moral hazard.
As for you squatting, that’s you’re decision. If not taken, you might missing the window of opportunity (buy before you’re priced out of the market).
The squatting will end once the banksters, i.e., WS, rewrite the defective loans into non-defective non-preforming loans backed and packed by the govt. If you have a non-defective loan, IMHO your chances of squatting are greatly deminished. The liability will be the investors due to known risk or the GSE for packing implied backing. Either way, the taxpayers will be asked/forced to bend over again.
This home has lot of problems. You need to spend at least $50k + for clean up and repairs.This is not worth more than $550k..
That’s the way it looks to me as well.
Someone from Lawyers Realty Group, the listing agent, posts here.
Maybe they’ll share some insight regarding the auction and the turnout this weekend.
You’re out there. There is a huge difference between condoning police brutality and thinking that people using other people’s private property when not authorized should be limited. So should we never evict anyone? So no one would have to pay for anything? It doesn’t take much to see what that would lead to.
There are places where there aren’t organized police forces, but they have their thugs too. If you think the problems here are worse, then check out the other places. Not that we shouldn’t work to improve things here - check out Radley Balko at www.theagitator.com, or look up the story of Corey Maye, but you really need perspective.
Agree.
Trespassers should NOT be granted Renter’s Rights.
I don’t think the IPD would have a problem arresting squatters if the loan servicer/owner’s agent reported.
Its real simple folks, all the lender/loan servicer/owner’s agent needs to do is have a phone number or email address given to the neighbors and let nature take its course.
~Misstrial
So maybe a neighbor reporting system would work, and be cheaper…
Yes, and just post a sign on the property “No Trespassing” with IPD’s phone number.
~Misstrial
IR and other,
“In Malibu, Calif., Wells Fargo executive Cheronda Guyton occasionally occupied a $14.9 million beach house to host swanky social gatherings,”
How much servance pay/bonus was Guyton awarded by Wells Fargo?
FYI:
We are a couple, mid-40’s. We purchased a home at the foreclosure auction in Riverside, CA (at the Courthouse steps) and we paid $137K! We thought our dreams had come true until the nightmare began when we were told we owed $380,000 on the FIRST mortgage!!
The agent (he is his own broker) ‘missed’ the first mortgage on this property. [Or was it a purposeful fraud in a quick effort to get a whopping 10% commission!?!] We have learned now that the ‘usual percentage is 2% or 3% at most, never 10 percent!
By the time the agent/broker notified us of this [he somehow got a “conscience”? and let us know via email] that the checks had been cashed. We are still are doing EVERYTHING we can to get this sale rescinded. It’s been 2 weeks. We lost $137,000 and can’t get any answers.
A lawyer did a title search for us this week and it appears that the bank owned BOTH the 1st and the 2nd mortgage and deliberately put up the smaller 2nd to auction. How is this legal? Why are these sales held on government/public grounds? It gives the appearance of being a government sanctioned auction, but it is not.
We need to make this nightmare end. We have found several others on the Internet, like us, who thought they did their due diligence and got taken.
Any ideas?
Buying at foreclosure auctions is fraught with traps for the unwary unless you are an experienced and knowlegeable investor or auction property buyer.
For potential buyers: Please be CERTAIN of possible property liens and other clouds on the title by going to the county recorder/assessors offices and CHECKING THE TITLE/DEED IN PERSON.
Normally Judges have not been sympathetic to buyers who purchase at auction or the court house steps due to the belief that buyers SHOULD HAVE performed a title search FIRST. Due diligence.
You may be able to talk the owner’s agent into rescinding the sale, however its up to them.
If you are interested and respond to this post, I will post the email addy of my property purchaser who is a professional at auctions and is a real estate broker. He may be able to offer some advice, which I cannot do over the internet.
~Misstrial
Impt article to read if considering buying foreclosure(s) via auction:
http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-08-02/news/22007162_1_foreclosure-auction-courthouse-sale-second-mortgage
Please take note of the Related Articles listed on upper left of the page.
~Misstrial
North-of-Las Vegas home up for auction with a $1.2M 2nd:
http://www.mybudget360.com/nevada-depression-like-unemployment-foreclosures-million-dollar-2nd-home-mortgages
Mystical effect of Chinese lunar festival?
92603 median price $888,000
http://lansner.ocregister.com/2010/09/24/home-sales-fall-in-52-zips-yours/82814/
“Do any of you believe this home will be sold to the highest and best offer on Saturday? I hope none of you are that gullible.”
What did 32 Vienne 92606 sold for last week? Anybody know. That’s a pretty good indicator for this house.
I was surprised at first by the asking price of this house. But then, VOILA, “Offers will be accepted at OPEN HOUSE ONLY Sat. Sept. 25 from 12-3 Home will be sold to the highest & best offer on Saturday.”
I think we’ll probably see more and more of this type of **auction** as houses are continuing to sit idle.
I think 21 Lily Pool falls in the same category. Can anyone give an educated guess as to the sale price? Looks like agent wants bidders for this property as well. I am interested in this neighborhood.
Nice to see one of our proerties highlighted here. We had, conservatively speaking, 200 people at our open house with I believe, at final count 35 bids. They ranged from $455,000, some people didn’t get it, to $670,000. The 3 highest bids will be sent to the bank tomorrow and we will have this property sold by the end of the week. Something I think some of you guys miss is Irvine is in high demand (at the right price) by Asians and other ethnic groups because of education. Does that mean they are willing to overpay for a home if it is in the right school district? I think so, to a limit. To sum it up the open house went well and we successfully sold the home.
Jb,
If you successfully sell a home using this method, please email me with the final details. I will profile more of them. I am not a fan of reserve auctions advertised as non-reserve auctions, so I have my doubts about this process. If this does work as described, I will publicize it.
IR, I will keep you posted but so far it is exactly as I detailed. I’m doing another one this weekend on Lido Island ion Newport Beach.
This house is already sold? Looks like its been removed from listing.
Yes the property sold.