DALLAS SCAM

Just heard about this through our neighborhood watch:

SCAM about repairmen alleging they saw animals entering houses through holes in chimney,shingles, etc. They gain access to your house or get on your roof and you
wind up with a large repair bill...probably for doing nothing. Please alert
your neighbors to this scam.

Just a pretty facade for a failing bank

I know I get sucked in by a name; Mr Big [I know, I know - he finally came through in the movie] The Titanic, Jumbo Shrimp. Here's another name that was just a pretty facade: Beverly Hills Bank.

DSNews.Com Default Servicing In Print and Online - Formerly REO Magazine

No acquiring institution could be secured for First Bank of Beverly Hills in Calabasas, California. The FDIC has approved the payout of the bank's insured deposits. First Bank of Beverly Hills had total deposits of $1 billion, of which the FDIC estimates $179,000 were uninsured. The bank also had total assets of $1.5 billion. The FDIC said the failure of First Bank of Beverly Hills will cost the agency approximately $394 million. The last bank to be closed in California was Merced's County Bank on February 6, 2009.

I LOVE this stuff - How the heck did they do that!!??

How do folks come up with this stuff??!! If Ray Tate was smart enough to come up with this fraud, why couldn't have been smart enough to have made more money doing it??!!



Couple returns home to find someone else living in it - San Jose Mercury News

Couple returns home to find someone else living in it
By Kurtis Alexander, Santa Cruz Sentinel
Posted: 04/26/2009 08:18:49 PM PDT
Updated: 04/26/2009 10:04:31 PM PDT

Two years ago Tom Decker and his wife, Maria McArthur, bought an old home on a wooded lane in the Santa Cruz Mountains they thought held promise of becoming the perfect retirement getaway.

The East Bay couple knew the house, acquired for a modest $50,000, came with its share of problems, like a slipping hillside in the back and other government-required fixes. While Decker says he was prepared to tackle the repairs, the two could not have been ready for what they now say stands between them and their dream home.

A week ago, after many long weekends spent driving from their primary residence in Pleasanton to improve the new property, the couple returned to the Ben Lomond house and discovered someone else had moved into the home.

The cars in the driveway weren't theirs, their belongings had been stacked in the garage and their keys no longer fit the locks, they said. And worse yet, upon arriving at the property on Hubbard Gulch Road, the couple says, a man emerged from the front door.

"We said, 'This is our home,' and he said, 'This is my home,' " Decker said. "We were dumbfounded."

More Turn Around Talk

You know, I said it first but John agrees with me :-)

Biz break: Cisco CEO foresees economic turnaround in 8 or 9 months, optimistic about stimulus plans - San Jose Mercury News

Biz break: Cisco CEO foresees economic turnaround in 8 or 9 months, optimistic about stimulus plans

Compiled by the Mercury News
Posted: 04/24/2009 01:50:43 PM PDT

This too shall pass: Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers said today he believes the global economy will begin to recover in December or January.

That view is based on the performance of the stock market and his personal experience, Chambers told reporters at a news conference in Mexico City. The remarks have no bearing on Cisco's financial results, he said.

DFW - 10th in the world

Tenth in the world - that's awesome! Now how do we make Texans have a more "robust talent base"? What's that mean? Smarter?


DFW ranks 10th in global competitiveness - Dallas Business Journal:

Monday, April 27, 2009, 3:00pm CDT
DFW ranks 10th in global competitiveness
Dallas Business Journal - by Bill Hethcock Staff writer

Fueled by a strong business climate, the Dallas-Fort Worth area ranked 10th in global competitiveness among 21 international metropolitan regions, according to a report presented at a global summit on Monday.

Dallas-Fort Worth’s low costs of doing business and low business taxes were the region’s strongest assets, whereas creating a more robust talent base is the region’s biggest challenge, according to the findings of “Global DFW,” a report presented at the  CoreNet Global Summit being held at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas.

The Rich Get RIcher...For a While

This last year i have been valuing property for the banks. The properties I look at are close to foreclosure or working a loan mod or short sale. When the economic instability began, I was valuing crappy litttle houses in scary neighborhoods. Lately, I have been valuing big gorgeous homes built within the last 5 years or in the older established "money" neighborhoods.

This anecdotal evidence seems to concur with the reports that this next wave is good folks that lost their jobs with the economic downturn or finally ran out of money as they went through their savings and credit cards and retirement accounts.


Despite downturn, 2008 was record year for sales of high-end homes - San Jose Mercury News

Nonetheless, in Santa Clara County more homes sold for $5 million or more than at any time since the dot-com-nirvana year of 2000. And in San Mateo County — home to luxury-home strongholds like Atherton and Woodside — it was a record-breaking year for sales of super-expensive castles.

Only in the final quarter of 2008 did the recession finally bite into the top end of the market, sending sales plummeting. While the super-rich weathered the early days of the credit crisis far better than most, experts say, fall's stock market crash drastically impaired their ability to snap up multimillion-dollar manses.


The tides have now turned and this market segment has dried on the vine.

The San Francisco Bay Area Seems to Be Out Of The Heat!

PMI does this report every year. Dallas continues to be stable while the SF Bay seems to be stabilizing this year.

PMI Predicts Widespread Home Price Depreciation Through 2010
Carrie Bay | 04.02.09

PMI Mortgage Insurance Co., a California-based provider of residential mortgage insurance and credit enhancement products to expand homeownership, released its first quarter 2009 Economic and Real Estate Trends Report and U.S. Market Risk Index on Wednesday. The report projects that the U.S. recession will continue to depress housing prices nationally through the end of 2010.

According to PMI's study, as many as 374 of the nation’s 381 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) - or 98 percent - are now facing increased risk of lower home prices by the end of 2010. However, PMI noted that 212 of the nation’s MSAs still have a minimal-to-low risk of depressed prices in two years.

The PMI report also indicates that 21 of the nation’s 50 largest MSAs are now in the highest risk category – a position that represents the highest probability of lower home values by the end of 2010, relative to the end of 2008. Over the past several quarters, PMI said its analysts have seen risk rising fastest in large urban centers, while local housing markets of smaller MSAs have faired relatively better in both current and projected price performance.

PMI’s U.S. Market Risk Index ranks the nation’s 50 largest MSAs according to the likelihood that home prices will be lower in two years. The Risk Index uses economic, housing, and mortgage market factors (home price appreciation, employment, affordability, excess housing supply, interest rates, and foreclosure activity) to determine these probabilities.

Using this methodology, PMI said the 10 riskiest MSAs, not surprisingly, were primarily in Florida and California. They are (with No. 1 in the list below being the most at-risk for home price depreciation):

1. Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, FL
2. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA
3. Ft. Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, FL
4. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA
5. Las Vegas-Paradise, NV
6. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL
7. Orlando-Kissimmee, FL
8. Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, CA
9. Jacksonville, FL
10. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ

The 10 most stable MSAs in terms of price depreciation (with No. 1 being the most stable) are:

1. Pittsburgh, PA
2. Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH
3. Columbus, OH
4. Dallas-Plano-Irving, TX
5. Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
6. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX
7. Memphis, TN-MS-AR
8. San Antonio, TX
9. Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC
10. Indianapolis-Carmel, IN

David Berson, PMI’s chief economist and strategist, explained, “As the recession deepened during the fourth quarter of 2008, increasing rates of unemployment and foreclosures continued to place downward pressure on house price appreciation. Combined with upward movements in excess housing supply in many parts of the country, these deteriorating conditions are increasing risk of house price declines in the next two years.”

PMI's report also noted that affordability has improved in many MSAs – as housing prices continued to decline and mortgage rates fell. For all 381 MSAs, the weighted average Affordability Index reading was 120.6 in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared to a third quarter reading of 114.5. (An Affordability Index score exceeding 100 indicates that homes have become more affordable; a score below 100 means they are less affordable.)

PMI pointed out that affordability jumped significantly in the 106 MSAs ranked in the two highest risk categories. Average affordability for these two groups improved from 99.6 to 107.4 – a greater rate of improvement than the rest of the nation.

To view PMI's Economic and Real Estate Trends (ERET) report for Q1 2009, as well as the company's market data for all 381 U.S. MSAs, click here.

Renter Notifications of Default

I love this! Not sure if all tenants would spend the money to check on their landlord but, in certain areas - it's gotta be a killer.

RealtyTrac Launches Renter Alerts

Carrie Bay | 04.01.09

On Wednesday, online foreclosure marketplace RealtyTrac announced the launch of RealtyTrac Renter Alerts. The new monitoring service gives tenants advance notice if their landlord defaults on the mortgage and the property they are renting is about to be foreclosed and repossessed by the lender.

Rick Sharga, SVP of the Irvine, California-based company, explained, “Unexpected evictions are becoming an all-too familiar scenario for good tenants who pay their rent on time. Some landlords aren’t paying their mortgages — even while their tenants are paying their rent faithfully — causing the tenants to be evicted without warning. Our new renter alerts give tenants a good early warning system to avoid this unpleasant and unfair scenario.”