Hello everyone!

I get a lot of calls from friends that are renting wondering if there is anyway they could find out if their home is in the process of a foreclosure. Well luckily they have a friend in the real estate business with access to notice of defaults and such but what if you didn't have a friend in the real estate business. I came across this website sometime ago and thought I would share it with you all. It's a free website that allows you to find out if the house you are currently renting is in the process of getting foreclosed. Not only for properties in Victorville Ca but all over the United States.

It's unfortunate when a landlord doesn't inform the tenants of a problem and keeps collecting rent while not sending in the mortgage payments.

The website is called RentalForeclosure.com.

Oh and by the way if you liked this post then do me a favor and click the little red flag right below so I can get featured some day. Thanks everyone!

Things that use to make me mad.... cross-qualifying with Countrywide and Wells Fargo and different bank owned properties. It was really frustrating because by the time I would finaly get my cross- qualification letter the house, we were going to offer on went pending.Or the loan officer denied me because my client didn't want to talk to him, she supplied all of her information by fax but just didn't want to talk to any other loan officer. She was comfortable with her Loan officer, so her cross-qualification was denied. This was happening in the middle of 2008, I have since viewed a change from the Listing agent's point of view.

I'm still doing some research. I understand that this could be a RESPA violation but I'm not sure.

Now that I'm a recent REO agent, I can understand why the asset managers want to make sure that this transaction will not fall out of escrow and they have now wasted 30 days. I've been noticing a 25% fall out of escrow rate in the High Desert. Which is not good for the listing agent and the asset manager and ultimately the banks who owns these REOs.

Does anyone have any ideas to facilitate this process?

I ran across this article this morning and thought I would share it as I am one of these people looking at downsizing and the daunghnting task of "re-structuring" the home. Its painful to say the least! Happy reading.

RISMEDIA, January 23, 2009-(MCT)-The kids have moved out. Those three bedrooms are looking awfully lonely. That spacious backyard that once served as a barbecue pit/football field/volleyball court now looks like a breeding ground for weeds, not to mention back-breaking acreage during mowing season.

You want to move to something smaller, but the task seems overwhelming. There’s a basement full of boxes, a garage stuffed with unused toys and rusting machinery.

Let the experts help you get moving.

Rod and Sharon DePue had to do major downsizing before they moved into their apartment seven years ago.

They had to sell two condos-one in Greenfield, Wis., another in Florida. They had prepared well for when moving day would come.

“We saw contemporaries who had to close out the house of elderly parents,” Sharon said. “They had to go through 50 or 60 years of stuff. We vowed not to do that to our children.”

It is the key to downsizing, they said. Sort through your stuff regularly and get rid of what you no longer use. You’ll thank yourself on moving day.

In fact, the DePues wish they had done a little more sorting and tossing. They kept enough of their old belongings to furnish their 1,000-square-foot apartment in Milwaukee’s Yankee Hill area, but once they got into the new space, they discovered that they wanted new furniture, too.

“We now don’t have any of the stuff we moved with except a lamp,” Rod said.

Ray and Peggy Hendrickson didn’t have a lot of time to plan for their move in the fall of 2007.

“I thought we could live where we did forever,” he said of the Shorewood, Wis., home they had owned for more than 35 years.

But Peggy Hendrickson had medical setbacks last year, and Ray fell and broke his leg in the spring of 2007. They tried to continue living in their home with the help of visiting medical care but soon realized they would have to move somewhere that could provide a nursing home-type setting for her and a smaller place for him.

There was much sorting to be done.

“There’s a lot of trash when you’ve been living in the same place for many years,” said Ray Hendrickson, a retired Milwaukee Public Schools teacher and football coach.

Storage space in a condominium probably will be less than in your house. Space gets even tighter if you’re moving to a nursing home or assisted-living site.

Bruce Nemovitz, a broker with Realty Executives Integrity in Whitefish Bay, Wis., said people also have to think about the emotional impact of winnowing their belongings. There are a lot of memories packed into those boxes in the attic.

“People have a sense of feeling overwhelmed. Then they tend to procrastinate and then they become frozen,” said Nemovitz, who specializes in helping seniors relocate and has written a book on the topic, “Moving in the Right Direction.”

To help get started, Nemovitz suggested having a family get-together. Make it a party, where each of the children puts Post-its on what he or she wants.

There are companies that specialize in helping with downsizing. They help organize estate sales or auctions, line up items for donations and assist with the packing.

Smart Moves in Hales Corners, Wis., is one such company.

Older residents making a move often “don’t even want to think about how they’re going to get from point A to point B,” said Sue Wiske of Smart Moves. “Having someone to walk them through it can really help.”

While there’s less room for boxes of old belongings in a smaller home, there’s also going to be less room for the couple moving in.

“You have to learn to live together in a smaller space,” Sharon DePue said. She and her husband have set up the second bedroom in their apartment as a computer room. He often will work there while she’s reading or working in the kitchen.

Space constraints are an issue for many downsizing couples, said Jack H. Smith of Shorewest Realtors in Wisconsin.

“They’re used to Harvey going into the other room to watch TV. Now they’re in the same room, and she’s thinking, ‘Does the football game have to be that loud?’”

Before moving, people also have to think about the practical aspects of everyday life, Smith said. How much will you miss a yard, or having a garden? Can you get by with a one-car garage-or no garage-instead of the two-car space you’ve always had?

Some people come to him excited about the prospect of moving into a downtown condo. After analyzing all the factors, they sometimes end up moving into a smaller home with a smaller yard closer to downtown.

“They use that as a happy medium. Instead of being 25 minutes away, they’re eight minutes from downtown,” Smith said.

Routine tasks like hauling groceries can be more of a chore in a condominium. It may be a longer walk from the car to the kitchen. There may be elevators or stairs to navigate while juggling your grocery bags.

The same goes for walking the dog. There likely will be no more just opening the back door and stepping out quickly with your pooch, Smith said.

“If the dog has to go out at 2 in the morning, you can’t just hold it over the balcony.”

© 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Kort Linden Professor Rohit Chopra History and Society Foundation Section 1 Take-home Final Essay 5/02/08 Social Narrative & a Life Worth Living What is a narrative? The Oxford English dictionary defines a narrative as, “An account of a series of events, facts, etc., given in order and with the establishing of connections between them; a narration, a story, an account”. Essentially, a narrative is the act of storytelling. Storytelling seems simple, self explanatory. A story is an event which may or may not of happened and to tell it is simply that. However, it seems that story telling has a much more important significance than that. To tell a story is to be human, the very definition of being social. If storytelling is an important part of being human and of establishing a social identity, then it could even be said that story telling is a major part of what makes life worth living. But, it is not enough just to tell your story. It is the act of storytelling to a group, a trusted social cluster, which makes a difficult existence (the human condition) bearable, and when this need is not filled, life becomes not only unbearable but unlivable. Life is full of hardships, injustices, and trauma. This is an unavoidable truth. Most of the greatest stories ever told originate from this truth. This is not just a coincidence; it is a necessity of the human condition. The use of narrative has been prevalent throughout history from the Bible to Homer’s works to Harry Potter. This is because the need to tell the story is an integral part of what it takes to live a psychologically sound existence. One author and psychiatrist, Jonathan Shay, says, “There is a growing consensus among people who treat PTSD that any trauma, be it loss family in a natural disaster, rape, exposure to…will have a longer-lasting and more serious consequences if there has been no opportunity to talk about the traumatic event..or to connect(ed) [with] others who will not let one go through it alone.” (Shay 55). This is true across life experiences, not just the traumatic ones. Whether a life is one of extreme injustice and torture or a mundane existence, everyone needs to tell their story. In addition, in order to tell a story, there must be an audience. Not just any audience but one which you know and can relate to. Three narratives which I have recently studied, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi provide an illuminating and cumulative display of the absolute necessity of narrative in the struggle of existence. When one thinks of the struggle to survive possibly no continent comes more to the forefront of the mind than Africa. The book, Things Fall Apart is set in Africa and deals with its colonization. Specifically, it is the story of one man’s struggle to deal the traditions of his tribe, its colonization and his resulting immoral actions and, in contrast, his socially unsupported actions. The main character, Okonkwo, due to pressure from his tribe, kills a child, Ikemafuna, who he was emotionally attached to. Okonkwo was very close to him, and Ikemefuna even called Okonkwo “father” (Achebe 57). Okonkwo, because of his perceived need for masculinity and tribal traditions, never relates his true feelings and narrative to the people he is close to. Consequentially, when life turns everything he knows on its head, he is unable to deal with the extreme changes in his community. He puts every ounce of will into rallying his tribe against the colonizers, but they refuse to listen to him. This act of rejection by his trusted social network and the suppressed traumatic story of his killing of Ikamafuna culminated in the ultimate inability to deal with life, suicide. This is a prime example of what happens when life is not shared with others, especially a traumatic life. Again, as you can see, the necessity of narrative and group story sharing is intrinsic to humanity especially when life is unjust. Nothing puts humanities raw injustice under a microscope like war. Books about war have been extensively studied and valued for their ability to reveal what makes us tick. A classic book by one World War One veteran, All Quiet on the Western Front, exemplifies the call for group narrative exchange. All Quiet on the Western Front, is a moving narrative about a soldier and his friends extreme existence in the trenches of the western front. Paul, the main character is just a boy of eighteen when he and his friends go to war. He says, “We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.” (Remarque 88). Throughout the war, these young men killed and were killed. People where mutilated and life’s creature comforts were non-existent. Paul repeatedly lost his closest friends, one by one. But, despite all of this, Paul continues the struggle to survive-day in and day out. The question to be begged is, why would someone want to carry on living in this hell? The answer is that it was a shared struggle. Each of these men shared this experience and thus thwarting the complete loss of the will to live. The author of Achilles in Vietnam, Jonathan Shay, suggests that, “Peer recognition…allows survivors of trauma to grasp that they are not freaks and ‘do not have to go it alone,’…” (Shay 192). Paul is a survivor, but in the end of the novel, he loses all of his friends, the very people with whom he had shared his hardship. Ultimately, Paul, left without his supporting social net, gives up on life. When he dies Remarque says, “He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping…; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.” (295). How sad to think that this young man whose life had hardly begun had ended without a desire to even continue breathing. But, without the ability to tell his story to the only people who could truly understand, life ceased to be worthwhile. At some point, most people would agree, living conditions are so bad that life ceases to be worthwhile. But, the survivors of extreme environments, like concentration camps, would maybe argue something different. One famous author and survivor who detailed the life in and the atrocities of World War Two concentration camps is Primo Levi. Levi wrote the book, Survival in Auschwitz, which is a narrative of his personal struggle for survival through one of the most horrific of living conditions in all of history. Levi says that in the camp all men were living a terrible existence, but he says that there were two categories of men in the camp, “the drowned and the saved” (76). The saved are the people who give up on the recognition of others as human beings and focus solely on their own survival. He speculates that these men, who give up completely on the social nature of life, will survive, but will live an empty life of, “insanity and deceitful bestiality.” (Levi 85). Ironically, Levi is a survivor and by his own logic (though he does not admit it) he is one of the drowned. He is a person who does not share his narrative with the social group because he has given up on the need to share a social nature in order to “survive” even if that survival is a marginal existence. By the logic of the need to share and ones complete loss of others who have experienced similar torture, Levi’s will to live should have been exterminated after “surviving” Auschwitz, and in fact, in mine and other notable historian’s opinions, it was. Levi, years after Auschwitz and writing his book, fell off his balcony. It is arguable whether or not he did commit suicide, but Eli Weisel, I have heard (though I cannot cite it), said that Levi had lost his humanity in Auschwitz. Levi could not truly share his experience because he, like Paul in All Quiet on the Western Front, had lost his comrades in the act of surviving. Therefore, Levi life ceased to exist, if not in the physical sense, then in the humanly psychological and social context. It is deeply disturbing to imagine that life could cease to be worth living in one’s own mind. Life as we know it is a deeply intricate network of people and experiences. It is the need to share one’s own life narrative with people who can comprehend it. This need is indivisible from the desire to live. The three narratives examined in this essay all display extreme circumstances with which it is difficult to even begin to understand, but the commonality of struggle among lives is something everyone shares and needs to share. People who have no social attachments or networks are inevitably unable share their stories end up either giving up on life or become deeply disturbed. It is life’s great fortune that this is not necessarily a permanent condition. We are social creatures, and in this vast and varied world there are always people with whom we share experiences; amazingly, to fill this un-doubtable need, all we must do is find them and simply share stories. High Desert homes for sale.