Washington, DC

At the top of my bucket list has been learning to ride a horse. And last week, I joined my friend, Jean, for lessons at the Woodland Horse Center.

I've been on horses before, but I'd never learned how to get the horse to go where I want to go at the speed I'd like him to go, and to stop when I'd like him to stop.

It's about communication.

So my new buddy, a gorgeous roan named Applejack, is teaching me about communication, and not just with a horse. A lot of it applies to clients as well. For example:

• It's subtle. It's easy to say "canter" when you want him to trot.
• If you don't say "go" just right, he'll stop altogether.
• You really need to show the horse who's in charge, but sometimes the horse is in charge - unless you're really good.
• Sometimes the horse will give you this look like he must think you are a total idiot.
• Sometimes you are a total idiot - at least when it comes to horses.

So while I'm trying not to get too concerned about Applejack's judgments of me as the human who rides him every week, I'm learing to sit on an English saddle and post and trot and basically sit on this guy's back without falling off.

And the other fun thing is the shopping opportunity at the tack shop. I got my cute new helmet - although I'm striving to get one with a fuzzy surface - they are really cool.

And Jean got these chaps - I have to have some! They are beautiful brown supple suede.

There are also boots and outfits and saddles and before long I'll be leasing a horse! Then I'll need to buy one and move to Potomac where thre are lots of places with stables that go with the house!

My broker will love all this. I'll have to sell a lot of real estate to support my new horse habit!

© 2009 Patricia Kennedy. Unless otherwise noted, the content, both written and in pictures, is the property of Patricia Kennedy . If you would like to use this image, please email me (housepat@mac.com) with your request. I'll almost certainly say yes, and ask only that you provide a link back to my original content as well as an acknowledgment. The same thing applies to any other material you see posted here on Active Rain or on any of my other blogs.

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Joy Jackson, a former exotic dancer who became president of the Metropolitan Money Store, was sentenced yesterday to more than twelve years in jail. She was convicted of stealing millions from Washington area homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure. She used the cash to buy jewelry, fur coats and vacations, and to cover a lavish wedding at the Mayflower Hotel, where Patti LaBelle serenaded guests who feasted on lobster and drank Cristal.

The Metropolitan Money Store advertised on gospel and R&B stations and promised to help people keep their homes and repair their credit. Instead, Jackson and several co-conspirators, including her husband, Kurt Fordham, took titles to properties and drained them of equity. The company directed owners to transfer title of their homes to third-party buyers for a year. During that time, Metropolitan said it would borrow against the value of the home and use that money to pay the mortgage and repair homeowners' credit ratings. It also promised to help owners obtain better interest rates.

Instead, Metropolitan siphoned off the equity and Jackson and others spent the cash. The company also stopped making mortgage payments on the houses.

Prosecutors said they have found 117 victims in the scam, but hundreds more have been identified in a related civil lawsuit.

The Judge who sentenced Jackson to 12 years and seven months in prison and ordered her to pay more than $16 million in restitution, called mortgage fraud "a fever that seems to be spreading around the country.... A sentence in this case is going to be noticed by those out there who think of doing this kind of behavior," the judge said.

Jackson wept during her apology to a courtroom full of her victims. She said, "I opened the company out of true love. I opened the company to help," Jackson said. "I know I have good in me, but I allowed greed to overcome me."

Prosecutors said Jackson and her co-conspirators left a trail of devastated homeowners in Maryland, Virginia and the District who thought they were digging out of financial problems, only to find they had been cheated. One woman lost the home her great-grandmother had purchased years earlier, according to court records. A man who was the first in his family to own a home said he was swindled by the company and is fighting to keep the house.

Margaret Neal, one of the victims, told the judge that her husband worked three jobs to keep their Annapolis home. After going to Metropolitan for help, they lost the home to foreclosure. The family ended up sleeping in a car and needing a food pantry.

"Joy Jackson Fordham took our American dream and turned it into a nightmare," Neal said. "Joy Jackson Fordham lived the life. Now my home is gone. There is no going back. Gone. Sold. Remodeled. You, Joy Jackson Fordham, did that to me."

At least the bad guys get punished once in a while.

If you are facing foreclosure, be sure to seek the advice of a reputable Realtor and attorney. Please don't go to these storefront fly by night organizations. Check them out and never transfer your home to a third party! If you need help in the DC metro area, call Lise Howe with Coldwell Banker at 240-401-5577 or email her at lise@lisehowe.com.

A lot of us have started to go nuts as lenders are getting more and more nitsy, driving our beloved clients crazy with last second requests for documentation and other paperwork issues that seem to come to a head about two days before settlement.

This morning, I had a talk with a lender who has been making loans as long as I've been selling houses, and we were laughing about how it's getting to be just like the good old days! So now, I'm coaching all of my buyers on what to expect during the process. By preparing them for all of the stuff that is totally annoying people right now, I'm hoping that if they expect the nitsy, it won't annoy them as much. Here are some of the things I'll have them be on the lookout for:

• For a while, the lenders were all pretty casual about pest inspections. Well, now it there is a single carcass of a single once alive termite on the property, there will have to be some evidence that the little guy did not die of natural causes like old age. This means evidence of prior treatment, either in the form of paperwork documenting when the treatment was done or a new treatment. Same with repairs of termite damage. You'll probably need someone to certify that it was done by a licensed termite repair contractor, or you will have to bring in a licensed termite repair contractor to say it was done properly.
• They are looking at condominium documents more carefully, with an eye to saying no to people buying in buildings that look like the owners' association might be in trouble. In projects with a lot of short sales and foreclosures, this could further compound the problems they are having with owners who cannot pay either their mortgages or monthly association fees.
• If you put any money into your checking account that was not your regular pay check, you will have to account for it. So if you are self-employed, keep good records of your clients' payments. Same if you are on commission. I just had some buyers need to get a letter from grandma saying the $1000 check they deposited was, in fact, a wedding present.
  
• If you are getting a large gift from your parents, you may have to document that they did not borrow the money to give to you. You'll also probably have other lender's guidelines about the amount as a percentage of your down payment.
  
• It is taking a lot more time to get the papers through the lender's system - getting the loans through underwriting and then getting documentation to the title companies. It's like they are trying to do the work with fewer people, which means the fewer people are going to put your papers in higher and higher piles that take longer to get to.
• And they keep thinking up new things faster than we can add them to our What to Expect list!
  

We used to have to deal with these situations all the time before about the mid-1990's. All lenders were a pain, but it didn't seem like a pain at the time because we were totally used to it.

And yeah, they expect to get picky, picky, picky! And trust me, it will still be easier than when I was a new agent and had to walk through the snow for miles to hand deliver the extra documentation!