Mike Regan

According to the center for responsible lending, since 1/1/09 there has been a foreclosure ever 13 seconds. As of this writing the counter is at 244,286. Florida foreclosures are at 42,546 since 1/1/09. I hope at some point all these homes need to be appraised.

Website: center for responsible lending: http://www.responsiblelending.org/index.html

If you need an appraisal in south florida check us out at http://www.coralspringsappraisers.net

Mortgage broker Christopher Jared Warren confessed to $75 million dollar in mortgage fraud while working at Ameriquest. After working there for 2 1/2 years and committing $75 million in fraud he hacked into the company customer data base stealing info on 680,000 customers. He left the company with that info and started WLT Financial were he made $2.25 million dollars in less than 3 years using similar fraud techniques. When New Century went under so did WLT Financial. He then moved on the AFG Holding Company where he started a ponzi scheme. He was fired from that company for starting his own separate title and escrow company. He went on to start the company Triduanum Financial which folded just last month. The company website is http://www.Triduanum.com He as been charged with bank fraud, mail fraud and conducting a financial crimes enterprise. You can find the guys confession posted here:

http://www.triduanum.com/memo.pdf

He says he's looking for a job to help fight mortgage fraud!

Here is a news story about Warren which includes his photo: News Story. And his email address is: cwarren@triduanum.com

BTW: they guy just left the country this past monday and no one knows where he is.

HOW MANY OTHERS LIKE THIS GUY ARE OUT THERE?

At first look it seems existing home have stabilized somewhat when compared to new homes sales that have fallen off a cliff. New homes sales 4th quarter 2008 was the lowest on record since 1963.

But if you take out foreclosures and short sales existing home sales look bleak. Distress sales were 45% of existing sales in 2008.

Check out this chart:

http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2009/02/ratio-of-new-to-existing-home-sales.html

As an appraiser its tough out there trying to find non distress sales for an appraisal report and having an underwriter asking for four or five comparables - all non distress sales.

I've read several blogs that have tried to blame the housing bubble on appraisers. Appraisers did not cause the real estate bubble. It was lacks loan requirements originally pushed by politicians who complained that lenders weren't lending enough to low income individuals with bad credit. Solution - no income verification liar loans. More people were able to buy homes they couldn't afford due to low 2 to 5 year adjustable starter rates. This pushed housing demand up and prices with it. Add to that illegal aliens who were also able to get these type of loans. Some were buying 2 and 3 homes with no income verification. Buyers were willing to pay whatever the asking price was because they figured they would just flip the house and make a profit. Wages and home price ratios went out of whack. Now the adjustable rates are coming due and many who lied about there incomes and ability to pay are being brought to light. The liar buyers are being forced out of there homes and those homes are flooding the market. Since no income verification loans are no longer available (unless you have a very low LTV ratio) home value to income ratios are coming down to historic norm which is forcing home prices back to historic norms. Appraisers did not caused the bubble. If they did why aren't they able to keep the bubble up? Why didn't appraisers create a bubble prior to the availability of liar loans? Fraudulent appraisers? - There are fraudulent people in all different business not just appraisers. Fraudulent loan officers, realtors, lawyers, doctors, politicians, etc. A totality of buyers and sellers in any given market determine market values. Not the appraiser. The appraiser only reports what price buyers and sellers are willing to buy/sell a home for in a certain time period in a given market. Property values doubled in a 5 year period in Florida. Now the politicians are trying to figure out how to keep home prices from dropping (so they can keep that huge unwarranted windfall in there own homes and keep high taxes pouring into the government) by pumping trillions of taxpayer dollars into the economy. Only thing is if they are able to keep home values artificially high young people just coming out of school will now be paying 600k for a home that was selling for 300k just 5 years ago (more like 8 years ago now). Having these first time home buyers pay an extra $300k for the next 30 years through manipulated markets just isn't right. Let the market decide. Not the politicians. And stop blame the appraiser. Why didn't appraisers create a housing bubble in the 1990's ? People are lossing there life savings because housing prices are declining? I don't think anyones life savings plan was to buy a home, work for a number of years and then gain $300,000 in five years on the home they lived in. Those that were planning for that sold there home at the top of the market and downsized into a smaller home. Home price have come down from the highs in 2005 but we still need to let market forces decide the market and not try to manipulate it. The quicker home prices come down to affordable prices the quicker buyers will be back, and that means more business for everyone.