Sidney Jimenez, CDPE, Short Sale Expert, 954-665-9449,

Below you will find the major provisions outlined under Title VII,

• During the term of the lease, the tenant has a right to remain in the unit and cannot be evicted, except for actions that constitute good cause.

• If the lease ends in less than 90 days, the new owner may not evict the tenant without giving the tenant at a minimum 90 days notice.

• At the end of the term of the lease, the new owner may terminate the tenancy if the new owner provides a 90-day notice.

However, the new owner may terminate the tenancy if the owner will occupy the unit as a primary residence, and has provided the tenant a notice to vacate at least 90 days before the effective date of such notice. This is the only exception to the rule that the tenant may not be evicted during the term of the lease.

These provisions expire on December 31, 2012.

Nine Reasons Why Housing is NOT Recovering

I’m sure most of us have read reports of how home sales have gone up recently, which the pundits see as a sign of a recovery?

Dear Colleagues, Please don’t fall for that. Here is my list of the:

Top 9 Reasons Why That Recovery is Not Happening Now

9-LENDERS NOT APPROVING SHORT SALES OR LOAN MODS: If you read most of the posts on ActiveRain you will come across, and even feel, the frustrations being felt for the uncooperative nature of the Lenders as they handle Short Sales. It seems they want them to go into Foreclosure. Until the Lenders can get a more streamline or standard process there will be countless buyers walking away and taking their sales with them.

8-AFFORDABILITY: Home prices have come down substantially from the hey days, but have they reached a level of affordability? I wouldn’t think so, not until other home ownership expenses stop rising. Property taxes, utilities, condo/HOA fees, insurance..ect As those continue to rise the amount a family can afford to purchase a home…will continue to drop….Are we there? You tell me. I don’t think so.

7-CONDO/MAINTENANCE FEES DELINQUENCY: I mentioned Condo fees above, but let me take it a step further. As more people become delinquent with their Condo fees, the more those fees will continue to rise and less affordable they will be to the homeowners that can continue to pay. Eventually, it will reach a level even they can’t keep up. Services will be dropped and more people will be Foreclosed for non-payment of their Condo fees…this is separate from the Foreclosures for failure to pay their mortgage and raising the inventory already on the market…Another wrinkle, huh?

6-BANKRUPTCY: As more people get into trouble and opt for a Bankruptcy the longer their recovery will be and the longer it will take for them to recuperate enough to reenter the real estate market. Fewer buyers will able to buy another home

5-CREDIT DESTRUCTION: I’ve noticed, as many others on ActiveRain, that Lenders are not budging on their stance to report Loan Modification, Short Sales or any other settlement as anything but “Delinquent” or a “Charge Off” Those blemishes on the credit reports of millions of people will make getting a mortgage an impossible task…whether it is for seasoning purposes or just the affordability of a mortgage with a higher interest rate.

Now we get to the most critical points

4-TOO MUCH INVENTORY: There is too much inventory on the market now with millions of more mortgages in the midst of being in trouble. The sheer amount of available homes will make a recovery a very lengthy proposition that will not be overcome by a one month rise in home sales….I believe we will need about 12 or 13 more months IN A ROW, to start making a dent in the inventory problem. I will take it step further--I believe there are more homes built than there will be buyers willing or able to purchase. There were simply too many homes built.

3-FIRST TIME HOMEBUYER TAX CREDIT EXPIRES: A big incentive in the marketplace is the $8,000 Tax Credit that is about to expire in November. Now, I must disclose that I believe it will be extended, but up to this point the end of the Program is within sight. Will that enthusiasm continue after the Credit becomes history?

2-UNEMPLOYMENT: The unemployment rate continues to go up. Just last month is was well over 500,000 more Americans losing their jobs. A side note with unemployment is that those states that have the biggest housing problems are the same states that have the highest unemployment rates—higher than the National average (Florida, California) No Job, No House…it’s really that simple.

1-PLENTY MORE TOXIC MORTGAGES TO GO: We still have another 3 years of Toxic Mortgages left, before we can get rid of these from the system. As people continue to lose their homes because of rising mortgage expenses the more homes come onto the saturated market---(check the chart below)

Notice the Light Green colored lines on the graph...those were the Sub-Prime loans, most of which have worked their way through the system. The you will notice the Red Arrow which indicates where we are today. After that, please notice the Peach colored line which are the Option Arm mortgages, and the Yellow line which signal the Alt-A mortgages (those were the famously marketed "Pick-A-Pay" mortgages). There is actually more of those Toxic Mortgages than the Sb-Prime mortgages. As you can notice, they extend into the beginning quarter of 2012.

I read this letter from a homeowner in the Washington Post and I wanted to share it with everyone to find out your thoughts...and pay special attention to the highlighted sentence.

"After multiple requests to our mortgage company, our lender finally agreed that my husband and I may qualify for the federal government's Making Home Affordable loan modification program and mailed us an application.

In reading through the information, I'm worried about the "Trial Period Plan," during which we are required to make payments while modified loan terms are being finalized. It's not specified how long this trial period may be, and the application further states: "During the trial period, we will report your loan as delinquent to the credit reporting agencies even if you make your trial period payments on time. However, after your loan is modified, we will only report the loan as delinquent if the modified payment is not received in a timely manner."

Even though we have had a few payments more than 30 days late, we've been trying very hard to make our mortgage payments on time every month so our credit rating isn't affected as much. Is this a good program? Should we go ahead with the application?"

This family is trying to work out an arrangement with their Lender. The Lender is willing to start the process with them and put them on a Trial Period...During the Trial Period, as the homeowner is making their agreed payments the Lender will report their mortgage as DELINQUENT? How can this happen? Do the American people have ANY rights when dealing with these Lenders?

I don't know about you but it seems arrogant and fraudulent to have the same industry that had no concern on whether a homeowner was worthy of a mortgage to then treat those same people as if they were criminals. That is a strong statement on my part, but I just can't see how this can happen in a land with rules, laws and morals in which a Lender can act as they want, with impunity, and at the same time thumb their nose at the same group of people that have sent them BILLIONS of dollars to assist them survive their own irresponsibility.

July Home Sales Surge

More Than 7%

The latest news reports are that home sales surged more than 7% in July…the report continued to mentioned that it is the highest one month surge in more than 10 years. WHAT ?!?!??!?!??!?!

This didn’t happen during the Unprecedented Boom in real estate we enjoyed for those few years earlier this decade? How can it possibly happen now, in the midst of the deepest recession in the history of history?

Oh! Home Sales include the properties that were foreclosed and/or sold on the courtroom steps. That seemingly good news seems like a nice parlor trick to take our eyes from the reality of what is in front of us…We are in the middle of a Baaaaaad market and he have many, many more months of this before we can count on a recovery.

What do you think? Are we in a real surge or is this a parlor trick?

This past December Bank of America came to a settlement with District Attorney’s in 11 states over complaints of predatory lending. As part of the settlement Bank of America agreed to modify $8.4 Billion worth of Countrywide loans covering about 400,000 mortgages.

Countrywide was supposed to lower principals and cut interest rates to as low as 2.5% for a term of 5 years for the agreed upon mortgages. The twist here is that the Lenders owned only a small portion of the mortgages it agreed to modify. The investors that owned the majority of the agreed upon mortgages did not endorse the modifications Countrywide promised but would bear the brunt of the losses or reduced payments. Aside from that fact, the Lenders were also arguing a breach of the agreement made when the Mortgage Securities were originally purchased from Countrywide.

Needless to say, those investors were not happy and subsequently filed a lawsuit to bring this matter to higher attention. The investors argue that the mortgage backed securities it purchased came with agreements that Countrywide/BofA would purchase back any mortgages they modified. ( Now, we have another answer as to why these modifications were not being approved. Countrywide or Bank of America would, by contract, have to repurchase these toxic mortgages from the investors that held them if once the modifications were approved.)

Countrywide argued that they did not have to repurchase the mortgages because of the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009. Under that federal law, servicing companies that agree to modify loans receive some protection from liability arising from the loan changes. This, they argued, would shield them from buying the mortgages back from the investors and give them a way to breach their agreements with them.

Those arguments fell on deaf ears and the Federal Court hearing the case ruled that the investors could pursue their right to have their agreement upheld and force Bank of America to repurchase the mortgages in question. This has also brought up the potential of a conflict of interest by the Lenders that are also Loan Servicers and often put their own needs ahead of the investors, never mind the homeowner, in which they have an obligation to protect.

The more of these stories that surface the more amazed I get as to the brazen nature these Lenders operate.

They agree to modify loans that are not theirs which in essence pushes the penalty they were given of the $8.4 Billion settlement onto the backs of the investors and homeowners they are supposed to serve and whom they were just penalized for guilty predatory lending practices against them.

What is going on?