Once the Genie Is Out of the Bottle, She's Out!(Those with cash should invest in real estate now)

Many of them are very, very decent folks who were only doing what they thought they should be doing to succeed.

It's called "greed." It is the love of money and it is the root of all evil.

There is no sin in wanting a more secure life for your family.

I’ve met some of these folks. They didn’t love money to an undue degree. They simply wanted more — which does not define greed.

Hemet and Victor Valley are low end of the market. I have people paying cash (even though I don't recommend it). 4 bedroom under 140,000.

There's thousands of people in Hemet. My dad lived there for 10 years. Lot's of seniors because of the prices and small town. Now it's become a city with families and housing tracts.

I wouldn't live there unless I had no easy alternative, but it's a very active market right now.

I'll freep mail you about the other.

Manhattan is going to be hit hard over the next 24 months.

The lamestream media is predicting that high fuel prices will drive people into the cities. This is wishful leftist thinking. With suburban house prices so cheap the envious city dwellers will move out of their tiny places and into real sized houses and buy real sized cars. They spend so of their time focusing on what the suburbanites should be doing they've obviously got their green monster eye on the suburban lifestyle.

It's called "greed." It is the love of money and it is the root of all evil.

More precisely it's envy, keeping up with the Joneses after they brag about their stock or real estate profits. True greed is fairly rare, and the greedy tend to end up in jail under their own power, but envy is in great oversupply. The first murder in the bible was over envy, not greed. So much of what is claimed to be greed is really someone projecting their envy. Envy is the root of most evil.

Money is just information and banks are just information businesses. If you go in the back office you won't see mounds of evil paper cash but a tiny computer hooked into other computers. Money is not evil, it's information on how much useful wealth you have created for your fellow man but have not yet exchanged for something else.

OTH, I have a condo in Dalton, GA which is only four years old that went down in appraisal this year and there are several in the ‘compound’ for sale at reduced prices.

PS- Illegals don’t buy new or nearly new condos, and Dalton is over-run with illegals though many are disappearing as the carpet industry declines in Dalton.

I have people paying cash (even though I don't recommend it).

I'm in the process of paying cash on a short sale house, assuming the bank agrees to their losses. What would be the benefits of getting a loan if I don't need it? I plan on leveraging later on a nicer place after the market starts appreciating again, which could be many years from now.

If you put 100,000 in a safe. liquid, investment, which is tax advantaged and has a good rate of return, you would have 200,000 at the end of 11 years.

If you borrow $100,000 at 6.4% and are in a 25% tax bracket, the cost of the loan is actually 4.8% with the mortgage deduction. Loan payment WITHOUT the deduction: about $626 P&I after the tax deduction: about $520.

The loan payment is the same year after the year, but the investment compounds. If you make 7.2%, tax free the investment pays 7,200 the first year. In the 11th year it pays $14,400.

Equity in a house has no rate of return, it's not very liquid (less so as you get older, and if something happens to you), the bank will say "who are you" if you try to borrow.

I might add, this is how banks make money. The give you 3% for your deposit and then they loan at 6.4 or in the case of credit cards 10-20%. So if you can borrow at 4.8 and receive 7.2 how much do you want?

Beverly Hills makes a Farsi version of their election ballots available. Does that tell you anything?

Very little, actually. It doesn't answer my question (If you mean "for investment", do foreigners buy houses as opposed to commercial real estate?

How many homes in Beverly Hills are in foreclosure? How many were bought by foreigners?

Either way, are they representative of the rest of the nation? Because if they are not representative of most other markets, the number of homes bought in Beverly Hills will not be a drop in the bucket in the overall housing market and will not effect the overall recovery when it comes.

I don’t know where this happened then. I am in real estate and even been involved in some “no doc” loans. But as you know, I’m sure, even in these “no doc” loans there was some documentation required just not the typical pay stubs, etc. 1040’s were required but not given as much weight. Maybe some illegals got around it somehow but not nearly as important a number as you seem to be assigning them.

I don’t know where this happened then.

Apparently, right under your nose.

I am in real estate and even been involved in some “no doc” loans. But as you know, I’m sure, even in these “no doc” loans there was some documentation required ......

What part of "fraud" and "scam" and "con game" do you have trouble understanding?

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened criminal inquiries into 14 companies as part of a wide-ranging investigation of the troubled mortgage industry, F.B.I. officials said Tuesday. ......... As part of its investigation, the F.B.I. is cooperating with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is conducting about three dozen civil investigations into how subprime loans were made and packaged, and how securities backed by them were valued. ...... Many of the cases the F.B.I. has brought so far have focused on local or regional mortgage fraud rings that involve speculators, loan officers, brokers and other housing professionals. State officials have been active in bringing mortgage cases. The New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, is investigating whether Wall Street banks withheld damaging information about the loans they were packaging.

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Four Brokers Charged With $5 Million Loan Fraud ........ During the time period covered by the indictment, Michael Lance Persac, Jason Ellis and Carroll F. Ellis, Jr. obtained fraudulent loans for approximately 65 borrowers totaling over $3 million. The indictment alleges that from June of 1999 through August of 2005, Michael Lance Persac, Jason Ellis and Carroll F. Ellis, Jr. conspired to prepare false and fictitious documents to insure that lenders would make mortgage loans to prospective borrowers. Unless the mortgage loans were successful, Michael Lance Persac and Jason Ellis could not receive a fee for their brokerage services.

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Foreclosures linked to subprime fraud ....... A New York state investigation of subprime mortgage practices reveals fraud proliferated in the state, which had the eighth-highest number of foreclosures in 2007. ..... Mortgage scammers took advantage of loopholes in New York State lending laws to defraud homeowners and lending institutions all over the state, according to a new report released Thursday. ..... ........ Many of the most egregious cases involved clearly predatory lending practices in which there was never any possibility that the borrowers could afford to pay off their loans.

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The FBI reports that mortgage fraud is the country's fastest-growing white-collar crime; .... A contributing factor is the trend of consumers to seek loans from mortgage brokers who have access to multiple loan products from many different mortgage lenders, rather than from their local banks. The National Association of Mortgage Brokers reports that with as many as two-thirds of all mortgage loans originated by mortgage brokers, lenders often become dependent upon local loan brokers to provide accurate, truthful information about a loan applicant's financial condition during the mortgage process. ............ The climate was ripe for scams on both sides of the mortgage process—by unscrupulous con artists seeking to make a fast buck out of the mortgage process and by unscrupulous loan originators who sought a fast commission by moving unsophisticated consumers into high-cost loans they could not afford. ...... Thus, a vicious cycle began. The real estate boom, fueled in part by weakened lending standards that sparked excessive demand, drove up prices.

Good for you that you have kept things clean in your work. However, there is plenty of evidence, especially in California and other places that have lots of illegals, of exactly these things (no doc loans) occurring.

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