$100 Million Mortgage Fraud Ring Busted

A Detroit crime ring has been accused of arranging approximately 500 fraudulent sales and loans totaling more than $100 million, in a scheme that the FBI calls "the largest mortgage fraud we have seen in terms of the number of properties that were involved and the money that was stolen."

The money was allegedly used to fund extravagant lifestyles, including hot rod cars, international travel, palace style homes, and a helicopter. The money was also supposedly used to fund the Choppers Lounge in Flint, Michigan and the Tryst Nightclub in Canton, Michigan (which happens to be right down the street).

That Would Be Nice

Earlier this year, thousands of people rushed to take advantage of the homebuyer credit, an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and $6,500 credit for current homeowners buying a primary residence. But many who qualify might not close before the June 30th deadline (an estimated 55,000 to 75,000 according to the National Association of Realtors), meaning they could miss out on receiving credits worth thousands of dollars. Fortunately, Congress is considering an extension of the homebuyer credit.

Interstate Recognition Of Notarial Acts

On April 27th, 2010, the House of Representatives passed the Interstate Recognition of Notarial Acts bill of 2009. The bill requires any Federal or State court to recognize any notarization made by a notary public licensed by a State other than the State where the court is located when such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce. A similar bill was introduced in 2007. The original bill arose out of a Michigan court case where a trial court refused to accept an unauthenticated notarized document from another state. However, the Michigan Supreme Court subsequently overturned the ruling, stating that by law, the court should have accepted and given full faith and credit to the act of another state's official. That ruling made the 2007 act unnecessary.

The National Association of Secretaries of States strongly oppose this bill. NASS (rightfully I believe) argues that the act is unnecessary given that three existing acts (The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, and The Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act), combined with state notary laws, the Federal Rules of Evidence, and the Full Faith and Credit Clause already address these issues.

Simply put, current laws are already in place recognizing out of state notarial acts. There's no need to fix a problem that doesn't exist.

Things Must Be Tough For Some Notary Listing Sites

Notary signing agents have seen a blitz of emails recently from various notary listing sites. They tout themselves as being the best, or being different than other sites. Their marketing campaign consists of sending the same email over and over again, week after week, month after month (a special shout out to The Notary Phone Book, who sometimes email me several times a week, week after week, and completely ignore any requests to remove me from their email list). For a fee of $xx, you can list your services with them, where you'll proceed to get loads of business from title companies and signing services. Yeah, right.

Before investing your marketing dollars on these sites, do some research. Ask other notaries, read the forums, find out which sites really produce a return on your investment. Use Google to check common search terms and see if these sites come up on the first page or two. Check their Google rankings and Alexa rankings. Many of these sites make impressive claims, but offer no real value. Their sites are cheesy, produce little or no traffic (other than the curious peeks they get when they send out their spam emails), and are rarely, if ever, used by title companies or signing services.

The tried and true listing sites still produce the best results. For my money, Notary Rotary, 123 Notary, Go Get Notary, and (dare I say) the NNA's Signing Agent site have always given me the best return.

The New HUD Settlement Statement

By now, many of us are starting to see the new HUD-1 Settlement Statement for loans originating on or after January 1st, 2010. In order to provide borrowers with key documentation regarding their loan, the new HUD-1 includes information not previous provided on a Settlement Statement...

Continued at Go Get Notary...

10 Tips For Winning In A Bad Economy

by Mark Tewart

1 – Don’t Drink the Cool Aid
2 – You can’t cut your way to a profit
3 – Don’t cut your life line
4 – Dance with who brought you
5 – Make the bad news good
6 – Stop Boring Me to Death
7 – Go back to the basics
8 – Super-size it
9 – Create Multiple Orgasms
10 – Speed of the Boss, Speed of the Crew

Details

Senate Looks To Stop Deceptive Lending Practices

An amendment to the Wall Street reform bill passed on Wednesday. The amendment prohibits mortgage lenders and loan originators from receiving greater pay for pushing loans with higher interest rates (gee, that makes sense) and requires that borrower's actually have the ability to repay their loans (you mean, they don't already do that?).

Customer Service Hall Of Shame

MSN's yearly customer service hall of shame has just been released. As usual, many lenders make the list. As a matter of fact, 5 of the worst 10 are mortgage or credit card companies. Bank of America is at number 2 (not so surprising). At number 1? AOL. Who knew AOL still existed?

Historic Low Rates Coming To An End?

Mortgage rates climb to an 8 month high.

Who Says You Don't Need A Website?

Sort of strange to walk into a closing and see a picture and bio of yourself on the borrower's kitchen table (That's me on the left. Good looking guy, I know). But that's what happened today. The borrower wanted to know about the person coming to their house so they found my website and printed everything out. I've heard plenty of signing agents say that if a borrower asked to see their I.D. or other information about them, they would refuse. Sorry, I just don't understand that. A borrower has every right to know who I am and ask for verification before letting me through their front door. If having a website that offers some information about me and my services helps a borrower feel more comfortable, then it's worth it.

Opie Returns

For years, David Hall was the face of Rock Financial & Quicken Loans. He was everywhere. TV, radio (as co-host of the nationally syndicated radio program, "The Real Estate Insiders."), and Pistons games. His regular guy charm resonated with consumers. He was so good at representing Rock that many people mistakenly believed he was the President of Rock Financial (in fact, he was a mortgage banker and team leader when the spots originally started before rising to Senior Vice President). In 2007, Hall suddenly and dramatically left Rock Financial. He's been relatively unseen since then. Until now. David Hall has just launched Hall Financial, a new mortgage company based in Birmingham, Michigan.

LSI's Amazing Offer!

OK, I'm always skeptical when I receive an email telling me about an AMAZING offer. My first reaction is "yeah, right." And my second reaction is "what's the sales pitch?" Yesterday I received an email from LSI Fidelity about an amazing offer to their vendors. As a service provider for LSI, they are offering to provide us with discounts on products that many of us use as signing agents. This includes:

• Up to 70% discount on shipping (Fed Ex, UPS)
• Up to 25% discount on computer equipment (Dell, HP)
• Up to 60% discount below retail price when ordering office supplies (Office Depot, Staples, Office Max, and Corporate Express)
• Up to 20% discount on wireless services and equipment (Verizon, Sprint, Nextel, AT&T, and T-Mobile)
• Up to 60% savings on copiers and fax machines from Canon, Xerox, Ikon, and Toshiba, to name a few.

The cost for signing up? Zero. Amazing? Well, maybe not quite. But pretty darn good.

LSI vendors and service providers can sign up at www.ecpurchasing.com . If you're a signing agent not currently on LSI's vendor list, I'd say it's worth it to sign up.

New Credit Card Laws Take Effect on 02/22/10

OneWest Bank's Sweetheart Deal - It Will Make You Shake Your Head

Video Marketing and Mortgage News Designed for Mortgage and Real Estate Sales

My Home Is Worth How Much?

Ok, I get it. After years of appraisals gone wild, appraisers are nervous. They're being heavily scrutinized. I understand the need to be conservative. But can we please just find a way to value homes in a fair manner? Fair means not intentionally using a foreclosed home as a comparable when there are other homes in the neighborhood that could have been used. It means not using homes a mile away that are worth less when there's one right around the corner. It means not valuing a house and then taking a flat 20% off the value just because. And if a homeowner can show based on other comparables that an appraisal is unfair or inaccurate, how about a process that allows the owner a legitimate way to dispute it? Is that asking too much? Ridiculously high appraisals contributed mightily to our current situation. And now ridiculously low appraisals are keeping us in the same predicament. Can we please just find a reasonable middle ground?

LSI Webinar

LSI Title is presenting a free webinar on Tuesday, February 9th. Some webinars can be pretty basic, but the topics being covered in this webinar relate to issues that have been questioned and discussed a lot lately. They include:

How the final RESPA rule impacts Notary Signing Agents

The new HUD-1 Settlement Statement & Good Faith Estimate of Settlement Charges

Good Loan Modifications - What they are and how to handle them

Bad Loan Modifications - How to recognize the scam companies that exploit borrowers and seek to recruit NSAs to handle their work.


You can register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/341004898

C.Y.A.

When you're a signing agent, it's easy to take the fall when something goes wrong. So it's important to cover your tracks as much as possible. Today I received an email from one of my title companies stating that the borrower's check was not in the return package. It was a professional email, nothing accusatory. Still, we all know that the though is that the signing agent messed up.

Now I know that many signing agents take their loan packages back to their home or office after the closing and notarize and review everything there before packing it up and shipping it off. But the better procedure is to complete the package, review everything, and pack up the loan documents at the closing. This way there's absolutely no questions about what might have happened. In my case, I was able to state that I clipped the check to the front of the package right in front of the borrower AND the loan officer who was also there. I then sealed the FedEx envelope in front of the loan officer. The loan officer was able to corroborate all of this. Whew, off the hook.

Black Rebel Motorcycle - Lien On Your Dreams

Michigan Housing Market Shows A Pulse

While much of the nation has already begun to show signs of stabilization in the housing market, Michigan has (not surprisingly) lagged behind. But we may finally be seeing some life. The Detroit News reports that November home sales in southeastern Michigan (Macomb, Oakland and Wayne county) were up 22.6% from prior year. In addition, "median prices were up in Wayne and Oakland counties, inventories were down and more non-foreclosure houses and condos were sold than foreclosed properties." Have we finally seen the worst of it?

Recovery?

Today's Sunday Detroit Free Press was extra thick. Christmas ads? Nope, 128 pages entitled "2010 Notice of Forfeited Property Subject to Foreclosure." And this is for Wayne County, Michigan only. 128 pages. I guess we still have a long way to go.