Zillow unveils real estate agent rating system

SEATTLE – Jan. 13, 2011 – Real estate website Zillow.com today launched a program that allows homebuyers and sellers to search for and find local real estate agents based on ratings and reviews from former clients.

Thousands of consumers have rated and reviewed agents since Zillow launched the ability to review agents in December, but the website now allows visitors to search for a real estate agent through the Zillow Directory and use the ratings and reviews as a way to select representation. Zillow claims over 13 million visitors to its website each month.

“Agent Reviews are another huge step towards transparency for buyers and sellers,” says Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff. “For good agents, it’s a terrific way to stand out from the crowd – the next best thing to a referral. “

When visitors use the Zillow Directory to search for a real estate agent by area, agents with the highest overall ratings and greatest number of reviews show up first. Ratings are based on a consumer’s likelihood to recommend an agent to other buyers or seller on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being “very likely” and 1 “very unlikely.” Consumers can compare agents’ based on their overall ratings, or they can compare ratings across several categories of service including: process expertise, local knowledge, responsiveness and negotiation skills.

Along with ratings, Zillow visitors can read “qualitative reviews” that clients have written about their real estate agent. Zillow users can access these agent ratings and reviews everywhere they interact with agents on Zillow.com – directly through for-sale listings, for example, or when agents answer questions in Zillow Advice.

The review process is retroactive, Zillow says. Former clients can also rate and review their agents who have profiles on Zillow by searching for the agent in the Zillow Directory.

© 2011 Florida Realtors®

Fla. to step up foreclosure investigations

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Jan. 12, 2011 – The section of the Florida attorney general’s office that investigates irregularities in foreclosure cases is likely to expand under new Attorney General Pam Bondi, an agency attorney told a Senate committee Tuesday.

Associate Deputy Attorney General Trish Conners told the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee that Bondi plans to enhance the effort to go after robosigners and law firms using other unscrupulous practices.

“We expect in this new administration to beef up the resources working on this issue in the economic crimes unit,” Conners told the panel, which continued Tuesday to take testimony on the difficulties in the home lending market in Florida and the efforts to respond to it. “Only then can we ensure the integrity of the process is back.”

Sen. Joe Negron, however, urged caution in portraying the problem as wider in the banks, law firms and servicing organizations than it might be, and being too quick to assume offices handling lots of foreclosures are doing something wrong. He said not all firms that are processing lots of foreclosures are committing crimes.

“‘Foreclosure mill’ could also be called ‘very busy law firm,’” said Negron, R-Stuart.

Conners said Florida remains deeply mired in the foreclosure crisis, citing statistics from the banking industry. About half of the foreclosures being pursued by Bank of America and the same for JP Morgan are in Florida, Conners said.

Source: News Service of Florida

State details foreclosure chaos

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Jan. 7, 2011 – Sweeping evidence of the case the state attorney general’s office has built in its pursuit of foreclosure justice for Florida homeowners is outlined in a 98-page presentation complete with copies of allegedly forged signatures, false notarizations, bogus witnesses and improper mortgage assignments.

The presentation, titled “Unfair, Deceptive and Unconscionable Acts in Foreclosure Cases,” was given during an early December conference of the Florida Association of Court Clerks and Comptrollers by the attorney general’s economic crimes division.

It is one of the first examples of what the state has compiled in its exploration of foreclosure malpractice, condemning banks, mortgage servicers and law firms for contributing to the crisis by cutting corners.

“What we got from this is the state has had the opportunity to see where the laws have been broken, and frankly, it is in large part thanks to the work of the defense attorneys,” said Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller Sharon Bock. “They’ve been bringing these defenses up in foreclosure cases for years now.”

In page after page of copied records, the presentation meticulously documents cases of questionable signatures, notarizations that could not have occurred when they are said to have because of when the notary stamp expires, and foreclosures filed by entities that might not have had legal ability to foreclose.

It also focuses largely on assignments of mortgage, documents that transfer ownership of mortgages from one bank to another.

Mortgage assignments became an issue after the real estate boom, when mortgages were sold and resold, packaged into securitized trusts and otherwise transferred in a labyrinthine fashion that made tracking difficult.

As foreclosures mounted, the banks appointed people to create assignments, “thousands and thousands and thousands” of which were signed weekly by people who may not have known what they were signing.

In one example, a signature by someone named Linda Green is said to appear on hundreds of thousands of mortgage documents from dozens of banks and mortgage companies, but in varying styles.

In another example, the signature of Scott Anderson, an employee of West Palm Beach-based Ocwen Financial Corp., appears in four styles on mortgage assignments.

“No one bothered to take the time and effort to properly execute this stuff,” said Boynton Beach attorney James Bonfiglio, who defends foreclosures. “It matters a great deal who signed the documents because people can be sued twice and three times for the same debt if it wasn’t properly transferred.”

Paul Koches, executive vice president of Ocwen, acknowledged Tuesday that the signatures were not all Anderson’s, but that doesn’t mean they were forged, he said. Certain employees were given authorization to sign for Anderson on mortgage assignments, which Koches noted do not need to be notarized.

Still, Ocwen has since stopped allowing other people to sign for Anderson, Koches said.

The attorney general’s office had no comment Tuesday on the presentation, which was not aimed at a specific case. Four of Florida’s large foreclosure law firms that represent the banks are under investigation by the state, as well as two companies that serve court summonses on homeowners, and a Jacksonville-based servicing company that the presentation said produced 2,000 mortgage assignments per day.

The office is also part of a 50-state coalition of attorneys general trying to work out agreements with the nation’s largest lenders on foreclosure matters.

Copyright © 2011 The Palm Beach Post

Is 2011 the year of the tablet?

LAS VEGAS – Jan. 7, 2011 – If last year’s International Consumer Electronics Show was overshadowed by Apple’s about-to-be-announced tablet computer, the iPad, no-show Apple will have an even bigger presence this week in Las Vegas.

Richard Doherty, an independent analyst at the Envisioneering Group, says that more than 100 companies will attempt to ride on Apple’s iPad coattails with their own versions of a tablet computer. This comes at a time when Apple is expected to soon announce a second version of the iPad, tech analysts say.

Toshiba, Motorola, Research In Motion, Asus, Acer and Vizio are among the companies expected to unveil tablets at the multiday tech orgy that is CES. “There’s no question Apple blindsided everyone in the industry with the iPad” last year, says Tim Bajarin, an analyst at technology research firm Creative Strategies. “Everyone’s playing catch-up.”

CES could attract as many as 140,000 attendees this year, up from 126,000 in 2010, says Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, which stages CES. CEA expects total electronics sales, including everything from TVs and computers to video games and Blu-ray players, to top $182 billion in the United States.

“The show is off the charts,” he says. “Consumers are having a love affair with technology. Even in a recession, they didn’t cut back.”

The iPad was the best-reviewed tech product of the year, and created a new category in tablet computing, with a portable entertainment device that ditched the keyboard for a touch-screen and made it more fun to watch movies and TV shows, play games and read books.

Gartner expects sales of tablets – the iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab – to top 20 million units in 2010, growing to more than 60 million in 2011.

Helping the companies with their tablets is Apple competitor Google, whose Android operating system has overtaken the iPhone as the fastest-growing platform for smartphones. A version of Android created for phones is being used for many of the new tablets. But Bajarin and other tech analysts say it isn’t yet powerful enough to run larger tablets.

“Many of them will barely run,” says Doherty. “Consumers will be very upset.”

If 2011 is the “year of the tablet,” as many are expecting, “It won’t begin to happen until the third quarter,” when Google is expected to release its new, more powerful Android, called Honeycomb, Bajarin says.

Tablets from Toshiba and Motorola, for instance, won’t be introduced until the second half of the year. “We’re waiting for Google,” says Toshiba Vice President Jeff Barney. He won’t release his new 10-inch Toshiba tablet (expected price: about $499) until Honeycomb is ready for release, because the extra power is needed to run the unit, he says.

Omar Khan, chief strategy officer for Samsung’s mobile division, which released the Galaxy Tab in November, says Android 2.3 has worked fine for his tablet, which has a 7-inch screen. “We proved we could provide a very compelling tablet experience,” he says. The Honeycomb release “will only further enhance the experience” on bigger tablets, he says.

Flash comes up again  

Many iPad clones are expected to follow in the Galaxy Tab’s footsteps, offering what consumers saw as important omissions in the current iPad.

The Tab and Toshiba’s Tablet, for instance, have two cameras for video and photos, a USB port and a slot for SD memory cards for photos. They work with Adobe Flash software, which is used to play more than 75 percent of online video.

Apple doesn’t support Flash for the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch for various reasons. (Apple CEO Steve Jobs says Flash is “buggy.”) So consumers using Apple mobile products aren’t able to view video-heavy sites such as Nickelodeon’s Nick.com and most websites from car manufacturers, which use Flash extensively.

“One of the reasons the iPad was so popular is because so many iPhone users already knew how to operate it, since it has the same operating system,” Barney says. “They didn’t have to relearn the navigation system. The same is true with Android: They already know it.”

Google declined to comment for this story. But at a recent industry conference in San Francisco, Andy Rubin, a Google vice president who runs the Android division, showed a prototype of the upcoming Motorola tablet that, unlike the iPad, had no buttons on the device. All directions are done via touch-screen. Even though the iPad has just one button – the home button – “You still get a little lost,” Rubin said.

Rubin said Google has worked closely with tablet manufacturers to come up with software that can work more efficiently with tablets. “We’re not in the business to build just one tablet.”

Is smaller better?

In competing with Apple, Samsung’s Khan says the biggest selling points have been offering a smaller tablet computer “that fits in the pocket” and being part of the Android family. “There’s a significant community that’s using Android on the phone.”

But not all device manufacturers are working with Google. Research In Motion’s PlayBook will use its own BlackBerry operating system.

Hewlett-Packard, which bought longtime device manufacturer Palm for $1.2 billion in 2010, is expected to show off a new tablet at CES using Palm’s WebOS system.

And Microsoft, which has been shut out of the tablet market even though the original concept was touted by co-founder Bill Gates in the 1990s, is expected to show – but not offer for sale – a new line of tablets powered by Windows.

But the 1,000-pound gorilla at CES will be the product that isn’t there: Apple’s sequel to the original iPad, which could be announced within days or weeks of the event.

A new iPad isn’t a stretch. The company historically refreshes its lines with new features every year.

Several tech blogs have spent the holidays speculating on what the new iPad will look like.

The sequel is expected to have most of the new features that will be touted by rivals, except for Flash. They include a camera for photos and video; a slightly smaller, thinner design; and a sharper Retina display, like 2010’s iPhone 4.

Is Apple CEO Jobs worried about the competition?

Apparently not.

On a recent conference call with analysts, Jobs predicted that the new tabs would be “dead on arrival.” The chief problem, he said, is that many competing devices will look too similar to the iPad and be too small – most with a 7-inch screen. “Seven-inch tablets are tweeners – too big to be a phone and too small to compete with the iPad,” he said.

Time will tell if Jobs is right.

© Copyright 2011 USA TODAY

‘Secret’ way to lower mortgage payments

NEW YORK – Jan. 6, 2011 – Homeowners can trim their monthly mortgage payments by “recasting” or “re-amortizing” their loan without having to refinance and face hefty closing cost fees, experts say.

When recasting, the borrower pays off a lump sum of the loan’s principal and then resets monthly payments at the loan’s original interest rate and terms.

Here’s one scenario: $230,449 is left on a 30-year fixed rate loan for a $300,000 mortgage taken out at 7.93 percent in 1995. The borrower pays $20,000 toward the principal and asks the lender to reamortize their payments over the remaining 15 years of the loan. The monthly payment then drops by $52, from $2,187 to $2,135 per month. ($100,000 toward the lump sum would save $730 a month.)

Since borrowers are not asking for a new loan, they will not have to pay closing costs or submit to another credit check. (Note: “Recasting” is often used in the mortgage industry to refer to interest rate resets on adjustable-rate mortgages. In this case, the interest rate and loan term remain the same. )

“People don’t really know about it, but it’s become more common recently,” Alan Rosenbaum, founder and chief executive of the Guardhill Financial Corporation in New York, said about recasting.

Borrowers who just make extra payments toward the loan’s principal but do not ask the bank to recast the loan will keep monthly payments the same and just shorten the overall time it takes to pay off the loan. Recasting, on the other hand, reduces the principal but then, in turn, lowers monthly payments and interest over the life of the loan.

Some recent buyers may find recasting a good option, particularly when it makes little financial sense to refinance so soon after purchasing a home but are expecting a large sum of money. For example, buyers who expect to receive a tax refund or other substantial money after closing on their property, such as proceeds from the sale of another property or stocks, may want to look into recasting to lower monthly payments, says Edward Ades, the owner of Universal Mortgage in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Source: “A Little-Known Strategy for Cutting Mortgage Payments,” New York Times (Dec. 30, 2010)

© Copyright 2011 INFORMATION, INC

2011 prediction: Slow real estate recovery

WASHINGTON – Jan. 3, 2011 – Pending home sales rose again in November, according to the National Association of Realtors®, which says a gradual improvement has been the trend for past five months, indicating a gradual recovery into 2011.

The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator, rose 3.5 percent to 92.2 based on contracts signed in November from a downwardly revised 89.1 in October. The index is 5.0 percent below a reading of 97.0 in November 2009. The data reflects contracts and not closings, which normally occur with a lag time of one or two months.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said historically high housing affordability is boosting sales activity. “In addition to exceptional affordability conditions, steady improvements in the economy are helping bring buyers into the market,” he said. “But further gains are needed to reach normal levels of sales activity.”

The PHSI in the Northeast increased 1.8 percent to 72.6 in November but is 6.2 percent below November 2009. In the Midwest, the index declined 4.2 percent in November to 78.3 and is 7.7 percent below a year ago. Pending home sales in the South slipped 1.8 percent to an index of 91.4 and are 7.2 percent below November 2009. In the West the index jumped 18.2 percent to 123.3 and is 0.4 percent above a year ago.

“If we add 2 million jobs as expected in 2011, and mortgage rates rise only moderately, we should see existing-home sales rise to a higher, sustainable volume,” Yun said. “Credit remains tight, but if lenders return to more normal, safe underwriting standards for creditworthy buyers, there would be a bigger boost to the housing market and spillover benefits for the broader economy.”

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is forecast to rise gradually to 5.3 percent around the end of 2011; at the same time, unemployment should drop to 9.2 percent.

For perspective, Yun said that the U.S. has added 27 million people over the past 10 years. “However, the number of jobs is roughly the same as it was in 2000 when existing-home sales totaled 5.2 million, which appears to be a sustainable figure given the current level of employment.”

“All the indicator trends are pointing to a gradual housing recovery,” Yun said. “Home price prospects will vary depending largely upon local job market conditions. The national median home price, however, is expected to remain stable even with a continuing flow of distressed properties coming onto the market, as long as there is a steady demand of financially healthy homebuyers.”

Existing-home sales are projected to rise about 8 percent to 5.2 million in 2011 from 4.8 million in 2010, with an additional gain of 4 percent in 2012. The median existing-home price could rise 0.6 percent to $173,700 in 2011 from $172,700 in 2010, which was essentially unchanged from 2009.

“As we gradually work off the excess housing inventory, supply levels will eventually come more in-line with historic averages, and could allow home prices to rise modestly in the range of 2 to 3 percent in 2012,” Yun said.

New-home sales are estimated to rise 24 percent to 392,000 in 2011 but remain well below historic averages, while housing starts are forecast to rise 21 percent to 716,000.

Yun sees Gross Domestic Product growing 2.5 percent in 2011, and the Consumer Price Index rising 2.3 percent.

© 2011 Florida Realtors®

Fewer homeowners underwater in the third quarter

NEW YORK – Dec. 14, 2010 – The number of homeowners who owe more than their houses are worth fell for the third straight quarter this summer.

About 10.8 million households, or 22.5 percent of all mortgaged homes, were underwater in the July-September quarter, housing data firm CoreLogic said Monday. That’s down from 23 percent, or 11 million households, in the second quarter.

The decline came mainly because more homes had fallen into foreclosure and not because home prices had increased.

In a healthy housing market, about 5 percent of homeowners with a mortgage owe more than their homes are worth, CoreLogic’s economist Sam Khater estimates. The firm does not have historical data before the third quarter of 2009.

The ranks of underwater borrowers will remain high and likely rise because home values are expected to fall through the middle of next year. About 2.4 million hold only 5 percent or less equity in their homes, putting them near the tipping point if prices in their area fall.

Two-thirds of homeowners in Nevada who have a mortgage had negative home equity, the worst in the country. It was followed by Arizona, Florida (45% of homeowners with a mortgage owe more than homes are worth), Michigan and California.

However, Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida also posted the biggest decline in negative equity, mostly because a high percentage of severely underwater borrowers in those states fell into foreclosure.

Oklahoma had the smallest percentage of underwater homeowners in the third quarter at 6 percent. Only nine states recorded percentages less than 10 percent.

The total amount of negative equity decreased to $744 billion nationwide, down from $766 billion in the previous quarter.
 Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press