We all hear the Positive news, yes the cheerier news coming from the housing market recently, it's easy to think that the dark days of the worst housing bust in recent history are far behind us.

But for the majority of the nation's local housing markets, things are far from back to normal.

65 percent of local markets are worse off than they were in 2008. RealtyTrac evaluated more than 900 counties on five key metrics that impact housing, including average home prices and share of distressed sales.

"The U.S. housing market has shown strong signs of life in recent months, but many local markets continue to struggle," Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac, said in a release.

[READ: Is The Housing Recovery for Real?]
The culprits holding back housing markets across the country are very familiar. For starters, while the national rate has edged down slightly, unemployment rates increased in 854 counties of the 919 analyzed by RealtyTrac, a whopping 94 percent of the total.

The massive pool of negative home equity also poses a huge challenge for the housing market going forward. Millions of Americans owe more on the mortgages that what their home is worth, trapping many who want to sell in deeply devalued homes.

High unemployment and high negative equity levels increase the potential for foreclosures and while another flood of distressed properties has not materialized nationally, many neighborhoods still face a backlog, which tend to drag down property values overall. According to RealtyTrac, 37 percent of all residential sales are of distressed properties.

[READ: Tight Credit, Lack of Lots Dampen Home Builder Optimism]
"While the worst of the foreclosure problem is in the rear view mirror for a narrow majority of counties, others are still working through rising levels of foreclosure activity, inventory and distressed sales as they continue to clear the wreckage left behind by a bursting housing bubble," Blomquist added.

All those factors have conspired to drive down average home prices in more than 70 percent of the counties RealtyTrac analyzed. That's kept more families underwater on the mortgages and less likely to sell and put more pressure on families in financially precarious situations.

Arguably some of the most reviled characters involved in the housing bust, home flippers are making a comeback, profiting once again from growing strength in the nation's hobbled housing market.

In the first six months of 2012, there were almost 100,000 property flips nationwide, according to foreclosure information site RealtyTrac, an increase of 25 percent from 2011 and 27 percent from 2010. Average gross profits were almost $30,000 not including rehab costs.

"What's attracting more folks to [flipping] now is that we're seeing prices rising," says Daren Blomquist, director of marketing communications at RealtyTrac. "It's a much more forgiving climate for flippers to operate under."

While the primary draw to the flipping industry might be rising home prices, there wouldn't be much opportunity if it weren't for the clog of distressed and vacant homes across the nation, especially in regions that suffered the most in the foreclosure crisis. Many of those homes have "good bones," experts say, but face more serious issues (such as mold), or lack cosmetic updates that would make a property move-in ready.

[Are rents rising in your city? Check out our rent price heat map.]

Because many would-be buyers don't seem to be looking for an extreme fixer-upper, the availability of affordable, move-in ready homes is tight, crimping sales figures across the nation.

"What we're seeing across the country is a lack of general inventory--there's just not as many homes on the market, which is driving prices up and pushing properties into multiple offer situations," says Mike Baird, co-host of Spike TV's Flip Men and a flipper of more than 1000 properties in the Salt Lake Valley area.

That's where flippers come in. While re-tiling a kitchen floor or gutting a bathroom might be too big a project for the average homebuyer, full-time flippers can turn around a complete home rehab in 106 days on average, according to RealtyTrac.

Here's a glimpse at the most lucrative locales for flippers:

And while flipping might have a negative connotation in the wake of the worst housing meltdown in recent history, it's a necessary step in clearing the nation's outsized inventory of highly distressed properties, Blomquist says.

"This is legitimate flipping. This is people coming in and finding a property that needs a lot of work, and putting in the sweat equity to bring the property up to a rentable value or [in a condition] to sell," he adds.

Baird agrees. Although he compares the activity he's currently seeing in the flipping space to what it was during the housing market's heyday in the early 2000s, it's not the kind of "irresponsible" flipping that helped bring the market and economy to its knees just a few years later.

[Can the Housing Market Recovery Last?]

Whereas inaccurate appraisals and unscrupulous real estate speculators were mostly to blame for the flipping industry's bad rap, Baird sees today's flippers making more calculated business decisions based on current market conditions.

"People [are] thinking we're at the bottom or near the bottom, interest rates are at an all-time low and so we're jumping in and we're buying properties at rock bottom, fixing them up and selling them," Baird says. "Contrast that with when things were crazy and people were buying property to simply speculate in the short term [on] price appreciation seen in years past."

Furthermore, Baird and Blomquist don't anticipate the frenzied flip jobs seen in the early 2000s. Instead, flipping will be more gradual and will follow local housing market recoveries.

"I think it will spread--investors are flipping a lot in Phoenix right now, but they're moving to different markets," Blomquist says. "Flipping is a long-term phenomenon. If investors run out of prospective properties in one market, they move on."

Meg Handley is a reporter for U.S. News & World Report. You can reach her at mhandley@usnews.com and follow her on Twitter at @mmhandley.

The 11 Worst-Performing Cities in America

By Joshua Berlinger I Business Insider

While the U.S. recovery creeps forward, some cities are getting left behind.

We identified the weakest economic recoveries based on the latest Metro Monitor from the Brookings Institute, which looks at employment, unemployment, production, and home prices. They're located in places like upstate New York, where the initial housing crash was less dramatic, but the slowdown more prolonged.
 

#1 Little Rock, Arkansas

-- Unemployment rate down 0.7 percentage points since 2011Q3
-- Employment up 0.7% since 2010Q1
-- Gross metro product up 2.9% since 2010Q1
-- Home prices at a new low in 2012Q1

#2 Hamburg, Pennsylvania

-- Unemployment rate down 0.9 percentage points since 2010Q1
-- Employment down 1.2% since 2010Q1
-- Gross metro product up 1.5% since 2009Q3
-- Home prices at a new low in 2012Q1

#3 Virginia Beach, Virginia

-- Unemployment down I. t percentage points since 2010Q1
-- Employment up 1.5% since 2010Q1
-- Gross metro product up 1.0% since 2012Q1
-- Home prices at a new low in 2012Q1

#4 Albany, New York

-- Unemployment hit a new high in 2012Q2
-- Employment up 1.7% since 2011Q1
-- Gross metro product up 5.0% since 2009Q3
-- Home prices at a new low in 2012Q1

#5 Buffalo, New York

-- Unemployment hit a new high in 2012Q2
-- Employment up 1.8% since 2009Q4
-- Gross metro product up 5.1% since 2009Q2
-- Home prices at a new low in 2012Q

#6 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
-- Unemployment rate down 0.7 percentage points since 2010Q1
-- Employment up 1.4% since 2010Q1
-- Gross metro product up 3.4% since 2009Q3
-- Home prices at a new low in 2012Q1

#7 Honolulu, Hawaii

-- Unemployment rate down 0.2 percentage points since 2009Q4
-- Employment up 9.5% since 2009Q4
-- Gross metro product up 3.6% since 2009Q3
-- Home prices at a new low in 2012Q1

#8 Jackson, Mississippi

-- Unemployment rate is down 1.3 percentage points since 2010Q1
-- Employment up 1.8% since 2010Q1
-- Gross metro product up 1.0% since 2009Q3
-- Home prices at a new low in 2012Q1

#9 Syracuse, New York

-- Unemployment hit a new high in 2012Q2
-- Employment up 1.8% since 2012Q2
-- Gross metro product up 6.5% since 2009Q2
-- Home prices at a new low in 2012Q1

#10 Poughkeepsie, New York

-- Unemployment hit a new high in 2012Q2
-- Employment up 2.2% since 2009Q3
-- Gross metro product up 6.1% since 2009Q2
-- Home prices at a new low in 2012Q1

#11 Albuquerque, New Mexico

-- Unemployment down 1,4 percentage points since 2010Q3
-- Employment at a new low in 2012Q2
-- Gross metro product up 5.0% since 2008Q2
-- Home prices at a new low in 2012Q1

Copyright © 2012 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reset-cal. /

Remember a time not so long ago when we first hear about the Real Estate Short-Sale?;

Some of the common comments were = what's that, why would the banks agree, impossible, can't be done, not in this lifetime,...etc.

    Now there are hundreds if not thousands of Short-Sales per week. 

 100% of which the banks are losing money! 

Short Sales are expensive for the banks because they have to go through the Foreclosure process first;  Legal Fees, Court Costs, Back Office Support, etc.

Our Real Estate Product; The Discount Note Refinance is in much the same boat as the Short Sale was years ago. A bit unheard of so far but becoming more and more acceptable as the Banks realize the opportunity to help themselves:    Our goal is to help Property Owners KEEP their Property. We do this for Jumbo loans by offering a discounted buyout price to the Lender, and selling the property back to the original owner at a slight mark-up so the Owners pays no Fees.

A TRUE:  

 The Bank Wins (No forclosure process)

 The Owner Wins (Saves Thousands in Equity and Pymts)

 We Win (Make a Profit)

 situation!

 

Hello and welcome to my RE blog.  I wish I could say this was going to be a good blog, maybe not. Let's thank Michele for getting the word out about these scammers..

At Real Estate Mediation Co. when working with clients who are in a Negative Equity situation we never charge a fee to the homeowner, and we insist that you stay in contact with your current lender through-out the loan restructure process.  Our goal is to keep you in the property with a realistic 2012 Current Market Value loan.

If you believe you are the victim of a mortgage relief scam, you can contact one of the following agencies to report it.
BBB.org/us/scam-source.
FTC.gov or call (877) 382-4357.
PreventLoanScams.org or call (866) 459-2162.
HOPENOW.com or (888) 995-4673.
MakingHomeAffordable.gov.
Sigtarp.gov/contact_hotline.shtml#theform or call (877) 744-2009.
By Michele Lerner • Bankrate.comHomeowners trying to avoid foreclosure are stressed and scared. They have become a prime target of con artists who prey on vulnerable people. Nonprofit organizations and government agencies are working together to warn consumers of the danger of mortgage relief scams and how to avoid them.

Many mortgage scammers have been arrested, but plenty more are trying to take advantage of homeowners' financial woes. Here are some examples of common mortgage relief scams.
"Last year, a couple came up to me at a homeowners assistance event and told me they had paid what they thought was HOPE NOW $4,000 to help them with a loan modification," says Faith Schwartz, executive director of HOPE NOW. "The scammers had taken our (HOPE NOW's) documents and letters and reproduced them so they looked legitimate and used HOPENOWModificationsLLC.com as their website."

Many scammers use similar names to government and nonprofit programs and even add their logos to their materials.

To avoid being caught by one of these scams, "homeowners should find a legitimate, free (Housing and Urban Development)-approved housing counselor by going to HUD.gov," says Christy Romero, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. "It's important to realize that housing counseling is free."

The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against Sameer Lakhany of Santa Ana, Calif., and companies he controlled, including the Precision Law Center, for charging homeowners for a "forensic loan audit."

Reilly Dolan, assistant director for financial practices for the FTC, says, "A salesperson would call the homeowners and say they were going to audit their mortgage documents and use the violations they could find to force their lender to approve a loan modification. The scammers would tell people that they found violations 90 percent of the time."

Dolan says these types of scams typically ask for $1,000 to $5,000 from the homeowners, with an average fee of $3,000.

Precision Law Center employees claimed to be HUD-approved housing counselors with qualifications to do the loan audits, which they said would be the only part of the process that wasn't free.

The FTC says that more than $1 million was collected by the Precision Law Center.

Barbara Floyd Jones, program manager for foreclosure prevention efforts for NeighborWorks America, says the paperwork for a loan audit can look legitimate, but she says consumers can avoid scams by proactively contacting a local HUD-approved housing counselor through the HUD website.
Be wary of anyone who tells you to stop paying your lender or who tells you to stop trying to contact your lender," Dolan says. "Don't trust someone who says they will talk to your lender on your behalf. Always talk to your servicer directly."
Schwartz says, "People are always looking for fresh ways to get homeowners' money. One of the newest is for a scammer to tell the homeowner they will put their money in an escrow account and hold it during the loan modification process. Once the money is in the account, they drain it and disappear."

To avoid this scam, never give out personal financial information to anyone who calls. And don't pay a fee for housing counseling.
If you believe you are the victim of a mortgage relief scam, you can contact one of the following agencies to report it.
 BBB.org/us/scam-source.
 FTC.gov or call (877) 382-4357.
 PreventLoanScams.org or call (866) 459-2162.
 HOPENOW.com or (888) 995-4673.
 MakingHomeAffordable.gov.
 Sigtarp.gov/contact_hotline.shtml#theform or call (877) 744-2009.

Do you have a Commerical or Residential Mortgage and In Negative Equity....??????    You're not alone!     We can help!!   Email me Now!

Commercial Mortgages Show How Bad It Got

By FLOYD NORRIS Published: July 5, 2012

Just five years ago, the commercial real estate market was thriving. The delinquency rate on mortgage loans was at a record low, and the volume of new mortgages being sold to investors was at a record high.

Now the first of the mortgages that were securitized in 2007 have started to come due, and it is becoming clear just how bad many of the loans were. The time when investors were most eager to buy turns out to have been the worst time to do so.

Commercial mortgages — unlike residential ones — are seldom issued for periods of longer than 10 years, and often for as little as five. Many require no principal repayments during that period but call for the entire amount to be repaid in a balloon payment at the end of the loan. So it can be at maturity when the bad news arrives.

“Only 28 percent of the loans from 2007 due to mature in 2012 managed to pay off in full,” said Manus Clancy, the senior managing director at Trepp L.L.C., which monitors the commercial mortgage market.

Other loans in those securitizations were for seven or 10 years, so new waves of losses may arrive in 2014 and again in 2017.

Perhaps no loan that was securitized in 2007 illustrates the craziness of the market at the time better than one for a group of apartment buildings in Manhattan. The 36 apartment houses, principally owned by the Praedium Group and managed by the Pinnacle Group, run by Joel S. Wiener, had produced cash flow of $5.4 million in 2006, but they secured a loan of $204 million, on which annual interest payments of $12.7 million would be required.

How could such a loan be justified? The prospectus said Deutsche Bank made the loan based on forecasts that by 2012 the cash flow would have soared to $18 million a year, as market rents in New York rose rapidly while many tenants in rent-stabilized and rent-controlled apartments moved out. It assumed that the owners’ expenses would barely increase while rents soared.

The way the bank did the math, those apartment buildings were worth $255 million, so the loan was for only 80 percent of market value.

Hello and Good Day;
    Another good day in the real-estate market, or is it?   For some that have Cash and can hold out for the hopefully good days ahead, be it 2 years, 5 years or 10 years.. 

  For others it is a hard road of Foreclosure, Bad Credit, Lost Cash, Feeling like they are a loser - but of course they are not.  They are innocent bystanders in the restructure of our society on every level.

 Before it gets to that point perhaps seeking help with you Jumbo mortgage, be it Residential or Commercial.  If you are Underwater/ Upsidedown in your property Equity - your hands are tied.
   Your choice are to hold on for a market turnaround in the distant future.
   Can you make up $100K, $200K, $400K or more in lost Equity?
   You cannot take an Equity Loan.
   You cannot sell the property - unless you sell at a steep loss.
   Walk away/ claim bankruptcy - a 140 point hit 7 years to your Credit.

  MFG Capital had to foresight to put together a Legal team to help Owners with these problems.  We are ahead of the Curve; Banks and Brokers still don't exactly understand what we are doing.

  MFG Capital is a speciality restructure, bridge loan company.  They work with the Owner to Purchase the Note at a discount from the Bank and Resell the Property back to the Owner at a 2012 Value. The Owner maintins the Deed the whole time.

  We are working to keep Owners in their Property when Banks cooperate with us.  We are against Short-Selling property.

  Contact me for additional information...

Be Well,
frank