Midnight Special

A classic folk blues tune. The origination of the song is compelling to me. In fact the explanations are mysterious and they supposedly come from legend. "Midnight Special" is said to have originated in a U.S.prison in the deep south when it was common to see chain gangs (prisoners shackled together in chains) from nearby penitentiaries out working on roads, railways and in fields.

"Midnight Special" has been recorded by hundreds of artists and for some like CCR it was a big hit. For me the absolute best and most haunting rendition was recorded by the late great blues vocalist Odetta. Her rendition was simple and soulful, capturing the heart and soul of the legend. Some claim that the lyrics "shine a light on me" refer to a passenger train that woke the inmates late at night. Other stories have it as the train that transported prisoners in and out. Still some have said they believe it's a reference to a train that carried visitors and prostitutes to the prisons as well.

The solo acoustic rendition I've posted here is also simple and I think captures some of that legend as well.  It's arranged in the key of E as a simple 8 bar blues progression with turnarounds. The chords and notes seem to "play" off each other in a whimsical, interesting and entertaining way. Anyone who listens hopefully will leave a comment.

You can visit Youtube channel for more music from this artist. If that link doesn't work go to Youtube and search rebuygeorge.

Cash Is King in the Housing Market

Current homeowners looking to downsize, upsize or relocate are increasingly using more cash to purchase  their next home.

Despite near record low mortgage rates, homebuyers are finding it advantageous, in the current housing  market to shop with cash. Low returns on money deposited in banks as well as mortgage approval hassles also are pushing homebuyers to consider all cash or mostly cash transactions.


Using cash is a definite way to get discounts when buying distressed properties such as foreclosures or short sales and it's unlikely that the proportion of distressed property will be declining anytime soon.
An enormous number of foreclosures remain in the pipeline and the artificial suppression of that inventory by mortgage servicers has kept the proportion of distressed property lower than it otherwise would be.
Hassles with slow underwriting, accentuated by tardy appraisals, cause some homebuyers to give up on mortgages.

It takes about 60 days to close a ‘non-troubled’ FHA loan. About 30 days longer than it had prior to the housing bubble bursting. Other government insured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans are taking about 45-60 days. Appraisals are also holding things up.

These are the average prices reportedly paid for various types of properties in Florida over the past 12 months :

                              Foreclosure
                    Damaged        Move In Ready               Short Sale                  Non Distressed

Florida         $92,765         $166,155                         $148,716                      $248,575

National       $105,247        $187,415                         $198,054                     $257,338



Looking at these statistics makes you wonder why more buyers and sellers aren't taking advantage of the current opportunities to buy and sell short sales. Many properties that are foreclosed could have been sold earlier as a short sale. In many instances faulty processing of the short sale file by either the borrowers agents or the lenders servicer still make them difficult to embrace. Lack of acceptance by 2nd mortgage holders also contributes to the inability to close a short sale. Typically if Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac are the 1st mortgage holder they will allow a small percentage of the 2nd mortgage balance to that lender. If the 2nd demands more the deal will likely die, opening the door again to foreclosure. Closing a short sale is not impossible. Sometimes the stars align. It requires diligence, communication and patience. Three virtues that actually work.

If you have any questions please call me directly at 561-306-6736 or email me.  I'll be glad to help in any way that I can.

"For Me (Shadows)" A Love Song

In the past I've published both original musical videos and covers of songs performed with accompanying photo arrays. The ones that I deem worthy I post and don't do much more with them other than watch them myself and continue playing / recording the music.

Writing the lyrics, finding an original melody and recording them are fun and creatively satisfying. In some instances I've even seen a song like "Knocking on Heaven's Door"  recorded applying a slight change to the melody or rythym and posted with a video or photo array. I've always made the posts for some social commentary. That is until this video and song "For Me (Shadows)"

This is a love song and hopefully a love story:



For more from this artist visit    http://www.youtube.com/user/rebuygeorge

U.S.Bank Regulators Set New Foreclosure Rules

May 2011 - Banks are scrambling to meet a mid June deadline requiring them to have plans in place on how they will meet a set of new U.S. Regulator guidelines designed to help clean up the foreclosure process. The banks will have an additional 60 days after that to actually put the plans to work and implemt the required changes.

The new rules reportedly will require a single point of contact for borrowers trying to modify loans or in the foreclosure process. Regulators will also require that "appropriate deadlines" be set for banks to give a decision on wether or not a modification or other foreclosure alternative workout can be arranged. Banks will also be required to ensure that staffing is adequate enough to handle the flood of foreclosures and loan modifications in their systems.



Some banks are already taking steps to implement changes and meet the new requirements before the June deadline. For example, J.P.Morgan Chase has announced that it is developing new software programs that will make it easier for borrowers to track loan modification requests. They also claim to now provide each borrower with a "relationship manager"to help them through the loan modification or foreclosure maze.

Citigroup says that they will provide a "concierge" service that will help guide deinquent borrowers at risk of default. Banks and mortgage servicers will also be required to meet new guidelines from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that strive for more loan modifications and stronger efforts to keep homeowners in their homes. Servicers will be required to approach borrowers early and frequently after just one missed payment. Fannie and Freddie will reward the servicers for completed modifications and penalize them for failing to meet timelines in the process.

These changes are to go into effect during the 2nd quarter of this year.  

George Sinacori
GES Real Estate LLC

GES Realty MLS

Foreclosure Heads to Supreme Court

A South Florida homeowner  will have his foreclosure case reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court. Claiming that fraudulent documents were submitted to the court by a law firm handling the foreclosure for The Bank of New York Mellon.


In a case whose outcome could reshape state law the 4th District Court of Appeals has asked the states high court to decide it as a matter of "great public importance". The Supreme Court agreed on Friday April 15th 2011 issuing an order to hear the case.


Roman Pino vs. The Bank of New York Mellon  could result in widescale changes to foreclosure cases where there is evidence of fraud in the way that documents have been handled by lenders, servicers  and the law firms that represent them. The Appeal Court wrote that in it's request to the high court that "many, many mortgage foreclosures appear tainted with suspect documents".


If the court decides in favor of the homeowner, a resident of Palm Beach County the ruling could affect thousands of foreclosures where there appears to be or there are allegations of fraud and document falsification. This case is being closely watched because The Bank of New York Mellon was represented by a law firm in South Florida that was forced to close last month while under pressure from allegations of fraud, robo signing and false documentation. This firm is one of eight "foreclosure mills" in the state that are under investigation by the State Attorney Generals office for using fraudulent documents.  They had handled one in every five foreclosure cases in the state until Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as some lenders, recently decided to distance themselves from them and stopped giving them business.


The attorney for the homeowner alleged, in this case that his client was the victim of document fraud and that the bank voluntarily dropped the foreclosure case only to refile with another set of documents. He is seeking sanctions againt the lender on behalf of the homeowner claiming that by dismissing the original case they had cut off his fraud claims as well. The Supreme Court should decide if a trial judge should have allowed the homeowners attorney to move forward with fraud allegations before dismissing the case.

George Sinacori
GES Real Estate, LLC

Home Prices Continue Falling

   According to the monthly report known as S&P Case Schiller Home Price Index home values have continued to decline through January 2011 leaving many experts wondering when we may see some signs of stability in housing. The reasons the bleeding has not stopped are obvious.

The overall economy is directly affected by the housing crises. Many jobs are eliminated, retail sales are slower and confidence in the economy is lower than it needs to be in order to sustain any economic recovery. As I've indicated in several previous blogs, an economic recovery may not be possible without a housing recovery. The ripple effect as housing prices continue in a free fall provides no positive influence in the lives of so many people dependant on a healthy real estate market.

Political posturing has resulted in a parade of failed programs at taxpayers expense. The administration promised many things but delivered on virtually none. The creation of Home Assistance Modification Program or HAMP promised to save millions of Americans from foreclosure. "It will give millions of families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild" President Obama said "it will shore up housing prices". Congress set aside $50 billion for foreclosure prevention and the administration projected that 3 to 4 million homeowners would benefit from loan modifications. To date only a small fraction of those numbers have been realized.



By catering to lenders unwilling to provide any necessary mortgage financing to qualified borrowers the government has shown that it's allegiances are most certainly to the biggest contributors to political war chests and not to so called "main street" Americans. Companies servicing mortgage loans are mostly large banks who regularly lose paperwork and quite possibly advise homeowners to do things that may not be in the best interest of the homeowner. Banks deny many who actually qualify for modifications. In some cases lenders may approve a modification only to proceed with a foreclosure filing, misleading the homeowner. These types of tactics are designed to keep the homeowner paying something while the lender pursues the foreclosure action.

Government official haven't gone after, fined or otherwise cracked down on lenders for not complying with programs that they benefit from. Unwilling to flex it's muscle against the deep pockets in the banking industry none of the promises or projections have materialized.

In order to understand the relationships between government and banks we can take a look at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Two Government Sponsored Entities that together hold most of the financial risk involved with mortgage defaults, were appointed by the Treasury to oversee the banks and the foreclosure prevention programs that the administration rushed into place. Obviously not my idea of an independent overseer. In fact Freddie Mac filed documents stating that imposing penalties may "negatively impact our relationships" noting that some of these are our largest source of revenue in mortgage loans. Well, that may say it in a nutshell. Housing and the economy will struggle until we fix what's wrong with the system. That may require putting people in place who truly have nothing monetary to gain.



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Americans Homeless

I've made a business out of finding homes for families in South Florida since 1990. The plight of homeless people was never a concern to me because my business requires that you either have a home to sell or that you want to buy one. Whenever I'd see a homeless person begging I was skeptical. I'd rationalize in some way that I needed the dollar more than them or that they really weren't homeless. I'd even named one guy "Scammer Johnny". 

Lately I've witnessed  growing numbers of new homeless people. Families losing their homes to foreclosure as a result of  unemployment, the economy or just being victim to predatory lending which ultimately caught up to them. 

I'll try not to point fingers here simply because I'd like to focus my attention on the homeless in America and not the reasons for the seemingly continuous growth in their numbers. Although counts seem to vary greatly by state, there seems to be an alarming number of homeless families and children showing up at shelters all across the country. In order to provide some measure of the homeless population, the government relies on data supplied to the Department of HUD, obtained from more than 400 volunteer organizations and outreach programs nationally. There's probably a better way to find realistic numbers but again I'll not point any fingers.




Accordingly, there are varying numbers of "sheltered" homeless people or those who have temporary housing provided by shelters, churches and various volunteer organizations and the "unsheltered". Those who live in the streets, under bridges, in cars, hallways, cardboard crates, makeshift back alley communities, parks and so many other areas not meant for human habitation. According to HUD's national counts 4 in 10 are unsheltered. These folks may be more vulnerable to illness, drug abuse and crimes like robbery, rape and murder than their counterparts. All homeless folks are constantly at risk of catching a disease or a parasite, falling victim to drugs and alchohol which inevitably results in health problems, or of being raped or murdered. The unsheltered are just more likely to face these circumstances. The homeless have no safe harbor. They all lack any feeling of security. Imagine being assaulted in broad daylight and not a person around helps. That's what a homeless person faces every day. That and trying to eat in order to face another day.
 
Homlessness today is an effect of the economy. People become homeless because they don't have sufficient financial resources to maintain their housing, although some may like to believe that it's a result of psycological and social inadequacies. The challenges that people face financially in today's America are significant. Joblessness, increasing tax burdens, higher energy costs, tougher credit standards, lack of affordable health care and the level of housing costs are all contributing factors to the growing numbers of homeless in America. As our homeless population increases our middle class decreases. The level of poverty in the country is beyond reasonable. The gap between the have's and have nots is widening. Putting a face on homelessness and poverty is not easy. It may always be a part of the fabric of society. Eliminating homelessness may not be realistic or possible either, but allowing it to grow is just as unrealistic and just as unreasonable.

Watch the Video

Can we make a difference? I don't know. When I see "Scammer Johnny" or his freinds begging these days I'm less pessimistic. I give him a buck if I have one to give. I think about families that have lost homes. About Moms and Dads who lost jobs. I think about so many people struggling to get by another day. Struggling to keep the home that they worked half their lives for in order to give their families a safe and secure place to come home to. I wonder as an American how we let these things continue. I give a little when I can and I hope that somehow it helps.
             
According to Wikipedia a homeless can be described as an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence or an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. 



George Sinacori
GES Real Estate, LLC