Real Estate Investing

In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 94 today which bans the collection of advanced fees for a loan modification.  The Foreclosure Industry blog spoke against the measure,

To summarize, the bill prohibits persons from charging advance fees to borrowers in connection with the modification of the terms of the borrower’s loan, require those who wish to charge a fee for loan modification services (after performing them) to provide a specified notice to borrowers regarding other options available  to the borrower, prohibit servicers from imposing any interest or charge for performing services for borrowers in connection with loan modifications or other forms of loan forbearance of forgiveness; and close a loophole in the California Finance Lenders Law.

The post complains that the the state’s attorney general’s office labels everyone in the loan modification field as a scam artist.

The California Attorney General’s advice to do your own loan modification is highly irresponsible. He assumes that the banks have borrowers’ best interests at heart, which we all know is not true. If you’re worried about scammers, let’s take a look at the banking industry, which is the biggest scam artist of them all.

On the flip side, the California Reinvestment Coalition was disappointed the Governor didn’t sign another stronger measure proposed by the General Assembly,

Kevin Stein of the California Reinvestment Coalition expressed disappointment in the Governor’s action. “All the evidence that we’ve seen, or the bulk of the evidence, is that that there’s a huge amount of fraud in this industry.”  Stein said he was only modestly pleased that the Governor chose to sign Senate Bill 94 by Senator Ron Calderon of Montebello. That bill would ban the collection of advanced fees for a loan modification. He called it better than nothing, but weaker than AB 764.

It will be very interesting to see if he loan modification industry in California survives. I suspect it will, perhaps with higher fees on the tail end.

I’m not sure why, but San Francisco has been pulling at my heart lately.  From the bridge to the beautiful hills to the misty mornings, I’ve been hankering to go for a visit and stay for a summer!  I suppose I’ll have to satisfy this yearning by just going online to tour neighborhoods.

I had never heard of this neighborhood until a friend linked to the story through her Google friend feed (she finds the most interesting tidbits and shares them).  BernalHeights sits on a hilltop at the edge of the Mission valley.  Well here… read what has been said at SF Gate,

Those who do wander up the incline may be surprised by this quaint urban village that seems forgotten by time. The main shopping strip of Cortland Avenue is populated by small markets, cafés, fruit stands and barber shops, and the residential streets are a cluster of diminutive bungalows and community gardens. However, Bernal Heights bears the influence of city sophistication, with trendy boutiques and innovative restaurants scattered among its homely storefronts.

It sounds just lovely.

Photo by Marcin Wichary via Flickr Creative Commons.

When I bought my first and second homes, I wanted to know what the square footage was.  Is it 1400 square feet or 2400?  Do you measure the outside of the house and add, or measure rooms and add them up to get the square footage?  According to an attorney who visited our office today, none of the above.

His advice to agents?  YOU should never measure a house yourself.  While it seems straightforward, figuring out the square footage of a dwelling can be tricky business.  There is no standard methodology for measuring - in fact three different appraisers, a professional measurer (is that a word?), an appraiser, and an agent could quite possibly ALL come up with a different number.

His next bit of advice?   If you publish the square footage of a home, always attribute where you got the number.  If it’s from the tax records, say that’s where you found it.  Additionally, agents would be wise to state in the MLS listing, “Information here not warranted or guaranteed” and add, “If square footage is important to you, you need to measure it yourself.”

Interestingly, in Texas - and perhaps other states - state law prohibits real estate agents from revealing the square footage according to the attorney today.  While I was unable to find evidence of that via my friend Google, I did see that square footage has not been listed for years in California.

Here’s an interesting discussion about the subject with points of views from many states.

Photo by Aussie Gall via Flickr Creative Commons.