Bored of Real Estate

Lenders are starting to decline mortgages to women who are on maternity leave because their income has temporarily dropped. If you plan on staying home for a month or two on maternity (or paternity) leave, it’d probably be best if you bought (or refinanced) your house prior to your delivery or after you return to work.

Need a Mortgage? Don’t Get Pregnant

Well, you can’t say the high fees are for nothing. An HOA in Baltimore is taking DNA samples from every residents pets (saliva or poop) and will attempt to match it with the dog poo found in the neighborhood. If they get a match, you owe a $500 fine. Even if you do clean your dogs doo, you still have to pay $50 for the initial DNA test and supplies as well as a $10 per month maintenance fee.

So, even if you are a responsible pet owner, you still have to pay close to 25% more every month just because you own a dog. No word on what they charge if you have children.

Link: Pet DNA calls out Poop & Don’t-Scoop Offenders

Don’t the HOA find out about Fight Club.

A Frisco HOA has told homeowners that they can’t have backyard boxing matches in their neighborhood. Not that I really care but it’d be nice if you could decide what your family and friends can do in your own back yard. Oh well.

Check the link for more info.

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/HOA-says-it-wont-tolerate-fight-nights-in-frisco-neighborhood-92547159.html

The San Antonio Express reports that Developers now putting “transfer fees” into deed restrictions on property they develop. Basically, they’re imposing a fee (typically 1% of sales price) that is automatically paid to them every single time the property is sold. It’s like a perpetual money machine.

States are looking into ways to ban this practice but, like most things the government does, it’s slow and probably won’t work when they’re done with it.

Developers aim to attach transfer fee to homes

In case you weren’t aware, Home Owners Associations (HOAs) have near limitless power over those who live in their subdivision. Recently, many of the HOAs in the Dallas area have been foreclosing on the owners for not paying their quarterly dues or the fines they received for not maintaining their property to whatever standards the HOA has in place that week.

I recognize that people need to pay their bills, but it takes a special kind jerk to foreclose over a $50 fine (plus lawyer fees) for not cutting your grass.

Hit the link for the whole article.

Dallas Morning News: Dallas-area HOAs post homes for foreclosure

At least it was a different house this time. However, they did take a parrot hostage and hold it in an remote/unspecified location over 3 hours away.

Like most of these events, Band of America trashed her house and didn’t want to make things right. However, in unprecedented irony for a shady bill collector, BofA asked the *victim* to stop calling them and told her that “they were tired of hearing from her.”

Bank of America Forecloses on Wrong House; Holds Parrot Hostage

Bank of America entered a Floridian couples house, changed the locks and took out a lot of their possessions. They also caused substantial damage to the property and significant monetary loss. To make matters worse, the owners had paid cash for the home. There wasn’t even a lien on it.

We’d like to be able to give you advice on how to avoid erroneous foreclosure, but we’re not sure even the savviest consumer can combat errors of this magnitude. We’ll only suggest that when you’re dealing with banks on major issues, be sure to get the name of everyone you talk to, keep notes and then follow up your complaints in writing to create a paper trail.

Bank of America Forecloses on Wrong House

Don’t try this at home. Apparently some genius who was getting foreclosed on thought they’d one-up the bank by bulldozing the house that the bank was trying to take back. Obviously this falls into the “insanely stupid” category and it’s probably criminal as well.

His plan was to “teach the bank a lesson” but he seemed to miss out on a couple of minor issues related to foreclosures. Namely, you still owe the entire amount of the loan even if the home is foreclosed on. So, if you owe $300k and the house sells for $250k in foreclosure, you still owe the remaining $50k. By destroying the house, he is now liable for the entire amount since there’s no collateral to offset the debt.

Furthermore, if the house actually sold for ($350k) MORE than the mortgage balance ($160k) as he claimed, the excess proceeds would be returned to him less legal fees, etc. So, this guy ends up destroying about $150k-$200k of his own personal money.

There’s no cure for “stupid” any the only thing dumber than this guy is the number of posters in the comment section who think this guy is hero/genius.

Owner Bulldozes Home Prior to Foreclosure

Looks like some investors in New York are going to lose their housing project since they failed to make their $16M loan payment in January. The property was originally bought in 2006 for $5.4 billion … though now it’s worth a paltry $1.8 billion.

I guess that’s one of the benefits of using “other peoples money”.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100125/ap_on_bi_ge/us_stuyvesant_town

I’m really sick of the major media outlets harping on the “recession” and going on and on about how the end of the world is just around the corner.

Then I have to listen to those no-nothing talk-show pundits repeat that garbage as if it were the gospel. It must be true; it was on the news ™. And for what they’re lacking in accuracy, they’re more than making up for with repetition and increased volume.

Personally, we’ve had our best year ever in real estate (thanks friends and clients!) and we’re looking forward to having a great 2010 as well. So, when I stumbled across this article, it was pretty much a big fat DUH. At least somebody bothered to note that things aren’t really that bad (unless you live in CA, FL, MI or NY in which case you’re totally screwed). Bonus: 6 of the 10 cities are in Texas!

Yahoo: 10 housing markets where prices have gone UP!.