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Buyer’s market in Colorado Springs

Colorado Springs is a city in the U.S. state of Colorado, located south of the state capital, Denver. It is a major ski resort in the Sierra Mountains, which may be a real attraction for investors. According to updated local news, not only town homes, but also condominiums are sold at considerably low prices in 2010 compared to last years. For example in 2009, the price of foreclosures in Colorado Springs is lower by 15% reported to 2006 highest prices. In 2010, according to the latest foreclosure listing in the area, there were a huge amount of foreclosed properties sold.

Colorado Springs foreclosure figures

According to active foreclosure listing, in the central area of Colorado Springs there are foreclosed properties, including Bank foreclosure homes, which are ready to be sold and some of them are already under contract. I

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Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today called for a halt to foreclosures in the state so mortgage lenders and loan servicers could conduct a thorough review to determine if “robosigners” were used in foreclosure processing.

A “robosigner” refers to an employee or agent who signed off on hundreds or thousands of foreclosure documents in a short amount of time, essentially proving they didn’t do their due diligence or follow protocol.

They have also been accused of signing affidavits which falsely claim personal knowledge of facts, or that they reviewed the attached documents when in fact they failed to do so.

Additionally, there have been accusations that robosigners notarized documents prior to getting the signature, and/or when the signer was not present.

All this, of course, led to widespread mistakes and errors, which put a halt on foreclosures in 23 states (minus Texas) for Ally Financial, Bank of America, and Chase.

Both the California AG and Connecticut AG have called for similar foreclosure freezes.

The foreclosure suspension letter was sent to 30 lenders, including:

American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.
American General Finance, Inc.
AmTrust Mortgage Corporation
Aurora Loan Services, Inc.
Bank of America
Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC
Cenlar, FSB
JP Morgan Chase & Co.
CitiMortgage, Inc.
EMC Mortgage Corporation
First Horizon National Corp.
Ally Financial, Inc./GMAC Home Loan Services
HomEq Servicing, Inc.
HSBC North America Holdings, Inc.
Litton Loan Servicing, Inc.
MGC Mortgage, Inc.
Midland Mortgage Company
MorEquity, Inc.
National City Mortgage c/o PNC Financial Services Group, Inc.
Nationstar Mortgage Company
Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC
OneWest Bank Group LLC
PHH Mortgage Services Corporation
Saxon Mortgage Services, Inc.
Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc.
Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance, Inc.
Washington Mutual
Wells Fargo & Company
Wilshire Credit Corporation

Memphis-area home sales rose 14.2 percent in August from July, but declined 6.3 percent compared to August 2009, according to the Memphis Area Association of Realtors.

During August, 1,136 homes were sold.

Year to date, sales have dropped 2.4 percent compared the same period in 2009.

However, the average sales price rose 1.4 percent through the first eight months of the year, from $126,386 in 2009 to $127,643 so far this year.

“Sales gained some momentum from July to August,” association president Glenn A. Moore said in a release. “Al

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Wells Fargo has made a short sale policy change that will likely lead to more foreclosures, according to a memo obtained by American Banker.

The San Francisco-based bank and mortgage lender will no longer grant extensions on short sales tied to loans serviced by other investors.

The transactions must now close by the date in their approval letter or the company will carry on with foreclosure proceedings.

Only extension letters dated September 14 or earlier will be honored by the company going forward.

The new policy apparently went into effect over the past couple months and came in response to various investor and loan servicer changes, including those at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and HUD.

Wells Fargo spokeswoman Mary Berg stressed that the company will still grant short sale extensions on its own loans, including those from Wachovia, which it acquired back in late 2008.

In recent months, servicers have grown more reluctant to offering short sales out of fear they’ll fall through.

It has to do with the fact that potential buyers are losing their jobs ahead of closing, or banks simply aren’t able to close in a timely fashion, resulting in the homeowner walking away.

There’s also the issue of falling home prices, which make short sales all the more shorter and less likely to be accepted by the lender.

A short sale is a transaction in which a home is sold for less than the amount owed on the mortgage(s), with the lender agreeing to a discounted payoff to avoid a costly foreclosure proceeding.

Jones Orchard Farm in Millington has been a part of the agri-tourism movement for the past five years with a corn maze on 15 acres each fall. Now the operation has expanded to include haunted features, such as the effects Doug Holland (left) and Tristan Harford are working on. More and more Tennessee farms are turning to agri-tourism as a source of additional revenue.

Pick a pumpkin. Walk a corn maze. Take a hay ride. Visit a farm.

Know it or not, you’re an agri-tourist. And you’re not alone.

Agri-tourism has expanded across Tennessee in recent years. There were more than 600 agri-tourism venues across the state in 2007, according to the latest numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Agri-tourism activities generated more than $6.5 million in farm income in Tennessee in 2007, according to the USDA.

Tennessee venues offer visitors everything from farm tours and pick-your-own produce to on-farm markets.

Visitors to David Levy’s Willow Oak Flower Farm in Brownsville, Tenn., can walk a wooded path to a pumpkin patch where they can pick their own.

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No real look at foreclosures in PA is complete without mentioning the robo signers that some of the bigger lenders have used to sign off on the accuracy of everything from New Jersey foreclosures to a foreclosure in South Fort Myers and everything in between. The practice has raised a few eyebrows and even stalled the processing of some foreclosures in PA and other parts of the United States.

The point of contention is that these robo signers are not Wall Street professionals who understand the intricacies of New Jersey foreclosures and a foreclosure in South Fort Myers. These are, by some accounts, “affidavit slaves” who have small incomes and tremendous large workloads. The work of these people is leading some lawyers to claim on behalf of their clients that certain foreclosures should be thrown out and the whole issue has upset the apple cart at least temporarily.

Of course whatever the decision there, our work at ForeclosureDataBank.com is never in question. Her

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