Latest Acquisition Extends Consumer Reach of Company’s Real Estate Vertical

MARIETTA, GA- HBN Interactive today announced the acquisition of IAmFacingForeclosure.com, a leading foreclosure help website.

IAmFacingForeclosure.com has grown by 200% during the last two months and is projected to have well over 500,000 UVs (unique visitors) in 2010. This growth is driven by the site’s collection of foreclosure help experts and foreclosure assistance companies.

“This is a hot area,” said Duane LeGate, CEO of HBN Interactive. “Foreclosures continue to plague the real estate market and there are no clear cut solutions for homeowners. Our mission at IAmFacingForeclosure.com is to is to walk the homeowner through the minefield of options and provide them with the service(s) and advice that best suits their personal situation.”

IAmFacingForeclosure.com is a perfect compliment to HBN Interactive’s portfolio of real estate related companies. Some of which include: HouseBuyerNetwork.com which focuses on short sales on behalf of the homeowner, SellMyHouseFast.com which introduces homeowners to quick sale solutions, and ~4,000 other real estate web properties with related resources. Since its establishment in 2004, HBN’s real estate vertical has expanded from a single website to include over 4,000 principal websites which consist of millions of monthly page views.

“We are very focused on helping homeowners face the challenges in today’s extreme real estate market. By leveraging HBN Interactive’s suite of services, homeowners can: sell their house in a quick and efficient manner, short sale their house with HBN’s experts, buy discounted property, and perform various other real estate related transactions.” added LeGate. “We believe the market will continue to struggle for years, and we plan to continue to bring innovative solutions to the market that will benefit homeowners that need immediate assistance.”

About HBN Interactive

Founded in 2004, HBN Interactive is a unique and leading Internet Real Estate Media Company. HBN Interactive has assisted close to one million homeowners needing specialized assistance. HBN Interactive has built a network of the best professional service providers in the real estate arena that can assist both home sellers and home buyers.

HBN Interactive Media Contact
For all media inquiries and interview requests, contact us.

With foreclosures on the rise in nearly every area of the country, the White House is under pressure from consumer advocates to do something to address the crisis. One of the latest solutions involves letting states issue tax-exempt bonds to help troubled homeowners refinance.
 
The Bush Administration is pushing for Congress to temporarily give state and local governments the authority to issue tax-exempt bonds to homeowners who need help refinancing out of unaffordable loans.

The idea is that state and local governments can sell the bonds and create enough revenue to help subsidize the cost of refinancing. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has said that he would like to see the cap on such bonds raised by at least $15 billion over the next three years.

Under current laws, state and local governments have the authority to issue bonds to first time homebuyers and buyers in distressed areas. The change would extend that authority and allow state and local housing agencies to help borrowers refinance with private lenders regardless of “buyer status” or location.

Critics say the plan is dangerous because bond-backed refinances will serve as a prop for artificial house prices and punish future homeowners while rewarding risk-taking borrowers and lenders.

Some say that there is also a chance that the increased use of mortgage bonds could affect other subsidy programs, such as student loan programs and career development programs.  

So far there is no estimate as to how many borrowers could be helped with tax-exempt municipal bonds or what type of borrowers would be eligible, but it is assumed that homeowners who are well into the foreclosure process would not be eligible. Borrowers who have loans that exceed the value of their home are likely to be left out as well.

Examples of ineligibility can already be seen in states like Ohio where enacted refinancing programs have managed to attract only a small percentage of troubled borrowers.

In a recent interview with Reuters, Bob Connell of the Ohio Housing Finance Agency said that most homeowners are simply “too far gone” by the time they contact a housing agency to be helped.

Connell added that he did believe the Bush administration’s proposal would be beneficial nevertheless and hopes that discussion of the proposal prompts homeowners to contact housing agencies for help.

Peter Miller wrote a great blog post about using reverse mortgages as a foreclosure prevention device. Many seniors may get much needed assistance in avoiding foreclosure with a reverse mortgage.

To make a reverse mortgage work as a foreclosure prevention device you generally need to be age 62 and above (there are some exceptions) and you need equity. For example, you may have a $600,000 home with no mortgage and an investment property with a $200,000 loan. The investment property isn’t working, the loan is toxic and getting worse, and one solution is to get a reverse mortgage on the prime residence and pay off the investment loan. Now the investment property — perhaps a condo in Miami or a house in Vegas — produces a positive cashflow even with a minimal rent.

For our borrower, it may make sense to get a reverse mortgage and, ultimately, to sell the investment property when and if the local market returns — and then pay off the reverse mortgage.

Is this cheap? No. Nothing is free and there are costs to resolve difficult problems. But what is a better solution? Foreclosure? Bankruptcy? After age 62?

Not everyone now troubled with toxic loans is in a position to use reverse mortgages. But there are millions of dead-end loans, and surely some number of homeowners are going to find safety with a reverse mortgage and an end to monthly mortgage costs for a few years.

By Moe

How would you like to be charged $20,000 when in fact you owe $2,000? Doesn’t sound like too great of a billing and accounting system. In fact it sounds down right fraudulent and predatory.

Welcome to the new unfortunate fleecing of the homeowner that is infiltrating our court systems and robbing unsuspecting borrowers that are oblivious to these “questionable” fees as they face foreclosure and are caught in a system that seems to be failing to protect consumers.

They call it questionable fees, I like to call it predatory servicing. I’ll inform you how you can combat this a little bit further down in this post.

CNN reported yesterday that;

Countrywide Financial, the nation’s leading mortgage lender, is facing a federal probe into its foreclosure practices, according to a published report.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that the U.S. Trustee, the federal agency monitoring the bankruptcy courts, subpoenaed its records to determine if two foreclosures in southern Florida represented abuses of the bankruptcy system by the lender.

The agency, a part of the Justice Department, announced an effort to move against mortgage servicing companies that file false and inaccurate claims in foreclosure cases.

I have heard many stories of borrowers that were charged fees that had no explanation and could not be supported via the documentation that their lender or servicer was providing. Most of these homeowners just caved in to the demands and agreed to pay these “questionable” fees.

More often then not, it was out of desperation to stop foreclosure and save their home from the big bad wolf.

Borrowers need to understand that they can “demand” a “life of loan history” via a “qualified written request” . This is a law under Section 6 the Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act (RESPA). By law, the lender or servicer is required to acknowledge the request within 20 business days and must try and resolve the issue within 60 business days.

Qualified written request

For purposes of this subsection, a qualified written request
shall be a written correspondence, other than notice on a
payment coupon or other payment medium supplied by the servicer,
that–
(i) includes, or otherwise enables the servicer to
identify, the name and account of the borrower; and
(ii) includes a statement of the reasons for the belief
of the borrower, to the extent applicable, that the account
is in error or provides sufficient detail to the servicer
regarding other information sought by the borrower.

More from the CNN article.

The paper says that in the two cases being examined borrowers who had filed for bankruptcy court protections objected to Countrywide’s claims of what was owed on their home loans. One couple contended that their mortgage payments were current, while Countrywide (Charts, Fortune 500) claimed $2,400 in overdue mortgage payments in that case.

The paper reports that the U.S. Trustee took an interest in both matters after Countrywide did not respond to the borrowers’ objections and judges in the cases ordered the lenders’ claims for various fees stricken from the claims.

A Countrywide spokesman told the paper it does not comment on pending litigation, but added that it had intended to appear at the hearings and was investigating why its outside counsel did not do so.

Countrywide has filed objections to the U.S. Trustee’s probe and subpoenas in both cases, the paper reported, saying that they were overly broad and exceeded the office’s powers. But the bankruptcy judge hearing one of the cases has allowed the regulator’s investigation to go forward.

I am sure that we will see many more of these cases hit our court systems as the mortgage and housing fiasco continues to unwind before our very eyes.

Maybe you have been charged questionable fees, hopefully now you have the knowledge on how to use the law to challenge these bogus charges via “qualified written request” and fight back against your lender.

Where there is money to be made, you will find the predators, salivating at a new opportunity to take people’s money and run. Welcome to the homeowner loss mitigation business where the sharks are having a feeding frenzy on already wounded homeowners.

The Better Business Bureau has recently reported that they have received complaints from every state and has issued an alert to warn consumers to be cautious about foreclosure-rescue companies.

Mar Dann, Ohio Attorney General has received hundreds of complaints. “The sad part about this particular offense,” Dann says, “is that (the homeowners) lose everything. You lose the little bit of money they had squirreled away, you lose your house and you lose your hope. How do you quantify that?”

In August, Dann filed complaints against six companies, including American Housing Authority and Foreclosure Assistance Solutions, and he says he expects to bring a half-dozen more cases.

Here is some quotes from a recent USA Today article:

Regulators and law enforcement in many states are targeting the two most common forms of foreclosure rescue scams: “equity skimming” and bogus or fruitless consulting services.

The first scam works like this: A company offers to take legal ownership of the home temporarily. The homeowners pay “rent” to the company, which promises to return legal ownership to them once they regain their financial footing.

But all too often, con artists either borrow as much as they can against the equity in the house — and collect the rent from the original homeowners but never make any mortgage payments. The property still goes into foreclosure, and any equity the homeowner had built up is gone.

The second most common foreclosure-rescue pitch goes like this: A company offers to renegotiate the homeowners’ mortgage with the lender or help refinance the property. In exchange, they charge an up-front fee, typically $800 to $1,200.

Frequently, though, the company never contacts the lender, or knows the borrower can’t qualify for another loan. What little extra cash the homeowner could have used to pay the mortgage or move to an apartment has been wiped out.

Homeowners need to be aware of these scams and what to look out for.

IamFacingForeclosure.com plans to expose the predators and educate homeowners about the legitimate foreclosure prevention services that are available to them.

If you are looking for a consumer advocate attorney, you can visit www.NACA.net .

The National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA) is a nationwide organization of more than 1000 attorneys who represent and have represented hundreds of thousands of consumers victimized by fraudulent, abusive and predatory business practices. As an organization fully committed to promoting justice for consumers, NACA’s members and their clients are actively engaged in promoting a fair and open marketplace that forcefully protects the rights of consumers, particularly those of modest means.

You can also search for a Non-Profit Certified HUD Counselor to stop foreclosure here.