Las Vegas, Nevada Real Estate Agent’s Las Vegas Homes, Condos, Land, Commercial Real Estate and Personal Blog

Following is an excerpt from a distressed Las Vegas Home owner’s interview with KVBC TV.

“”It’s really very hard, very emotional.” Christine Young of Henderson is in a bind like so many in our valley. She refinanced her four bedroom, nearly 2,000 square foot home more than a year ago. And at the time was convinced she was getting into a fixed mortgage.”

“It wasn’t fixed. A year later, our arm came up and now we can’t make our arm payment and it’s $700 more than what we were paying and it’s due September 1st.”

“Christine blames predatory lenders for signing her up on a mortgage she tried so hard to avoid in the first place. “I thought this guy was the nicest and most honest guy.””

“To avoid foreclosing, Pam put her house on the market several months ago. She’s hoping to sell before they lose the house or lose out even more. “We started at $389,000 and now at $299,000. So we lost $90,000 on what we were counting on”, Pam said””.

“And she’s not alone. There are thousands of people across the country already in default, facing foreclosure. Nevada is the number one state for foreclosures, up 93 percent from this time last year.”

·         Let’s start with “And at the time was convinced she was getting into a fixed mortgage, It wasn’t fixed”.

What in the name of the GOOD LORD is that? I wonder what convinced her that her mortgage was a fixed rate mortgage? Did she even bother to read the first couple of pages of her mortgage contract? Fixed rate mortgages have a fixed period and the monthly payments remain the same, how can a loan have a fixed rate and an interest rate adjustment period.

·         “A year later, our arm came up and now we can’t make our arm payment”. The interest adjustment period should be prominent in the mortgage contract, but someone needs to READ IT FIRST.

But wait a second:

“I thought this guy was the nicest and most honest guy”

I don’t think I have had the privilege of meeting this holy person and can’t judge him, nor do I know if he explained the contract to our lady, nevertheless all was spelled out in her mortgage contract and the lender is using the same contract to foreclose on her.

·         “To avoid foreclosing, Pam put her house on the market several months ago. She’s hoping to sell before they lose the house or lose out even more. We started at $389,000 and now at $299,000. So we lost $90,000 on what we were counting on,” Pam said.

She has put her home on the market “several month ago, we started at $389,000 and now at $299,000”.

I wonder if she had a starting price of, say about $310,000, would she have sold it quickly?  “It’s really very hard, very emotional”.

·         ” So we lost $90,000 on what we were counting on,”

All this could have been avoided easily, all it would take is reading a few pages, or she could have hired an attorney to explain the contract to her at the cost of less than a thousand dollars. I will leave the math to you.

·         “And she’s not alone. There are thousands of people across the country already in default, facing foreclosure. Nevada is the number one state for foreclosures, up 93 percent from this time last year.”

That’s the depressing reality, this kind of thing has been happening all the time and will keep happening until people change their ways, and remember the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”.

Above is the reason that I decided to publish an educational real estate web site to help educate real estate buyers and sellers.

Below is an excerpt from my first blog, Lessons to Complete a Successful Real Estate Transaction and Avoid Foreclosure.

“They think that, looking for and locating a house or condo which they believed they could barely afford (evidently NOT), and then signing a couple of contracts is all it takes to own a home. While the new home builders and mortgage companies hire teams of lawyers to write their contracts in ways that protect them, people don’t bother to read the contracts and sign them without reading them first. Why? Because these contracts are in small font, single spaced, long and much of the time written in lawyer-glish, they are brain teasers and repulsive looking, don’t you think that this is by design, and people still fall for it.”

I am not an jerk and do not enjoy beating on those who are down, but I think that giving a real example will help to motivate people to get a little education before blindly and needlessly giving away their nest egg.