The US Attorney has recently indicted 123 Nevadans for mortgage fraud. That's nearly 10% of the 1,200 people indicted nationwide in the "Stolen Dreams" investigation. But there are plenty of other fraudsters in the real estate industry. We'll look at one house-flipping scam in Florida as well as talk with local experts who are working on mortgage and housing
fraud.
The various efforts to fix the real estate market have become an
alphabet-soup of federal aid and programs. Just this week, the Obama
administration announced new incentives to speed up so-called short sales -
the selling of houses in depressed markets at the current price rather than
waiting for home prices to improve. So who's eligible for the new program?
Who's eligible for other programs? And how do they all work? And the big
question - will any of it work to fix up the real estate market. We talk
with local HUD chief Ken Lobene, a short-sale realtor and a legal aid
attorney who's worked on foreclosure issues.
Neal Williams, local business owner
Richard Cherchio, neighborhood activist
Chris Leinberger, Visiting Fellow, Brookings Inst
Lisa Morris, Deputy Dir of Neighborhood Svcs, City of LV
..
The Ohio Congresswoman has been a trenchant critic of the financial system
and she still insists that there has not been a full investigation of the
mortgage crisis and its causes. We talk with her and find out what she wants
to happen as Nevada continues to languish with the highest foreclosure rate
in the nation.
Some people have left their apartments or houses, gone to work and returned
to find stickers on the windows and doors warning them to stay out. Others
receive visits from seemingly official types who say they have 72 hours to
vacate.
The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America is finally bringing its
"Save the Dream" tour to Las Vegas. We talk with NACA CEO Bruce Marks and
then take a look at mortgage modification and what's worked and what hasn't
with people who are working on modifying failed mortgages.
In our continuing series "Hope at Home: Facing the Foreclosure Crisis," we
look this week at what some neighborhoods are doing to prevent blight and
decay as "For Sale" and "Foreclosure" signs proliferate in many areas of the
valley. A neighborhood preservation expert from the city of North Las Vegas
and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department talk about what residents
can do to protect their neighborhoods.
Producer Adam Burke shares his interview with a Phoenix woman who tells us about the day she got to interrogate a Wells Fargo executive about her foreclosure.
In our continuing series, Hope at Home: Facing the Foreclosure Crisis, we
look at a few of things that homeowners facing foreclosure can do to speak
with their banks. We're joined by a woman who had the rare chance to
interrogate a bank executive in court as well as a local bank
representative.
in our latest in our series, "Hope at Home: Facing the Mortgage Crisis," survivors of a disaster often feel guilty that they have survived. That
feeling is striking buyers who are finding great deals in the wreckage of the Las Vegas housing market.
Home ownership was once the great builder of wealth for most Americans. But where should we turn now that homes are so far under water? Las Vegas Valley home prices seem destined to stay flat even as housing elsewhere in the country
expands.
This week's continuing series, "Hope at Home: Facing the Foreclosure
Crisis," we ask what's next. The Las Vegas economy has been in a recession
for the past 18 months and some are saying it's time to "reboot" the
valley's economy.
Then we talk with an economist whose work contradicts a lot of the conventional wisdom about the mortgage crisis. The teaser rates weren't much of a tease, the foreclosure crisis has been caused by falling home prices, not an inability to pay.
The mortgage mess and the foreclosure crisis were created by some of the best and the brightest, who came from top business schools. Those graduate schools think of themselves as incubators of the next generation of financial and economic wisdom but Journalist Philip Delves Broughton found that two years at Harvard Business School was really a Faustian bargain - exactly the kind of deal that would create the overconfidence that nearly destroyed the financial system.
The Nevada Legislature mandated licenses for foreclosure consultants and mortgage modification experts. The rules were finalized earlier this month and we talk with the top official in charge of the new licensing program to see what it takes to get a license and what borrowers should know about the
new system.
Nevada's new law on compulsory mediation came into effect July 1. Homeowners can now require banks to attend a mediation meeting if they receive a foreclosure notice.
Phyllis
Hargrove, Operations Specialist for Nevada HUD
Barry Gold, Director of Government Relations and Advocacy, AARP Nevada
Steven Silberberg, Elder Law Attorney
Most people assume that seniors don't need to worry about the foreclosure
because they don't have mortgages. That's not necessarily true.
Author and Bloomberg News columnist John Wasik argues that the mortgage crisis is the least of our housing problems. The drive to build bigger and bigger homes across suburban America is unsustainable and we need to rethink the meaning of the American Dream if we are to keep it alive.
The foreclosure crisis has meant that many of the 27,000 swimming pools across the valley have been abandoned. They soon become stagnant algae ponds that provide breeding grounds for mosquitos.
Lesah Rosario, Mortgage Consultant, Neighborhood Assitance Corp of America
Gail Burks, Pres and CEO, NV Fair Housing Ctr
Kenneth LoBene, Dir, HUD
John Restrepo, Principal, Restrepo Consulting Group
Neil Schwartz, Broker/Salesperson, Coldwell Banker Premier Realty
Spencer Judd, Mortgage and Real Estate Attorney, Albright, Stoddard,
Warnick and Albright Law Firm
Joe Ohayon, VP of Client and Community Relations, Wells Fargo
Michael Courey, Mgr, Chase Home Ownership Ctr in Las Vegas
Tracy Wallace, recently unemployed
Ryan Kidd, recently unemployed
Joe Ealy, maintenance worker, CCSD
Christa
Fells-Robinson
Therese Gibson
..
Karen Somers, Neighborhood Outreach Mgr, City of NLV
Daniel Kuntz, Affordable Housing Mgr, City of HN
Tim Whitright, Neighborhood Dev Mgr, City of LV
..
