Last time I received one of these real estate notices in the mail, a group of others did, too. This was when there was a scam going on for a service to "negotiate" your property taxes down to current values for a small fee. This company ended up with a lawsuit filed.

Today I got a "Form 77748-I" Predatory Lending Notice with an 800# to call because they "have determined that your loan may have violations of Truth In Lending Act (TILA) and or the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA)."

Now I haven't called, and don't plan to, but I am pretty sure this is more of the same.

A loan officer directed me to this site years ago, as an easy way to eliminate annoying and unsolicited credit card offers and stabilize my credit score. Apparently these companies hit up your credit to "prequal" you for their unsolicited product. They don't count as a "hard" hit, but after 15 or 20 it will affect your score by a few points.

It's like the do not call registry and works for 5 years before renewal is required (if you do an online registration). For more info:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt063.shtm

And a link to the site:
https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t

Why is this important? Not only will it help your credit score stabilize, but if helps reduce the risk of credit/identity theft. How many of these offers do we throw in the garbage? It's definitely beneficial to eliminate a possible problem at the source.

Sources report that at this time, it's not clear if the first-time buyer program will end on December 1, 2009, or be extended further. It seems the focus will shift away from home purchasing with the impending health "reform" plans. We encourage buyers and agents to write their contracts with this in mind — closing escrow prior to December 1 — to take advantage of the $8000K rebate!

New Freddie Mac policy will help real estate agents obtain "reasonable" compensation for short sales. Effective Aug. 1, 2009, Freddie Mac states:

Unless a real estate broker's sales commission exceeds 6% of the property sales price, Servicers must not,
as a condition of the Servicer's acceptance of an offer, renegotiate the real estate broker's sales
commission to an amount that is lower than the amount that was originally agreed upon between the
broker and the Borrower. In the event the sales commission exceeds 6%, the Servicer must renegotiate the
commission to limit it to 6% of the property sales price.

Click here to view news release in its entirety.

Prior, rarely did a lender allow more than 5% comission to be shared by cooperating brokers, but often any shortage not anticipated when the approval process began then fell to the agents to pay out of comissions. Basically, if your short sale took 6 months from submission of offer to close of escrow, and the seller accumulated expenses and debt against the property during that six months, any expenses not made aware to the bank at the start of that 6 months wouldn't be provided for or authorized by the bank. For example: On a $500K transaction, if the bank limited the commission to 2.5% maximum, this allowed a $12,500 maximum commission for the agents to share. Then, if the sale expenses/debt exceeded the authorized net by $5,000, either the transaction could not close or the agents sacrificed $5,000 of their commission.

There still may be deficit on short sales, but with the ability to obtain a minimum of 5 to 6% commission per transaction, it definitely helps agents successfully close transactions and remain in the black.

Check out this link for information on a loan program for first-time buyers in Santa Clara. It's based on funds availability, so if you are looking to purchase in Santa Clara and don't quite have 20% down, you might check and see if this is still an available program.