REOMAC Dinner Roundup – December 9, 2011 – Los Angeles

  • December 10, 2010 7:52 pm

Avid readers of this blog may recall that a few months ago, I sent my assistant down to the REOMAC fall conference in Hollywood, Florida.  Since i myself wasn’t able to personally go this passed October, I decided I would for sure go to the REOMAC dinner in Los Angeles in December.

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I’d never been to a REOMAC dinner, and I was curious to see what it would be like.  I have a lot of respect for REOMAC – I’m not a member, but I’d love to be.  Unfortunately they are chock full of real estate brokers and agents – you literally have to wait for someone to die to get in as a real estate professional at this point.

I decided to drive down there.  I calculated that it would take about 4 hours door-to-door if I went via airplane, and about 6 hours door-to-door driving.  The drive down was a breeze, a little rainy to begin but later it was smooth sailing all the way down past Santa Barbara, when the traffic choked up with typical LA snarl.

The reception began at 5:00 PM – unfortunately, I had a few tasks I needed to complete in various portals, so I sat down, whipped out my laptop, and worked quietly for an hour or so until dinner was served at 6:00 PM.

The festivities were opened by Ivan Choi, the present of REOMAC.  I’ve met Ivan before, and he strikes me as a really nice guy.  His remarks were humorous and to-the-point as always, he’s got a great speaking style.  I met Ivan when he was with Prospect Mortgage; it now seems that Ivan, according to his LinkedIn profile, has stared at outfit known as Savvia Home Loans – props to you Ivan for stepping out!

At 7:00 they started a panel discussion.  The discussion started off talking about robo-signers and foreclosure affidavits and the crisis in confidence of the foreclosure process.  As you may recall (and as I blogged about) this was big news a short while ago.  The panelists included a title professional and a lawyer, and the message is that if there are mistakes in a foreclosure, it happens less than 1% and probably less than 0.1% of cases.  And, if there are any technical errors in a particular foreclosure, it does not change the fact that in most cases the foreclosures are valid because of the essential fact that the borrowers did not make their payments as per the contract.

Ray Methoda was one of the panelists – formerly of IndyMac, now with her own outfit called AssetPlanUSA which provides training and for HAFA certifications.  I’ve seen her speak a couple of different places before, and she’s always a pleasure to hear – very sharp and informative as always.

I left shortly after 8 PM, but I understand the festivities were to continue until about 9 or so – I had a long drive home.  The drive was uneventful, but the fog was so thick in so many places the drive home took about seven hours all together.

All in all it was a great trip.  I enjoyed the drive (I got a chance to catch up on some podcasts), and I enjoyed meeting some of my colleagues in the REO business.  From what I can hear, it sounds like the REO business will continue to be strong for several years yet to come – for better or worse, the market we have today has got legs – but it’s not going anywhere.

 

Texas Attorney General Halts Foreclosures

  • October 8, 2010 8:05 am

Can you hear it?  I’m hearing it.  It’s the sound of a drum beating, and it’s getting louder.  Now the Texas Attorney General has got in on the act, and he’s ordered a halt to foreclosures in Texas.

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via BizJournals.com:

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has asked 30 lenders to stop foreclosures and sales of foreclosures, while regulators investigate the legality of the process.

Read more: Texas attorney general halts foreclosures – Austin Business Journal

I still think this is all likely to blow over.  And, for the record, I’m not really against putting a temporary halt to foreclosure proceedings while this gets straightened out.  After all, we’ve gone through months of moratoria already, what’s another 60 days while the processes are reviewed and tightened up?

There’s definitely a silver lining on this dark cloud – the banks will help out the nation’s unemployment rate by hiring people to review all these foreclosure documents rather than leaving it to a couple-few robo-signers.  Likely as not they’ll just be contracted/temporary hires, but from the looks of it, many of them will be needed for some years to come.

And it’s also good new for me and other professional REO brokers – fewer assignments getting pulled or canceled due to mistaken or improper foreclosures.  Not that it happens very often – but it does happen, and the less of it the better.