This site has turned into North Korea. What sense does it make for a Realtor to disclose his or her personal information in order to be able to access a private forum, its just ridiculous. I don't understand how that protects anyone. I used to come on this site regularly and found it to be extremely helpful, now it is nothing more than a contemptuous wasteland.

What does that have to do with censorship? The forum has a section that is for agents only. You do not have to give much info to get in there..very litle at all. I understand fully why it is in place. Thare are some specific things discussed that may not be in the best interest of all to have out there. Cool thing is, it takes little to get in. Still not understanding the title of your post as nothing is censored. there are great discussions, plenty to learn....but, to each there own.

It's funny you complain. When someone asks me for access I verify their information, give them access and delete the private message. I can't remember 99% of the members I gave access to. Are you afraid I'll start facebook stalking you?

Did you get any snow in Minnesota? Oh wait, how did I know that?

I already know who you are, all you need to do is ask and you'll have access!

Rediculous. We *know* that only licensed agents & brokers are reading & replying to certain threads and are able to comment & question freely without worrying about potentially getting smacked down by companies or their reps. It's happened before due to things being said here, and elsewhere on the net. As professionals, we must be able to get accurate info, good, bad, and ugly to one another without the fear of reprisal from someone else.

We're not asking for your social security number, just your real estate license number so that we can verify you are an actual agent. Real estate license number is generally a matter of public information available on each states webiste and generally should be disclosed upon request.

We may also ask for brokerage information, again, not personal information.

I field a few access requests a week. I have found that the only people that have a problem with it arent really real estate agents.

I think this is a mis-application of the term "censorship".

To my knowledge, no one has had their comments edited or censored on this "Public" Forum, unless they're unseemly and simply not fit for print.

It's just that the participants have have some level of protection when they speak (or write) freely while in the Inner Sanctum (or Private) Forum, and need not fear reprisal.

So the existence of the "Private Forum" doesn't constitute censorship . . . . but that's just my opinion.

right on TX gal

It is time to put on your tinfoil hat! Word on the wires is you've been pegged. It's only a matter of time. Secret password is ******
Signed,
Agent ******
Commisar of Communication and Perception
Subcommitte chairperson for Special Data Collections

Picture this as a secret society. We have passwords, secret handshakes and gestures. And you have to know the doorman to enter our Speakeasy. After thirty posts you get a secret decoder ring.

Here's a hint - Todays pasword is Kim Jong Il

Hey I didnt get mine yet......or did I.

BTW we are currently in the market for additional doormen if anyone is interested.....

LOL....tin foil hat.

I'm making the speakeasy shine now......you can't love this country if you don't love the moonshine.

Now I'll talk like an old timer to the board, which I ain't. WE DID have a fraternity. I started it. I think we got to 3 members on paper. But there were dozens more in spirit. I could feel their support through the internets.

It was called Beta Pi Omega (BPO for short). I think we discussed a Rho Epsilon Omega (REO) sister organization, but it never took off.

There were requirements for membership. I think you had to do like 50 orders. You had to know who Big Bird was. And you couldn't tell J~ any of the secret passwords. J~ was an employee of Mainstreet. She was very active on the board. She was nice but we liked to treat her like the enemy for fun and teasing.

Tickle, is that you? We need about 600 pounds of bananas.

She was a QCer, so she was the enemy as far as I was concerned. I resent cubicle dwellers thousands of miles from me "advising" me how to choose comparables and make value conclusions considering there is a 99% chance they have never even been to my city before. That's just how I feel.

I am no big fan of PT, but I will give them credit in that they hire local appraisers to do QC work for them. That I am very OK with as they know my market and I feel I can better reason with them not only on a knowledgeable local level, but also more so peer to peer. LS sort of does the same, but their review appraisers that QC BPOs are not local.

Sorry to go off topic, its just I am not a fan of QCers being active posters and I am glad we have the "private forum" to keep the water cooler to ourselves.

I liked J~. She had alot of interesting insider QC stuff. Anyone know what ever happened to her?

She stopped posting back in December because she wasn't given access to the private forum. I feel sorry for the next QC person who tries to come around these parts. lol.

She told me that she was working on getting her Real Estate License in Utah . . . . so if she succeeded in doing so, then she could be here amongst us right now, and we wouldn't even know. Kind'a spooky, hey ?

J~ was good people. I chatted behind the scenes with her on other stuff not about RE. She was nice. I think she was getting squeezed professionaly to be honest with you. While on the boards I think she went from salaried to piece meal. The mill was crunching on her too. I mean nothing bad to those who were at odds with her. I likes you too.

I do not doubt that in the slightest, and my criticism of her participating on the message board was never personal. I just prefer the separation of "management" from us agents.

My issues with various QC departments is known. I have zero problem with someone reviewing my work as I 100% agree there needs to be a checks and balance system in place. Having said that, whoever looks over my shoulder should have a basic sense of my area and should not question my reasoning based on what Zillow or Trulia says.

If BPO QC departments implemented people familiar with various major markets (like what I mentioned what PT does), maybe we wouldn't have so many bad prior BPOs and value discrepancies. Ideally that would involve appraisers, but at the bare minimum it should involve someone who has a RE license! As well as I feel I know how to evaluate RE, I would not have the chutzpah to try review work 100 miles away from me, let alone a few thousand.

Just my thoughts.........

Vermont, you're not being honest.

Just recently, an entire thread was permanently deleted by a Moderator, in the Shooting the Breeze section of the forum, because some insecure baby complained when religion was discussed in a few of the posts. There was nothing offensive about the posts, no violation of the TOS at all. Just whiney cry babies.

The OP is correct.

LOL, you don't think some of the company reps are state licensed, and monitoring the forum? or verified forum members are feeding information on member posts to the companies? of course they are. get a grip on reality. you're identity is NOT safe at all in the cyber-environment, no matter how "confidential" it appears to be.

Perhaps I suffer from myopia; as my comments above were with respect only to the "OPEN" BPO, REO, & Foreclosure Forum, and not AOL in general, nor the Shooting the Breeze Forum specifically.

But I'll refrain from calling myself "honest" if that term doesn't apply to me anymore.

shana - I am very well aware of the potential which can arise on the internet in regards to privacy issues, thanks for the heads up, though. I was merely attempting to point out how the private forum came about, why it's available, and how it isn't a form of censorship. It's not as though we're banning books here or something.

Very true. There's another real estate "forum" where many, many members had posted very, very negative (deservedly so) opinions and experiences with a purported REO management company of which many of us are familiar. Not only were some of those forum members threatened by supposed reps from that entity, both in the forum, and apparently via private correspondence, but the forum owner received a complaint-- pretty much a C&D, some of which he published, along with his rebuttal. Which rebuttal was IMO weak, and opened the door for possibly more serious action from the complainant. But it is undeniable that that exchange had a chilling effect, shutting down further reports of bad experiences. And that's exactly what we do not want here.

Sharing our experiences with AMCs, banks, BPO companies, etc., is important. Absent that, companies that take advantage of our profession would be able to do so with even more disregard than they do already.

While it's one thing to just flat out say xxx co sucks, or they're bad, or whatever, it's another to say, this co owes me $xxxx.xx, and has for over eight months, this is kind of outlandish, has anyone else had a similar issue? There's a huge difference between generally trashtalking a co, and sharing a good or bad experience, and asking for additional feedback.

I think that usually happens for the most part on the private forum. I know I'm happy it's available. Like when all those emails come out from new companies, or when BOA used to have all those tech issues on their old system (no jynx) or there are mass policy changes going on, this is the first place I stop at to see what's happening.

well, it's not "your" profession as an agent/broker, because most agents are small players in the industry. what you're missing is that these companies ARE the industry, because they dominate it. the individual licensed agent is simply a tool to be used to achieve their goals...maximum profits, often with little or no regard for ethics. bite the hand that feeds you, and you will be discarded. I've seen it many times. they'll drop an agent or broker in a heartbeat, reassign their listings and offer them no more work. It's the nature of this inherently corrupt industry. and just imagine what the industry would be like with no government regulation.

Yes, it is our industry. No matter how big/small we are, we are a part of the industry so it is ours.


Actually, no, they are not. They might be the big deal in the REO niche, but they are NOT the industry--at least in most cities. REO and short sales in my area only account for, at most, 25% of all sales.


Maximizing profits does not inherently mean that somebody is unethical. We are all here to maximize profits. If a broker does not help a seller do that, of course they are going to be replaced. Sounds like you are expecting to be allowed to do whatever you want, provide [censored]-poor results, and not be fired. Sounds like an attitude of entitlement.


Here are just a few things that would be different:

1) everybody would have to have 10% down to buy a house
2) crappy mortgages would not have been pushed by Congress, FHA, FNMA, or Freddie. And still being pushed.
3) there wouldn't be discrimination in the selection of brokers for listing assignments.
4) We wouldn't have wasted billions of dollars in the useless attempt to modify mortgages.
5) There wouldn't be a huge shadow inventory of properties decaying across the nation.

Those are just a few items that come to mind immediately.

LOL, no, that's absurd. those failures and abuses DID happen in a deregulated environment, because they were allowed to happen. that is a fact.

The CRA accounted for a very small percentage of mortgage defaults. the government's own study confirmed that it was NOT a significant factor.

I will admit that the mortgage mod program was not very effective, but that is due to the lenders' lack of willingness to play. In many cases the lenders decided to go REO, which has exacerbated the market problems, vacant properties and value declines.

the financial/real estate industry created this mess of its own volition, in a deregulated environment. too bad nobody wants to take responsibility for it. this is exactly why regulation is necessary.

Well said, as usual.

And to your point (and back to the topic) about default properties generally representing 25% of the market-- there are more than sufficient and well-managed "public" threads in our forum that serve the other 75% of the market-- traditional sales, and the business of being a licensee in general. Also the opportunity for consumers to bring issues to our attention, and to gain better insight on what we do.

That said, we need a place where licensees can speak freely about the default segment-- and there are agents who may be in markets where the 25% REO market may be much higher. They find themselves maybe not listing many REOs, but having to offer on many REOs. It can be a lonely and sometimes punishing experience. They DO need support and pertinent information on who they're dealing with, and what they're dealing with. It's a specialized niche; there are institutional players LIMITED to just that segment. It would be a disservice to agents working that segment to have to refer to companies obliquely or via code.

I wish I lived in your world. I didn't realize that the industry was deregulated as recently as last year. That's amazing.


I'm not talking about the CRA. That is another discussion entirely. I'm talking about our lovely and wonderful senators such as Barney Frank pushing riskier and riskier loan programs that gave government guarantees against default. You obviously have no idea what FHA, VA, USDA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac actually do.


Wrong again. Going REO is not what has exacerbated this problem. Taking 3 years to get to REO due to ridiculous government obstruction has exacerbated the problem. Raising reserve requirements and thus limiting the amount of funds available to loan has exacerbated the problem. Being forced to offer loan mods to people who were unemployed and had no ability to repay any loan has exacerbated the problem. Going REO actually FIXES the problem. A borrower who can not repay a loan is replaced by a borrower who can. Honestly, every homeowner should have been given amnesty and allowed to start over if they so chose. Loan mods have worked in very few circumstances.


Right, it was all the real estate and financial industry who did this. Government funding programs such as VA, USDA, FHA, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae had absolutely nothing to do with this POS mess that we are in. They only account for the vast majority of loans that are made in this country. Obviously, they have done nothing wrong and have no fault in this at all. Ridiculous.

NorthTX, it is you who lives in a fantasy world. the facts about what caused the mortgage meltdown are very clear, including the industry deregulation that led up to and allowed it. It has been studied extensively by many qualified sources.

"2) crappy mortgages would not have been pushed by Congress, FHA, FNMA, or Freddie. And still being pushed."


Okay, I'll indulge you, what recent crappy mortgages are you talking about?

the crappy mortgages were the sub-prime, no-doc, ARM mortgages that were the creation of the greedy, predatory, devious mortgage industry and their Wall Street co-conspirators. It was largely the mortgage brokers that pushed the intentionally fraudulent, predatory crappy mortgages. that initiated the bubble, and once that was in motion, just about everyone else jumped on the bandwagon because they saw big dollar signs.

FHA, VA, USDA, Fannie and Freddie have been around for decades...they did NOT cause the meltdown. you are obviously not willing to hold the mortgage industry responsible for its mis-deeds, so you need a convenient scape-goat.

all of your points are completely inconsistent with reality, but of course, you're entitled to ignore the facts if you choose to.

There is an omission of the inspirational legislation behind these behaviors--the Community Reinvestment Act. Lending institutions were strong armed into making loans they would not have made otherwise. Without hitting these loan quotas their loans would not be bought on the secondary market, effectively putting them out of business.

Bingo.

You do know that, through entities like FNMA, Freddie, FHA, VA, and other government GSEs, the US government backs over 96% of all US mortgages? You also do realize that FNMA and Freddie have interest only and ARM loans that were pushed? Do you know that FHA defaults have increased by 30% in the last year? Probably not.

So, please tell me how, when the overwhelming majority of loans are written according to GSE guidelines, it is entirely Wall Street's fault for the mortgage meltdown?

Sorry, but I'm holding the correct parties responsible. The sad thing is that we're going down the same road.

Some things should never have been allowed to happen; but when individuals are involved it's hard to say "NO" !

Just last night I was explaining a situation that had developed here where a single mother with 4 children had been given a 44 Year USDA RD Mortgage in 2006 . . . . for 111% of the Purchase Price (to roll all of her Closing Costs, PMI, Tax Prorations, Insurance, Pre-Paids, et cetera into the Face Value of the Mortgage).

I had NEVER heard of a 44 Year Mortgage before; but they extended the amortization out in order to reduce the monthly payments to fit within the woman's ratios.

I only know about it because the woman died 6 weeks after taking possession and I was involved in the subsequent Foreclosure, Auction, and Purchase as a Buyer's Agent in 2008.

The Government lost about $90,000 on that deal, plus all of the salaried time of the various bureaucrats involved in the original purchase and then the disposition.

The rules didn't specifically prohibit their doing it, the woman wanted it, the bureaucrats thought they were doing a good thing, and it was good for those 6 weeks . . . . but probably not sustainable in the long run.

When the "rules" allowed for it, WHO should have stepped in and said "NO" !

Vermont - Totally off topic I know, but do you know what happened to her children? That is so sad as if the Dad was not around, then the kids wind up with either distant relatives or foster care. I think that is more tragic than the gov't losing $90,000.

I don't know with any certainty, but there were multiple Dad(s), and the Buyer had come from one of our neighboring States (as so many of our Buyers do), and her remains were returned there.

A local Attorney was appointed Guardian for the Estate (in it's financial aspects); but the children were long removed from the picture before I became involved. I suspect they were absorbed by the Decedent's extended family.

Becoming acquainted with the specific details of each situation was probably part of the problem . . . . we can now philosophize about these things in the abstract, or in the statistical aggregate; but our problem now is the summation of thousands (or really millions) of individual decisions which were made on the basis of person-to-person, eyeball-to-eyeball contacts and assessments.

Those individual Loan Applicants were never statistics, they were treated as individual human beings, and each mortgage was initiated and underwritten one by one . . . . not as the massive statistical absurdity that they have become for us to discuss today.

No one instance of violating "Good Banking Practices" or Actuarial Science can be pointed at as being the "straw that broke the camel's back"; just this one little stretch of the rules can't be all that big a problem in just this one little instance . . . . can it?

But then the exceptions became so commonplace that they became the rule and "ninja loans" and ZERO Down Payment took on the air of being the standard . . . . people thought they were being gypped if they had to put down more than 5%.

Even then, I recall well-heeled 2nd Home Buyers refusing to go forward on a conventional mortgage unless they could get a simultaneous 2nd Mortgage to cover the Down Payment.

I was an observer . . . . but also a willing participant. I remember saying the bubble would burst; but no one wanted to believe. Everyone hoped this would be the exception . . . . or that it might hurt others but not them. Retrospective analysis is simple today when we're dealing with facts. As they say now "It was unsustainable".

I find the fact that posted so many times in this thread sorta humorous. That said, I'll just go back to not reading her posts.

"people thought they were being gypped if they had to put down more than 5%."


true, but the borrowers don't make those decisions, the lender underwriters have that responsibility. let's understand that the big lenders employ entire departments of underwriters who failed their duties. and this was no accident...they were coerced by management to go with the flow. the mentality is...as long as the lenders show profits on their financial statements, in their myopic, warped minds it's a good thing...regardless of legal and ethical considerations.

Although this thread has swayed from 'censorship', I'll put my little ol' two cents in.

The only people who believe they are being gypped by being required to put 5% down are the ones who don't have 5% down. There's a reason they don't have 5% to put down. If one can't save 5%, then it's not their time to buy. It's simple, really.

I blame the mortgage industry. Even with deregulation at that time, it still comes down to the mortgage lender and the underwriter.

I purchased my own home in 1995. 9% was the down payment and 91% was a first mortgage with PMI. After several years, I earned my real estate license and attended a seminar by a lender and he talked of this 80/10/10. I asked, "Why wasn't I offered this 80/10/10 in 1995?" [It meant I could have had more interest deduction whereas my $130/mo. PMI was NOT deductible.] He said, "Because it wasn't in existence."

During my years learning real estate and financing, I have seen the craziest mortgage programs come out - everything was done to get as many people into a mortgage as possible. Many lenders didn't take the time to think through what the h*ll would happen if the things started going sour. Could many of the riskier clients be able to handle their mortgage payments when their rates would adjust or they'd finally have to start contributing towards principle payments? It seems many lenders DIDN'T care. Their only thought was "if they didn't do the deal, someone else would, so they better do it because they WANT to get their share of the pie." [I know this is also the mindset of some real estate agents - we can't deny it doesn't exist.] It would have been wonderful if our federal government MADE these lenders swallow their own poison - regardless of who or what agency said it was okay to do.

Giving out a mortgage with the only qualification that one needed to be breathing created the real estate mess we're in now. An overload of multiple buyers providing escalation clauses on one house. Multiply that by 1,000's upon 1,000s if not more.

We can plead with a lender all we want to get a buyer 'qualified' but it is the lender who gives the final OK, not real estate agents and not appraisers.

Was I a risk at 9% down and $130/mo. PMI? paid the mortgage off last year.

Circa 2005 and 2006......

You are a tenant in an apartment complex. You are alerted by the leasing office that your complex will be experiencing condo conversion during the next several months. At the same time, all existing tenants will be given first opportunity to purchase their unit with little if not zero down.

The tenant has the opportunity to experience the "American dream" of homeownership by just signing some papers and coming up with a bit of cash (if any). The opportunity is too hard to resist for many. Everyone is happy for a short while, most notably the former apartment complex owner. Looking back, he made a fortune without any contingencies. Then the dust begins to settle, and as they say, "the rest is history."

Who caused this mess? I have the minority opinion I suppose that it wasn't one single entity. Various groups were involved from the greedy lenders to a lesser degree the naive new homeowners. These repercussions will still be felt for many more years I'm afraid.

I bought my first house in 1981. Put 20% down and the interest rate was 15.5%. Never missed a payment.