Judicial Foreclosure States Have Worst Foreclosure Rates

An interesting news piece this afternoon:

"Foreclosures were completed on fewer properties in July than during the month-earlier and year-earlier periods. Even the biggest foreclosure state slowed its activity. Non-judicial foreclosure states were dominant among states with the greatest number of filings, but the worst rates of foreclosure were in judicial foreclosure states.
The volume of U.S. foreclosures completed last month by mortgage servicers fell 6 percent from June. Improvement was a more significant 16 percent compared to July of last year.
During the 12 months ended July 31, completed foreclosures totaled 794,744, inching up from the previous month's 12-month total of 793,663."

Foreclosure Defense Marketing

Sent out the Press Release with those positive success numbers I have shown you below, to a marketing list of Bankruptcy & Foreclosure Defense Lawyers across the Country. Like the last four monthly e-mails I have sent out (trying to get their attention), my 45% 'read rate' has continued to please me - however - converting those readers into looking deeper into our website, has pretty much escaped me so far; got OK numbers there but want better.

What I think I am learning is this simple fact: My target audience knows very little about my emerging industry (or may have had a bad experience or two themselves with other 'mortgage forensic auditors') and the real value our product can be for them, and by extension, their Client base of struggling homeowners.

Of course I recognize it's my job to explain what they can do with our report, and naturally, how we're different/better than Tom, Dick or Harry. When I explain to my college-aged Grand-daughter what Grandpa does, I tell her 'Grandpa is a Foreclosure Fraud Investigator Honey', her face then says HUH? - so I understand I need to explain this better.

FL Winding Down Foreclosure Law Firm Investigations

Even though no names were used in this industry news piece I saw this past Mondauy, I'm certain I have done Audits with clowns like these!

"Florida is winding down investigations into several law firms that were suspected of using forged and fraudulent documents in the foreclosure process. The lack of actions against these firms has raised the ire of some.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced in August 2010 that an investigation had been launched against three law firms that handled foreclosures for mortgage servicers. The firms were suspected of illegally speeding cases through the courts with botched foreclosure documents.
The number of investigated firms expanded, and only one of those firms has since agreed to a settlement with the state. In addition, the state is winding down investigations into the remaining firms."

PressRelease issued today - a 94% Success Rate !!

Wow, we're all excited here! My gut told me the math would look pretty good after the completion of the examination of our books and records.  But, after a review of more than 100 Audits we performed (it was actually 123 which were reviewed), only a small handful of them were not successful in getting Borrower foreclosures suspended. And that's our Goal; we battle for the consumer in their up-hill fight against certain foreclosure practices.

Obviously, not a perfect score - but that's damn close!

Behind the Numbers

My Company is in the midst of an independent audit of its internal records to determine the overall usefulness of our Audit reports. In other words, to what degree do they help suspend consumer residential foreclosures. After their review of just over 100 individual consumer/Borrower Audits so far, I have seen some preliminary figures; I’m pleased and I trust the final math will end up in the range of where the numbers are right now – to finish up maybe another 30 or so files to review.

However, I am mildly concerned because I see our Mortgage Securitization Forensic Audits as a ‘tool’ to help the struggling homeowner gain solid footing in their battle against sometimes unlawful and deceptive foreclosure tactics by Lenders and others. But a lot might not go as anticipated once we receive a submission request, (1). Maybe our examination will reveal the overall handling of the consumer/borrowers loan, it’s origination, servicing, transfers, assignments and foreclosure paperwork is all inline (therefore our works is thorough and concise but can’t help them in their battle today (not all examinations turn up defective or inaccurate actionable evidence – although almost all of them have to date), (2). It could be our report ends up with the Consumer’s lawyer, who is not aggressive enough to use its findings to defend this client’s foreclosure, or maybe, (3). Like so many of our reports, the evidence is a slam-dunk open and shut case where the Borrower/consumer should be victorious in stopping foreclosure and bring in the Loan’s owner to the negotiating table to work out a friendly settlement (MOD etc.), when all the while they’re exhausted from fighting, or have no more money to pay their attorney to pursue the foreclosing parties, so could a fair analysis suggest our Audit was less than valuable?

Tough to read in between the lines, a Press Release is being developed to announce the final numbers.

More Adventures of a Mortgage Fraud/Foreclosure Investigator

Having these conversations the last couple of days on the topic of Franchising my business, I have marveled at the sort of questions potenial distributors have asked me!  Some really bright, but most of them were clueless - on balance a good idea. Here's a couple of good ones:

On the positive side, it got me to add my resume to the http://www.cugno.net/ website, I guess that makes sense. I also plugged in a recent Sample Audit Report I did last week, so site visitors can see the end product, also another smart idea, so I guess I have benefited so far with these conversations :-)

I tell them with my unique knowledge and expericnce in the industry, in most cases I can easily examine 200 to 300 pages, or more, of a Customer's File and come up with a Game Plan to Avoid or Stop Home Foreclosures all together! It's really rather startling how sloppy most big lender & servicers are, and especially the mortgage securitization folks (they're clearly the worst) - I catch them trying something unlawful usually three or 4 times a week!

Franchise My Business?

The other day I sent out a blast e-mail solicitation piece to just over 10,000 Foreclosure & Bankruptcy Attorneys across the Nation; the response has been strong.

I was telling an old friend of mine who lives in Florida now (he has been a Business Opportunity & Franchise Promoter for most of his career) about what I'm up to these days and the results of my mailing. For about 10 years he was also a Hard Money private investor, then he evolved into being a small private mortgage lender (that's when we met). So, my friend John  says to me, "Peter I think we can Franchise your business, all you would need is about 20 outlets in the Nation ... so let me ask you some questions ..." (I mentioned to him that I can bring two senior-type business associates and some support staff in, if the business volume increase overwhelms me.) Here's what he asked and what I said:

Q: How many Securitization Forensic Mortgage audits have you personally done this past year?
A: I told him, John I think somewhere around 100.
Q: How many of them do you think resulted in you uncovering significant defects?
A: I said, probably 95%.
Q: He next asked me, what % of those do you believe your report assisted in either (1) further delay and/or (2) prevent outright the foreclosure of the property ?
A:  I explained that's something I haven't kept track of, I know I can find out (since I have copies of all my work) and whether or not a Foreclosure was effected would be public record, so I'm sure I can find out the actual statistics ... my guess is likely all of them.

John asked me to find out that percentage and told me once I know the number, he feels like he can expand my operation into having multiple distributorships. I've made an inquiry to the title company people I work with, and they're going to figure out an easy way (I already know a hard-way to get the data) to pull that info from their computers (since they know which borrowers I have gotten Property Reports on from them) to date.

Whether or not this notion comes to pass, a success percentage posted on my website http://www.cugno.net/ is going to be a good idea, probably take me about a week or so to do it :-) You have any thoughts?