CoreLogic has just introduced a new software program designed to catch real estate brokers and agents who commit short sale fraud by providing a low bid to lenders in order to get a second commission by flopping the property to a higher bidder.

The new CoreLogic Short Sale Monitoring Solution is designed to help lenders maximize what they are earning on short sales by alerting lenders about all offers made on the property.  The software also monitors the property after the sale is complete.  If it is “flopped” for a higher price, the lender is notified and can pursue the agent or broker involved for fraud.

CoreLogic says it estimates that lenders are currently losing over $40,000 per short sale transaction – or a total of $310 million in 2010.  The company estimates there will be in excess of 400,000 short sales negotiated through real estate agents this year.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest movie, The Expendables, is a summer hit and Californians are now waiting for him to morph into the homeowners’ hero by signing SB 1178, the bill extending anti-deficiency protection for consumers facing foreclosure who refinanced their original mortgage loans that was approved by the California Sate Assembly earlier this month.

Currently, if a homeowner defaults on a mortgage loan, their liability is limited to the property itself.  However, homeowners who refinanced their original mortgages did not have the same protection.  Sponsored by the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.), SB 1178 was passed to protect homeowners in foreclosure from lenders suing for the difference between the value of the foreclosed property and the outstanding balance on the loan.

If the Governor signs the bill, it will become law effective June 2011.

You know it can’t be good news when an article about home sales starts out like this:  Analysts’ estimates for July home sales aren’t even close.

And it wasn’t good news.

According to HousingWire.com, the sale of new single family homes hit an all-time low of 276,000 units for the month of July, down over 12 percent from the revised June estimates of 315,000.

That’s 35 percent lower than one year ago.

NAR reported a 27 percent decline in existing home sales for July, which is the lowest in more than a decade.  The estimate on the street had been a 12 percent decline.

Not surprisingly, real estate brokers and agents are feeling the pain.  NAR and other state realtor associations are reporting double-digit drops in membership.  NAR alone has lost 200,000 members since 2006.  Some California agents are reporting business is off some 65 percent from peak years.

The Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit research center and borrower advocacy group, reports that Latinos account for almost half of the foreclosures in California.

The CRL says that Latino borrowers make up 48.2 percent of the over 700,000 California homes currently in the foreclosure process, based on their analysis of data from ForeclosureRadar and Catalist.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Latinos make up 37 percent of California’s total population.

White/Non-Hispanic homeowners accounted for 34.6 percent of foreclosures in California, and African-Americans were 7.6 percent.  Asians accounted for only 6.4 percent of California foreclosures.

According to a REO Insider article, lenders and servicers have taken notice of this trend, and some are targeting minority-owned brokerages for their REO listings.  In addition, a Fannie Mae executive said that hiring real estate agents and brokerages that serve minority communities is one of its key strategies.

New research from The Urban Institute’s MetroTrends, which reports on social and economic trends in urban America, shows that despite a drop in home prices, affordability continues to be a problem for many Americans, especially in coastal metro areas.

According to the MetroTrends data, the share of American households spending more than 30 percent of monthly income on housing costs rose from 30 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2008.

The research also showed that residents of coastal communities have been especially affected, particularly those in California, Florida, the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.  According to the report, 12 metro areas in central and southern California have 43 percent or more of their populations spending more than 30 percent of monthly household income on housing costs.

Researchers said that most of the coastal metros suffered a double whammy of unemployment and house price declines, but the impact was particularly severe in Western metros, particularly Los Angeles county, which continues to lead the state in foreclosures.

ForeclosureRadar reports that California foreclosure activity was “mixed” in July, with foreclosure filings and cancellations dropping from June and foreclosure sales rising.

California foreclosures moving to REO status were up 13.46 percent in July from the previous month, but down over 18 percent from July of 2009.  Notice of default filings were down 4.8 percent from June, and down 47 percent from July of 2009.

ForeclosureRadar CEO Sean O’Toole said that despite a “tsunami of mortgage delinquencies, we continue to see no signs of a foreclosure wave.”  He said that government and lender intervention programs are continuing to delay foreclosures.

The report also said that in July, it took an average of 226 days to foreclose in California, down slightly from a 2010 peak of 239 days in April.

To read ForeclosureRadar’s July 2010 California Foreclosure Report, go here.

July foreclosure data from RealtyTrac shows that REO levels in July were at the second highest level since the company started reporting in April of 2005.

The highest point ever recorded by the company was just two months ago, in May, when there were 93,777 properties that went back to banks as REO.  In July, that number was only one percent less, at 92,858.

However, RealtyTrac said that foreclosure filings categorized as a notice of default through REO dropped almost 10 percent in July from the same month one year ago.  It also dropped in June, making July the second consecutive month for yearly declines.

In July, Nevada continued to hold the #1 position as the state with the highest foreclosure rate at one in every 82 houses.  Arizona was second, with one in every 167 houses and California was fourth, where one in every 200 houses received a foreclosure filing in July.

The Obama administration is holding a conference today to discuss ways to overhaul Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying that doing so will be important to fixing the country’s broken housing finance system.

The conference will focus on a review of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA, Ginnie Mae, the Federal Home Loan Banks and the “significant private sector role” in mortgage origination, funding and servicing.

To date, the U.S. Treasury has spent more than $145 billion to keep Fannie and Freddie solvent, after seizing the lending giants in September of 2008, as they teetered on the brink of collapse.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that the Obama administration wants a “comprehensive reform proposal that protects taxpayers, institutes tough oversight, restores the long-term health of our housing market, and strengthens our nation’s economic recovery.”

According to the Treasury, Fannie, Freddie and other government entities currently guarantee more than 90 percent of new mortgages.

KnowYourOptions.com is the new Fannie Mae website launched last week to help distressed borrowers understand more about mortgage financing and prepare them for dealing with lenders in the foreclosure process.

Available in both English and Spanish, the new site aims to help struggling homeowners find alternatives to foreclosure.  According to a Fannie Mae press release, key features of the site include:

• Interactive Options Finder to help homeowners identify options that might be right for their situation;
• Calculators to help borrowers understand how many of the options work, including refinance, repayment, forbearance, and modification;
• Videos featuring real homeowners discussing how they received help and housing counselors providing advice;
• A virtual assistant to walk homeowners through key areas of the site; and
• Next steps and helpful forms, including a financial checklist and contact log to help borrowers be prepared when contacting their mortgage company or housing counselor.

The site also provides details about Fannie Mae’s Deed-for Lease program, which gives borrowers the option to remain in their home by becoming renters.

Fannie Mae has relaxed the limit of 30 REO listings per broker from any one Fannie Mae source, according to a report from REO Insider.

In June, Fannie imposed a strict limit of 30 REO listings per broker at any one time, and imposed a 25-mile restriction as well.  The new rules elicited an immediate response from NAR and Keller Williams Realty.

In a letter to the president of Fannie Mae, Mark Willis, Keller Williams CEO, said that the REO listings limitation “will impede the objectives of both Fannie Mae and the real estate professionals who have invested heavily in people and systems to efficiently move REO properties. Clearly, the REO arena is an extremely specialized field, requiring dedicated professionals who possess distinct expertise and sufficient financial and organizational resources.”

Apparently, Fannie agreed and said it would approve special exceptions to the limit.  Fannie also made the clarification that a broker could have 30 REO listings directly from Fannie Mae and take on additional listings from outsourcers without the need for approval from Fannie.