Mortgage fraud is on the rise again, oh boy!  

Hi everybody,  It’s Joe Hillner with Your Home Sold Guaranteed Realty, where we guarantee that  your home will sell for 101% of asking price, or I’LL pay you the difference! 
Ok, so every week, I share market data to keep you informed with the local real estate market.  
Here is this week’s Boca Market Watch.

First, Single Family Homes:

This past week, a  down week with only 41 new homes on the market, ranging from $89,000 to $23 Million,  not bad.   16 homes back on the market, while 32 homes listed took a price decrease, and 7 sellers raised their asking price.  And  another so so week with just 44 different properties under contract, and another 33 going pending.   And just 14 homes were unsuccessful in selling and were taken off the market or the listing expired outright, virtually nothing!  And a lackluster week with 66 homes sold in the past week,  ranging from $220K to a paltry $3.2M, lol! 

Next up, Condos and Townhomes:

63 new listings, not too bad, and ranging from $99 Grand to $6 Million 32 units came back on the market, 33 properties with a price decrease, and 10 sellers with an increase. 50 different properties went under contract, and another 43 went pending, a pretty decent week. And like single family homes, only 13 condos or townhomes were unsuccessful in selling and were taken off the market or the listing expired.  We're scraping the bottom of the barrel here folks!  75 closed sales this week, a down week for condos, and ranging in price from $62 Grand to $3.1 M!

Here's what's making news right now.  

The risk of mortgage fraud in the US has hit historic highs so far this year!  With an overheated U.S. housing market, new government-sponsored enterprise requirements on investment properties and the transition to a more robust purchase market, mortgage fraud is once again on the rise after a brief dip last year, according to property data company CoreLogic 

CoreLogic's National Mortgage Application Fraud Risk Index also reported an increase by 10.5% in Q2, up from a 120 index reading in Q1 to 132 in Q2. The year-over-year trend is up 37.2% from Q2 2020, wow! What's behind all this?  First, a significant drop in refinance volume was offset by record purchase volumes in Q2.       This shift in volume towards purchase loans is reflected in the increased risk indicated by the national index. A particular concern area to watch is occupancy fraud.     As the GSEs ,meaning Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,              limit financing availability for non-primary occupancy, it seems quite likely to increase the motivation for occupancy misrepresentation, already one of the most common mortgage fraud risks.  For example, someone living in NYC buys a condo in our area and intends to rent it out.            But to get favorable loan to value and interest rate treatment, the buyer claims it will be a second home.  Folks, some of you may not think that's a big deal, but that's mortgage fraud and its a Federal crime with heavy fines and potential prison time.

The report goes on to identify the top states for fraud risk, and 6 of the top 15 areas are in FL, yay FL!  And sitting at #2, ... you guessed it, Miami-Ft Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, our back yard.  If the baseline is 100, our risk score is 235, so we're way off the charts.  

Why do I bring this to your attention, Because we have so much influx into the State of FL, it's become a bit of a frenzy.           And of the 90,000 realtors in out three county area, over 55% of them are part-time and only do 1 or two deals a year.       It would be easy to be led astray by one of them or a shady mortgage person they refer you to, to cut corners to get the deal done, and they don't  know, or care, that they've exposed you to some serious risk.  When interviewing an agent or a lender, and you should be interviewing before you select one, be sure to ask the right questions.      And if you don't know what those questions are, just reach out to us and we'll get you that information, no charge and no obligation.