Real Estate News – October 4, 2011




About 4.5 million current and former home owners will be eligible to have their foreclosure cases reviewed, and banks will compensate them if mistakes are found, as part of a mandate by federal regulators to the nation’s banks (via REALTORMag): http://bit.ly/nQeh4a


A judge on Tuesday allowed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Bank of America to precede, a legal victory for property owners who have faced almost certain dismissal of similar suits in federal courts in Utah (via sltrib.com): http://bit.ly/qgiTNz


A former Lee’s Summit real estate agent will spend 20 months behind bars and must pay more than $5.6 million in restitution for a mortgage fraud scheme that left banks holding bad loans and caused property values to plummet (via businessweek.com): http://buswk.co/pRqKCQ


A Laguna Beach homeowner reported to police that she believed her real estate agent was squatting in her vacant home while the sale closed (via latimesblogs.latimes.com): http://lat.ms/qpMfnc


A Southern California broker has pleaded guilty to 68 felony counts for stealing nearly $7 million from hard-money investors in a real estate Ponzi fraud scheme (via mercurynews.com): http://bit.ly/nCfB2t


President Barack Obama has failed in his efforts to help the U.S. housing market recover and should focus on cutting the amount troubled homeowners owe, said Henry Cisneros, who was secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton (via businessweek.com): http://buswk.co/n15cyq