There are many financial predators out there now that so many homeowners have fallen on hard times, please beware and avoid them like the plague. If you gain nothing else from visiting my website I hope that at least I have helped to make you more educated and aware, especially of scam artists who often disguise themselves as investors and sadly enough realtors or mortgage brokers who claim to “help” unsuspecting distressed homeowners and for sale by owners.

1. An investor or (unethical agent) asks you to sign over the deed to your home so that the investor can invest his own time and money and stall the foreclosure process. NEVER do this! Although you are giving up all of your legal rights to your property you are still 100% on the hook for your mortgage.   You will have no other options nor will not be able to accept any other offers if that investor does not buy your property.  He wants to “flip” the house and is trying to get it from the bank at a VERY cheap price, quite possibly cheaper than the bank is willing to sell it and often much less than a normal acceptable short sale would have produced.  

2. An investor or (unethical agent) will ask you to sign over “power of attorney” so that they can negotiate with your lender on your behalf. Don’t do it! You will no longer have any rights to decide what should be done with your house and they can sell it right out from under you, and you will be the one still on the hook for the mortgage. All that is required in order to negotiate on the behalf of a homeowner is a form called a “3^rd party authorization” which allows another person, such as a realtor to negotiate and share information with the lender but the final decisions and terms of the sale will ultimately be with the owner, as it should be.

3. An investor or (unethical agent) will tell you that in order to get a short sale approved you should let them basically destroy your house so that the appraisal will come in low for your lender thus allowing them to buy your home at a rock bottom price. This however is highly illegal and is considered loan fraud, and the lender can hold you financially responsible for the damage and/ or the lower sales price.

4. An unethical mortgage person tells you that they can get you a “special” loan although you have no equity in your home. Usually they inflate the price of your home and take a lot of money for themselves leaving you holding the bag for even more debt on a terrible loan and you run the risk of being prosecuted for mortgage fraud since the value was illegally inflated by the mortgage person and most likely an unethical appraiser partner in crime.