As a real estate broker in Boundary County, it has been my pleasure and purpose to help people realize their dreams of purchasing homes or land on which to build.

With the high unemployment rate in Boundary County and today’s foreclosure climate, the purpose of this article is to help those facing the possibility of foreclosure to understand their options.

As financial crunches continue to be the name of the game, the number of short sales, foreclosures and bankruptcies continue to increase. The “lending crisis”, the “mortgage meltdown” and the “sub-prime collapse” were some of the terms that described the issues that faced the real estate consumer at the beginning of the real estate crisis. This crisis was put into play a number of years ago when Congress mandated lenders to provide loans to people whether they could make the payments or not. But now, as the economy continues in a downward spiral and job losses and unemployment are at unprecedented levels, foreclosures have escalated even more with the expectation that the numbers will continue to rise. As reported by Realty-Trac, one of the leading national online marketplaces for foreclosure properties, for the first quarter of 2009, foreclosure filings – default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions, increased an additional nine percent from the previous quarter. Foreclosure filings were reported on 341,180 in March, a 17 percent increase from the previous month and a 46 percent increase from March 2008. Idaho is ranked as eighth in the nation in foreclosures.

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The total cost of treating emergency department patients in Massachusetts increased by 17% over two years, despite efforts included in the state’s health insurance law to direct patients with non-urgent problems to primary care physicians instead of EDs, according to state data, the Boston Globe reports. The data are for fiscal years 2006 and 2007 and include numbers on ED visits for patients discharged, rather than for patients admitted. Visits to EDs in the state increased by 7% during the two years to 2,469,295, which caused treatment costs to rise from $826 million to $973 million, according to the data. The portion of patients who did not require immediate treatment or who could have been treated in a doctor’s office remained steady at 47% throughout the two years.

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Though it came as no surprise to investors, the collapse of General Growth Properties, the nation’s second-largest mall owner, has stirred new fears about a coming debacle in commercial real estate. The company, which owns 200 shopping centers encompassing 200 million square feet and 24,000 tenants, filed for bankruptcy protection last week.

With the credit markets virtually shut down, General Growth said it was unable to refinance the $3.3 billion in debt that had already matured or would be due this year. These included loans totaling $900 million on two malls in Las Vegas – Fashion Show and the Shoppes at the Palazzo – that were due to be repaid in November. An additional $6.4 billion in debt matures next year.

Global impact

The global credit crisis, weakening retail demand and rising unemployment have taken a toll on commercial property around the world. At least $153 billion worth of property is already in distress, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York research company. Of this, $87.1 billion represents defaulted mortgages, while the rest is outstanding debt from about 40 commercial-property and investment companies that have failed, most of them outside the United States.

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The National Assembly has passed Bill for The Insurance Act, 2009 which among other things sets a time frame for insurance companies to settle customers` claims in 45 days only, instead of 90.

The new act that repeals The Insurance Act Cap 394, 1996 now bestows powers upon the Commissioner of Insurance to examine the circumstances under which the insurer fails to settle the customers’ claims before granting an extra 45 days to do so.

Presenting the Bill in Parliament on Friday evening in the House, Deputy Minster for Finance and Economic Affairs Omary Yusuf Mzee said the new legislation imposes a penalty of up to 5 m/- on insurers who fail to settle customers’ claims within the time frame set by the law.

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Cori Bradley and Cecil Baird are among many Valley homeowners who are finding it tough to qualify for mortgage modifications as they face declining home values, diminished income and the looming shadow of foreclosure.

Homeowners, real estate agents and mortgage experts say President Barack Obama’s mortgage modification plan is not working in housing markets such as Phoenix, because in many instances home values have dropped too much for the owners to qualify.

To qualify for a principal modification under the plan, a borrower’s mortgage balance cannot be more than 105 percent of the current value of the home. For example, a suburban Phoenix home that has a mortgage of $400,000, but now is worth $300,000 because of the market drop, will not qualify for a principal reduction.

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Before the subsidy kicked in, her premiums were about $450 a month, says her husband, Ken, 75, who is covered by Medicare.

Carol Horace, 57, of San Francisco hasn’t been as fortunate. Horace’s former employer, the Stanford Group, was put into receivership earlier this year after its founder, Allen Stanford, was charged with engaging in an $8 billion fraud. Stanford has denied the charges.

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Though it came as no surprise to investors, the collapse of General Growth Properties, the nation’s second-largest mall owner, has stirred new fears about a coming debacle in commercial real estate. The company, which owns 200 shopping centers encompassing 200 million square feet and 24,000 tenants, filed for bankruptcy protection last week.

With the credit markets virtually shut down, General Growth said it was unable to refinance the $3.3 billion in debt that had already matured or would be due this year. These included loans totaling $900 million on two malls in Las Vegas – Fashion Show and the Shoppes at the Palazzo – that were due to be repaid in November. An additional $6.4 billion in debt matures next year.

The global credit crisis, weakening retail demand and rising unemployment have taken a toll on commercial property around the world. At least $153 billion worth of property is already in distress, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York research company. Of this, $87.1 billion represents defaulted mortgages, while the rest is outstanding debt from about 40 commercial-property and investment companies that have failed, most of them outside the United States.

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THE leadership of the nation’s insurance industry has faulted the exclusion of representatives of operators in the government appointed insurance law review committee describing it as wrong and unfair to the industry.

The operators rising from a meeting in Lagos at the weekend, comprising leaders of the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB) and Institute of Loss Adjusters of Nigeria (ILAN) said it was an error and unfair decision by government to the industry practitioners not to include representatives of the operators in the committee to put the views and inputs of the industry in proper perspectives in the committee’s report.

According to the market groups, the chairman of the 11-man review committee, though an ICON in the industry is supposed to be non-partisan and cannot, therefore, represent the interest and views of the industry properly.

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Scramble to keep spaces full, retain tenants and maintain property values

Tough economic times are bringing commercial real estate tenants and landlords back to the negotiating table. While tenants are seeking lower rents to reduce expenses, landlords are aiming to retain tenants for greater financial stability and better refinancing opportunities.

Lease restructuring “is a lot of the activity in the marketplace right now,” said Philip Lipper, senior managing director at Studley, a commercial real estate tenant advisory firm. Such deals have become more prevalent in the past year, as economic conditions have made tenants more concerned about their expenses and landlords more worried about their debt, said Lipper, who works out of Studley’s Iselin office, in Woodbridge.

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Insurer MetLife Inc. (MET), a major seller of annuities, and a group of state securities regulators have asked a court to uphold the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s rule treating equity indexed annuities as securities rather than insurance products.

Indexed annuities should be regulated under federal securities laws, as variable annuities are, say MetLife; the North American Securities Administrators Association, or NASAA; and the AARP Foundation, a nonprofit organization representing the interests of those age 50 and over, in a petition filed Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

MetLife, which doesn’t issue indexed annuities but does sell variable annuities, and the other parties say that there’s no substantive reason for indexed annuities to be regulated differently than variable annuities under securities laws. Consumers could be harmed by deceptive indexed-annuity sales practices, and regulating indexed annuities under federal law, in addition to state insurance law, would subject them to stronger and more uniform standards, they say.

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