Bank of America Gets Foreclosed

June 16, 2011 jd

httpv://youtu.be/MBuCSTFJffY

How screwed up are the banks? They foreclose on a home that has no mortgage! So the attorney for the couple forecloses on the bank (really a sheriffs sale). Great!

Between “robosigning” where banks make up false mortgage notes, to not doing mortgage modifications, the banks continue the drive this country into the ground. Of course, none of the banks CEO’s responsible for this mess have gone to jail. Where do you think you and I would be if we forged mortgages?

For all your real estate needs, call or email:

John J. O’Dell Realtor®
Real Estate Broker
O’Dell Realty
9530) 263-1091
jodell@nevadacounty.com

nevada county fair

Huell Howser Features The Nevada County Fair As A California Golden Fair

June 15, 2011 jd

Huell Hueser at the Nevada County Fair — Huell Howser at the Nevada County Fair

Segment to air on Thursday, June 30 at 8 pm on KVIE Channel 6

Huell Howser’s segment on the Nevada County Fair will air on Thursday, June 30, at 8 pm on KVIE Channel 6. The show is part of Howser’s new PBS series, California’s Golden Fairs, which will showcase a variety of interesting people and events held at California fairs, as well as focus on the rich history and relevance of all California fairs.

Howser, noted television personality and founder of the PBS program: California’s Gold, spent a day at the Nevada County Fair in August. During his visit, Howser spent time on the Fair’s Treat Street, sampling the various foods and interviewing individuals from the various non-profit organizations represented on Treat Street.

Howser’s new PBS series, California’s Golden Fairs, begins airing in June, and will feature different Fairs throughout California. Huell Howser Productions will produce a compilation episode focusing on the rich history of all California fairs.

There are 78 Fairs in California. Howser chose to feature the Nevada County Fair because of its strong community roots, its natural beauty, and its unique Treat Street.

The 2011 Nevada County Fair is August 10 – 14. Visit www.NevadaCountyFair.com for information.

For all your real estate needs, call or email:

John J. O’Dell Realtor®
Real Estate Broker
O’Dell Realty
9530) 263-1091
jodell@nevadacounty.com

Real Estate

Old Mortgage Scam Aims to Hijack a Payment or Two

June 14, 2011 jd

A mortgage scam in which con artists send letters telling borrowers they should begin sending their mortgage payments to a fictitious company that has begun servicing their loan, is making the rounds again. Unfortunately, by the time borrowers figure out their loan has not changed servicer’s, they’ve already sent one or two mortgage payments to the fictitious company.’

Making sense of the story

According to those familiar with the scam, it typically works because most borrowers are unaware of the rules when it comes to the transfer of mortgage-servicing rights. Under the law, the current servicer is required to send a “goodbye” letter notifying the borrower that payments should be sent to a new company as of a certain date.
A week or two later, the law says the borrower should receive a second letter, which, by law, should include a welcome missive from the new servicer with the details of the mortgage payment – a breakdown among principal, interest, and escrow. The package also is likely to include a few payment coupons, if not a brand-new coupon book, and self-addressed printed envelopes for borrowers to make payments.
Both the goodbye and welcome letter should include the mortgage loan number. If either letter does not, or if the information included in one doesn’t match what’s in the other, borrowers should call their original servicers to inquire.
Borrowers only receiving one letter should be extra cautious. Even if everything appears to be standard procedure, borrowers are still advised to call the first company’s toll-free number just to be sure.

Read the full story

For all your real estate needs, call or email:

John J. O’Dell Realtor®
Real Estate Broker
O’Dell Realty
(530) 263-1091
jodell@nevadacounty.com

Travel

The Festivals of Emilia Romagna, Italy

June 13, 2011 jd 1 Comment

Picture courtesy of Cultura d Europa

By Judy J. Pinegar

Emilia-Romagna is the heartland of central Italy, with a reputation as a great gastronomic center, sometimes called the “bread basket” or the “fruit bowl” of Italy. Pigs still outnumber humans in many areas. So there is no surprise that all of the festivals in the area have food as one of the main draws, and some of the festivals are all about a particular food

March – Fiera di San Guiseppe e Sagra della Seppia (Fires of Spring and Festival of the Sepia) is held in the town of Pinarella and beaches of Cervia. Every year this traditional celebration called a Focarina, the burning of the winter months and greeting the coming of spring. Large fires are built, and the festival ensues, accompanied by singing, music shows, animation and traditional markets. At night fireworks are sent up over the sea. The food focus is on seafood including sepia, a genus of cuttlefish which also produces the dark pigment used in making the brown color sepia.

June – Fiera di San Giovanni (Feast of St John) La Fiera di San Giovanni è l’evento più importante per Spilamberto; si svolge ogni anno a cavallo del 24 giugno, festa di San Giovanni Battista, patrono della città., held in the town of Spilamberto, honors St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of the city, but also presents the local agricultural products, crafts and foods of the area. The festival includes performances, sports competition, exhibitions, and children’s workshops. The historic street market, Obici contains many original and quirky items for sale. Si tratta di un’occasione per celebrare il patrono ma anche per presentare i prodotti tipici del territorio e l’attività delle numerose associazioni locali, che ogni anno si impegnano attivamente insieme all’Amministrazione Comunale per valorizzare la manifestazione.The Fiera di San Giovanni is also a trade show for poultry, rabbits, and pigeons is one of the largest and most important shows in all Italy.

August – Ferrara Buskers Festival, held in the city of the same name draws 800,000 onlookers, is the largest show in the world dedicated to “the art of the road”. The name Buskers refers to street-performers: music, theater, dance, juggling, etc. They come from around the world. All are well-known and well-respected in their trade in their home countries, and have incredible and unique talents to share. Throughout the festival it seems anything is possible at any time. They are only paid by the generosity of the onlookers, so bring your change!

September – Sagra della Polenta e dei Frutti del Sottobosco (Festival of Polenta and Berries), held in the city of Novafeltria, the air is perfumed with the smell of polenta topped with wild boar sauce, sausage or mushrooms. The polenta is made from stone ground corn, at least 13 different species! Frutti del Sottobosco means all those delicious goodies hiding in the undergrowth… like local porcini mushrooms and truffles. Other specialties include piadina, a thin Italian flatbread cooked on terra cotta,and homemade jams all washed down with the local Sangiovese wine.

September – Festival del Proscuitto di Parma (Festival of the Ham), held in the city of Parma brings a typical 100,000 visitors, who consume 1,000 hams, and 60,000 meals. For the occasion the Piazza Garaboldi is turned into a open air Proscuitteria, where the King of Hams is served together with the best wines of the area. There is also street theatre, stalls of local products, and painting exhibitions. In a tradition called Finestre Aperte (Open Windows), the ham factories give tours to let thepublic watch the production process and take part in free tastings. They explain the production secrets of the pig legs that, due to a magical combination of climate, tradition and passion, become Parma Ham.

October – Fiera del Tartufo Bianco di Sant’Agatha Feltria (White Truffle Fair of Sant’Agatha Feltria), held in the medieval town of that name, and also called the Truffle City, the festival welcomes over 100,000 people annually with intoxicating smells and exciting treats for gourmets. There are cultural exhibitions, performances, and entertainment. Other foods from the area are also featured, mushrooms, chestnuts, honey herbs and products of sheep farming.

November – Zucca in Festa (Pumpkin Festival) held in the municipality of Delta, has organized events and markets of local crafts and products, food stands, and everywhere specialties made from pumpkin, soups, stuffing, in pasta or bread, baked, fried and cooked into sweets. The pumpkin is called a “violin” and has firm, sweet orange flesh. They even make a distilled pumpkin grappa.

Written by Judy J. Pinegar
Writer and is available to write for your blog or magazine
You may contact her at Email Judy

For all your real estate needs call or email:
John J. O’Dell
Real Estate Broker
O’Dell Realty
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com

Real Estate

Three Banks Penalized For Loan Modification Failure

June 12, 2011 jd

Bank of America Nevada City Photo by John J. O'Dell

Three major banks have lost federal mortgage modification incentives in delivering a foreclosure relief program until they make big changes to improve their practices.

Obama administration officials have told Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Wells Fargo & Co. that they must make “substantial improvements” to the way they administer the Home Affordable Modification Program, and they will not receive any more federal money from the program until they do so. For example, officials noted that banks need substantial improvement in correctly evaluating borrowers’ incomes, which is a critical component for determining eligibility for the program. Some of the banks also need to improve how they identify and contact borrowers for the program.

Last month, the banks received $24 million in payments through HAMP, but no more payments will be made until servicers improve their performance, officials warned.

While Bank of America agreed that it needed to improve its practices in the program, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo say they disagree with the poor evaluation. Wells Fargo, in fact, says they plan to contest the administration’s evaluation of how well it’s done with administering HAMP. The review, which examined all 10 servicers who administer the program, found that all 10 were performing below its benchmarks.

This marks the first time the Obama administration has taken major punitive action against banks in the HAMP program, which has been under attack in recent months from some lawmakers and critics who say the program has not done enough to help save home owners from foreclosure. Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to end the program earlier this year. However, the measure has yet to pass the Senate and the White House already has threatened a veto.

Source: Los Angeles Times (June 10, 2011)

John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
O’Dell Realty
(530) 263-1091
jodell@nevadacounty.com

nevada county fair

Nevada County Fair Competition Handbook Now Available

June 11, 2011 jd

Children’s Artwork at the Fair – Photo courtesy of Nevada County Fair

Book includes all the information you need to enter exhibits in this year’s Fair

The Nevada County Fair’s Competition Handbook, which includes all the information you need to enter exhibits in this year’s Fair, is now available. If you can make it, bake it, grow it or show it, there is a category for you!

There are hundreds of categories and specialty contests for adults and children. Try entering one of the traditional categories like baking cookies, entering a prized photo, creating a poster, showing something from your garden, or displaying a favorite collection. Or, enter one of the specialty categories like creating a shoe box mine, building a car for the solar-powered sprint car races, creating a produce character, or entering the “ugliest dang cake” contest.

Copies of the free handbook are available at the Chamber of Commerce offices, county libraries, at the Fairgrounds’ Office, or on-line at www.NevadaCountyFair.com. Area schools have also received a flyer with information about contests available to Nevada County youth.

The deadline for submitting paper entry forms and on-line entries is July 8 at 4 pm. While there isn’t an entry fee for youth entries done online; there is an entry fee for adult online entries and paper entries and a 50 cent entry fee for most youth paper entries. Please refer to the various Competition Handbook categories for the set fees.

This year’s Competition Handbook also contains information on discount days at the Fair, details about daily contests at the Fair, arena events, and advanced sale tickets.

The 2011 Nevada County Fair is August 10 – 14. For more information, visit www.NevadaCountyFair.com or call (530) 273-6217. You can follow the Fairgrounds on Facebook at “Nevada County Fairgrounds.”

For all your real estate needs, call or email:

John J. O’Dell Realtor®
Real Estate Broker
O’Dell Realty
(530) 263-1091
jodell@nevadacounty.com

Real Estate

China’s Real Estate Boom About To Crash?

June 10, 2011 jd

China’s property prices are falling, with potentially far-reaching effects world-wide. And should investors think twice for buying into Chinese firms? Hong Kong’s outgoing securities regulator thinks so. WSJ’s Peter Stein and Andrew LaVallee discuss.

BEIJING — New-home prices plummeted by more than 20 percent year-on-year in the Chinese capital in May, and analysts said other cities will follow the trend in the second half of this year.

In Beijing, the average price of a newly constructed unit dropped to 23,467 yuan (US$3,400) a square meter, a month-on-month decrease of 7.19 percent, and 21.06 percent lower than the same period last year, according to SouFun.com, the largest property website in China.

Prices fell partly because more developers offered discounts to counter the cooling effect of the government’s tightening property policies.

For all your real estate needs, call or email:

John J. O’Dell Realtor®
Real estate broker
O’Dell Realty
(530) 263-1091
jodell@nevadacounty.com

Travel

The National Building Museum – Washington DC

June 9, 2011 jd

Photo courtesy of http://www.wheretogetapassport.net/

By Judy J.Pinegar

Although it now houses the National Building Museum, and serves as one of the ballrooms for the Presidential Inaugural Ball, the beautiful brick building was originally designed to be the US Pension Bureau. Constructed between 1882 and 1887, it was designed by Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, who studied both architectural design and engineering at West Point. The exterior of the building is modeled closely on the sixteenth century Palazzo Farnese in Rome.

As Megs planned the new home for the Pension Bureau, he has several goals in mind. First he wanted it to be fireproof as it would house pension records and funds. He therefore employed brick, laid in a running bond with narrow joints tinted to match, giving the effect of a smooth continuous surface. Second, to honor the veterans who worked and visited the Pension Bureau, Meigs used a variety of military imagery on the building’s exterior in the form of a terra cotta frieze which is 1,200 feet long, 3 ft high and features Union infantry, cavalry, artillery, navy, quartermaster and medical units.

Entrance to National Building Museum Photo by John J. O'Dell

Meigs also wanted to produce a modern, healthful environment for the clerks at the Pension Bureau. His innovative plan included omitting doors between offices and the Great Hall. Fresh air would enter the offices through three missing bricks underneath the exterior windows, pass over the clerks at their desks, and enter the Great Hall. Slightly heated, the air would exit through openable clerestory windows above the fourth balcony. In 1885, Meigs determined that under prime conditions the volume of air in the Great Hall would turn over every 2 minutes. 1n 1886, Meigs reported that after one year in the new building, time lost to sickness had been reduced by 8,622 days!

The building was also designed with a document track around the inside perimeter of the Great Hall near the offices. Originally a basket capable of holding 125 pounds of documents would hang from this allowing easy movement of paperwork from office to office on each floor. In addition there was a dumbwaiter used to move paperwork vertically, among the four floors of the building.

The Building Museum - Interior photo by John O'Dell

And as a final touch Meigs made the arcaded columns inside the building be used to collect and store information of interest to “historians or antiquarians of the age when ruins of this building… shall be opened to the public. Collections of maps, reports, and records from the War Department and a copper facsimile of the Declaration of Independence were among the documents enclosed in the columns, which remain closed to this day. In 1995 the Museum employed an endoscope to explore inside a small hole one column, which had been damaged by vandals in the 1960s. The exploration revealed construction catalogs, journals and newspapers from 1883!

Judy J. Pinegar is a writer
She has written for many blog sites and magazines

Bits & Pieces

Swimming: Cools You Off, But Does It Shape You Up?

June 8, 2011 jd

Photo courtesy of www.g2phps.blogspot.com

by Lisa J. Lehr

It’s been a long, cool spring, but it’s bound to get hot one of these days. And when it does, human bodies will be heading for water bodies in droves.

There’s no question that swimming cools you off, provided the water temperature is lower than your body temperature—which it is, unless we’re talking about a hot tub or a hot spring. But is swimming the equivalent of a glass of lemonade: cools you off, but has no real health benefits? Or is it really good for you?

Well…it depends.

First, the pluses of swimming as exercise:

1.      It uses all your major muscle groups.
2.      It can provide a good workout for your heart and lungs.
3.      It’s easy on your joints.
4.      The buoyancy factor (you weigh about one-tenth as much in water as you do on land) makes it a good exercise for people who are pregnant, have injuries, or need to avoid high-impact types of exercise.
5.      It’s appropriate for people of all ages and ability levels.

Now the minuses:

1. In order to count swimming as exercise, you’ll need to swim a good number of brisk laps (floating and splashing won’t do it), and some people find that monotonous.

2. Swimming puts no stress on your bones, and weight-bearing exercise is essential for maintaining bone mass and strength.

3. Swimming makes you hungry, so the calories you consume after a swim may exceed those you burned during the swim.

4. Unlike with other types of exercise, your body does not continue burning calories at an increased rate after your workout. This is because you don’t heat up as much exercising in water as on land; you lose body heat faster to water than to air because water is denser, so your body doesn’t have to work to cool you down post-workout.

5. Finally, if swimming is to be your workout of choice, you need convenient access to a pool. The “inconvenience factor” may become a convenient excuse not to exercise.

So if you like swimming, find that it meets your exercise needs, and is convenient and not too boring, go for it. But if you’ve been swimming for a while and wondering why you’re not seeing the results you expected, now you know why! You may want to explore some other type of exercise.

And if you’re heading for a natural water body, especially the fast-moving, snowmelt-fed rivers of Nevada County, remember that humans (and other land creatures) and cold, white water are a dangerous and often deadly combination. Especially when alcohol is involved.

Lisa J. Lehr is a writer, copywriter, and fitness fan living in Grass Valley. She can help you promote your business with a full range of online and offline marketing pieces. A member of Empire Toastmasters, she’s available to speak to your business or professional group. Visit her website www.justrightcopy.com for more information, opt in for a message series, and receive a free Marketing Guide.

—
Lisa J. Lehr
I write words that make you money–just ask me how.
www.justrightcopy.com
Visit my website and sign up for my fr~ee marketing tips.
New! No~cost Marketing Guide now available at my website.

Real Estate

Lender Processing Services, Inc. Subpoenaed in Probe of “Robosigning” of Mortgage Documents

June 7, 2011 jd

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris

LOS ANGELES – Attorney General Kamala D. Harris announced she has subpoenaed Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS), as part of her continuing probe into “robosigning” of mortgage documents and other illegal activities in the mortgage servicing industry, especially misconduct affecting borrowers facing, or in the midst of, foreclosure.

Robosigning is the practice of signing documents used by banks or mortgage servicing companies to foreclose on borrowers without verifying their accuracy – often thousands of different documents signed by a single individual per day. In many cases, the robosigners don’t even read or understand the document they are signing.

“California homeowners have been exposed to fraud and crime at every step of the mortgage process,” said Attorney General Harris. “Justice demands we come to their aid and a key step in that is to investigate robosigning and the potential for inaccurate or unjust foreclosures.”

Read the rest of the story

For all your real estate needs, call or email:
John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
O’Dell Realty
(530) 263-1091
jodell@nevadacounty.com