How to Lose $50,000 in Roxbury Updated

Update - At first I felt sorry for this homebuyer, but something did not seem right - they had the funds to put down 20% but could not afford the mortgage after six months. That just does not add up - usually the people who can not afford a property after a few months put little to nothing down. This homebuyer and their trading partner should be investigated for fraud.

This is what I can tell so far - two buyers have traded alot of properties back and forth. It may even be the same people under a different name. The previous owner had the property for 18 years, looks like this buyer snapped it up as part of a trust. The original owners transferred the property over for $10 - that is correct $10. (I have found some other properties they have also done this with.) The foreclosure process started against the trust and the old owner so the trust buyer sold it to the trading partner for $250,000. Fell into foreclosure six months later - just long enough not to set off any scam alert is my guess. In this case it looks like they scammed the previous owner and the lender.

In addition the trust buyers have given a testimonial to The Fast Track - Real Estate Investors Training Program. Here is what they had to say -

We enjoyed the entire Fast Track Program. The three things we loved the most were: (1) Learning to set up and run our business, (2) The hands on experience of inspecting houses and analyzing deals duringduring the House Buying Weekend, and (3) The sessions time management and organization!

You may think that this is not that much - the trading team traded a $1.1 million home in Chatham in March 2007 - which they financed $990,000. Of course a Lis Pendis was filed last July. The other trading partner purchased the house in 2005 for $830,000 - so it looks like this group just pocketed another $160,000 on another property. I am sure the more I dig into this group the more examples I will find. And this is just for Morris County - wonder what they did in Bergen, Essex, Passaic, Sussex and the rest of New Jersey.

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This is one of those sad stories of a family buying during the peak of the Great Housing Bubble and watching their money and their home disappear. The put a hefty down payment that is now gone, just gone and the porperty has been foreclosed. Here is a look at the Roxbury property - it is foreclosure so no inside pictures -



Here is the property info -

Property Features		Find Out More
Single Family Property Status: Active County: Morris Year Built: 1953 2 total bedroom(s) 1 total bath(s)	1 total full bath(s) 4 total rooms Style: Ranch Basement Basement is Unfinished 1 car garage	Parking features: Detached Garage Heating features: Oil Approximate lot is 56X140 Approximately 0.18 acre(s) Lot size is less than 1/2 acre Utilities present: Septic,Electric Service

Here are the financials -

• The property was purchased in June 2006 for $250,000.

• The only mortgage was taken in June 2006 for $200,000 with Ivy Mortgage.
  

• Foreclosure started in March 2007.

• Originally for sale with a Realtor for $199,000, currently listed at $179,000.

This former homeowner put a 20% down payment consisting of $50,000. This was very unusual during the Great Housing Bubble, at the time getting 100% financing was common. The homeowner ran into problems about six months after purchasing the property, judging from the foreclosure timeline.

The lender originally tried to get their investment back, but lowered the asking price $20,000 - when you add that to the standard cost of foreclosure the lender loss was probably close to $70,000 add that to the homeowners loss of $50,000 and the is property has already lost $120,000. This is a case where the impact was felt by everyone.