United States programming on DirecTV and syndication throughout Europe will increase the SearchHomesOnTVsm  “world wide” exposure to well over 145 million households. All shows will be broadcast in English with Multilanguage subtitles added.

“We believe the level of interest in the European market place will be huge on two levels. Europeans have a curiosity in viewing the American life style, architecture and design. More importantly, the strength of the Euro has created an unprecedented investment opportunity; current exchange rates are basically allowing for a 50% discount when acquiring US property.” stated John Giaimo, President SearchHomesOnTVsm.

SearchHomesOnTV.com is offering promotional pricing that includes the broadcasting of a 40 second commercial of a home for two weeks in the US and European markets for $149.00 (this is a limited time offer providing a $250 discount).

For more information visit www.SearchHomesOnTV.com

We were all pretty excited and I managed to get to the office early enough in the morning to get it added to the caravan (a little ritual some real estate offices go through to show the other people in their office their new listings).

As we all pulled up I ran up to the door and to find what should have been my first clue that something wasn’t quite right; the key was not working properly.  Fortunately the door was open, and I figured them must have realized that they had given me the wrong key and left the door open for us. I quickly stood aside while everyone from my office trudged through.

After the last person went in I followed behind and was really disappointed to find the property in a less then presentable state. Then it became clear that we were in the wrong home. In what must have been  a reader’s digest moment I bolted upstairs to apologize when one of the sales people told me the seller was still upstairs in bed.

Shocked, she asked me what was going on.  Fortunately I think she had been partying hard the night before and the thought of screaming would’ve just hurt.  I told her what must have happened  while I was so red in the face that I think Santa almost kicked Rudolph off the team in favor of using me.  She was awesome and I’ve often wondered how her version of the story goes

We threw out the last Congress for irresponsible spending and behavior. This Congress has doubled the last Congress’ already despicable deficit.

Two of the three remaining viable candidates for President are presently in Congress. Two out of the Three have gone hogwild with millions in earmarks in large part to pay off their donors.

In the real estate industry we keep hearing about irresponsible lenders and borrowers, who in the end get whats coming. However, we somehow overlook responsibility with our leaders. Who in the end get a high paying speaking tour.

Entitlements and payoffs are killing us. And as said recently by David Walker, GAO Comptroller General of the United States has stated that we have five to ten years to get fiscally fit. I Twill eventually cause higher rates which as you already know can make things much worst.

I live in the State of California. As a State we are the 6th largest economic power in the World! Southern California is the 9th. We have arguably the worst schooling. We actually had an L.A. School Administrator go to Afghanistan  on a “fact finding” mission several years ago. The audacity to take what are really citizen paid vacations while Johnny can’t read.

So I believe it is not the teachers fault as it is the upper level admins that are sucking that well dry. As mentioned in one of our L.A. papers the parking lot at L.A. Unified is like a Lexus and BMW convention.

But we do have the best after school programs. Our kids in several districts cannot get a new book. But football (it kills me to say this) is still in the budget. After school programs, breakfast, lunch and dinner is covered. And the State of California is B-R-O-K-E!

And these entitlements are just some of the many that I could mention that happen not just here in the land of LA LA. Economically, this party is coming your way. Thank your Senator. Or, change your Senator.

Legal and real estate experts say that Ummel and her husband, Vernon Ummel, should have done their homework better before purchasing their four-bedroom home in a luxury development outside of San Diego in 2005 for $1.2 million, a price that the Ummels say was as much as $175,000 more than what similar houses in the development sold for.

“We hired our agent because he was a real estate professional,” Marty Ummel told TODAY’s Ann Curry on Friday in New York. “He was expected to do his due diligence. And they have a code of ethics where they have to put the buyers first. I think he just wanted to go ahead and make his commission.”

Looking toward retirement, the Ummels sold their home in San Francisco and moved to the San Diego area to be nearer to their children. Marty Ummel, 60, is a fundraiser for California State University; Vernon Ummel, 71, is an administrator at Dominican University.

“We worked hard and to think we’d done that all of our lives, and then for a Realtor not to tell us about the biggest purchase of our lives that there was a house selling for much less,” Marty Ummel said.

Legal experts say that the Ummels’ case may be the first of many as homeowners react to the crash in the housing market that has left many people with mortgages that are greater than the value of their houses.

MSNBC legal analyst Susan Filan told Curry that she doesn’t think the Ummels will prevail in court.

“I don’t think it’s a suit that has merit,” she said. “I think the standard of proof will be that this agent willfully, deliberately and with malicious intent withheld this information. This information that was allegedly withheld is public information. The bank wouldn’t have given them the mortgage in the amount they got if the appraisal didn’t back the house.”

“We feel the appraisal was manipulated,” Marty Ummel responded.

In her lawsuit, which is to go to trial in March, she says that the agent did not meet requests to give them a written appraisal until after the deal had gone through, telling them orally that the value of the house was the $1.2 million they paid for it.

She said the agent was negligent in not telling them about other houses that sold for less, including one three doors away that has a pool and sold for $105,000 less and another that was considerably bigger that sold for $175,000 less.

“You can’t just say, ‘Oh, it’s the same size. It’s the same value.’ What’s the nature of the interior? Maybe it was painted all black,” Filan said. “You can’t just look at little boxes on a map and say that one should be the same value as that one.”

Marty Ummel said that there are just 26 homes in their subdivision and all were constructed by the same builder and all are similar.

“This was a tract home. All of the homes were built at approximately the same time,” she said.

Buyer beware
The defendant in the suit is essentially claiming caveat emptor — let the buyer beware. In a legal brief, the defendant quotes a real estate authority as saying the Ummels “simply didn’t do what is expected of a knowledgeable and sophisticated buyer, and are looking for someone other than themselves to take responsibility.”

“The value of something is what someone’s willing to sell it for and what someone’s willing to pay for it,” Filan said. “Some of those houses may have gone for less than yours because the seller was so motivated, they didn’t want the same amount that your seller did. Maybe they were going through a divorce and wanted to give their spouse less.”

According to The New York Times, the Ummels have already invested $75,000 in their suit. They are asking for $105,000 — the difference between what they paid and what they feel the house was actually worth — plus their legal fees.

Vernon Ummel had no particular desire to pursue the matter, but his wife, who picketed the agent before filing her suit, was insistent. “She’s very tenacious,” he said. “Even though she’s 114 pounds, she’s not to be taken lightly.”

For Marty Ummel, it’s about more than their personal grievance.

“There are other attorneys and Realtors who say we have a good case, we’re trailblazers,” she said. “And I think when all the facts come out, that we have a very good chance of winning, and if not, we want to change the industry. We want disclosure.”

Nineteen metropolitan areas are likely to notice a direct impact from an increase in conforming loan limits included in the proposed economic stimulus plan, according to a Washington-based policy research firm.

Seven of those areas are in California, six are in the greater New York area and two are in Massachusetts, according to Stanford Group Co. Others are in the greater Washington area, Boulder, Colo., the greater Miami area and the Seattle-Tacoma region.

The proposal, discussed by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) this week, permits Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to securitize mortgages up to 125% of the local median home price, according to the research firm. The limit is capped at $729,750.

But the limit won’t dip lower than $417,000, the existing loan limit, even in less-expensive housing markets where 125% of the median home price is lower than that amount, according to Stanford’s interpretation of the proposal. The temporary loan limits would expire on Dec. 31, 2008, the group reported.

That said, there is still some confusion about the details of this proposal, the research firm said.

“It is clear that this deal was thrown together quickly. This led to different versions of the GSE plan being included in various press releases and press conferences that lawmakers gave throughout the day,” according to Stanford. For the firm’s purposes, they used the version being discussed by Frank, though “no one will know for certain how this will work until lawmakers release legislative language,” the firm said, and that could come in several days.

Even though fewer than 20 areas could see a direct impact from this reform, the effects could ripple throughout the country, Stanford said.

“These are mostly very large markets and many are in states with some of the biggest mortgage problems. As a result, we believe this plan will help reduce the spread between jumbo and conforming loans and make it easier for those in jumbo loans to refinance into other jumbo loans,” the report said.

Read more about how the mortgage industry reacted to the loan-limit provisions of the stimulus proposal in this week’s Real Estate pages. Also take a look at why mortgage interest rates hit four-year lows this week, and how existing-home sales fell 2.2% in December, capping off a dismal year for housing.

Those in the real estate and mortgage industries have for months been calling for a change to the conforming loan limit, especially after jumbo loans started to get a lot more expensive in the summer. Soon, we may see how much this change will actually help.

Fed cuts give strapped homeowners some breathing room

 Homeowners facing resets on their adjustable-rate mortgages or hoping to refinance into less-burdensome loans may be the biggest beneficiaries of the Federal Reserve’s surprise rate cut this week as mortgages continue to get cheaper.

Existing-home sales fall 2.2% to 4.89 million pace

Resales of U.S. homes fell 2.2% in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million, the lowest in nine years, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday. Resales are down 22% compared with the previous December and are down 32% from the peak two years ago.

Fixed-rate mortgages at lowest in almost four years

Mortgage rates for fixed-rate loans sank to their lowest levels in nearly four years, pushed downward by further evidence of weakness in the housing market and by an emergency rate cut from the Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac’s chief economist said on Thursday.

Paying mortgage at all costs can still be costly

We are not in foreclosure, but due to a job change, we have been getting behind in credit-card payments. We will always pay the mortgage first. Now the interest is outrageous and causing payments to be even more out of reach. What should we do? Are those debt-reduction companies any good? Should we try to refinance to pay unsecured debt with secured collateral? Believe me we will never go back there if we can ever get out from under this!

The FBI opened 1,210 mortgage fraud cases in fiscal year 2007, nearly triple the number of new cases in 2003. Convictions more than doubled from 123 in the 2006 fiscal year to 260 in 2007.

“We expect that number to increase again in 2008,” says FBI financial crimes section chief Sharon Ormsby.

Low interest rates, rising home values and lax lending standards “created the perfect storm of lending fraud,” she says.

In the past year, the bureau created 34 mortgage fraud task forces and working groups with investigators from departments including Housing and Urban Development, Treasury and Veterans Affairs.

They investigate suspicious activity such as deceptive pricing and falsified documentation by mortgage brokers, lenders, appraisers, real estate firms and others, Ormsby says.

The FBI expects more foreclosure scams as criminals prey on growing numbers of people desperate to keep their homes while interest rates balloon on adjustable rate mortgages, Ormsby says. She also expects increasing fraud in “reverse mortgages,” in which homeowners 62 or older can take out a loan against the equity in their home. Unlike a traditional home-equity loan, the borrower doesn’t pay back a reverse mortgage until they sell the home.

Ormsby says the FBI’s mortgage fraud cases have focused for years on fraudulent documentation of assets and property flipping crimes, in which buyers purchase cheap homes, have them falsely appraised at a higher value, then sell them at the inflated price.

Housing advocates and public-interest lawyers say federal law enforcement and regulators have focused too sharply on property flipping, and not on companies that defraud consumers by steering them to high-interest loans or by issuing deceptive contracts.

“They have not done enough,” says Kathleen Keest, senior policy counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending. “The business standards have really sunk across the board in the last few years. The federal regulators were just asleep at the wheel.”

FBI Special Agent Steve Kodak says, “We could always use more assets, but through our task forces, we are working this crime problem progressively more than in past years due to the rise in mortgage fraud. Our focus is to work the larger, more complex cases - the frauds for profit.”

In another scam, people posing as “foreclosure rescue” experts persuade homeowners with bad credit to sign over their deeds to a third person who can get a second mortgage against the home. The “expert” pockets the cash and defaults on the loan.

A New York grand jury charged six people with fraud last month for allegedly stealing more than 80 homes in this way.

“We’ve had a wonderful partnership with Prudential Real Estate Affiliates, Inc. since 2001 and we are excited to have the company participate in our new listings program,” said Michael Yang, vice president and general manager of Yahoo! Real Estate. “Each year, a growing number of users turn to the Internet and Yahoo! Real Estate as their first stop for real estate information and listings. In working with Prudential Real Estate, we can offer a national footprint of listings offered through interactive, content-rich services.”

Yahoo! Real Estate’s online property listings program includes interactive marketing services such as featured home listings and display advertising. Under the new agreement, all of Prudential Real Estate’s affiliate listings will appear as featured listings on Yahoo! Real Estate later in 2008. These services will support Prudential Real Estate’s popular Online Advantage program, which delivers online homebuyer and seller leads to affiliates.

Prudential Real Estate also will run strategically placed advertisements throughout Yahoo! Real Estate to attract even more home shoppers to its Online Advantage platform. Ads will be embedded within the Yahoo! Real Estate site, customized to shoppers’ respective target markets.

Prudential Real Estate will continue its Web ID program - the sign-rider code numbers buyers can key in to Yahoo! Real Estate for quick listing access.

“We are pleased to participate in Yahoo! Real Estate’s new online listings program,” Keenan said. “Through such efforts, we will continue to reach the millions of consumers who are increasingly using the Web to search for and buy or sell real estate.”

Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services is Prudential’s integrated real estate brokerage franchise and relocation services business. Prudential Real Estate franchises are independently owned and operated. Companies are selected based upon outstanding performance records, high levels of customer service and shared business values with those of Prudential. Prudential Real Estate provides franchises with business strategies using Operation Reviews as well as numerous benefits, including access to Prudential Real Estate’s Online Seller Advantage(SM) program designed to provide real-time information to sellers with the touch of a keystroke. Prudential Real Estate is one of the largest real estate brokerage franchise networks in North America, with nearly 2,100 franchise offices and approximately 68,000 sales professionals in the franchise Network as of December 31, 2006.

Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), a financial services leader with approximately $637 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2007, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Leveraging its heritage of life insurance and asset management expertise, Prudential is focused on helping individual and institutional customers grow and protect their wealth. The company’ s well-known Rock symbol is an icon of strength, stability, expertise and innovation that has stood the test of time. Prudential’s businesses offer a variety of products and services, including life insurance, annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds, investment management, and real estate services. For more information, please visit www.prudential.com.

All Home Owners may list for free on the SearchHomesOnTV.com website which offers a robust presentation of homes available for sale including 7 images of the property, comparable pricing assistance by eppraisal.com, Google Earth(tm) mapping, along with neighborhood information.

SearchHomesOnTV can assist the seller with marketing including a 40 second video walk-through of the property, distributed to 25 major real estate web portals, television & radio advertising, classified newspaper ads and direct mail promotions, flyers and signage for the home, with helpful tips by Piper Nicole, author of the “For Sale By Owner Handbook”.

About SearchOnTV, Inc.

SearchOnTV, Inc. is the parent company of the TV show, “Search Homes On TV(sm)” and the website SearchHomesOnTV.com

SearchHomesOnTV.com is the leading online destination for self-directed home sellers across the country, offering rich and vibrant content, including photos, videos, social networking, neighborhood demographics, mapping and professional how-to assistance.

For additional information, visit www.SearchHomesOnTV.com.

GoogleTM, and Google EarthTM are trademarks of Google Inc.

Homeowners selling their homes themselves have plenty of online options to choose from, but only Fizber.com gives sellers a suite of features and services that make selling real estate by owner easier than listing with a real estate broker. Fizber home sellers are now able to manually change titles and descriptions for individual property listings to make them as relevant as possible. The home owner can help improve the quality of the snippets displayed for their online listing by providing informative meta descriptions for each listing.

“The internet is a powerful marketing vehicle”, says Julia Foster, Vice President of Marketing, Fizber.com. “We are using Fizber.com to increase exposure of our sellers’ properties and attract interested buyers. We are always seeking innovative ways to market our clients’ properties and better serve our customers.”

It’s no longer just a property’s physical location that matters but also the placement of a seller’s ad on the major search engines. And with the market shifting from sellers to buyers, experts agree, a dominant search engine presence is more important than ever.

Since its July launch, Fizber.com has steadily unveiled a procession of sellers’ marketing tools unmatched in the FSBO industry. The company was the first to provide every seller with a blog to use as a custom FSBO marketing tool. Another important example is the option of short URLs. To make it simple for sellers to link to their property listings in e-mails and social networking sites, each listing’s page is assigned a short URL.

About Fizber.com
Fizber.com is the largest FSBO platform for both sellers and buyers in the United States. The website currently lists 1,000,000 of properties nationwide. The site offers flat-fee MLS submission to home sellers and also provides extensive neighborhood and schools information to home buyers.

Fizber Checkout holiday offer: Get $40 off property listing order when you use Google checkout and coupon code: Christmas.

• 160 floors
• 56 elevators
• boutiques
• corporate suites
• luxury apartments
• swimming pools
• a spire that can be seen 60 miles away