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STORIES:
Kickbacks
as 'a natural part of business' at Fannie Mae alleged - (www.latimes.com) Before dawn one hazy March day
in L.A., Armando Granillo pulled his SUV into a Starbucks near
MacArthur Park, where he planned to pick up an envelope full of cash from an
Arizona real estate broker, federal investigators say. Granillo, a foreclosure
specialist at mortgage giant Fannie Mae,
expected to drive off with $11,200 — an illegal kickback for steering
foreclosure listings to brokers, authorities allege in court records. Granillo
would leave in handcuffs. And investigators are now looking into assertions by
Granillo and another former Fannie Mae foreclosure specialist that such
kickbacks were "a natural part of business" at the
government-sponsored housing finance company, as Granillo allegedly told the
broker in a wiretapped conversation.
Taxman
Puts Foot in the Door of Short-Term Rentals - (www.cnbc.com)
The taxman is knocking at
another Silicon Valley door. Just when thousands of urbanites thought they
discovered a gold mine in renting out their apartments on Airbnb, regulators
and tax collectors are flexing their power. The online peer-to-peer home rental
sites such as Airbnb have shot to popularity in recent years and are now facing
policy battles in cities around the world where local laws limit short-term
rentals. "It's the wave of the future, and I think it's a good thing for
the city ultimately, but it needs some regulation," said Paul Utrecht, a
landlord-tenant attorney in San Francisco. "It should be legalized and it
should be taxed." At the urging of the hotel industry in some cases,
politicians and courts are examining the ways in which Airbnb, Vacation Rentals
By Owner, and other short-term rental sites run foul of local residency and
zoning laws—and may be evading local taxes.
Summer
Rentals Hit $1 Million in the Hamptons - (www.cnbc.com)
Sign of a top?? If you think your rent is high, consider
summer rentals in the Hamptons. Brokers say there are now at least a half dozen
homes and estates in the Hamptons that are renting for around $1 million—just
for the summer. That works out to $9,803 per day, or $408 an hour. And the $1
million lease doesn't include utility bills or other charges, which can run in
the tens of thousands. Brokers say the number of million-dollar rentals marks a
new record. "It's unprecedented," said H. Dolly Lenz, a Manhattan
broker who also works with buyers and renters in the Hamptons. "The demand
is not just strong, it's unbelievable." Most of the million-dollar rentals
are unofficial listings, which means they don't show up on the Internet or on
broker databases. Brokers generally offer the properties only by word-of-mouth
to super-rich prospects.
Detroit
Home Buyers Fear Poltergeists Of Murder Victims Will Haunt Them - (www.mfi-miami.com) The Detroit Free Press
posted an article today that basically painted real estate agents as evil
greedy bastards because they do not disclose to potential home buyers if a
murder or a death happened in a home they were considering buying. The
article went so far as to quote morally outraged Wagnerian homeowners who found
out about a death in the house after they moved in. Kayla Bentley moved into a
home where Justin Olszowy went nuts in 2010 and shot both his parents.
She told the Free Press, her and her husband believe in ghosts and claims her
husband Joshua, slept with a baseball bat at his bedside for part of the two
years. Bentley and her husband are not alone in their fears. There
are thousands of people out there who have watched one too many horror movies
or read one too many Stephen King novels that are afraid to buy a home where a
death may have occurred. It’s as if they believe that furniture will
mysteriously begin stacking itself on top each other or that Reverend Kane from
Poltergeist II is going to come to their front door and start shouting, “You’re
gonna die in there, all of you”
Was
A Detroit Real Estate Flipping Scheme Used To Fund Hezbollah? - (www.mfi-miami.com) Three Detroit based real
estate investment firms with all alleged ties to terrorist group Hezbollah are
being sued by Kathryn Llewellyn-Jones and other investors from Australia, Great
Britain and Yemen who claim they are victims of an elaborate Ponzi scheme where
defendants would buy "worthless" property in the city of Detroit and
then sell them at inflated prices to investors.
Li Says China Confronts ’Huge Challenges’ as Growth Levels Slow
- (www.bloomberg.com)
Sweden Riots Put Faces to Statistics as Stockholm Burns - (www.bloomberg.com)
Sweden Riots Put Faces to Statistics as Stockholm Burns - (www.bloomberg.com)
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