It looks like banks are finally catching on to the fraud associated with short sales and their pricing.

Bank of America has refined the process for settling valuation disputes during a short sale.

The value of a property is established by independent third-party vendors shortly after a short sale is initiated. Occasionally, however, a listing agent may wish to contest that value. When that occurs, there is now a revised process for reconsidering the value.

Process Steps
1.     Tell your short sale specialist that you would like a reconsideration of the value.
2.     Receive an investor-specific, easy-to-complete form from your short sale specialist that specifies all requirements for a successful value dispute.
3.     Fill out the form and attach specified evidence.
4.     Stay in touch with your short sale specialist for results.
5.     Expect a value dispute review within 10-12 business days once all required information has been received.

Evidence Needed to Dispute a Value

When contesting a home value, make sure you have compelling evidence to support your claim.

Do not reference property pricing amounts in the narrative on the form. This violates appraiser independence policy and is against industry standards. Any reference to pricing will disqualify the dispute.

Provide comparables that are recent, proximate (nearby) and similar to the property in question.

• “Recent” means sold within 90 days of the actual value document date.
• “Proximate” varies by location. In a rural area, for example, a home five miles away could be considered proximate.
• You will be able to provide additional notes to highlight characteristics of the comps.

When the dispute centers on property condition or hazards:

• Provide an itemized estimate from a licensed contractor on the contractor’s letterhead.
• Provide photos to illustrate the repair, condition issue or hazard you want to highlight.

Your short sale specialist can provide additional guidance.

I see this being abuse just as short sales are being abuse, there will be people “strategically” applying for principal reductions. If people weren’t late on their payments before they will be now. In its own way this just telling people to make late payments, then we will help you. A new wave of foreclosures is on it’s way. Who is getting hurt by all this? The honest people! While strategic defaulter are racking in the dough, the responsible families are falling further behind. Other banks will mostly like follow suit; I hope they don’t and think of something better.

Finding a good inspector is an important but necessary chore that must be done right. When searching for termite services, may it be in San Jose or any location, you should remember these tips:

• Some companies only fumigate, spray, and treat. Meaning they will not do contractor work (i.e. fixing of damaged wood.)
• If you know in advance that you’ll need more than a report. Ask to see if the companies will bundle your report in to the total for a lower cost.
• Do your share and meet them at the property, whether your agent is there or not. Educate yourself, it’ll only help you. Inspectors don’t mind educating home buyers/sellers on their findings. Have them explain the difference in Section I and II termite damage.

Real estate agents are a good place to start for references, but you can also check with:

• Your local contractors
• Your city’s licensing department
• The Better Business Bureau
• Or even Yelp!

Remember to not just get one quote, get a few. It’ll work to your advantage, most of the time the competing bids get lower and lower. Remember though, to not simply go with the lowest bid, you want the job done right.

This is what it looks like when the foreclosure auctions are going on in front of the San Jose Court House.

There are really good deals if you have the cash for the homes, have done your research, and willing to take on all the risks that come alone with buying foreclosures.

Here’s a simple example of a final value fee calculation for an auction-style listing:

• You sell an item for $95.00 with a shipping cost of $5.00.
• Your final value fee on the item cost is 9% of $95,00, which is $8.55.
• Your final value fee on the shipping cost is 9% of $5.00, which is $0.45.

It’s the same thing as: item cost + shipping cost * 9%, which equals: total value * 9%. No wonder they aren’t charging an insertion fee any more; they simple raised rates all around. Then add on PayPal fees (~5%), which means eBay nearly takes 15%. Some seller are paying 20%+, WOW!

Just thought I would rant a little to spread the word around to all you unsuspecting eBay sellers…

Immediately I emailed support asking for a refund. But they said, “after your return has been processed by our office, you will receive a refund in the amount of fifty percent of the production cost of the returned glasses. We do not reimburse for shipping and handling. So, I asked if I could exchange? Again they repeated that it was my fault and should have read the sizing instructions, which I did! Additionally I had already ordered from them before:

The brown case and pair to the right are from an older ZenniOptical.com order; IMO when their quality was much better. Look at the cases they give you now, about half the size of the original. They really cram them in there. I digressed a little didn’t I? As stated they didn’t care I am a repeat customer or the fact that they glasses I got for myself were bought as spares and dirt cheap. Why would I scam them over $15? Additionally, of the four I bought these were the cheapest! Oh, the photographic proof of their mislabeling/sizing:

No more buying them for me, especially after what I just went through. I know it’s only $15, but its the principle of it all… how easily they took my money but can careless if they made a sizing mistake. So, be careful if you are thinking about ordering from them. Oh, by the way I’ll be keeping them because it just doesn’t make sense: $15+s/h, return for 50% ($7.50)-s/h costs(3.75)=3.75. That means I paid $12 and some change for their sizing mistake and end up with nothing!

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

-Thuan

But this post is not about there servers randomly going down. It’s about another bad customer service experience I had with GoDaddy support. Every time I asked for the support expert (ha) to check to see if something had gone wrong on their end he said, “nothing has gone wrong, your site is scripted wrong.” Even after explaining that I had not touched my site in ages and the other was install by GoDaddy… he continued to disregard any my suggestion/queries has to what might have gone wrong.  In the end all I wanted was the sites up and not to point a finger.

I even started a post on their forums and without surprise other users have been experiencing the same problems for 30+ hours. Honestly they could have just checked and might have found/suggested something like “please try restarting your application pool?!?!”

http://community.godaddy.com/groups/web-hosting/forum/topic/sites-down-1/

It gets worst they edited any (if not) all the comments on the forums that made the server failures their fault. Again saying it’s our fault. Big time, NO NO!!!

After writing this I will still keep the sites mention with them because moving the sites will be such a hassle and their prices are one of the lowest for Windows hosting. But as for future sites and any potential customers they might have had going to them from me… the count is now ZERO.

So if you are considering GoDaddy web hosting. Be very very careful.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

-Thuan

Admittedly, it has its ups and down. To use the line as a fax number, I had to tweak the system a little. If you are using any Voice over IP type of system, you should really give Ooma a try… it’ll save you hundreds of dollar a year! Whatever you do though, don’t buy their Telo headset. It’s a piece of junk that has little features, low volume, and poor clarity. (Update: If you get the Telo headset, you get the instant second line… free.)

Ooma support seems to be outsourced and utterly useless. They’ll just repeat what is on the Ooma website. If you have any problems with an Ooma go to their forums, you find your answer there. Oh, BTW, I have had to RMA my first one already because I stopped work after two weeks.

Long story short, Ooma is great when it is works. There is a small learning curve and once you have it set up right, everything will be great.

One more thing, there are two versions of Ooma, the Hub and Telo. The Telo is the later version and looks slicker, but comes with an annual tax of approximately $11.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars