Exposing New Home Builders

Join HOBB in a live broadcast on SpotLight LiveTalk

 This coming Thursday June 5 1:00 P.M. EDT – Join Us

 Discuss the costly and harmful effects of Binding Arbitration, our rights and the justice system on consumers.
Get an update on the Arbitration Fairness Act

Ira Rheingold, Executive Director and General Counsel of the National Association of Consumer Advocates and Janet Ahmad, President of HomeOwners for Better Building will be guests on SpotLight LiveTalk hosted by Denise Richardson and Jim Malmberg.

Call in with your questions and participate in the discussion. Thursday June 5, 1:00 P.M. EDT SpotLight LiveTalk Internet BlogTalk Hosted by Denise Richardson & Jim Malmberg  

Participate: Listen Live – Call in at 718-664-6583 and join in the conversation. Step into the SpotLight each Thursday or hear a replay of the show at your convenience. Set a show reminder at blogtalkradio.com/spotlight

If you miss a show -visit our archives or download the show from Itunes.
We welcome comments, questions and suggestions anytime!   

http://www.givemebackmycredit.com/blog/

Janet Ahmad, President

HomeOwners for Better Building

http://www.hobb.org

210-402-6800

Excellent Resource for Opposing the Builder Bailout

StoptheHousingBailout.com is a new site aiming to defeat the “planned bailout” of shoddy homebuilders, greedy bankers, and unscrupulous lenders with your hard earned and usurped tax dollars.

If you believe that homebuilders, bankers, and lenders have already made more than enough ill-gotten, bloated gains and certainly do not deserve nor even need more of your money in the form of handing out tax dollars to the tune of $Billions, then I suggest you get involved.

StoptheHousingBailout.com has many quick and easy to use resources for getting your animated voice heard by representatives as well as sharing what you have found with other rightfully concerned Americans.

The time is now! Act before its too late!

Binding Mandatory Arbitration (BMA) Stories Sought by HomeOwners for Better Building

ATTENTION!

HOBB is in need of Binding Arbitration Stories. 

A report on Arbitration is currently being prepared and we need to hear about your experience.  Even if you decided not to go to arbitration for any reason or have sent your arbitration experience before please send it again, with any updates and additional comments. 

Specifically, we are looking for stories that reflect one or more of the following:

• You were unaware of the mandatory binding arbitration clause until the dispute arose.
• You could not afford the costs of arbitration, and therefore, did not pursue the dispute.

  

•  You decided not to pursue a legal dispute against your builder after learning the negative results for homeowners in Arbitration and that builders most often win in Binding Mandatory Arbitration (BMA).

 

• You decided not to pursue BMA because you learned the arbiters’ decision is binding and cannot be appealed.

 

• The decision rendered by the arbitrator was unconscionable, clearly contrary to the law, and/or went against the general notion of justice.

 

• Your arbitration appeal to the court was denied despite the arbitrator’s unconscionable and/or unfair decision.

 

• Stories that involve the use of mandatory binding arbitration agreements in automobile sale/lease contracts.

 

Please write a brief account of your situation include your contact information and your address.

This is a very important time in our efforts to rid consumers of forced arbitration in nearly all aspects of our lives, especially builder contracts.  So please let us hear your story.

Thank you for your help,

Janet Ahmad, President

HomeOwners for Better Building

http://www.hobb.org

210-402-6800

Comments Wanted on Abolishing the Texas Homebuilders Commission; TRCC

Brought to you by HADD:

"In Texas we have a 'Sunset Commission' which reviews each Commission
in Texas to determine if the commission should continue or if it
should be abolished. The Texas Residential Construction Commission,
created by the builders for the builders, is up for review this year.

If you care to comment, please contact Kelly Kennedy at the Sunset
Commission  (512) 463-1300 or via email: sunset@sunset.state.tx.us.
Ask for the TRCC questionnaire.

From Bay Area Houston http://bayareahouston.blogspot.com/2008/05/history-of-failure-in-homebuilders.html

The TRCC law is up for sunset review, a process that includes a public
comment period through May 16 and hearings Sept. 23 and 24, during
which commissioners invite public testimony. Under sunset law
provisions, lawmakers are supposed to address any concerns raised when
they convene in 2009.

To fix this grossly unbalanced legislation will
require a willingness among representatives to give the same
consideration to the needs of Texas homebuyers as they do to the
wishes of the construction industry."

Builders Sodomize American Taxpayers for the Second Time in 20 Years Replete with Government Complicity; aka - Builder Bail Out

Can you smell the KY smoking? Is your lower back aching? Can you barely remember what happened to you? Well, let me refresh your memory…

1986 - 1995: $500 billion S&L bailout bill crafted by our elected officials that benefited fraudulent developers and lenders directly costing taxpayers approx. $153 Billion.

Does any of this sound vaguely familiar? It should; its damn near a mirror image of what is happening today with a few caveats. Here is what happened back then…

A bunch of greedy people got together and opened up a slew of S&L’s (Savings and Loans - specializes in accepting savings deposits and making mortgage loans) that were able to take in millions of dollars in government backed (FSLIC ) CD deposits and then take the same deposits (minus their capitol of course) and originate new mortgage loans with the money. Everyone involved got rich.

Then the greedy people got even greedier. The owners of these S&L’s began using the profits to make loans to their friends, relatives, and developers to fund construction projects that should never have been built. This created a building boom with no buyers. Meanwhile, all of this money being generated made it possible for kickbacks to accountants, auditors, representatives and senators on the banking committees.

Then the recession hits and the developers default on the loans causing a collapse of the construction market. Then our government comes to the rescue of the developers and S&L’s (who just got filthy rich) with our taxpayer money to bail them out.

Talk about sickening Déjà vu. Now fast forward to today…

2008 - $25 billion Builder Bailout under the guise of the “Housing Relief Bill” aka “2008 Foreclosure Prevention Act” passed by our Senate and being considered by our Congress preceded by mortgage fraud and over-development perpetrated by lending institutions and homebuilders pushing subprime garbage facilitated in shady back-room dealings.

Residential homebuilders saw the opportunity to make record profits due to the lowering of interest rates and a possible repeat of history. When the builders saw how much money the lenders were making they decided to enter and push their own mortgages; many times forcing homebuyers to use their in-house financing. Then subprime lending was just too profitable to ignore and the big homebuilders began pushing riskier loans to people who were obviously not going to be unable to repay them. All the while, building shoddily constructed new homes at a fevered pace causing the huge overhang of severely overpriced homes (by as much as 60%) in the residential housing market we are currently enjoying.

The flood of foreclosures and complaints of shoddily built homes that were sure to come are all around us driving our home values and wealth down. Yet, homebuilders and lenders have gotten rich as can be attested by the obscene compensation packages of their CEO’s and record profits.

Now, after all of this ill gotten money has been made, the homebuilders wanted to get in line to gorge again at the public trough via the first stimulus package. When they were denied the carry back tax credits that they sought the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) threatened our government officials with, “ceasing all approvals and disbursements of BUILD-PAC contributions to federal congressional candidates and their PACs until further notice.”  As a result of this apparently legal blackmail, our elected officials crafted a second version of the bill that has been stripped of actual aids to the homeowners in order to serve up the public money demanded of them by the home building lobby lest the congress and the senate lose their precious reelection money; somewhat along the lines of legal bribes that assure future blackmail if the intended demands are not met; can you say Bob Perry of Perry Homes?

If this dual “Sodomizing of the American Taxpayer” (you and me) to further enrich the wealthy has angered you as it has me, I urge you to contact your congressmen and senators and demand their accountability to the American people instead of continuing "corporate welfare" and strike out the tax credits demanded by the homebuilding industry (blackmail money) from the Housing Relief Bill / The Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008. And if our elected officials refuse to represent their constituents – let’s vote the sorry b**tards out of office!!

 

ERIN BROCKOVITCH CONFIRMS CONTAMINATION IN LENNAR HOME & TEXAS SUPREME COURT GRANTS DOUBLE STANDARD DECISION TO ‘BUILDER BOB’ PERRY

Erin Brockovitch has her eye on the homebuilding industry. 

Brockovich will disclose test results of high levels of contamination in the Lennar Homes Westcott community in South Carolina.  Undisclosed source say Brockovich plans on naming KB Home (KBH) a contamination case in conjunction with the Wescott lawsuit as well. Additionally, Lennar (LEN) is the subject of homeowner outrage as community leaders in Hutto Texas (See: Lennar Homeowners Unite in Hutto Texas) hold a meeting next Saturday, May 10 to address loan irregularities as well as major construction defects.  See details.

For those of you who live in other states other than Texas, it is important to pay close attention to what is happening in Texas.  Why should you become more involved and be concerned about Texas?  The reason is Bob Perry of Texas (Perry Homes) and his nationwide campaign money machine is endorsed by the building industry (NAHB) to promote Tort Reforms and Binding Mandatory Arbitration that protect builders to assure new home warranties are unenforceable. 

Case in point; the Texas Supreme Courts decision Friday, in the infamous Bob Perry vs. Robert and Jane Cull case which illustrates how builder political contributions can so profoundly influence, when the court found in favor of Perry.  The Cull's were understandably stunted at learning of the decision. The couple has come to understand under the worst possible circumstance that a new home warranty is not a warranty at all but a deceptive false sense of security, designed to end in vicious litigation, influenced by big money.

This decision sets a double standard. No where has special interest money been more powerful and evident as Texas where builders freely build substandard homes, confident they will not be held accountable.  As I have said before, “As Goes Texas So Goes the Nation.”   

Last week a stunning article by Lise Olsen of the Houston Chronicle titled “Owners stuck with flawed homes – Families' costs mount, but state, builder give scant help, files show”   The article once again reported the scandals of Bob Perry’s TRCC builder protection agency and how the agency fails homebuyers.  Be sure to read the more than 300 reader responses the first day to the article.

Help us to help you by keeping in touch. Tell your story through HOBB, to your elected officials, and write the press.  We would like to hear from you so, please take a few minutes to post your comments on the HOBB Forum.

Thank you,
Janet Ahmad, President
Home Owners for Better Building

New Report Exposes Multi-Billion Dollar Handout for Corporate Homebuilders Who Helped Cause the Housing Crash and Mortgage Crisis; Under the Foreclosure Prevention Act, Taxpayers Will Pay as Much as $33 Billion to Reward Those at Fault

This revealing report should have you up in arms contacting ALL of your representatives!!!

Washington, DC - "Corporate homebuilders – including those responsible for the mortgage and housing crisis – would receive billions of dollars in tax breaks under a provision of the Foreclosue Prevention Act currently pending in Congress, according to a report released today. The report, A Multi-Billion Dollar Bailout for Those at Fault: Corporate Homebuilders, the Housing Crash and the Mortgage Crisis, was released by LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – which   represents workers in the construction industry. Hundreds of thousands of construction workers have lost their jobs due to the housing and mortgage crisis, including 232,000 jobs lost in 2007 alone. The Foreclosure Prevention Act is being held up as a way to help struggling homeowners, and LIUNA supports many provisions of the bill. But under the bill’s little publicized 'carry-back' provision builders would get billions in tax breaks. The carry-back provision would allow homebuilders to apply losses from 2006 and 2007 as far back as five years against taxes paid on profits – a three-year extension of the current carry-back allowance – even though much of the builders' profit came from their own subprime lending and speculative over-heating of the market. According to the report, the 15 largest corporate homebuilders would receive a third of the benefit of the carry-back provision. The report  notes that the largest homebuilders made $16 billion in profits on $100 billion in revenues in 2006, much of it from a dramatic increase in subprime and high-risk lending, and from feeding speculators. The report also shows that the carry-back provision could further    decimate the housing market by providing an incentive for builders to dump existing inventory at any price, knowing they could carry back the loss. 'This bill will force American taxpayers who    are already struggling with foreclosure, job loss and shrinking retirement savings to pay again for homebuilders' reckless and unethical behavior,' LIUNA General President Terence M. O'Sullivan said. 'Corporate homebuilders are tone deaf to even ask for it and Congress should not acquiesce to it. This bill needs to be fixed so it does not cause further damage by rewarding those who helped cause the crisis and who can well fend for themselves.' The report outlines how corporate homebuilders steered more and more of their customers to subprime and high-cost mortgages through their own mortgage subsidiaries as the housing bubble grew. For example, subprime loans through the nation's fifth-largest builder, Los Angeles-based KB Home (KBH), increased 405 percent from 2005 to 2006. At the nation's second-largest builder, Miami-based Lennar (LEN), subprime loans increased 158 percent during the same time period. As the builders pushed more risky mortgages, they also fed the housing bubble with record housing starts absorbed by speculators. In major markets such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and Fort Lauderdale, one in six new homes was sold to investors, artificially inflating housing costs. 'Corporate homebuilders profited from the creation of this crisis,' O’Sullivan said. 'They should not be further rewarded with a multi-billion dollar bailout.'The half-million members of LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – are on the forefront of the construction industry, a powerhouse of 10 million workers who produce 5  percent of the U.S. economic output. For copies of A Multi-Billion Bailout for Those at Fault: Corporate Homebuilders, the Housing Crash and the Mortgage Crisis, and a state-by-state look at the mortgage and housing crisis impact on jobs and foreclosures, email jhay@liuna.org or call 202-942-2285.

Source: Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA)
Jacob Hay, 202-942-2285
jhay@liuna.org