Your Reputation Matters!
I just finished reading an article online about the “latest bout of foreclosure fraud”. It appears that someone found a family in California in pre-foreclosure and bought the house subject to the existing mortgage. It’s done all the time in this business.
The point where this story takes a sharp turn off the Interstate of Integrity and makes for such interesting reading begins when the investor got an additional $150,000 loan on the house and never made payments on it. The house continued to proceed towards the courthouse steps via foreclosure and the family ultimately lost their house AND had an additional $150,000 lien on it!
Some could argue that the family had gotten themselves into that situation by getting behind on payments in the first place. That’s not the point of this story. Others could say that the family did indeed sign over title to their property and that the new title-owner could do whatever they wanted now that they own the house. That’s not up for discussion here either.
The point here is that the reputation of every single investor in the United States of America is on the line whenever any of you go into someone’s home to buy their property. What you say and do is now under the scrutiny of the media, the watchful eye of the American public, and is going to make the 5 o’clock news if you do something that others deem unscrupulous. The fact that there are many other investors across the country that are buying property this way and are actually making payments on behalf of the homeowner, improving the seller’s credit, and ultimately getting the house sold for fair market value was never reported. The fact that most of us who buy property subject to the existing mortgage do in fact get a private loan to help with holding costs, repairs to the property, and marketing costs was never covered. The only thing this story focused on was the fact that this one individual took advantage of a bad situation and made it worse for others through self-gratification (aka getting that loan and keeping the proceeds).
My fear is that, once stories such as these hit such papers like the LA Times, our reputation is in serious jeopardy. Why? Imagine all the homeowners across the country who are reading that paper right now. Imagine all the potential sellers who will think twice about calling you after reading this article. Imagine how much more difficult it’s going to get now to buy houses by taking over the seller’s debt.
What’s worse…wait until the government steps in! Imagine the regulations which are undoubtedly going to be imposed after scam artists like the investor featured in the LA Times gain more notoriety. My fellow investors please keep in mind that the Nation is now watching our every move!
If we want to move up the rankings in the public’s eye and return our good name to it’s rightful standings, we have to act as business men and women. By giving your “competition”, aka other investors a black eye, we are tarnishing the reputation of investors nationwide and ultimately creating more problems for ourselves than solutions.
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