Recently, Paul Carlozzi, field inspector for Safeguard Properties,?led a field ride with a producer from KCET?public television?in Southern California, focusing on Riverside County where foreclosure rates are particularly high.?Accompanying Paul on the field ride was Thomas Fantini, QC field rep for Southern California.

Videos are available on the KCET website:

http://kcet.org/socal/2009/02/the-trashout-squad-1.html

Another video in regards to “trash-outs” and hazardous materials found on work sites:

http://kcet.org/socal/2009/02/household-chemical-dangers-and-trash-outing.html

DSnews.com published an article regarding Safeguard Properties’ new Good Neighbor Door Hanger initiative.

Safeguard Begins Door Hanger Program

Austin Kilgore | 02.02.09

Safeguard Properties is taking a step to improve communication among neighbors and prevent blight in vacant properties by requiring its contractors to place door hangers on the neighboring homes of vacant properties it services beginning Monday.

The “Good Neighbor Door Hanger” has Safeguard’s contact information in the event a neighbor needs to contact the company regarding damage and blight to a REO property.

Vendors received the hangers over the course of the past few weeks, and are instructed to attempt to contact the neighbor before leaving the door hanger. Contractors are required to fill out the door hanger when completing an initial secure or REO initial services order.

In a memo to its contractors, Safeguard said, “Servicers and local governments are partners in fighting blight, maintaining safe neighborhoods, and ensuring properties are maintained.”

Safeguard was mentioned in an article on DSnews.com regarding the MERS initiative for vacant properties.

Calif. City Joins MERS Initiative

Austin Kilgore | 01.09.09

A new vacant property registration ordinance in San Bruno, California will allow lenders and servicers to register their properties on the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS).

San Bruno joins five other cities, three in California, that will begin a pilot program this year to use the MERS to track vacant properties.

Dubbed the MERS Initiative, it is being spearheaded by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Vacant Property Registration committee, which is chaired by Safeguard Properties CEO Robert Klein.

The committee is working with local municipalities considering vacant property registration ordinances to use the MERS to track properties. By using the system, national lenders and servicers have a consistent format for registering properties, and municipalities can save money and resources by not having to create and maintain their own databases of properties.

A group of mortgage banking industry corporations and groups like the MBA provided the capital to start the MERS program. Municipalities that choose to allow vacant property registration through the site are given free access to it, and are provided with training to navigate the system.

The MERS database currently contains 60 million loans from 2,500 lenders, and is being expanded to handle increased capacity.

Safeguard was mentioned in a report on CNNMoney as a source of employment opportunities in a difficult economy.?

Unemployed – reinvent yourself

There are more ways than one to land your next job, despite the difficult economy. Gerri Willis provides insight

Cleveland.com reported on Safeguard Properties’ upcoming move to new offices in Valley View, Ohio.

Valley View will have new private road, Safeguard Circle, as home for Safeguard Properties

Posted by kburns January 22, 2009 21:29PM

Valley View Village Council has named a private road Safeguard Circle. The road is adjacent to Hub Parkway and will be the new home of Safeguard Properties.

A nationwide company that secures foreclosed properties, Safeguard Properties is moving to Valley View from Brooklyn Heights at the end of the first quarter, possibly by April.

Safeguard Properties was mentioned in an article on Baltimore’s abc2news.com regarding employment opportunities.

Trying to Land a Job?

Trying to land a new job? Believe it or not, there are still some companies hiring!

Here are some ways you can reinvent yourself for your next employer: First, know where the jobs are.

For example, T-mobile is adding about 2000 jobs nationwide in retail and customer service. Safeguard Properties, a firm that manages foreclosed properties, is adding about 1,400 jobs.

Microsoft and Google are also adding jobs, despite laying off in other areas. Second, retraining: consider online classes, just make sure the college is accredited.

Finally, polish your resume.

For free online help click here:?http://careeronestop.org/?

Safeguard Properties was mentioned in an article on American Banker regarding delinquencies in mortgage payments and the trend in foreclosures in 2009.

As Freezes Expire, Foreclosures to Soar

American Banker ?|? Thursday, January 29, 2009

By Kate Berry

Home foreclosures, bottled up for the last few months, could soon explode.

A moratorium that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac put on foreclosure sales and evictions by their servicers in late November is scheduled to expire next week. Freddie had 5,000 to 6,000 loans headed for foreclosure before the freeze, though some might receive streamlined modifications. Fannie said it had contacted more than 10,000 borrowers and renters before the freeze about the possibility of a property heading for foreclosure.

Moreover, many more option adjustable-rate mortgages are expected to begin “recasting” in the coming months. Since the borrowers will be required to make fully amortizing payments, rather than minimum ones that do not cover interest, their monthly bills will jump, increasing the risk of default.

And rising unemployment cannot help matters for any type of mortgage.

According to First American CoreLogic Inc., 847 alternative-A option ARMs nationwide were recast last month. The data firm expects that figure to reach 1,600 in March – and climb steadily to 11,700 by December.

“There probably will be two more waves of foreclosures coming,” said Mark Carrington, the director of analytical sales and support at the unit of First American Corp. of Santa Ana, Calif.

“When the foreclosure moratoriums end, we’ll see one wave of foreclosures,” he said, and “2009 is going to be the start of the ramp-up of the option ARM loans facing foreclosure.”

Such forecasts assume no increase in government intervention, though an increase has become a much bigger possibility under the new administration. For example, legislation that would let bankruptcy judges rewrite mortgage terms – helping the borrower to avoid foreclosure – is making its way through Congress. (See related story.)

In addition, major lenders such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., and Bank of America Corp. have announced stepped-up modification efforts; the very reason for the government-sponsored enterprises’ moratorium was to give servicers time to adopt new modification procedures.

But all other things being equal, the next few months could bring the end of a reprieve.

“Virtually everywhere we’ve seen moratoriums, there is a run-up in foreclosure activity, then a huge drop-off, and a spike back up when the moratorium is over,” said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac Inc. in Irvine, Calif.

For example, he said, a law that took effect in California in September has “made it look like foreclosures were settling down.” It requires lenders to contact a delinquent borrower and wait at least 30 days before sending a default notice – the first step in the foreclosure process.

Many servicers waited as long as 90 days to initiate default proceedings, Mr. Sharga said, so some of those foreclosures are only now coming on to the market. “This is masking and causing all of us to understate the severity of the problem.”

As of June 30, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed 373,000 delinquent loans.

Freddie had 151,515 “seriously delinquent” mortgages – meaning they were 90 days or more past due – as of Sept. 30.

Other changes made by the GSEs last year stretched out the foreclosure process and removed incentives for servicers to foreclose quickly.

For example, Freddie stretched its foreclosure time line in 21 states, including California, to 300 days from a borrower’s last payment and 150 days from the initiation of foreclosure.

“Right now, between moratoriums that were enacted last year and the pure volume of foreclosures, time lines could be double the standard of a year ago,” said John Anderson, an executive vice president at Clayton Services Inc. in Shelton, Conn., which owns Quantum, a servicer of delinquent loans.

Of the roughly $200 billion of option ARMs outstanding, Fitch Inc. expects roughly $29 billion, or about 16%, to recast this year and an additional $67 billion to recast next year.

Normally, option ARMs recast five years after origination, but Mr. Carrington said many borrowers have been making only the minimum payment, so the balance has grown larger than what the home was worth at the time of origination, triggering early recasts.

“For borrowers that chose to make minimum payments, they hit a ceiling faster than five years, and that’s been happening now,” he said.

Robert Klein, the founder and chief executive of Safeguard Properties Inc., a Cleveland firm that lenders hire to manage foreclosed properties, said the unemployment rate is “a bigger concern” than foreclosure moratoriums and option ARM recasts.

Safeguard has noticed a steady 20% monthly increase in 45-day delinquencies, Mr. Klein said. Many banks and servicers that used to wait 120 days to inspect a property after a borrower went delinquent are now starting the process at 45 days.

Last month Safeguard inspected 860,000 properties nationwide in which borrowers were at least 45 days delinquent, he said.

“The unemployment rate is what scares me, because people who lose their jobs and have no equity in their homes cannot refinance,” Mr. Klein said. “Now we’re going to see foreclosures start to really hit the prime housing market.”

Safeguard was mentioned in an article on American Banker regarding REO properties.

A Side Effect of Foreclosure Wave: Real Estate on Books

American Banker? |? Wednesday, January 21, 2009

By Emily Flitter

As Washington continues to debate policy options for reducing foreclosures, banks and servicers are struggling to deal with the glut of homes they are taking over when homeowners cannot make their mortgage payments.

By some estimates, lenders now own 900,000 homes, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said “real estate owned” at insured institutions rose 21% from a quarter earlier and 134% from a year earlier, to $23 billion at Sept. 30.

Foreclosures now make up a huge chunk of the homes available for sale. The National Association of Realtors said 45% of sales involve foreclosed homes, compared with roughly 10% a year ago.

And lenders have yet to shift the bulk of their supply to the sale market. Rick Sharga, a spokesman for RealtyTrac Inc. said nearly 70% of the foreclosed homes in the firm’s database have not been listed for sale.

“There’s too many foreclosures right now for anybody — including us,” Mr. Sharga said. “The foreclosure problem has dragged the housing market down, which has led to an economic meltdown, and this has affected everybody. If the problem continues to worsen, none of us are going to be in business.”

Alan White, an assistant law professor at Valparaiso University, agreed that the pipeline is huge and “clogged at every step of the way.”

Observers say lenders are so preoccupied with other effects of the housing crisis that they are not focused on preparing homes for resale.

“Banks can’t and don’t have the time or willpower, and it’s hard fixing up homes when you’re managing them from a distance,” said Paul Miller, an analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. Inc. “The system is not built to deal with this number of foreclosed properties. Even the people they’ve hired to deal don’t have the capacity.”

Potential buyers face a Catch-22 for REO properties, he said — an existing servicer will not perform the necessary repair work, and a new lender will not agree to pay for something that is as uncertain as a house in disrepair.

Ironically, according to Mr. Miller, given the size and complexity of banking operations today, the same bank could be working on both sides of a failing deal. “It could be B of A on both sides of the equation, and the complaints are coming from two different departments.”

Observers said that despite the extensive resources being spent on upkeep, the sheer volume of foreclosed homes is creating holes in property management. Borrowers forced to move have left behind houses in various states of disarray. Problems range from unwashed floors to holes in the wall where appliances once stood. In some neighborhoods, vandals have broken into unwatched houses to steal copper piping, and basements are flooded.

Also, homeless families have moved into abandoned homes, sometimes by design. News reports have described housing advocates breaking into foreclosed homes to let in squatters.

Kenneth Thomas, a Miami banking consultant, said that in some cases families who foreclosed homes from banks move in to discover someone else living there.

“In one case,” a new buyer “went to go inspect the property, met with a person living there, and the person living there had a bat,” Mr. Thomas said.

Others say institutions are being stingy in rehabilitating homes to attract buyers.

Dick Esposito, a Maryland developer who repairs and flips REO properties for Chevy Chase Bank, said it rarely approves work he deems necessary. In one instance, Mr. Esposito said, he argued for a $3,500 kitchen renovation to make a house saleable, but the bank’s strategy was to reduce the price of the home by $5,000 every month until it sold. (The bank did not respond to requests for comment.)

“When the basement floods, there’s mold. We rip out drywall, dry it out, spray it with mold retardant,” and the bank does not “want us to put the drywall back,” said Mr. Esposito. “They become unfinished basements.

Also, foreclosed homes in his area demand 24-hour surveillance, he said.

“I could see them putting a minimal amount of money in and…making more money,” Mr. Esposito said.

Lenders providing credit to buyers of foreclosed homes say banks that own the real estate are shirking their responsibility to make repairs in time for moving day.

Mark Savitt, the president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, said his members have encountered situations where servicers will not pay for repairs.

“If they really want to unload these properties, and I’m sure they do, what they need to do is move more quickly,” Mr. Savitt said. “When they get an offer, and if there are repairs, they need to work with real estate agents to facilitate that repair.”

Prof. White said foreclosures are eating up a lot of cash. “Right now the mortgage servicers have made a lot of advances. They’re paying legal fees, maintenance fees — they’re just unwilling to put another nickel into the house when they’re not sure if they’re going to get it back or not.”

Those defending the industry’s practices say servicers are not skimping on resources.

“A lot of banks get a bad rap,” said Alan Jaffa, the chief financial office of Safeguard Properties Inc., a Cleveland firm that lenders hire to manage foreclosed properties. “They’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars — if not billions — protecting homes.”

Ben Windust, the senior vice president of default and retention operations for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, said REO resales get tricky when more than one firm is involved in any step in the process.

“If you’re servicing for others, like if you’re working on a short sale and the loan is with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, we have a certain amount of delegated authority to accept offers, and sometimes we don’t,” Mr. Windust said. “If there’s mortgage insurance, then you have to get approval from the mortgage insurance company. The approval process can sometimes delay a response.”

Federal efforts to respond to the crisis have made a dent in the supply. Housing advocacy groups and municipalities working to utilize the $4 billion of block grant money authorized by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act to help communities buy, rehabilitate, and flip foreclosed homes.

Several large banking companies also have undertaken voluntary modification programs. Those efforts may be mandated by Congress soon. The FDIC has been pushing a plan to use some of the Treasury Department’s $700 billion bailout to subsidize wide-scale modification efforts by servicers, and the Obama administration has said it supports the plan.

This month regulators unveiled guidelines instructing banks on how they could receive Community Reinvestment Act credit for preventing foreclosures through voluntary programs, reducing the blight of vacant homes on neighborhoods.

Robert Davis, the American Bankers Association’s executive vice president for government relations, called the guidelines “a very welcome recognition of activities that banks are already undertaking, that they should get CRA credit for.”

But not everyone says the institutions should be rewarded.

“We think it’s the responsibility of the banks to fix these loans, the bad loans that they made — they shouldn’t get extra credit for rectifying a predatory loan, for keeping the neighborhoods that they want to lend to intact,” said Alan Fisher, the executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition.

Advocates touted other programs designed to keep homes occupied. For instance, Fannie, realizing that maintaining vacant homes poses challenges, is implementing allowing tenants in foreclosed properties to remain there and pay rent to the government-sponsored enterprise.

“Given that we’re trying to find a bottom” to the housing market, “that can’t really happen, given that you’ve got an excess level of supply,” Prof. White said. “We need to continue improving on ways of finding foreclosure alternatives, so if there’s any possibility that you’ve got a warm body in a house with any kind of cash flow, it’s worth working something out.”