California

In vacation home meccas such as California, Florida and Las Vegas -- where foreclosure numbers soared during the housing meltdown -- real estate agents have been employing a new sales tactic: foreclosure bus tours.

Next stop? Cincinnati.

According to The Cincinnati Enquirer, the trend -- in which Realtors organize groups of prospective buyers to view short sales and foreclosures -- also is catching fire in more traditionally stable markets in the Midwest.

And for one local agency in Cincinnati, the tours actually are helping to sell homes.

At Exit Realty West, foreclosure outings are an integral part of their sales efforts, and foreclosures and short sales generate about half of the company's business. In the county, foreclosure sales make up about 32 percent of all home sales in 2010.

Is it just that the sales technique is working or are the home buyers really getting a bargain?

"Operation Stolen Dreams" lands another alleged mortgage fraud conspirator this week. Nationwide, the feds have stepped up prosecution of mortgage and bank loan fraud.

This time, it's a builder in Chico, Calif., who has been indicted for allegedly selling unsold new homes to non-existent or straw buyers, thereby scamming loan funds from banks and other duped lenders. Per the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice, almost 500 people have been indicted nationwide since March 1, in a coordinated effort to address the problem of crime in the housing and mortgage industries. Losses from fraud schemes are estimated in excess of $2 billion.

In the Chico case, builder William T. Baker is now facing charges for mortgage fraud for allegedly setting up fake buyers for unsold homes, creating fraudulent loan applications and applying for loans for more than the homes were worth at the time in 2007 and 2008. Foreclosure was the end result, while Baker and accomplices allegedly pocketed the proceeds from the inflated home sales.

Anyone who has ever applied for a mortgage knows that extensive tax and financial information must be produced and that reams of documents must be signed, initialed and often notarized.

How could scammers be able to perpetuate such kinds of fraud?

Fraud, or at least charges of fraud, just keep on coming in the mortgage and real estate world, leaving homebuyers wondering where the oversight is. The criminal courts are getting busier, hearing cases against the employees and executives of the same companies that are supposed to be helping homebuyers.

Why is there now so much corruption in the mortgage industry? It's an issue that Congress is looking into. The federal government currently is expanding its oversight of the banking system and financial markets, the entities that helped cause the recession.

Here are three of the more prominent recent examples:

Santa Monica is a quaint beachfront town with an easygoing lifestyle that includes almost-daily farmers markets, green buses, and a strong school system -- all things that lend it strong real estate appeal.

One problem that's plagued Santa Monica Real Estate, though, and particularly neighborhoods like Sunset and Ocean Park, is the sound of aircraft from Santa Monica Airport. Locals claim recent routes have made the noise worse, as have increases in the number and size of planes that land there -- noise from prop planes is not the same as from private jets, which are rising in number.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Federal Aviation Administration is testing a new route which would take planes over certain neighborhoods in foggy and cloudy weather. That has local residents worried about possible effects on the quality of life which already is believed to have eroded because of FAA practices.

With its proposed routes agitating citizens -- and the property market already struggling -- is Santa Monica Airport going to be a growing problem for Santa Monica real estate?

The California power company Pacific Gas & Electric is receiving a lot of backlash due to the results of its smart meter installations. Smart meters are used to make electronic readings of meters instead of sending out meter-readers; they also are intended to help consumers monitor their energy use.

But homeowners have complained about inaccurate bills, some of which have doubled without warning. State energy regulators are investigating and will test some of the 5.7 million units installed at homes. During the four-to-six-month investigation regulators also will test the devices in a lab.

PG&E has said the soaring bills were caused by high electricity rates and heat waves, although an initial investigation found several recurring problems with the meters and their installation, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Nicolas Cage will soon say good-bye to another home. Come 10:30 a.m. April 7th, he is set to lose his gorgeous Bel Air mansion in an auction to be held at the Pomona courthouse. This is only one in a string of homes the actor has lost thanks to his inability to manage his personal finances.

Cage bought the house in 1998 for $6.469 million, but borrowed against it so many times that he owes more than $17 million on the property, according to Curbed LA. Opening bid is set for just over $11 million, reports Active Rain, which is more than the original sealed bid minimum of $9.95 million his real estate agent at Westside Estate Agency was seeking back in the fall.

One thing's for sure: Whoever buys it will need a lot of primer before they throw on some paint. (You'll see what we mean.)

Hold on to your Zoloft, yet another wave of bad real estate news is about to wash our already underwater housing market. This time, it's Option Adjustable-Rate Mortgage loans -- or Option ARMs, for short.

What the heck are Option ARMs, you say? Simply put, they are mortgage loans that give homeowners the option to make minimum payments that are so small, they don't even cover the interest, never mind that the principal. The teeny payments eventually reset, but at a much later date.

Option ARMs have been around since the 1980s, but really came into their own in that two year period between 2005 and 2007, when they were peddled by the likes of Countrywide Financial and Washington Mutual to hard-up homebuyers, and some well-to-do ones, too. Who could resist buying a big home for pocket change every month, even knowing that the monthly payments would someday increase? Of course, by that time, the balance would have ballooned as well.

Well, the time of reckoning has come.

For homeowners struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments, their best hope may be negotiating a lower, more affordable monthly payment while they try to get their financial houses back in order. That's the aim of the government's Home Affordable Modification Program, which encourages lenders to modify loan payments.

It sounds simple: To modify your mortgage, you fill out the paperwork and move forward, right? Don't count on it, say some homeowners who have been there, tried that. Lenders, if they do anything to help you at all, might accept you into the temporary mortgage reduction program, but what happens when you've made those reduced payments and your lender renegs on the deal and forecloses on the home anyway? HAMP officials have been tightening the rules for lenders to make it harder for them to string borrowers along. But in the meantime, many homeowners are fighting back, the American way: by suing and screaming.

More people are taking their lender to court or contacting their congressman, or sometimes both. We looked at some homeowners who have chosen one of these routes -- and won.

Twitter helped a man in Great Britain sell his house as a for-sale-by-owner, The Daily Mirror reported.

Peter Bouvier closed on the Southampton home about three months after his tweet -- that's after a real estate agent had been unable to sell it despite months of trying.

The Daily Mirror crowned Bouvier the "first person to sell his house on Twitter," and other outlets quickly followed suit. But is he really the first? And can tweeting really help sell your home?

A "for sale" sign is now in the yard of the vacant, foreclosed two-story Victorian home where police once unearthed seven victims of convicted female serial killer Dorothea Puente, reported the Sacramento Bee.

The 1930 tan home with navy and white trim, listed for $309,800, is on the Sacramento historic register. A 1,834-square-foot duplex at 1426 F Street, it went through foreclosure in June 2009, with a previous price tag of $335,750.

"It isn't exactly a real estate agent's dream sales pitch: How would you like to live in a house once owned by a serial killer?" wrote David Knowles for AOL News.

But you wouldn't have to live there. The home, with a bay window in Puente's old bedroom, has a history of rental income. "It's a duplex, so it's good for an investor," bank-appointed Realtor Andrew Chechourka of Kraft Realty told the Sacramento Bee. How easy would it be to find renters willing to live in a home were murders occurred?

Back in 2004, the city of San Francisco launched an ambitious ten year plan aimed at ending homelessness in the city by creating 3,000 permanent housing units as substitutes for shelters.

Now at the six-year mark, San Francisco's mayor, Gavin Newsom, is claiming the city is more than halfway toward its goal, having, thus far, created almost 1,700 housing units.

The mayor tells Bay City News that, while homelessness in the city has not been eradicated, the homeless population has decreased for the first time in three decades.

Besides creating housing for the homeless, the plan also envisions a greatly expanded support structure and social services, even at this time of great fiscal crisis in the city and the entire state of California.

Newsom, who is thinking about running for Lt. Governor of the state, also says that more than 1,900 people have volunteered so far to participate in what is officially known as "Project Homeless Connect."

Mark down February 22nd on your iPhone or BlackBerry calender. That's the day when California, desperate to raise money to bridge an ever expanding budget gap (now in the very bad neighborhood of around $20 billion) plans on selling 17 state-owned buildings. Apparently this is a trend: California is just the latest state to resort to selling off real estate in order to raise money to replace dwindling tax revenue. But its proposed sale -- a total of 9 million square feet of office space valued at around $2 billion -- is by far the largest, according to the Associated Press.

The problem is, selling anything when a gun is to your head is never really a good idea. And, right now, California has sort of a nuclear missile aimed at it.

Who ever still thinks appraisers didn't work hand-in-hand with mortgage brokers to bring on the subprime mortgage crisis hasn't been following the news in Laguna Beach, CA. In this town, the law finally caught up with a family-operated appraisal firm that had its own desk in the office of a major subprime mortgage broker -- a broker dubbed "Predator Zero" on Vanity Fair's list of institutions and people most to blame for the nation's economic problems.

Allegedly, between June 2005 and August 2007, the father-son team of Landmark Equities Group secretly changed appraisal data on documents of others through the use of employees' passwords and electronic signatures, and secretly removed negative property comments to increase the appraised value, according to a statement from the Orange County district attorney's office.

While residents in other parts of California (not to mention Haiti) are recovering from real earthquakes this week, residents of Century City and Westwood in Los Angeles have been feeling some simulated shaking.

The L.A. Metropolitan Transit Authority is doing some oddly timed seismic testing while trying to plot out a route for a $4 billion dollar subway extension on the west side of the city. The first phase expected is expected to open in 2019.

The devastation in Haiti and California's recent earthquake are reminders that preparedness is vital for all homeowners in earthquake zones. From the proper insurance to securing your home, we will take you through what you should consider in advance of an earthquake.

Earthquakes can strike at any time. Make sure you're prepared.