Marc McCain Blog

More and more I am seeing lenders be aggressive and unreasonable in demanding money from borrowers during the short sale approval process.  Lenders are doing this even where AZ law prohibits them from waiving their security and suing on the note (i.e. where the loan is a purchase money loan on qualifying residential property).  As a result, I am stressing the [...]

Investors and second home owners in Arizona should NOT rest easy on the heels of the legislature’s recent repeal of Senate Bill 1271.  Recognizing bad law (SB 1271) and bad policy behind it, not to mention the certain backlash from consumers, one might have thought banks would take their defeat in stride and use their [...]

As most interested parties now know, Governor Brewer signed House Bill 2008 and with it becoming law in late November, 2009, swept away the recent changes to Arizona’s anti-deficiency laws set to go into effect September 30, 2009.  Residential property owners’ collective sigh of relief could be felt throughout the Valley.  However, the victory parade could be short, [...]

Bank lobbyists told Arizona’s legislators that our anti-deficiency statutes needed to be revised because spec builders were “gaming the system” by claiming they lived in their spec homes to get anti-deficiency treatment.  The Senate’s internal memo on the bill stated that investment properties were “NOT” protected by existing anti-deficiency laws.  No one paid attention to the [...]

A recent article in the Phoenix Business Journal titled “Mortgage modifications elusive” wrote of the failure of the Government’s mortgage modification plan given the sharp decline in property values in certain cities such as Phoenix, Arizona.  However, the article failed to distinguish between mortgage re-financings and mortgage modifications in the residential loan market, especially for [...]

You’ve probably heard a lot about residential loan modifications lately. Probably even seen a few notorious law firms advertising on TV or been swamped with junk mail from a “modification” company. I”m getting lots of call in my office lately from people asking about loan modifications and certain claims or promises by companies. One thing [...]