Foreclosure-Gate: Fraud Impacts Auctions As Sales Dry Up

11-29-2010 • money.cnn.com/

In San Diego, according to broker Scott Cheng of Cheng Realty, who puts investors together with foreclosed properties, the number of auctions scheduled has fallen from 500 a day, to 300. "That part of my business has dried up," Cheng said. "A lot of my investors have stopped looking." Cheng used to be able to find about three or four suitable homes a month for investors looking for a bargain. Now, he hasn't done one of these deals since August. "The ones who are really upset are the investors, who buy on the courthouse steps," said Kevin Berman, a broker with Bankers Realty Services in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "There used to be sometimes 700 sales a day. Now there are like, seven." In September, several banks -- including Ally, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase -- acknowledged problems with their foreclosure procedures. Employees had been signing as many as several hundred documents a day in which they sometimes attested to facts that they had no personal knowledge of, calling into question the legitimacy of the foreclosures. (See "I was a Robo-signer")