Land baron has checkered past
What they didn't know was that Rhodes, 48, has admitted to illegally using his money to aid powerful politicians in Nevada; that he has repeatedly and successfully been sued over allegations of fraud, theft and self-dealing by his investment partners and others he's done business with; and that he has a long history of complaints for shoddy workmanship and construction defects from people who bought his homes...Rhodes' attempts to blame his underlings failed. He reached an agreement with the FEC, announced last year, admitting he controlled the scheme, ordered the reimbursement checks and directed company ledgers to be falsified. He and his companies paid a fine of $148,000 to settle and end the investigation.

Beware of Builders Bearing Gifts and Pushing Lenders
Builders can't force you to use any particular lender; federal law prohibits it. Nor can they dictate whom you must use for other settlement services, such as the title company or homeowner's insurance provider. (Lenders can choose who will perform the appraisal.)... Ryland Homes, for example, has an in-house mortgage company, Ryland Mortgage, which deals only with people borrowing to buy a home built by Ryland. Brookfield Homes, the company offering as much as $100,000 in concessions, owns a mortgage subsidiary called the Mortgage Group. Although the law says builders can't force you to use their in-house lenders, nothing says they can't do their best to entice you to keep all your business under their roof.

Rockwall builder accused of providing shoddy service
Kim Crumrine thought her family was the only one having problems with its home and the company that built it. So did Nancy Lee-Borden. And Alfred and Raejean Nunes. Until they started talking to one another. As they met and began to share stories, the homeowners found strikingly similar tales related to Kendall Custom Homes of Rockwall and its owner, Randal Davis. Problems with workmanship, dozens of unreturned phone calls, failure to follow through on repair requests and – more significantly for some – questions about possible overpayments and whether they had valid warranties.

New rules to protect consumers from bad builders
"The Code is comprehensive and in seeking to address a vast number of issues, contains many quite onerous provisions for the home builder to comply with." However, he cautions that in an industry which historically has a poor reputation for protecting consumers, particularly in the lower end of the market, it is anticipated that it will take some time before the industry is able to properly embrace the good intentions behind the Code.

Bad builders face crackdown
Scandinavia's construction industry was once known for its high quality, but that's changed in recent years. Now many property buyers are experiencing poor workmanship and outright deficiencies while paying higher prices than ever before. One recent study by research firm Byggforsk estimated that poor quality work and a growing tendency to cut corners during the building process are costing Norwegian home buyers alone as much as NOK 13 billion a year... Now the government is growing weary of a the flood of consumer complaints, and officials plan to sharpen the building regulation process and control mechanisms considerably.

Lack of Code Compliance and Rising Homeowner Insurance
Insurance companies pay for damages that would not even exist if contractors actually did their work in compliance with the building code and if building inspectors actually enforced those building codes? 
See new homeowner site

Wasington Post - Appraisal Inflation
Lender complacency about appraisals also has enabled con artists to bilk banks and investors of billions of dollars in home-mortgage-fraud schemes. The four appraiser groups cited FBI estimates that mortgage-fraud losses are now approaching $3 billion a year -- and many of those schemes start with intentionally inflated property valuations that lenders fail to spot.

OK is still elusive for project
A developer who built 110 homes in Harrisburg's Providence Manor subdivision a few years ago tried again this week to get the town to approve 300 more houses on farmland next door. That riled up more than a dozen Providence Manor residents, and they showed up at a town Planning and Zoning Commission meeting Tuesday. Residents have tried for years to halt the new development, complaining that the builder did a poor job of designing the roads, green space and amenities in their neighborhood.

Lee buyers claim fraud
A Miami couple says a mortgage company affiliated with Fort Myers-based First Home Builders altered information to enhance their financing application without their knowing it, jacking up the value of their residence and length of time the husband had been at his job...Officials with K. Hovnanian Enterprises, the parent company of First Home, said their own employees did nothing wrong and the mortgage company, Builders Mortgage LLC, is the responsibility of Wells Fargo "€” Hovnanian's partner and 51 percent owner in the joint venture.

Builder not buying couple's bid to back out
Officials with home builder K. Hovnanian Enterprises say a couple who claim their loan application was altered without their knowledge are actually savvy, well-heeled investors who just want out of a bad investment. But the Miami couple say they're unsophisticated buyers and alterations to a loan document made by a mortgage company affiliated with Hovnanian tricked them into buying property they couldn't afford...Chen-Walta said they assumed the information on the document was the same as on their handwritten statement and simply missed the changes. "The fact of the matter is we can't make the payments on those loans. My husband isn't working," she said. "We're not sophisticated investors."

Legislators Focus On Home Lemon Law
How would you like to buy a new home only to find out it is a total lemon.  Home construction scams are now a hot topic at the state capitol. This is an industry that has consistently built defective homes and not been held accountable because they are not regulated, they're not licensed... The group wants Texas lawmakers to pass a Lemon Law for homes - force builders to buy back homes that are not built to code. There are several bills up for consideration...

Foreclosure's Shadow Falls Across Diverse Set of Homeowners
Now each faces the possibility of foreclosure. They share a common American dream of homeownership, but what's equally notable is their diversity. Their cases hint at the wide range of people who make up the group called "subprime" borrowers, who are now being hit hardest by a nationwide real estate slump. They are white as well as black, old as well as young, and middle-income as well as low-income. As the name subprime implies, these loans aren't for the Rockefellers, but for people with rocky credit records. Yet this category of loans saw an unprecedented wave of expansion since 2002, encompassing millions of Americans.

Number of foreclosures in county skyrockets
The number of foreclosures filed in Gwinnett jumped more than 260 percent from 2000 to 2006, according to statistics compiled by Equity Depot, a company that tracks foreclosures. The percentage increase in Gwinnett was larger than the ones in Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb or Fulton counties.Dan Immergluck, an associate professor with the City and Regional Planning Program at Georgia Tech, says the impact of high foreclosure rates in cities across the country, including metro Atlanta, is worsening.

Home buyer left in the dark