Here we go again! The feeding frenzy around foreclosures is heating up to a fever pitch. There’s a general belief that if you buy a foreclosure property, it’s a good deal. Be Careful! It may be the worst thing you could do. Generally, a property goes into foreclosure because the owner was “upside down” in the property.

Look out for Fraud in real estate. The FBI place mortgage fraud at somewhere between $986 Million and $4.2 Billion for 2006. Gee, is there a lender out there who’s not telling the truth? How do you get to that big a range? Let’s be reasonable and split the difference.

Simply put, real estate fraud is defined as a material misrepresentation of fact intended to induce you into the transaction and let me tell you, that inducement can really hurt. You could lose all those hard earned dollars if you’re not paying attention so get with it and PAY ATTENTION.

The essence of Collateral Risk Measure (CRM) is that it helps everyone understand the potential downside of real estate investment. Lenders use this type of tool on nearly every loan in their portfolio because they want to understand their exposure if the loan goes bad. That is, they want to know how much money they will lose if the property goes into foreclosure. So, they review area foreclosure activity, property flipping events, appreciation/depreciation trends, property history and other factors that can influence the value of a property and that gives them insight as to their risk potential.

The term property flipping often has a very negative connotation connected to it because of the opportunistic image some property flippers have acquired over the years. It is true that much of the real estate and mortgage fraud that occurs is the result of fraud rings that use multiple people (straw buyers, appraisers, real estate agents etc.) to falsely inflate home prices, sell (flip) the property to a "friend", cash-out refi's are taken at a very high loan-to-value (LTV) ratio and eventually, the buyer walks away with the proceeds and the property goes into foreclosure.

How are reliable are AVM's? Several Real Estate agents I know say appraisers more accurately determine the value of a home than does an AVM.

Automated Valuation Modeling (AVM) is a term given to home price estimation and utilizes statistical or mathematical applications to assess the value of real estate in moments; single-family residences and condominiums are the subjects of these high-speed estimates. At present, there are some fifteen models, and perhaps a few more, that exist in the United States. Most of these applications have been in the market for a minimum of seven years and some, for as many as twenty years.