Michelle de la Uz, executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee,
and the Red Hook Homes

Fifth Avenue Committee, a non-profit for community development, and Neighbors Helping Neighbors, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-certified counseling agency in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, are forming a strategic alliance, the organizations announced today.

As The Real Deal previously reported, the two entities have worked together previously, opening Red Hook Homes, an $18 million, 60-unit mixed-income co-op in Red Hook two weeks ago, which FAC developed and for which the two partners worked to advise 40 low- and moderate-income, first-time buyers.

The partnership will mean a new home for NHN’s homebuyer education and mortgage counseling services at the FAC Center for Community Development at 621 DeGraw Street and Fourth Avenue. — Katherine Clarke [more]

From the October issue: Remember the proposed requirement from six federal agencies that homebuyers make minimum 20 percent down payments if they want the lowest interest rates?

Remember the controversy that erupted over the plan last spring, when labor unions joined with bankers, civil rights groups, mortgage companies, realty agents and consumer advocates to get it changed? A bipartisan group of 39 senators and more than 250 Democrats and Republicans in the House even signed letters demanding that the agencies ditch the proposal on the grounds that it would be deeply harmful to a housing market mired in deep trouble.

Half a year has passed since all that bubbled up, so here’s an update on the issue: The 20 percent proposal is still alive, but it’s temporarily bogged down in agency reviews of the roughly 12,000 comments filed by interest groups and individuals. [more]

Thanks to a failed inspection caused by a variety of wiring and safety issues, Carmel Towers in Newark, N.J. will no longer receive financial aid, and according to the New York Times, that has the nearly 200 families occupying the building scrambling for a new home.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has often paid more than $1,000 to fund most of the monthly rent for each apartment, declined to renew its contract with the building. Carmel Towers failed two inspections, including one last July when it only achieved 18 out of a possible 100 points. [more]

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has charged a Queens residential real estate firm and one of its brokers with violating the Fair Housing Act by placing an advertisement on Craigslist that discriminated against families with children, according to HUD.

According to the allegations, Roberto Tristaino, then agent with Metro Net Realty in Old Howard Beach, placed the ads for a two-bedroom rental apartment in Bergen Beach on Craigslist in September and October 2008 with the note “mature couple or single without children” in the description.

Such descriptions violate the Fair Housing Act, which forbids any “preference, limitation or discrimination” based on familial status,” HUD indicated in the release. [more]

Bank of America should face fraud claims because its Countrywide unit submitted faulty data in claims for reimbursement of federally insured mortgages, according to an audit by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Bloomberg News reported.

“Countrywide did not properly verify, analyze, or support borrowers’ employment and income, source of funds to close, liabilities and credit information,” a HUD regional inspector general wrote in the audit. “This noncompliance occurred because Countrywide’s underwriters did not exercise due diligence in underwriting the loans.” HUD runs the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages on loans to borrowers who can’t find traditional financing, such as those with low income.  Comments

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A $50.9 million green retrofit project at the West 135th Street
Apartments has been completed, according to a statement released today
by Jonathan Rose Companies, local and federal housing agencies and
Enterprise, a Maryland-based provider of developer capital and expertise for affordable housing.

Jonathan Rose Companies had acquired the 202,500-square-foot property with 198 units
at 107-145 West 135th Street through its Rose Smart Growth
Investment Fund, an investment fund focusing on the strategic green
repositioning of existing buildings in December 2008 in order to
preserve affordable Section 8 housing, while creating an
energy-efficient apartment community. – Miranda Neubauer  [more]

From left, Joel Kupferman, head attorney of the New York Environment Law and Justice Project, Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone and a rendering of the charter school planned for the St. Nicholas Houses

Two non-profit organizations filed a lawsuit today on behalf of residents of the
St. Nicholas Houses in Central Harlem to prevent the construction of the Harlem
Children’s Zone in the public housing complex, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

More than 100 residents joined the Urban Justice Center and the New York
Environmental Law and Justice Project in filing the suit against the New York City
Housing Authority, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and
the Harlem Children’s Zone. [more]

The settlement of a major class-action suit is shedding new light on a controversial real estate practice that homebuyers and sellers typically know little about: Fees paid to realty brokers and agents for promoting home warranty policies.

The case involves potentially thousands of homebuyers and sellers who purchased warranty coverage from American Home Shield Corp. between May 2008 and March of this year. American Home Shield is the dominant player in the home warranty field, with sales of $657 million in 2010, according to the company. Home warranty policies offer repairs and replacements for owners when specified home systems and appliances malfunction.

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs say as many as 500,000 consumers may be members of the class, though neither they nor American Home Shield would speculate on how many ultimately will file for and receive cash from the settlement. [more]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has delayed the sale of hundreds of foreclosed properties, upsetting residential real estate agents desperate for their deals to close, the Wall Street Journal reported.

High demand for foreclosed properties caused HUD to run out of money needed to pay lawyers or others who manage the sales of foreclosed properties.

Over 540 properties in New England have been affected, and HUD is still unsure how many sales have been delayed nationally.
[more]

Two New York-based appraisers accused of mortgage fraud settled with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for a total of $100,000 and agreed not to perform appraisals in sales involving Federal Housing Authority-insured loans for a number of years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced today.

James Goldberg, founder of JGG Real Estate Appraisal Services, and Robert Micheline, of P&M Appraisals, allegedly conspired to inflate the value of 11 New York area homes, so that flip sellers — Buy A Home and Mitchell Cohen were two such sellers named in the report — could unload the properties on “inexperienced homebuyers” for profit. – Adam Fusfeld [more]