A review of 99 homes by a reo broker

[Mark Ferguson]

I finally got around to watching 99 homes. A movie about a crooked REO agent and evictions in florida. The movie was entertaining but had some serious issues.

1. Foreclosures in Florida (where the movie takes place) take on average 935 days. The movie makes it seem like someone gets two months behind on payments and they are evicted a couple weeks later. The truth is it takes years in florida and the owner can live there without making payments that entire time. 

2. In my experience an eviction does not occur out of the blue on a random day. People are given plenty of notice, given an exact date they have to vacate and a chance to argue in court. I have been a part of many cash for keys and evictions and only a couple times in 8 years was the previous owner still there with their stuff on eviction day. 

3. Cash for keys is done all the time and most people are actually grateful for it and agree. I think I had a 90 percent success rate with getting a cash for keys deal done. The banks would grade agents on how successful they were with cash for keys. The banks want to avoid eviction at all costs. 

4. In the movie an elderly man is evicted. Most banks would make exceptions for extreme cases where elderly, disabled, etc are evicted. They would go out of the way to find them a place to live or give them more time. The saying was don't do anything that would get you on the news. It is really hard to foreclose on a reverse mortgage, especially when the owners are still alive. 

5. In all of my REO work I never had one occupant super pissed at me, even after an eviction. Sure they were mad at the bank sometimes, but I made myself the messenger and tried to help occupants as much as I could. I even had occupants come back to me later to refer business to me or even buy a house after a few years. I know not all REO agents are like that, but many are super nice people.

6. The fraud the REO agent was involved in has never been seen by me. Except for HUD homes where HUD field service people stole copper and Ac units. That had nothing to do with REO agents. They simply stole them to sell them for scrap and got caught. I do know one agent that was caught buying his own listings through a relative. He was caught by Fannie Mae and black balled by every REO company and bank in the business. 99.9 percent of REO agents would never commit fraud and risk the awesome gig they have selling REO.

7. It seemed the movie wanted us to feel sorry for people who borrowed money and could not pay it back. It sucks the economy tanked and it sucks people lost their home, but if you borrow money and can't pay it back bad things happen. 

That's my take. I did like the fact they used actual Fannie Mae know your option forms.