Fri Sep 11, 2009 11:19pm EDT
By Clare Baldwin

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A community watchdog group expressed outrage and Wells Fargo said it was launching an investigation after a newspaper reported that a senior exec threw lavish parties at a beachfront Malibu house owned by the bank.

“This is the ultimate example of dancing on the shattered dreams of the millions of Americans who’ve lost their homes. They should be ashamed of themselves,” said Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now spokesman Scott Levenson.

According to the Los Angeles Times, residents said Cheronda Guyton, a Wells Fargo senior vice president responsible for foreclosed commercial properties, spent weekends in the Malibu Colony house throwing “eye-catching” parties, one of which had guests arriving in a yacht.

Guyton was also issued the same parking permit as is given to Colony residents, the Times reported.

Guyton’s alleged personal use of the property incensed advocacy groups and drew scrutiny from the lender’s internal checks.

Wells Fargo said in a statement it took possession of the Southern California property in May and withheld it from the market for an agreed-upon period of time, adding that company policy prohibits personal use of properties held by the bank.

“The bank has launched a full internal investigation of allegations that a team member was improperly using a bank-owned residential property in Malibu, California,” Wells Fargo said in a statement.

“We are thoroughly investigating this situation and will take decisive action with respect to any team member who may have violated Wells Fargo’s policies,” it said.

The bank declined any further comment.

U.S. lenders that have received taxpayer money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program have faced increased scrutiny from politicians, shareholders and watchdog groups for what critics say are spending excesses, inflated compensation and irregular business practices.

Wells Fargo, which received a $25 billion bailout from the U.S. government, also did not return phone calls from a real estate agent looking to show the two-story, modern style house to prospective buyers, the Times reported.

The 3,800 square foot house purchased for $12 million is in one of Los Angeles’ most chi-chi neighborhoods, whose residents include movie star Tom Hanks, according to the Times.

The house is owned by Collin Equities, a division of Wells Fargo that liquidates foreclosed properties. Guyton worked in the California state controller’s office under former governor Gray Davis prior to coming to Wells Fargo, the report said.

Wells Fargo in February canceled employee events in Las Vegas after reports that it had booked expensive hotels, but defended the events, saying they were part of its culture.

Insurer American International Group Inc, which got $40 billion of TARP money, scrapped some events after lawmakers railed against its spending $440,000 for a retreat at a California spa and resort.

Citigroup Inc, which took $45 billion of TARP money, decided not to take delivery of a new corporate jet, and faces growing pressure to end a $400 million sponsorship for the New York Mets baseball team’s Citi field park.

Shares of Wells Fargo closed down 1.54 percent at $27.43 on the New York Stock Exchange.

From 11 Alive, Atlanta, Georgia

(ATLANTA) — Four-time World Heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield has reportedly saved his massive metro Atlanta mansion from foreclosure.

Holyfield’s Buffalo, NY-based agent tells 11 Alive’s sister station, WGRZ, that the former champ has worked out an agreement with mortgage holder JP Morgan Chase & Company.

This agreement gives Holyfield until August 4th to pay the back debt on the 54,000 square foot home.  It was set to be auctioned on July 7th.

Holyfield’s agent says his client is working on several projects right now including a comeback fight. Agent Jerry Schaffer says the details on that should be announced in the next 60 days.

The foreclosures and outright abandoned homes in this neighborhood are so bad it was chosen as the backdrop of the next “Nightmare on Elm Street” movie.  It had just the right mix of misery and darkness which makes the perfect setting for a horror flick.

From the Post Tribune of Northwest Indiana

GARY — Dilapidated homes and dead or dying trees provided a stark setting Monday for additional filming in the city of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” — this time in the 400 block of Tyler Street.

It was warm, but there almost seemed to be a chill in the air, thanks to the shooting of a major release that will continue the cinematic franchise which details the twisted actions of Freddy Krueger.

A film crew numbering more than 25 members focused on a stretch of large, abandoned homes that included 441 Tyler St. and the three houses immediately to the north of it.

“I guess they had the look that they wanted,” said Ben Clement, executive director of the Gary Office of Film and Television.

That look, added Clement, was apparently “foreboding and ominous.”

Patricia Jackson took in the making of a Hollywood production from her front porch across the street from the neighborhood eyesores that were being prepped for shooting.

“It’s OK,” the 49-year-old mother said of the experience. “I like horror movies.”

A fan of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” concept, Jackson was joined on the Tyler Street front steps by her 24-year-old son, Xavier.

“It’s a fun experience watching it,” he said. “I’ve never seen a movie actually being filmed — not in person.”

For Xavier, there seemed to be enormous hustle and bustle — and public works arrangements — to accommodate exterior footage in the flick that will probably be fleeting.

“It looks like a lot of chaos,” he summed up.

Set for an April release next year, “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is a New Line Cinema movie, distributed by Warner Bros., a name synonymous with legendary filmmaking.

The Jacksons were hoping to get paid by New Line for use of their front lawn, which was accessed by crew personnel and used for video-monitor and chair placement.

Ethel Veselinovic sauntered over from her Tyler Street home down the block to catch a unique piece of show business that included lighting equipment, clearing of tree branches and the stretching of nearly two-stories’ worth of blue, canvas-like material between two of the abandoned houses.

“I’m excited,” the 33-year-old woman said. “Nothing like this happens around here.”

Clement said Monday that New Line was boarding up the abandoned structures and cleaning the landscape around them, leaving the area on Tyler Street looking “much better.”

Footage for “A Nightmare on Elm Street” was shot in May at the grand, shuttered City Methodist Church, 6th Avenue and Washington Street. A film crew returned to the church on Monday to do some overnight filming.

Congratulations to Cleveland! If each city took action and acted in this manner it would preserve the values of the homes that are adjacent to each bank owned property. The story below specifically deals with Wells Fargo, however, as you can tell from the LenderOffender rankings - many top institutional banks are offenders of neglecting properties throughout the country.

From WCPN 90.3 FM (Ohio) -

A Cleveland judge says if Wells Fargo wants to sell off its bank-owned property in the city, it has to make some effort to fix them up first. The ruling effectively stops the sale of an estimated 180 Wells Fargo-owned houses in the city of Cleveland. As part of our ongoing series, Facing the Mortgage Crisis, ideastream®’s Mhari Saito reports.

The case actually started last winter when a local nonprofit called the Cleveland Housing and Renewal Project took Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank to court. The nonprofit’s attorneys wanted the global lenders to stop the sale of 36 trashed houses for pennies on the dollar to out of state investors. The Wells Fargo case ended up in mediation and somewhere along the way took a wrong turn. The nonprofit, now joined by the city of Cleveland, went back to court, asking city Housing Court Judge Raymond Pianka to stop Wells Fargo from selling all of its estimated 180 bank-owned Cleveland houses. On Wednesday, the judge partially agreed ruling that Wells Fargo must show the court proof that it has made some effort to fix up any house before selling it off. Frank Ford heads the nonprofit that filed the suit.

Frank Ford: This is a victory for any Cleveland homeowner that has to live next to a Wells Fargo house that is dragging down their property value.

The ruling does not apply for Wells Fargo houses for sale over $40,000. In court, Wells Fargo’s attorneys argued the lender was not a landlord or rehabber and that if forced to fix up properties, it would have to “rethink all of it’s business practices.” In a statement, Wells Fargo said it believes the ruling has no legal basis and its attorneys are reviewing legal options, including an appeal.

Several of you have asked for the repost of the CNN Saturday Morning News featuring LenderOffender.com.  Please see below for the entire transcript unedited. To see the entire video, please click here.

—–

OK. So foreclosed properties, becoming neighborhood eye sores. You know, you can imagine, people don’t live there anymore, things go awry. Well one man got so mad about it, they took matters into his own hands.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN, watched by more Americans than other news channel. Now back to CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

NGUYEN: It’s not just the people whose homes are foreclosed on who suffer. Empty homes can become eye sores and property values they will drop. It made one homeowner really mad and he did something about it. CNN’s Ted Rowlands has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The people living next door to Mark McKinzie moved out almost two years ago. Now weeds are actually growing out of the garage.

MARK MCKINZIE, LENDEROFFENDER.COM: I said, well what can I do? Well I can create something that might call attention to the problem and give frustrated residents a voice out here.

ROWLANDS: Last month McKinzie created lenderoffender.com, a website where anywhere in the country can post for free information about neglected foreclosed property. For each entry there’s a photo, a few comments and the name of the lender or bank that owns the home. When a property is cleaned looked up, McKinzie takes it off the site.

He says this house down the street has been vacant for months.

MCKINZIE: Look at the lawn. That is a black dead lawn. So no one in this neighborhood deserves to live next to this property and homeowners in this area neighborhood deserve to know who owns this property.

ROWLANDS: Citibank owns this house. They told CNN it became vacant in late November and is now in escrow. As for the lawn, they said “we did not sod the lawn because it moved in the market very quickly.”

One lender, Wells Fargo actually cleaned up their properties listed on the website. In a statement to CNN, they said in part, they are “very concerned with preserving the condition of homes and neighborhoods and added they’ll keep watching the website.”

Delores Conway, a professor at the University of Southern California specializing in real estate says and lenderoffender.com may push others to act. DELORES CONWAY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: It may help to nudge the lender along a little bit in terms of coming out and putting in the proper maintenance to the property.

ROWLANDS: McKinzie is hoping she’s right, especially when it comes to the house next door.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Mark McKinzie says he invites anyone living near poorly maintained foreclosed homes to take a few photos and add them to his site. Ultimately he hopes the problem will be cleaned up so the site won’t be needed any more.

By Carl Love - Press Enterprise

For almost two years Mark McKinzie sat and looked at the abandoned property next to his house in east Murrieta.

But instead of just fuming about it like most folks, McKinzie did something about it: He started a Web site to publicize wrecked properties, the goal being to shame the property owners, usually some big lender, into doing something about it.

It’s called LenderOffender.com and here’s a sample comment about a Winchester home posted last week: “This thing has been abandoned forever, completely rotted out, right down to the missing peephole in the front door.”

Feel the rage in that post? This is like the ultimate cathartic experience for frustrated homeowners tired of living amid foreclosed squalor: Take a picture of that abandoned house that’s been driving you bonkers, ship it to McKinzie’s site, and let rip the most damning comments imaginable.

Wow, that felt good.

McKinzie has good reason to be frustrated. He moved here in 2002 from Poway and paid $273,000 for a 3,200-square-foot house. He invested $35,000 in the front yard to make it look first class.

At the peak a few years ago he estimates it was worth an ungodly $580,000. Then came the tidal wave of foreclosures, including the wreck next door.

Now that house, same size as his, is on the market for $223,000.

“I never thought it would go below what we paid for it,” he says. “It’s just disgusting. Not only are they (abandoned houses) a disgrace to the neighborhood, but they lower the values of our homes.”

He takes out his angst on his Web site. He started it in mid-January with pictures of about 100 lender-owned houses he had no trouble finding in southwest Riverside County. A program manager for a technology company, he had the expertise to get it up and running in no time.

It’s definitely a labor of love for McKinzie. He has advertisers, but that just covers costs. “It’s more of a hobby,” he says. “It’s not a business.”

Besides a photo of the abandoned property, residents can attach a graphic to it, including icons for a brown lawn, a black lawn, green pools, garbage, and, my personal favorite, holiday lights. Yes, there is nothing more festive than Christmas lights on an abandoned home in July.

Sarcasm is a recurring theme in the descriptions of about 300 homes on the site. Of one Florida property, a writer says: “Broken windows, door wide open and large sprigs of parsley growing in lawn. Oh, but what pretty Xmas lites (sic).”

A property in Winchester gets this ringing endorsement: “Black and flat . . . nice look for the neighborhood.”

Andy Warhol talked about everybody getting 15 minutes of fame and McKinzie is definitely getting his. TV stations in San Diego, LA, and Baltimore have done stories on his site, as well as CNN. Don’t worry local chamber of commerce types, he’s often described as “a California man.” Whew! We wouldn’t want anybody to get the idea that, like, well, you know, we might have a little foreclosure problem.

McKinzie is having an impact. Wells Fargo has promised to clean up any properties posted on the Web site. And he does take properties off the site that the lender tells him have been fixed up, four so far. “That’s exactly what I wanted to accomplish,” he says. “The bank was called out and the bank moved fast.”

So don’t just get mad, frustrated homeowners, make a post on McKinzie’s Web site. Shame is a powerful thing, even to those big banks we all love so much.

The Top 10 has changed and with it brings a few new lenders climbing the ranks (see below). The Top 3 remains untouched with Fannie Mae continuing to hold the No. 1 position as the lender with the most neglected properties. Deutsche Bank is still in control of the No. 2 position while US Bank maintains the No. 3 spot.

LenderOffender rankings are based on the quantity of neglected properties a lender owns nation wide as submitted by LenderOffender registered users. The more neglected properties they own, the higher they climb in the rankings.

The Top 10 banks with the most neglected properties as of 4/20/09 are:

1. Fannie Mae

2. Deutsche Bank

3. US Bank

4. CountryWide

5. National City Bank/Mortgage

6. GMAC

7. Freddie Mac

8. Aurora

9. Bank of New York

10.IndyMac

To see the complete current list please go to the LenderOffender rankings page

Fannie Mae continues to hold the No. 1 position as the lender with the most neglected properties. Deutsche Bank is still in control of the No. 2 position while US Bank maintains the No. 3 spot.  No new surprises with these three.

LenderOffender rankings are based on the quantity of neglected properties a lender owns nation wide as submitted by LenderOffender registered users. The more neglected properties they own, the higher they climb in the rankings.

The Top 10 banks with the most neglected properties as of 3/16/09 are:

1. Fannie Mae

2. Deutsche Bank

3. US Bank

4. CountryWide

5. National City Bank/Mortgage

6. GMAC

7. Freddie Mac

8. Washington Mutual

9. Bank of New York

10. Chase

To see the complete current list please go to the LenderOffender rankings page

Again, Fannie Mae seems to tighten her grip on the No. 1 position as the lender with the most neglected properties. Deutsche Bank takes over the No. 2 position pushing US Bank down the rankings to round out the No. 3 position.

LenderOffender rankings are based on the quantity of neglected properties a lender owns nation wide as submitted by LenderOffender registered users. The more neglected properties they own, the higher they climb in the rankings.

The Top 10 banks with the most neglected properties as of 2/23/09 are:

1. Fannie Mae

2. Deutsche Bank

3. US Bank

4. CountryWide

5. National City Bank/Mortgage

6. Bank of New York

7. GMAC

8. Washington Mutual

9. Freddie Mac

10. Aurora

To see the complete current list please go to the LenderOffender rankings page