Hubzu is conducting totally phoney auctions. After following the auction for days, entering into a bidding war, waiting out the 15 minute extension period, being notified the auction was over and I was the high bidder, and it was under review. I am then informed that they have invited everyone who ever bid on this property to put in a highest bid...really??? A blind bid at that!!!! Part of what makes an auction an auction, is seeing the other bids. I can only say they are the biggest scam artists in the business.
Hubzu.com is an on-line real estate auction. It is run by Altisource which places properties on the Hubzu.com auction site. Owcen Financial Services owns, controls, or services proerties and is either in partnership or contractual relationship with Altisource. DeutscheBank was the seller of the property which was marketed on Hubzu.com.
Hubzu.com has auction property listings across the country. We purchased a property that was listed on this web site. The property turned out to have numerous defects which were so severe that we had to find a rehab builder to buy the property from us and, as a result, wound up losing over $100,000. We were not able to obtain an interested buyer through conventional realtor marketing.
This post serves as a warning for anyone considering buying a property through the Hubzu.com auction web site. it could pertain to other auction sites as well, but our experience was with Hubzu.
Hubzu listings contain a short discription and photos of the interior and exterior of the properties. Photos are always complimentary in nature. I have toured 3 Hubzu properties throughly and others from the exterior only. Every property that I have seen has has significant defects. it is apparent that photographers have orders not to include any defects in thier photos.
Additionally, Hubzu makes blanket statements stat their sellers have no kowledge of any defects. This is quite difficult to believe since there would likley be appraiser, preservation companies, real estate agents, or others who visit these properties and prepare reports.
Since I have only seen a handfull of Hubzu properties, it is possible that some do not have significant levels of defects, but those that I have seen have 100% occurance. One I looked at within the last few days had so many that it is difficult to see how the photographer could have excluded all of them. There was even standing water on the floor inside the house! The photos on the Hubzu listing all looked fine.
Additionally, after taking ownership of our property, we found out that there was a county requirement to abandon the septic tank and pay to have the house hookded up to central sewer. For this house, this would be an extensive process with cutting the foundation of the house and repiping. There was a similar request made in writing to the previous owners prior to foreclosure and this did turn out to be recorded. This request was also made to Deutchebank who did pay part of the preliminary fee. Obviously the seller therefore did have knowledge of this condition despite Hubzu's blanket statement that sellers have no knowledge of property conditions.
Had this sewer requirement been disclosed, we would not have bid on this property. Additionally, this recorded notice was not detected in the title search performed by the Premeir Title which is Hubzu's in-house or closely related title company. This would have given us an adiditional opportunity to reject the property.
Hubzu listings have a link to request a real estate agent. We requested and no one contacted us.
Auction durations make it diffficult to line up inspections prior to the time running out. Some of the defects were visible, but many would have needed an advanced inspection to be detected.
We contacted Deutche Bank about the problems and they said they were not the seller even though they were listed as the seller on the contract. They claimed that Ocwen was the acutal seller but had power of attorney to insert their name on the contract. They provided the name and a phone number of a contact at Ocwen who never answered or returned any calls. A representative at Hubzu was courteous and said that the issue would be presented to Hubzu's president and that he is pretty reasonable guy. No return call. We did receive a call from an Altisource representative who heard us out and subsequently sent us a letter that they were not going to help and were not responsibile.
It appears from our angle that the Hubzu site has an objective, or atleast a convenience, to promote properties with serious defects to a wide audience under auctions conditions which do not provide time to throughly have defective properties inspected and evaluated and it make claims that the owner has no knowedge of any defects. Quite hard to believe.
For the record, Ocwen has a history of offenses which has resulted in a $2.1 billion settlement with the US Atty General in teamwork with 48 State AG's related to offenses for foreclosures and loan servicing. Please feel free to google for yourself.
This whole affair was so senseless since it was easily avoidable. it is simple. Legislation should be passed to require any property which is placed on an on-line auction to first have a detailed inspection by a qualified and licensed home inspector, general contractor, or structural engineer. Their reports should be included as a link in the auction listing so that potential buyers can be informed about defects. This certainly would have prevented us from being so badly harmed. As it exists right now, they can maket defective properties without any responsibility for disclosure.
Aside from posting on the Ripoff Report, I will be taking my case to the US and Florida State Attorney Generals offices, as well as my state and federal legislators, consumer protection agencies as well as national print television, and web media outlets. This problem needs to be revealed so that the unsuspecting public can be protected from experiencing the same financial disaster that we have been through. We have discussed this with our private attorney as well.
I sincerely hope that our story will help others avoid the same devastation. I would encourage parties interested in auction properties from Hubzu go visit some of these properties for yourself to see if the defects are common. You can search properties in your own town on Hubzu's website. Please do this before ever bidding on a property and perhaps you could feed back to them, or your legislators, about the need for inspection reports as part of auction listings.
Contact info for the entities are:
Deutsche Bank: Jerome Jackson 1-714-247-6206, [email protected] (he does answer is phone and return calls.)
Ocwen: Victoria Vazquez 1-561-682-7010, [email protected] (never returns calls or answers her phone)
Altisource: James Harp, Escalation Department (altisource main number 888-876-8400)
I am a house flipper in central florida. I have been looking at hubzu properties in my area. I bought one in june of 2014. Prior to closing, telephone communication with hubzu personnel gave me the impression that their service office was in india. Everyone had an indian accent.
The first thing that happened was hubzu tried to ignore the closing date that was in the contract and force me to close earlier. I am a cash buyer. I refused and we proceeded for a close on the contract date. Having bought over 50 properties in the past, closing was always done by a closing agent that was present at closing. Papers were explained before i signed and i was always given a copy of a hud-1, copies of all papers that i have signed and a copy of a signed and notarized deed transferring the property to me. This is usually done before i delivered the funds at the closing table.
Hubzu did not send a closing agent when i closed on the property in june of 2014. They e-mailed a few forms including the hud-1 to my realtor and those forms did not include a copy of the signed and notarized deed. Closing boiled down to my signing the forms and e-mailing or faxing them back along with a wire transfer of the funds required. I refused to close until provided a copy of the signed and notarized deed. They provided it and we closed. To this day, june 11, 2015, i have not been provided a recorded copy of the deed. I sold the subject property after rehabbing it in april 2015 without a problem so the deed was recorded. Buyers are supposed to be sent the original, recorded deed once it has been recorded. Hubzu obviously ignored the requirement as well as the need for a closing agent being present at closing.
Fast forward, i am now looking for another property to flip. A hubzu property came up last week that i was interested in. I watched the property when the bidding period started. Someone place a bid a $1,000 over the opening bid several days before the end of the bidding period. There was no bidding on the property until the day before the last day of the bidding period. Hubzu auctions always involve a "reserve" amount. The reserve amount must be met in order for the house to be sold to the highest bidder. A minimum bid is $1,000, so unlike other auctions you can't bid in increments below $1,000. On the last day of the bidding period serious bidding began a couple of hours before the close of bidding. The hubzu rule is that if a bid is made within the last 15 minutes of bidding, the bid time will be extended to an additional 15 minute overtime period. Once that overtime period ends, bidding ends.
Bidding was at $125,000 at the beginning of the last 15 minutes. I started at this time to bid. I placed a bid at $127,000 and was immediately out bid by the previous high bidders "auto" bid. You can enter a single bid or an auto bid. If you enter an auto bid you set a limit on how high your auto bid can go. If your bid is beat, your auto bid kicks in and increases your bid $1,000 above the bid that beat you. This auto bidding continues until it reaches the auto bid maximum bid you allow. When my $127,000 bid was beat by an auto bid, i placed another bid at $130,000. That bid was beat by the same person's auto bid. I bid $132,000 and that bid was beat by the auto bidder. I then went all out and placed my planned highest bid at $135,000. Hubzu immediately notified me that i had equaled the other high bidder's $135,000 auto bid but since he was an auto bidder his bid would prevail in a tie. Because our bids were made in the last 15 minutes, the last 15 minute overtime period began. I did some quick math and decided i could go as high as $136,000. I placed that bid and my competition dropped out with 10 minutes to spare in the overtime period. We were both notified when the bid hit $135,000 that the "reserve had been met."
I watched as the last ten minutes of the overtime period ticked to a close and no on placed another bid. My $136,00 bid generated an automatic e-mail telling me that i was the highest bidder. What would your conclusion be, you are the highest bidder, your bid has surpassed the reserve requirement and the bidding period has closed. You would conclude as i did that you had just bought the property. I was happy and called my realtor to share the good news. While talking to her, 20 minutes after the close of bidding, we both received an e-mail from hubzu telling me that someone had placed a bid higher than mine! the e-mail provided two links. One indicated that i could see the bidding history. I clicked on the link and it did not take me to a bidding history. The second link indicated i could click on it and place a "backup bid." how can i place a backup bid when i don't know the amount of the winning bid?
I was to say in the least, angry. Scenarios that my realtor and i discussed: my realtor suggested that the bank that owned the reo property may have decided giving the level of the bidding that they could get more for the property and had decided to lie to me that i had been outbid to get rid of me. My response to that was hubzu was a national auction site, what are the chances that a bank would be contact at 10pm at night to discuss my winning bid that met their preset reserve amount? My theory, which i am convinced is true is that hubzu decided to ignore my winning bid that met the banks reserve because they sensed that they could get more for the property and thus a higher commission so they lied to me about being outbid to get rid of me. When you buy a hubzu property you pay a 4.5% bidder's premium and a $299 tech fee. My guess was right, i few days later hubzu put the same property back on the market with a higher opening bid amount. When they put a property up for auction, aside from putting it on their site with a low opening bid amount that is low enough to attract buyers, they also list the property on the mls. The mls listing is always many thousands of dollars above the auction opening bid amount and at or very near to market value.
I’m now tracking that property again as well as several others, one in particular. If you go onto the hubzu site and click on a specific property you will see if anyone has bid and the amount of the bid. They identify bidders by the first and last letter of their bidder name. I have noticed that opening bids are frequently placed by a bidder identified as "w...O" my guess is that "w...O" is someone at hubzu trying to "prime" the well. Usually "w...O" drops out after the bidding gets started. The property that i am now interested in has a "w...O" opening bid that is $1,000 over the opening bid. That bid did not change until yesterday and today. The last auction day is tomorrow. A serious bidder has been bidding against "w...O". "w...O" has been beating every bid placed by the serious bidder using an "auto bid" to drive the price higher at $1,000 increments. Bidding has gone from $83,000 to $93,000 very fast. My suspicion is that hubzu is trying to drive the price very close to the reserve so that when serious bidding gets underway an hour before the close of bidding, the reserve will be met or exceeded luring inexperienced bidders into buying the property for more that its condition merits. The higher price means a higher 4.5% commission for hubzu.
When hubzu posts a property for auction, they do no give you enough time to arrange inspections. Further complicating that is hubzu properties do not have utilities turned on so plumbing, electrical, septic, etc. Cannot be tested. Hubzu also does not disclose any defects in the property and makes it clear that it is a buyer beware transaction. If you back out before closing because you found serious problem or can't arrange financing on time if you are not a cash buyer you will pay a high cancellation fee. Fortunately for me, i am a cash buyer and i have enough knowledge of construction, roofing, plumbing and electrical to evaluate a property. I thoroughly inspect a property myself and with a member of my flip crew before making a bid. Homebuyers or inexperienced flippers not having this knowledge are at high risk of being burned by undisclosed, very expensive problems. If hubzu argues they have no knowledge of defects they are lying. The bank has had the property inspected and appraised before offering it for sale.
Hubzu.com Reviews
Hubzu is conducting totally phoney auctions. After following the auction for days, entering into a bidding war, waiting out the 15 minute extension period, being notified the auction was over and I was the high bidder, and it was under review. I am then informed that they have invited everyone who ever bid on this property to put in a highest bid...really??? A blind bid at that!!!! Part of what makes an auction an auction, is seeing the other bids. I can only say they are the biggest scam artists in the business.
First an explanation of multiple parties.
Hubzu.com is an on-line real estate auction. It is run by Altisource which places properties on the Hubzu.com auction site. Owcen Financial Services owns, controls, or services proerties and is either in partnership or contractual relationship with Altisource. DeutscheBank was the seller of the property which was marketed on Hubzu.com.
Hubzu.com has auction property listings across the country. We purchased a property that was listed on this web site. The property turned out to have numerous defects which were so severe that we had to find a rehab builder to buy the property from us and, as a result, wound up losing over $100,000. We were not able to obtain an interested buyer through conventional realtor marketing.
This post serves as a warning for anyone considering buying a property through the Hubzu.com auction web site. it could pertain to other auction sites as well, but our experience was with Hubzu.
Hubzu listings contain a short discription and photos of the interior and exterior of the properties. Photos are always complimentary in nature. I have toured 3 Hubzu properties throughly and others from the exterior only. Every property that I have seen has has significant defects. it is apparent that photographers have orders not to include any defects in thier photos.
Additionally, Hubzu makes blanket statements stat their sellers have no kowledge of any defects. This is quite difficult to believe since there would likley be appraiser, preservation companies, real estate agents, or others who visit these properties and prepare reports.
Since I have only seen a handfull of Hubzu properties, it is possible that some do not have significant levels of defects, but those that I have seen have 100% occurance. One I looked at within the last few days had so many that it is difficult to see how the photographer could have excluded all of them. There was even standing water on the floor inside the house! The photos on the Hubzu listing all looked fine.
Additionally, after taking ownership of our property, we found out that there was a county requirement to abandon the septic tank and pay to have the house hookded up to central sewer. For this house, this would be an extensive process with cutting the foundation of the house and repiping. There was a similar request made in writing to the previous owners prior to foreclosure and this did turn out to be recorded. This request was also made to Deutchebank who did pay part of the preliminary fee. Obviously the seller therefore did have knowledge of this condition despite Hubzu's blanket statement that sellers have no knowledge of property conditions.
Had this sewer requirement been disclosed, we would not have bid on this property. Additionally, this recorded notice was not detected in the title search performed by the Premeir Title which is Hubzu's in-house or closely related title company. This would have given us an adiditional opportunity to reject the property.
Hubzu listings have a link to request a real estate agent. We requested and no one contacted us.
Auction durations make it diffficult to line up inspections prior to the time running out. Some of the defects were visible, but many would have needed an advanced inspection to be detected.
We contacted Deutche Bank about the problems and they said they were not the seller even though they were listed as the seller on the contract. They claimed that Ocwen was the acutal seller but had power of attorney to insert their name on the contract. They provided the name and a phone number of a contact at Ocwen who never answered or returned any calls. A representative at Hubzu was courteous and said that the issue would be presented to Hubzu's president and that he is pretty reasonable guy. No return call. We did receive a call from an Altisource representative who heard us out and subsequently sent us a letter that they were not going to help and were not responsibile.
It appears from our angle that the Hubzu site has an objective, or atleast a convenience, to promote properties with serious defects to a wide audience under auctions conditions which do not provide time to throughly have defective properties inspected and evaluated and it make claims that the owner has no knowedge of any defects. Quite hard to believe.
For the record, Ocwen has a history of offenses which has resulted in a $2.1 billion settlement with the US Atty General in teamwork with 48 State AG's related to offenses for foreclosures and loan servicing. Please feel free to google for yourself.
This whole affair was so senseless since it was easily avoidable. it is simple. Legislation should be passed to require any property which is placed on an on-line auction to first have a detailed inspection by a qualified and licensed home inspector, general contractor, or structural engineer. Their reports should be included as a link in the auction listing so that potential buyers can be informed about defects. This certainly would have prevented us from being so badly harmed. As it exists right now, they can maket defective properties without any responsibility for disclosure.
Aside from posting on the Ripoff Report, I will be taking my case to the US and Florida State Attorney Generals offices, as well as my state and federal legislators, consumer protection agencies as well as national print television, and web media outlets. This problem needs to be revealed so that the unsuspecting public can be protected from experiencing the same financial disaster that we have been through. We have discussed this with our private attorney as well.
I sincerely hope that our story will help others avoid the same devastation. I would encourage parties interested in auction properties from Hubzu go visit some of these properties for yourself to see if the defects are common. You can search properties in your own town on Hubzu's website. Please do this before ever bidding on a property and perhaps you could feed back to them, or your legislators, about the need for inspection reports as part of auction listings.
Contact info for the entities are:
Deutsche Bank: Jerome Jackson 1-714-247-6206, [email protected] (he does answer is phone and return calls.)
Ocwen: Victoria Vazquez 1-561-682-7010, [email protected] (never returns calls or answers her phone)
Altisource: James Harp, Escalation Department (altisource main number 888-876-8400)
Hubzu.com: Brian Thomas 1-770-956-5890, [email protected]
I am a house flipper in central florida. I have been looking at hubzu properties in my area. I bought one in june of 2014. Prior to closing, telephone communication with hubzu personnel gave me the impression that their service office was in india. Everyone had an indian accent.
The first thing that happened was hubzu tried to ignore the closing date that was in the contract and force me to close earlier. I am a cash buyer. I refused and we proceeded for a close on the contract date. Having bought over 50 properties in the past, closing was always done by a closing agent that was present at closing. Papers were explained before i signed and i was always given a copy of a hud-1, copies of all papers that i have signed and a copy of a signed and notarized deed transferring the property to me. This is usually done before i delivered the funds at the closing table.
Hubzu did not send a closing agent when i closed on the property in june of 2014. They e-mailed a few forms including the hud-1 to my realtor and those forms did not include a copy of the signed and notarized deed. Closing boiled down to my signing the forms and e-mailing or faxing them back along with a wire transfer of the funds required. I refused to close until provided a copy of the signed and notarized deed. They provided it and we closed. To this day, june 11, 2015, i have not been provided a recorded copy of the deed. I sold the subject property after rehabbing it in april 2015 without a problem so the deed was recorded. Buyers are supposed to be sent the original, recorded deed once it has been recorded. Hubzu obviously ignored the requirement as well as the need for a closing agent being present at closing.
Fast forward, i am now looking for another property to flip. A hubzu property came up last week that i was interested in. I watched the property when the bidding period started. Someone place a bid a $1,000 over the opening bid several days before the end of the bidding period. There was no bidding on the property until the day before the last day of the bidding period. Hubzu auctions always involve a "reserve" amount. The reserve amount must be met in order for the house to be sold to the highest bidder. A minimum bid is $1,000, so unlike other auctions you can't bid in increments below $1,000. On the last day of the bidding period serious bidding began a couple of hours before the close of bidding. The hubzu rule is that if a bid is made within the last 15 minutes of bidding, the bid time will be extended to an additional 15 minute overtime period. Once that overtime period ends, bidding ends.
Bidding was at $125,000 at the beginning of the last 15 minutes. I started at this time to bid. I placed a bid at $127,000 and was immediately out bid by the previous high bidders "auto" bid. You can enter a single bid or an auto bid. If you enter an auto bid you set a limit on how high your auto bid can go. If your bid is beat, your auto bid kicks in and increases your bid $1,000 above the bid that beat you. This auto bidding continues until it reaches the auto bid maximum bid you allow. When my $127,000 bid was beat by an auto bid, i placed another bid at $130,000. That bid was beat by the same person's auto bid. I bid $132,000 and that bid was beat by the auto bidder. I then went all out and placed my planned highest bid at $135,000. Hubzu immediately notified me that i had equaled the other high bidder's $135,000 auto bid but since he was an auto bidder his bid would prevail in a tie. Because our bids were made in the last 15 minutes, the last 15 minute overtime period began. I did some quick math and decided i could go as high as $136,000. I placed that bid and my competition dropped out with 10 minutes to spare in the overtime period. We were both notified when the bid hit $135,000 that the "reserve had been met."
I watched as the last ten minutes of the overtime period ticked to a close and no on placed another bid. My $136,00 bid generated an automatic e-mail telling me that i was the highest bidder. What would your conclusion be, you are the highest bidder, your bid has surpassed the reserve requirement and the bidding period has closed. You would conclude as i did that you had just bought the property. I was happy and called my realtor to share the good news. While talking to her, 20 minutes after the close of bidding, we both received an e-mail from hubzu telling me that someone had placed a bid higher than mine! the e-mail provided two links. One indicated that i could see the bidding history. I clicked on the link and it did not take me to a bidding history. The second link indicated i could click on it and place a "backup bid." how can i place a backup bid when i don't know the amount of the winning bid?
I was to say in the least, angry. Scenarios that my realtor and i discussed: my realtor suggested that the bank that owned the reo property may have decided giving the level of the bidding that they could get more for the property and had decided to lie to me that i had been outbid to get rid of me. My response to that was hubzu was a national auction site, what are the chances that a bank would be contact at 10pm at night to discuss my winning bid that met their preset reserve amount? My theory, which i am convinced is true is that hubzu decided to ignore my winning bid that met the banks reserve because they sensed that they could get more for the property and thus a higher commission so they lied to me about being outbid to get rid of me. When you buy a hubzu property you pay a 4.5% bidder's premium and a $299 tech fee. My guess was right, i few days later hubzu put the same property back on the market with a higher opening bid amount. When they put a property up for auction, aside from putting it on their site with a low opening bid amount that is low enough to attract buyers, they also list the property on the mls. The mls listing is always many thousands of dollars above the auction opening bid amount and at or very near to market value.
I’m now tracking that property again as well as several others, one in particular. If you go onto the hubzu site and click on a specific property you will see if anyone has bid and the amount of the bid. They identify bidders by the first and last letter of their bidder name. I have noticed that opening bids are frequently placed by a bidder identified as "w...O" my guess is that "w...O" is someone at hubzu trying to "prime" the well. Usually "w...O" drops out after the bidding gets started. The property that i am now interested in has a "w...O" opening bid that is $1,000 over the opening bid. That bid did not change until yesterday and today. The last auction day is tomorrow. A serious bidder has been bidding against "w...O". "w...O" has been beating every bid placed by the serious bidder using an "auto bid" to drive the price higher at $1,000 increments. Bidding has gone from $83,000 to $93,000 very fast. My suspicion is that hubzu is trying to drive the price very close to the reserve so that when serious bidding gets underway an hour before the close of bidding, the reserve will be met or exceeded luring inexperienced bidders into buying the property for more that its condition merits. The higher price means a higher 4.5% commission for hubzu.
When hubzu posts a property for auction, they do no give you enough time to arrange inspections. Further complicating that is hubzu properties do not have utilities turned on so plumbing, electrical, septic, etc. Cannot be tested. Hubzu also does not disclose any defects in the property and makes it clear that it is a buyer beware transaction. If you back out before closing because you found serious problem or can't arrange financing on time if you are not a cash buyer you will pay a high cancellation fee. Fortunately for me, i am a cash buyer and i have enough knowledge of construction, roofing, plumbing and electrical to evaluate a property. I thoroughly inspect a property myself and with a member of my flip crew before making a bid. Homebuyers or inexperienced flippers not having this knowledge are at high risk of being burned by undisclosed, very expensive problems. If hubzu argues they have no knowledge of defects they are lying. The bank has had the property inspected and appraised before offering it for sale.