HUD And REO Property Preservation

FremontREO

Yes and no. We do the rekeys for the realtors and then we get to bid all the damages since Fannie doesn't want AMS handling them due to the quality of work. I don't think Fannie work is going to be that big anylonger anyway after the Deed for Lease program is fully kicked in. Ask the realtors you work with who they are working the Tenant Access program for and they should be able to find out who is the authorized "repair contractor" for your State.

FremontREO

Exactly right. This place I got failed on was a cabin that was empty for 3 years with approx 2 BILLION dead lady bugs everywhere and we spent 3 hours cleaning 4 rooms with 3 guys and you just can't get it any cleaner. I told 'em "you can't polish a turd" and well they didn't see the humor in that This house they wanted it to be cleaner but I said there is no way! Live with it. I spoke with the realtor and she about died laughing at my email from this company and couldn't believe that they wanted the landscaping redone? OR that is wasnt' cleaned good enough even though they passed the cleaning albeit barely.

mtmtnman

DaddyYankee, I am in Montana It's a good possibility they will get some work form the banks as a few of the brokers i work with get stuff from local banks and now that they aren't doing government work they may have time to persue some work. The brokers are just out of the Fannie Mae stuff as AMS has the ball now. I took a 25% paycut when this happened and have to do twice the work for AMS. Fremont, Are they requiring date & timestamps for you too?? Never in my life did i ever figure i would have to put a timestamp on a photo.

FremontREO

yes timestamps so they can try to figure out how much time a crew spends on a jobsite is what I was told. I would have to say so they can come back at a later time and say that "this crew is only averaging 2 hours on a job and they need their contract reviewed for the amount of pay" even though the desk jockeys don't understand that you have $5,000 in tools, a $6000 dump trailer, a $30,000 truck, insurances and licenses and their desk cost $500 at most!
I'll give any company a "fair shake". At this moment I don't like what I'm seeing or my gut feeling.

mtmtnman

Good luck tracking my timestamps. I had my daughter taking photos while the wife and i did the work so she was bouncing from room to room taking photos. I couldn't find a decent pocket size camera that does a timestamp so i use my re-size program to pull data from the file and add a timestamp.

FremontREO

LOL I used to do that myself. I didn't realize that if you run your cursor over the photo then they can see the real time and date of the photo. I have a friend (actually he and I started together 13 years ago) who never ever dated his photos and he had a program that put batch dates on the picture and he got a ton of chargebacks since the service company found out that a lot of his pics were a different date than what was on the picture... Maybe you have a different program that hides the date or the camera hides the "tag" on the picture?

mtmtnman

I am not cheating with time and date, just using a program to pull the info off of the file and stamp the photo accordingly.

FremontREO

Didn't imply that
Can I ask what photo dater you use? I use Batch Photo and like it but there are some quirks that you have to perform to make things appear right.

BPWY

I applied to AMS to be on their list for when they get to my area.

Now I hope that I have so much work that I don't have time to work for them. Or maybe I'll just tell them
that I don't have time. I won't be able to put up with their nonsense.

MountainMan DO NOT under any circumstances tell them you have a minor child on the job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BPWY

SnapTouch will do it, and I understand that Faststone will too.

mtmtnman

Fastone is what i use......

DaddyYankee

Ok guys here is where I am coming from with this time stamp thing. First my brother who lives with me (so I have access to him 24/7) is a computer genius. He is so good he hasnt had a girlfriend in about 10 years lol. He can get my pics to do or say anything. I semi consider that dishonest. But it doesnt matter. And shouldnt matter. I live in an area with a high minority population. I can get labor for 8 to 10 dollars and hour.

So if I pull up to a property with 10, say Hispanics, and do a job site in just under 2 hours that doesnt mean I should be paid less because my time stamps read 8am to 955am. So im there for only two hours. They see that as hardly anytime put in. But there is over 20 man hours done on that job site. Something that would take me TWO and a HALF DAYs on my own. And yes then expenses.

And I am happy to share that with them if they ever bring up time stamps. They Should just be glad we are efficent.


James

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If it doesn't make $'s it doesn't make sense

FremontREO

OH OUCH.....just remember that the pay rate won't allow you to have that many men on a job site.

DaddyYankee

I would just really like it if they stopped looking so hard to work contractors out of there paychecks. Stuff like the weeds arent cut down in the winter.... Really, thats just dumb. And as far as getting the houses ready to go on the market, yes a huge part of that is are job. But is you tell a prospective buyer that the house was abandoned or foreclosed on they are not gonna expect a show house. If they are smart enough to look for a good deal in a foreclosure then they are smart enough to know the building might have weeds under that foot of snow....

Just a thought
James

__________________
If it doesn't make $'s it doesn't make sense

mtmtnman

I agree 100% What if don't get is how they could cut the cleaning workoder as the grass cut/yard maintenance order is a different number. Also how in the hell do you push a mower through 6" of snow?? I think i'll take the weed burner and the lp bottle over to my job and burn the tops off this morning. At least i'll stay warm LOL!!!!

BPWY

Fremont so you are saying that AMS $0 invoiced your entire job because you didn't do lawn maintenance in the snow????

If this is the case then I won't be working for them when they do decide to pickup this area.

I had my fill of such actions with just over 2 months of working for Field Assets. I am certain that while they are $0 invoicing your work they are still collecting full rate from Fannie or who ever their customer. I'm not working for an outfit like that.

leadarrows

I'm in the same boat. I am already struggling to make it. Last thing I need is to lay out some cash to do a job and get stiffed. I had my paper work ready to send in on Monday. Now I am not sure what to do.

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I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.

BPWY

I hear ya man.

I've already sent mine in, but they haven't picked up this area yet.

FremontREO

All I can say is here is what I was told: "the lawnmaintence/landscaping is a part of the initial services work order and all has to be completed to our specs for the initial services order to be payable". Now with the holiday there wasn't anyone to call and the last person I spoke with was upset about the cleaning not "being up to par" (pic attached) and nobody said anything about the yard since I figured "someone" could see the reasoning in the pics why this wasn't mowed or even weedwacked but apparently not. AMS is new to this area and new to us and I think that everyone may be a little "over gungho" over everything trying to impress their bosses and the inspector is new and never been in this business, which again is not a good position for the contractor to deal with, and they are all doing the normal CYA.
the pic: those brown things all over? Billions of dead ladybugs and they were everywhere in this home. vacuumed home multiple times and they seemed to pop up from nowhere!

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BPWY

Thanks for the reply. That is just asinine and foolish to not pay because of a grass cut in the snow.

I'll be keeping an eye on how things go and depending on the outcome I just might decline them when they
come to this area. Thanks for the update.