A catch and release contractor sting
The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation conducts stings, looking for unlicensed contractors. “Jason, this is a huge problem here in Houston,” one undercover investigator said. “Not only in this city, but all across the state of Texas.”  Investigators invited 11 News to take part in their second such operation in Houston. Agents have taken these stings statewide, but they can’t arrest violators. They can only issue fines that can go as high as $5,000. In April, investigators caught almost 40 men at one location, including Adrian Kenrick. He was notorious at the time for allegedly taking money without finishing work. Now he’s now paying off a $3,000 penalty.

Texas AG Enforces Industry-Wide Law Protecting Owners of Manufactured Homes
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today concluded a lengthy enforcement action against central Texas manufactured home retailers who sold homes without clear titles. Owners of repossessed manufactured homes across central Texas will finally receive clear titles to homes they purchased in good faith from the unlicensed, fraudulent retailers. Today’s agreed judgment with unlicensed retailers Andrew and Edward Huizar of the former A&E Investments in Bexar County concludes the defendants’ legal dispute with the Texas Attorney General’s Office. Another defendant in the scheme, David Barroso of Sweet Homes, who defaulted by failing to contest the judgment, surrendered his retailer’s license in January 2006 and fled to Nevada.

The New Money Pit
Now, what started with the subprime-mortgage mess and subsequent credit crunch are turning communities like Black Mountain Vista into luxury ghost towns. Buyers who got in over their heads are being forced to abandon their homes, leaving behind empty McMansions on the California coast and see-through condominium towers on Miami Beach. Real estate is turning into a money pit, sapping the fortunes of home buyers, hedge-fund managers and house painters alike. The really bad news?  This is only the beginning...First, dozens of subprime lenders were forced to close their doors. Then in July the nation's largest mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial, reported that mortgages held by borrowers with better credit were starting to curdle. Nearly 180,000 homes fell into foreclosure in July, up 93 percent from a year ago.

Political activist launches Web site to impeach Perry
Curtis noted that Texas does not have the right of recall, so petitioning the Legislature to impeach the governor is the only answer when citizens are unhappy. When asked about the new Impeach Perry Web site, Perry spokesman Robert Black responded by saying: "Free speech is a wonderful thing." Curtis said the two main reasons for seeking Perry's impeachment is his continuing push for the Trans-Texas Corridor toll road from Laredo to Oklahoma despite citizen opposition and his veto of $154 million in funds for junior colleges...his mandate that sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against HPV (a mandate overturned by the Legislature); and the creation of the Residential Construction Commission, which she sees as protection for builders who do shoddy construction. http://www.impeachperry.indytexans.org

Immigrants send less cash home as construction slows
Construction has slowed because it has gotten harder for home buyers to get credit in the wake of the meltdown in the subprime mortgage market. Illegal immigrants, in particular, are bearing the brunt of that slowdown, losing their jobs painting, laying tile and building roofs for new homes, economists said. And with less cash in their pockets, some immigrants such as Rodriguez — who is working on his legal status — are cutting back on the amount they send to relatives in Latin America. That, in turn, has contributed to the first year-over-year monthly declines in remittances to Mexico in 12 years, according to Banco de Mexico. The percentage of Mexican migrants sending money home fell to 64 percent in the first half of 2007, down from 71 percent last year, according to a study released Aug. 8 by the Inter-American Development Bank's Multilateral Investment Fund.

Countrywide taps $11.5 billion credit line
Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group Inc. analyst Paul Miller said today that if liquidity remains scarce for more than three months, Countrywide could be forced to seek bankruptcy protection from creditors. If it can't get money to continue funding loans, Countrywide might be forced to sell its assets at a deep discount, putting "tremendous pressure on its book value and stock price," Miller wrote in a report on the lender. Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Kenneth Bruce drew similar conclusions in a report issued yesterday. Countrywide has acknowledged such concerns itself in previous reports to investors.

WARRANTY WEEK - The Newsletter for Warranty Management Professionals
Last week, in an article titled "Bonfire of the Homebuilders," Business Week magazine announced the end of the housing boom and the beginning of the cleanup. While sales are declining, warranty accruals are declining even faster. Is it because of warranty cost cutting? Could it be better quality construction? Or are they simply putting less aside and hoping that nobody notices? Also, a letter to the editor about compliance with state laws on service contracts...Builders have reacted predictably to the once-skyrocketing price of homes by building too many. Lenders, it seems, have helped buyers to exaggerate their incomes so they could qualify for mortgages they cannot afford. Now some of those new homes are empty, either because nobody bought them or the buyers foreclosed. So what does this have to do with warranty? Read more...

Cement company owner gets prison in perjury case
The president of a Riverview cement company was sentenced to one year and one day in federal court in Detroit today after a jury in April convicted him of obstructing justice and lying to a grand jury about paying bribes to city of Detroit officials. Alan Pighin, 58, of Temperance, who heads Century Cement Co., was also fined $5,000 and ordered to spend two years on supervised release once he gets out of prison. Jurors found Pighin lied under oath when he denied paying two city construction inspectors $1,000 each and he intentionally failed to tell the grand jury he installed a free concrete driveway worth $1,500 at the home of Detroit inspector Dwight Harris. The obstruction of justice charge related to Pighin suggesting that Harris

Defects dull dream home's luster
Lack of public records makes it tough to determine a builder's track record of quality, customer service.Take a walk through any new housing subdivision and start knocking on doors. Construction defects aren't hard to find. One man has a crack in his foundation that the builder refuses to fix -- because the crack isn't big enough yet. Down the street, a father of seven is packing up and moving out because he says mold is taking over the family's two-year-old house... Going to court is the final option for homeowners who are unhappy with the builder's solution -- but some homeowners quickly find that the arbitration clauses in their housing contracts bar them from lawsuits.  Arbitration decisions are never made public, although one state hopes that will change. In 2005, the Texas Residential Construction Commission's arbitration subcommittee recommended that the state make arbitration settlements public record, just like civil lawsuits.