RealEstate Blog

This is a guest post written by Clarion Mortgage CEO, David Marr. Originally distributed as an internal email to LO’s, it has been reformatted to read as a general market commentary without addressing specific bank or loan scenarios.

Yesterday not the first of many complaints came to me regarding an important issue that will only increase going forward.  This is an industry issue and will soon become the norm.  An LO submitted a loan to a bank, got a full approval with the condition of a 4506-T.  The borrower was FULL DOC W-2, $180,000 per year no brainer.  The bank ordered the the tax transcripts via the 4506T on 12/26 and, once received, the LO got a new condition on 1/6 requiring 2 years tax returns, thus killing the lock.

This example illustrates that the industry is moving toward 100% 4506T usage on all files.  Incidents of fraud are surprisingly UP! as borrowers are pursuing false documentation to solve their loan needs now that Stated Income programs are gone.  In the next 3 months, we believe submitting pulled taxed returns will be a requirement from all investors as borrower/originator credibility continues to be questioned.  But that’s irrelevant now.  In order to save time and save your locks, it makes sense to provide pulled tax returns and present them in the file.

The Process is Evolving

The problem is LO’s won’t be able to sign up with the various companies that pull the tax returns as if it’s a credit report.  So Clarion will have to do it.  Different banks require different vendors for this process.  We’re going to investigate the whole process, staff up, and take it off your plate as quickly as we can in order to save some of your deals.  Expect an email on this soon.

Regarding locks, every day I get emails requesting help with some investor, asking for a free extension because of long underwriting times, pleading for a funding exception due to the lock expiring before the 5 days Clarion must have in order to comply with our warehouse line. BE PRUDENT and lock a long time.  More than you think is necessary. Underwriting and condition times are only going to get longer.  Conditions aren’t going to get any less frustrating.  And Clarion is less and less likely to grant an exception as the margin for error becomes less and less.  The industry is SIGNIFICANTLY less forgiving than in past years.  And Clarion has to respond accordingly.  Unfortunately, that’s the way it is.

Moving Forward

As we’ve been saying for quite a long time now, the industry has changed.  The LO must be more of a professional than just a salesperson.  A professional knows more than just loan programs.  Yes, the mortgage professional must navigate the underwriting process and get the loan to funding, but more so now the professional must understand the forces in the business that require a new level of agility.

Longer locks, tighter compliance, understanding the constraints of everyone’s business processes are examples of how the industry’s changes affect the LO.  Successful LO’s look to these challenges as opportunities to grow as a person and become more valuable to the marketplace and not see them as hassles in the way of the good life.  Coming to a mortgage company near you are changes to ordering appraisals, the new GFE, potential national registration, and more costs to explain to your customer.  I don’t think it’s ever easy to grow, but those that tough it out and do grow; it’s the road less traveled.  And that will make all the difference.

Wow! Yesterday was quite the blowout for Ben Behrouzi and DotNext Inc. First, TechCrunch stated the obvious and sad truth about LeapFish, then Ben and his employees were then caught red handed calling themselves “geniuses” in the comments section of the same article by IP address tracking and finally, Ben Behrouzi was reduced to name calling in front of the world on TechCrunch and on two articles on this blog.

Where does one go from such a melodic sequence of events that is music to the ears of anyone that has ever had the unfortunate experience of crossing paths with Ben Behrouzi? The truth is that there is nowhere to go. A little unknown blog with little to no traffic like BrokerScience can never accomplish what TechCrunch accomplished yesterday. More importantly, we’ve done more than our fair share of the heavy lifting in exposing Ben Behrouzi, ePerks, Leapfish and DotNextInc’s business practices. This means we are no longer going to be writing about Ben Behrouzi or any of his “companies”.

There is one main factor driving this decision: time. There are not enough hours in the day to work on my own projects and there are enough hours in the day to cover the Ben Behrouzi and his exploits. We simply have to pick and choose where our energy is going. You may have noticed we weren’t blogging much anyways over the past months except for Benham Behrouzi news when it occurred and that was again, due to time constraints. That is also the reason that there has been a disproportionate amount of Behrouzi coverage.

It pains us to make this decision because we have an extremely in depth analysis of LeapFish almost completed and we were approached by a legal team that has volunteered to do a case analysis of Brabus Ventures vs Vlad Zablotzkyy, but we’re done. Additionally, there are many more stories that could be written even though we have printed virtually none of the first hand accounts and experiences of current and former employees, customers and acquaintances that have crossed paths with Ben that come in the form of voicemails, emails, and first hand experiences.

There are some great takeaways and lessons to be had in reference to the brand destruction (personal and otherwise) that Ben has achieved through his legal tactics and business practices. I believe that ePerks vs Zablotzkyy and any future litigation that Ben may engage in have great potential to become case studies for collegiate level courses or otherwise teaching online reputation management and brand management. There is a lot to be learned from his mistakes, actions and business practices.

While we will no longer be writing about Ben or his companies, we will certainly defend ourselves if attacked online or elsewhere. It also goes without saying that if Ben were to bring ANY legal action whatsoever, we will make publicizing, writing about and exposing the case and renewing our exposure of Ben and his companys’ business practices our number one priority. This will entail creation of a defense website and media campaign in addition to publishing the first hand employee and customer accounts we have refused to publish up to this point. The truth though is that we were prepared to do this six months ago.

Comments are turned off on this one for the obvious reasons.

Other BrokerScience Coverage of Ben Behrouzi / ePerks / LeapFish / DotNext:

Ben Behrouzi Caught on Tape: Threatens to Blackball Employee on Voicemail

Vlad Zablotzkyy Defeats LeapFish / ePerks / DotNext CEO Ben Behrouzi

Ben Behrouzi, LeapFish CEO Caught Spamming TechCrunch

The Beginner’s Action Guide to Learning about Vlad Zablotkyy vs. ePerks / Ben Behrouzi

ePerks / LeapFish CEO Ben Behrouzi Threatens BrokerScience with Legal Action

ePerks IP Address Link to Vlad Zablotzkyy: When the Hunter Becomes the Prey

iHype.com Launch Coverage Here

Ben Behrouzi Updates Company “Values” and “Culture” Web Pages. Only One Problem: They’re Stolen

Beginning of the End: ePerks CEO Ben Behrouzi Sues Blogger, Confirms No Strategy in Place

BrokerScience Acquires BenBehrouzi.com

Ben Behrouzi has hit an all time low for himself and his new startup LeapFish in front of Silicon Valley and the world. After Techcrunch declared LeapFish as “another meta search engine no one will ever use” his employees were caught red handed making shill comments praising LeapFish and calling it “genius”. Classic. This puts him on the fast track to destroy yet another brand in addition to his past casualties, ePerks, Brabus Ventures, and iHype.

TechCrunch points out the obvious that LeapFish provides no real value to searchers. LeapFish claims to be the “first multi-dimensional information aggregator and search portal in the world”. In reality it is simply a search engine aggregator similar to DogPile (launched in 1996), Addict-o-Matic, or the hundreds of others that exist.

Bens’ Fake TechCrunch Comments are a Thing of Beauty

After one shill comment after another, it becomes clear that most of the comments are simply fake and obviously made by Ben Behrouzi and or his employees.

When we pointed out that spamming blog comments is a Ben Behrouzi / DotNext Inc. / LeapFish hallmark, TechCrunch confirmed that in fact, all of the comments were coming the same IP address. This IP address was later banned.

Ben Threatens BrokerScience and Others Yet Again….

Also for the record you and your readers should know that, the trace richardson and lord matt commenting above are rogue bloggers looking for attention, traffic and destruction of others. They are motivated by a disgustingly shameful agenda that clearly manifests itself in their comments above and have a long history of stalking our people and spreading fabricated news in mass quantities. The company will be addressing each of their malicious activities soon. - Ben Behrouzi, CEO Dotnext, Inc. LeapFish

Welcome to Ben’s World of Fail:

Techcrunch Writer, Robin Wauters Finally Bans One of The IP Addresses:

Other BrokerScience Coverage of Ben Behrouzi / ePerks / LeapFish / DotNext:

Ben Behrouzi Caught on Tape: Threatens to Blackball Employee on Voicemail

Vlad Zablotzkyy Defeats LeapFish / ePerks / DotNext CEO Ben Behrouzi

Ben Behrouzi, LeapFish CEO Caught Spamming TechCrunch

The Beginner’s Action Guide to Learning about Vlad Zablotkyy vs. ePerks / Ben Behrouzi

ePerks / LeapFish CEO Ben Behrouzi Threatens BrokerScience with Legal Action

ePerks IP Address Link to Vlad Zablotzkyy: When the Hunter Becomes the Prey

iHype.com Launch Coverage Here

Ben Behrouzi Updates Company “Values” and “Culture” Web Pages. Only One Problem: They’re Stolen

Beginning of the End: ePerks CEO Ben Behrouzi Sues Blogger, Confirms No Strategy in Place

BrokerScience Acquires BenBehrouzi.com

On October 22nd, 2008, Ben Behrouzi / Eperks / Brabus Ventures’s atorney, Ronald J. Cook filed for dismissal of their complaint against Vlad Zablotzkyy. This is yet one more embarrassment for Ben Behrouzi in addition to the public humiliation and ridicule that has already befallen him and his dieing brand ePerks, at the hands of the Real Estate community at large.

The withdrawal was likely the result of a settlement with Vlad (the terms of which have not been disclosed) in which Vlad was required to post a statement which is essentially a lawyer contrived “I’m Sorry”. One highlight is where “Vlad” requests that other bloggers covering the story print retractions. Vlad was outgunned and his willingness to settle clearly reflects that.

Considering that Ben Behhrouzi has threatened BrokerScience with threats similar to those he made against Vlad, we see this defeat as fitting, to say the least.

“Behnam “Ben” Behrouzi filed what’s called an “unverified” complaint against Vlad.  That’s in contrast to a “verified” complaint, in which the plaintiff signs the complaint and declares under penalty of perjury that the statements in the complaint are true and correct.  The lawsuit ended in settlement without Behrouzi ever making any statement under oath.  Specifically, he never denied that he was responsible for the slander of Vlad.” - Brief Submitted to BrokerScience by Source that Wished to Remain Anonymous

View: All Ben Behrouzi / Brabus Ventures vs Zablotzkyy Court Documents

(The file above is 2mb, so be patient) A hat tip goes out to the attorney that delivered these and quote above to our doorstep and wished to remain anonymous.)

While most intelligent CEO’s couldn’t attract the kind of bad publicity and ill will Behrouzi has managed to generate for ePerks on their worst day, this is an area where Ben truly shines. Then again, Ben has proven himself to be a tactless bully time and time again, so this is par for the course.

Ben’s reward for bullying Vlad Zablotzkyy with childish antics is the distinction of having negative results in 7 of the top 10 results for his name when googling “Ben Behrouzi“. Great job Ben! These will remain for YEARS and YEARS. A google search for “ePerks” shows 9 out of the top 10 results have negative content.

Spamming the Ben Behrouzi Way

To counter the extremely negative public reaction to his business practices in google, Ben began a spam / search engine dilution campaign in August by creating accounts with a large amount of service providers such as youtube.com, vator.tv and others in hopes these would replace the existing negative google results that come up when googling “Ben Behrouzi”. You can find the complete list at the bottom of this very unprofessional and amateur looking homepage Ben has created for himself here. Over time, these will end up being virtually useless for his end goal of spamming the results for his name.

He has also started maxstartup.com that was originally yet another ePerks splog until recently. Don’t laugh too hard when reading this gem from “MaxStartUp”:

I’ve had several failures in my life with some lessons that have left their spots, and have even been victim to online lies and an actual blog war instigated by the many that are motivated by the basest of human qualities.

Did Brabus Ventures Implode or is the Brand Simply Toxic?

It is worth noting that Ben Behrouzi’s parent company, Brabus Ventures has recently disassembled its corporate website at BrabusVentures.com including removing the Cultures and Values pages that Ben Behrouzi stole from Mervyns.com and Chevron.com. It seems that the root cause is that Ben Behrouzi is distancing himself from Brabus Ventures with a name change, after all a google search for “Brabus Ventures” shows 7 out of 10 listings have negative content regarding his company. We have no word yet on whether Ben plans on changing his own name to escape the embarrassment associated with it.

Simply Embarrassing:

Brabus Ventures Before Disassembly

Brabus Ventures After Disassembly

The New Face of Brabus Ventures - DotNext Inc.

The Next Generation of Fail: DotNext, Inc.

DotNext, Inc. is the new incarnation of Brabus Ventures. When most companies change their name, they give notice on their home page and redirect visitors to the new domain. Not Ben Behrouzi. His ability to single handedly destroy brands is the reason he is running from the Brabus Ventures name / reputation. When people think of Brabus Ventures, they think of Ben Behrouzi, when they think of Ben Behrouzi, they think of ePerks and when people think of ePerks, they think of ….. well you get the idea. Ben Behrouzi, his brands and his ongoing business practices are very negatively viewed in the Real Estate Community.

Notice that at BrabusVentures.com lists ePerks and Brabus as the only company properties. It is not until you go to dotnexinc.com that you see LeapFish, Ziddler and Ihype as properties with no mention of Brabus or ePerks. They are clearly trying to stop the bleeding and brand destruction caused by being associated with the Brabus Ventures / Ben Behrouzi names by isolating ePerks and Brabus together. Wow and sad.

On a final note, in recent months, current ePerks employees have been briefing us on Ben’s latest “secret” project, LeapFish.com, but to be honest we don’t care. We’ve wasted enough time highlighting the EPIC FAIL that is Ben Behrouzi already. Surprisingly, Ben has failed to garner any top search engine spots for “Epic Fail” yet, but it is one thing Ben is consistent with, so give him time.

Thank you to the community and everyone that did what they could to help Vlad Zablotzkyy defeat Ben Behrouzi / Eperks / Brabus Ventures!!! While there are too many to thank individually, an honorable mention goes out to Andy Beard and “Big Gun” Swann for putting their weight behind Vlad.

Read: The Definitive Guide to Ben Behrouzi / ePerks

TechCrunch LeapFish Coverage

Other BrokerScience Coverage of Ben Behrouzi / ePerks / LeapFish / DotNext:

Ben Behrouzi Caught on Tape: Threatens to Blackball Employee on Voicemail

Vlad Zablotzkyy Defeats LeapFish / ePerks / DotNext CEO Ben Behrouzi

Ben Behrouzi, LeapFish CEO Caught Spamming TechCrunch

The Beginner’s Action Guide to Learning about Vlad Zablotkyy vs. ePerks / Ben Behrouzi

ePerks / LeapFish CEO Ben Behrouzi Threatens BrokerScience with Legal Action

ePerks IP Address Link to Vlad Zablotzkyy: When the Hunter Becomes the Prey

iHype.com Launch Coverage Here

Ben Behrouzi Updates Company “Values” and “Culture” Web Pages. Only One Problem: They’re Stolen

Beginning of the End: ePerks CEO Ben Behrouzi Sues Blogger, Confirms No Strategy in Place

BrokerScience Acquires BenBehrouzi.com

School is out for summer, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done. I would like to revisit one of the simplest, yet most powerful tools for progressing in your career and life: Setting Goals.

That’s right, we all know about goal setting, realize the importance that setting goals can bring to measuring and assessing success and progress and yet many of us are not consistently setting and measuring our progress towards goals. I am guilty of this as well.

What are your goals / objectives for the day, week, month and year? Write them down, somewhere. Anywhere. Make that place the simplest place to access you can think of to achieve consistency in visiting your goals.

Once your goals are set, evaluate and assess your performance. Did you achieve your goal for the day, week or month? You can only know if you assess your progress. This means a short day end check and weekly and monthly checks….. it only takes a few minutes. Designate a consistent time slot for your reviews, this will help build the habit of reviewing.

If you don’t set a standard of performance or measure of performance, you will find yourself producing and achieving less…. you can’t hold yourself responsible for under performing if you aren’t aware that you aren’t where you should be! Many times we think we are performing at a higher level than we really are.

Most importantly, don’t be too hard on yourself if you are not progressing as fast as you would like. This is why it is important that your goals are realistic. The real goal here is to achieve an overall consistency in evaluating your progress…. not pushing yourself into depression because you didn’t nail your target goals. Not achieiving set goals is merely an opportunity to learn and evaluate so that you do achieve those  goals in the future.

When you are done, click here.

Redfin suffered about the worst occurrence a datacenter can endure, fire. They still beat Realtor.com by 12 hours with only 5 hours of downtime compared to Realtor.com’s 17 hours of downtime or 53 hours of downtime if you include the 36 hours of in-action before going offline for 17 hours after  their blog was hacked. In fact, the once daily posts on the Realtor.com blog have ceased altogether for over  two weeks, so it is apparent that the problem is  not under control, unless giving hard working / blogging Realtors less exposure is part of an unannounced strategy.

That’s right, their datacenter caught fire and they still smoked Realtor.com, pun intended. There is only one right way to handle such a situation: quickly, honestly and transparently. If Redfin gets this, why can’t Realtor.com?

Chris Neitzert Sorts Through Charred Rubble of Redfin Datacenter

There was a fire in the Seattle-based data center that Redfin uses to host our web servers, causing a loss of service between approximately 5 a.m. and 10 a.m. Pacific Time. The entire data center was shut down by the fire department, including universal power supplies. Thanks to Redfin’s Chris Neitzert and his team, the site is now up and running. Throughout the interruption, our agents have of course stayed at their posts working with clients. But as the data center installs new equipment, it is possible that we will experience much-briefer interruptions in our website service around midnight tonight. We will continue to be available by telephone at 877-973-3346 or through the direct number our clients have for their agents.
For now, we apologize for the interruption in our service.

Aftermath of Realtor.com Blog Hack

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BrokerScience is not affiliated, related or endorsed in any way, shape or form to or by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

You can find the National Association of Realtors at Realtor.org.

If you are interested in Real Estate and Mortgage news, you’re in the right place, take a look around!

Are you a fanatical Title Insurance, Escrow or Appraisal blogger? Do you currently blog and need another avenue of exposure? BrokerScience will soon be launching new Title/Escrow centric and Appraisal Centric blogs and we need bloggers!

BrokerScience network blogs (WordPress based) are highly SEO optimized, utilize the latest bleeding edge plugins and can provide an optimal platform for insuring you get the best search engine coverage of your posts. We will obviously maintain the platform rigorously and will build out necessary features you find necessary. That’s right, if you have an idea or format you want us to build out for you, we will do it! Once we obtain a minimal level advertising we will gladly revenue share as well.

If you are interested or know somebody who is, let’s talk!

We’re extremely excited to be taking a few weeks off starting tomorrow….. We are recreating a famed trip from two summers ago where we took our time taking the PCH up from Orange County, making our way through Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Big Sur, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Napa Valley, the famed 128 highway (rolling hills, fruit stands, vineyards & apple orchards), Mendocino, Eureka, Arcata & beyond. After a gruelling 18 months non-stop, this is one deserved vacation.

The truth is that we may be gone for two weeks or it may be eight…. I just don’t know at this point. If I feel like working, I will, if not I will be busy sipping coffee at the local coffee shop, hiking in the redwoods, white water rafting, exploring small coastal towns and everything else we can think of that is fun. The truth is that I am addicted to the internet and social media, so I will likely not be too far.

Please Stand By For Further Communication …………