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» VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM 129 purchase property transactions have largely been dominated by all cash investors," said Mat Ishbia, president and CEO of UWM. "Our Investor Edge program helps level the playing field by giving investors alternative options to an all-cash transaction. e launch of Investor Edge is yet another innovative product that helps our partners better com- pete in their local area markets." Similar to commercial financing, Investor Edge has no requirement for personal income verification, basing its debt-to-income ratio calculation solely on the proposed cash flow for the subject property. e program also allows an unlimited number of financed properties, with loan amounts ranging from $75,000 to $1 million. Additional features and requirements can be found at UWM's website. Interested partners can log into UWM's EASE Web portal to run product eligibility and pricing on borrowers who are a good fit for the new program. It can also be accessed through UWM's UMobile application, avail- able on iOS and Android devices. Sixteen Charged in Nationwide House Flipping Telemarketing Scam Sixteen individuals have been charged in relation to a telemarketing scheme to sell houses to investors in most of the U.S., including Michigan, according to a joint an- nouncement by U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Barbara McQuade and Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office Paul Abbate. e perpetrators of the scheme caused more than $20 million in losses to their nearly 300 victims, according to the announcement. Victims of the scheme resided in Canada, as well as in 46 states, but Detroit was one of the areas most affected by the scam. According to the indictment, the telemar- keters operated from call centers in Florida and New York and made unsolicited calls to potential investors offering to sell them homes in the Detroit area. e telemarketers told their victims that the homes were bank- owned and were worth much more than their current sales price, when in reality many of the homes were purchased for as low as $500 and quickly sold to the victims for between $7,500 and $15,000. e telemarketers then led the victims to believe that the purchased homes were being sold to hedge funds or foreign buyers for huge profits when in reality the homes were being transferred to shell corporations created by the telemarketers where there was no profit. Using this scheme, the telemarketers convinced many investors that there was a lucrative home-flipping market in Detroit, enabling them to sell thousands of homes to investors using these tactics. e telemarketers used aliases and changed the name of the company many times to avoid detection from law enforcement and disgruntled investors who realized they had been defrauded. In addition to the millions of dollars that the telemarketers obtained through fraud, the scheme perpetuated the spreading of blight in Detroit due to the large number of homes vacated and not maintained. Wayne County, where Detroit is the county seat, just began foreclosure proceedings on a record 75,000 properties. About 62,000 of those properties are located in Detroit, and about half of those 62,000 are believed to be unoccupied. "is nationwide telemarketing fraud not only caused millions of dollars in losses to victims of the scheme, but it also contributed to blight in Detroit neighborhoods," Mc- Quade said. "ousands of homes were left to fall into decay as a result of these individuals using Detroit real estate as a commodity to accomplish their fraud." Perpetrators of the scheme were charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, 15 counts of underlying wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit international money laundering, with each of the 17 counts carry- ing a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison. ose arrested and charged were Izhak Halbani, Antawn Reid, Scott Amster, Richard Silverstein, Michelle Pintado, John Trumble, Wayne Scott ompson, eodore Jacobs, Joseph Haden, Scott Lipman, and Steven Goldstein, all of Florida; Richard Pierce and Matthew Golden of Michigan; and Erez Arsoni, Gregory Swarn, and Joseph Arsenault of New York. "e perpetrators in this case stole mil- lions of dollars from hundreds of victims," Abbate said. "However, they did more than steal money—their greed and fraud com- pounded the proliferation of vacant homes left for ruin in far too many Detroit neigh- borhoods. e FBI is committed to rooting out and bringing to justice those who would commit crimes of this nature and act against the interests of our communities." Foreclosure Campaign Gets Underway in Wayne County, Michigan Wayne County, Michigan, has begun to execute the plan county officials announced in mid-October to start tax foreclosure pro- ceedings on approximately 75,000 distressed properties for which the owners are three years or more delinquent on property taxes. A large percentage of those 75,000 properties are located in Detroit, which is the county seat of Wayne County. e county's goal is not to complete the foreclosure proceedings and remove people from their houses, however. In fact, it's just the opposite: County officials are actually using the aggres- sive foreclosure campaign to try to prevent people from losing their homes, according to Wayne County Deputy Treasurer David Szymanski. "I am hopeful that when we go to auction next year on these 75,000 properties that we will only auction about 20,000," Szymanski said at the time. "We are working with the mayor of Detroit on some legislative action that could assist in helping people avoid foreclosure." In 2013, Wayne County officials began foreclosure proceedings on about 56,000 properties. Only about 20,000 of them, or 36 percent, actually went through the whole procedure, meaning the county helped more than half of those homeowners stay in their homes. Beginning the foreclosure process is meant to alert distressed homeowners that their delinquent property tax situation needs to be resolved, which hopefully will put them in contact with county officials who can let them know what their options are as far as relief that can help them stay in their home, Szymanski said. "e earlier in the process we contact a distressed taxpayer, the more likely we are to find a successful resolution," Szymanski said. "e earlier we contact them, the more options they have available." One of the solutions available to help homeowners keep their homes is the Step Forward program, which was created in response to the 2008 housing crisis to help distressed borrowers pay their taxes. e fed- eral government provided $500 million for the program and so far it has helped about 4,000 distressed homeowners in Wayne County pay

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