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A now former employee of Countrywide had downloaded millions of files of consumers and sold that private information to the employees of other lenders to be used as sales leads.

The alleged thief was caught back in 2008 and his trial begins on Oct 19th of this year, and he is currently free on bond while waiting for his trial.

There were possibly 15-17 million consumers that were at risk from this crime and Bank of America, which bought Countrywide back in 2008, is now offering free credit monitoring for two years to all those consumers that had provided personal and private  information to Countrywide before July 1, 2008, or who had a mortgage loan service by Countrywide before that date as well.

I don’t know what affect this settlement will have on the current real estate market, but Bank of America has been more quickly to respond to a couple of my Short Sales of homes for sale in Stockton and Lodi, CA recently.  Perhaps they realized they’d make more money on the short sale rather than letting the home go into foreclosure.

If you’d like to get more information on this and even file a claim for the free credit monitoring you can call (866) 940-3612, or visit their website at www.CWdataClaims.com.

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• Bank of America Settles Data Theft Claims (dailyfinance.com)

Here is an interesting article I found that talks about some of the things that we can expect to see happening…

This is the time of year when columnists either write about the major events of the past year or make predictions about the coming year. If you don’t know, I’ll let someone else tell you about 2009.

I’m far more interested in getting a jump on next year’s opportunities and discoveries. And, just as important, I want everyone to embrace 2010 feeling upbeat, confident and charged with energy. Things have been down so long that they just naturally have to be heading up. Absolutely!

So, I set out to make a list of all of those things that will be heading up next year. I was hoping to predict a rebound in both the economy and the real estate industry.

Read more: http://rismedia.com/2009-12-28/9-things-that-are-looking-up-for-2010/#ixzz0b4Ojz0Ka

Leave a comment and let me know what you think about the upcoming New Year and where you see things going for real estate, interest rates, gas prices, etc. in the Lodi / Stockton areas.

Make it a great day!

Source: NAR

Existing-home sales in the second quarter showed healthy gains from the first quarter in the vast majority of states, and price declines have increased affordability in most metro areas, according the latest survey by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

Total state existing-home sales, including single-family and condo properties, rose 3.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of…

CLICK HERE for complete story.