• www.facebook.com/blessed.herve
• A smooth-talking man named Blessed Marvelous Herve, 41, seen here riding the high seas in high style, has been accused of bilking a Bay Area couple out of $1.6 million.

Even this swanky scamming suspect’s name will fool you.

Blessed Marvelous Herve, 41, of San Francisco, is facing as many as 20 years in prison for defrauding a Bay Area couple out of $1.6 million while posing as the son of a Congolese president, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

On Tuesday, Herve was scheduled to appear in federal court in The City, but it was continued to May 8.

The alleged ruse began in 2005 when Herve met a Marin real estate agent and convinced him that his father was Congo’s president and wanted to purchase several multimillion-dollar homes, FBI Agent Brian Weber said in an affidavit. Herve allegedly got the real estate agent to front some $30,000 for the rental of bulletproof limousines for when Herve’s father arrived to tour properties.

In 2008, Weber said, Herve told the victim that the U.S. government had seized $43 million from him and that he was battling to retain the money at the federal courthouse in San Francisco. Herve signed two promissory notes stating he would pay the victim $1.5 million in exchange for financial support during the court process, Weber said.

At the time, the victim reportedly believed Herve had been living in the lavish Four Seasons Hotel near Union Square, although he never saw his room and the hotel has no record of Herve living there.

The victim regularly met Herve in the lobby of the Four Seasons and often gave him rides to the courthouse, Weber said. In regards to the court case, Herve allegedly convinced the victim that the hearings were being held in secret under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Meanwhile, the victim and his girlfriend went broke while supplying Herve with funds. The victim was tapped out in 2009 after giving Herve $635,000, Weber said. From 2009 to 2012, Herve reportedly told the couple he was in federal custody due to his court case and could only communicate by phone. During that time, Weber said, the girlfriend provided him $970,000 through wire transfers on the promise that Herve would repay upon his release.
Herve was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and granted asylum in 1999 before becoming a U.S. citizen last month, court records show.

The real estate agent told investigators he was fooled because Herve was reportedly knowledgeable about the Bay Area real estate market and had what appeared to be credible documents from top dignitaries.

Herve certainly remained in character on his Facebook page, where photographs show him wearing dapper suits and bragging about shopping sprees in Paris. There also are letters of praise allegedly from the likes of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

maldax@sfexaminer.com

Article source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/hearing-postponed-for-sf-man-accused-of-posing-as-congo-presidents-son/Content?oid=2336884

Sales of newly built homes fell nearly five percent in February, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Inventories did rise, but only slightly, as the nation’s home builders struggle with labor and land shortages, as well as higher costs for materials.

(Read More: Finally: Supply of Homes for Sale Begins to Rise)

Pending home sales fell 2.5 percent month-to-month in the Northeast, rose 0.4 percent in the Midwest, fell 0.3 percent in the South and rose 0.1 percent in the West, according to the Realtors.

“The volume of home sales appears to be leveling off with the constrained inventory conditions, and the leveling of the index means little change is likely in the pace of sales over the next couple months,” Yun added.

(Read More: Map: Tracking the USReal Estate Recovery)

A better sign for March, after two weeks of declines, mortgage applications to purchase a home jumped 7 percent during the past week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. This as interest rates fell slightly, due to concerns over the banking crisis in Cyprus.

“The rebound in mortgage applications is a small piece of a brighter housing outlook,” says Bob Walters, chief economist for Quicken Loans. “Interest rates are still at record lows despite their upward trend, and consumers are taking advantage of record home affordability. Look for more buyers to enter the market this spring and a more robust housing recovery to occur.”

(Read More: Compare Mortgage Rates in Your Area)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100596583

Sales of newly built homes fell nearly five percent in February, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Inventories did rise, but only slightly, as the nation’s home builders struggle with labor and land shortages, as well as higher costs for materials.

(Read More: Finally: Supply of Homes for Sale Begins to Rise)

Pending home sales fell 2.5 percent month-to-month in the Northeast, rose 0.4 percent in the Midwest, fell 0.3 percent in the South and rose 0.1 percent in the West, according to the Realtors.

“The volume of home sales appears to be leveling off with the constrained inventory conditions, and the leveling of the index means little change is likely in the pace of sales over the next couple months,” Yun added.

(Read More: Map: Tracking the USReal Estate Recovery)

A better sign for March, after two weeks of declines, mortgage applications to purchase a home jumped 7 percent during the past week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. This as interest rates fell slightly, due to concerns over the banking crisis in Cyprus.

“The rebound in mortgage applications is a small piece of a brighter housing outlook,” says Bob Walters, chief economist for Quicken Loans. “Interest rates are still at record lows despite their upward trend, and consumers are taking advantage of record home affordability. Look for more buyers to enter the market this spring and a more robust housing recovery to occur.”

(Read More: Compare Mortgage Rates in Your Area)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100596583

“About two weeks ago we started getting calls, like 7 or 8 a day, and we’ve been asked to bring students to work sites,” says Linda Thomas, an employment liaison for Job Corps. “They said look just bring them with their resumes, we’ve got work, we’re pushing more contracts now. Business is doing well, building is doing extremely well in the area.”

(Read More: Pending Home Sales Surge to Five Year Highh)

This is a drastic change from just six months ago, when Thomas was still finding herself the beggar, not the chooser with home builders. Her main concern is that all this new momentum will come to a grinding halt should the nation’s economy go over the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

“A contractor, once he sets up a job, then he has to get money for that job because he has to buy the materials and so forth, so if a bank is a little scary or his lender is a little scary, a private lender, he may not have the funds to start the project, therefore we won’t have the jobs.”

(Read More: Top Destination States for Jobs)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100271485

After a slew of positive readings on the nation’s housing recovery, sales of newly built homes in October were a big disappointment.

Despite the big public builders reporting big jumps in new orders and builder confidence positively leaping to the highest level since 2006, sales just didn’t compute, and even September’s numbers were revised down.

“The recovery in new home sales is looking a little weaker than we were previously led to believe,” writes Paul Diggle of Capital Economics.

But Diggle points out the positives, specifically that the time between a completion and a new home sale has been falling dramatically, from over 14 months in late 2009 to just over 6 months today. The average historically is five months.

“That drop strikes us as another sign that buyer confidence is improving,” adds Diggle.

But is it improving as much as builder confidence?

“This was a disappointing update,” writes Patrick Newport of HIS Global Insight.

“It indicates that demand for single-family homes is only slowly picking up, not accelerating, as the data previously showed. It also indicated that builders may have jumped the gun a little by accelerating the pace of construction of single-family homes.

(Read More: Cities With the Most Affordable Homes)

A big concern for home builders now is the looming fiscal cliff. The housing recovery depends on the economic recovery and continued improvement in the jobs picture. There is also great concern that the mortgage interest deduction could fall victim to the cliff. That’s why housing lobbyists have upped their budgets this year to $30 million from $27 million in 2011, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The National Association of Realtors leads by far with a record $25,982,290 spent on lobbying so far.

(Read More: Why the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Is Kryptonite to Entrepreneurs)

Fears of the fiscal cliff could be impacting potential buyers already. The new home sales monthly number from the U.S. Department of Commerce is based on signed contracts, not closings, so it is a clear gauge of what potential buyers are feeling right now.

(Read More: How ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Could Affect Mortgage Interest Deduction)

“It is making me nervous for sure to have such uncertainty over such a traditional expectation, the mortgage deduction,” says Stephen Paul, of Mid-Atlantic Builders, a Maryland-based company. Paul says he hasn’t seen any cancellations over it yet, but it has come up in conversation plenty.

It is just one more uncertainty that this recovery doesn’t need. All signs are pointing to big gains in the housing market for 2013. Those expectations, however, must be tempered with a dash of perspective yet again. Peter Boockvar of Miller Tabak maps it out well:

“While the housing industry is recovering, new home sales have trended between 360k and 370k for the last 6 months, still 73 percent below the bubblicious peak in July ’05 and not too far above the trough seen in 1982 and still below the bottom seen in the 1991 recession. On one hand, there is plenty of room for continued improvement but on the other, the healing process will take a lot of time and will likely be in fits and starts as recoveries from the aftermath of bubbles typically are.”

SECTOR WATCH: US Home Builders

—Toll Brothers
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—DR Horton
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—Hovnanian Enterprises
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—PulteGroup
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—Ryland Group
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—Lennar Corp
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—Beazer Homes USA
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—Meritage Homes
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—KB Home
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