The sellers forced my closing agent of nine years to write, re-write then rewrite over and over again the deed.
After closing, HUBZU left me with an unpaid sewer bill.
The sellers closing agents have been given over six months to get this bill paid. After over a dozen email exchanged back and forth - they still haven't provided reimbursement.
As an investor of over 26 years, I haven't had as bad of experience with the sellers closing agent!
There is a shady on-line auction company known as Hubzu that specializes in real estate short sales and foreclosures. They are a subsidiary of Altisource, which also operates as OWCEN, in conjunction with an in-house title compay (Premium Title), and various in-house real esate brokerages, such as Real Home Services and Solutions. Did I say they were shady? Well, that is an understatement.
The list of abuses is long, but here are two recent examples that occurred in Florida that should give you the gist.
Example 1. Hubzu advertised a property on the Florida Brevard County MLS as a house and three adjacent lots, with a link to the county tax assessor identifying the house and three lots. After the closing, I discovered that Altisource had deeded me the house, and not the three lots. I further found that the seller did not even own the three lots. They refused to compensate me on the grounds that I had signed a Hold Harmless waiver in the purchase & sales contract. This is the blanket statement that they believe protects them against their misrepresentations and other scams.
Example 2. I was the winning bidder on a home in May of 2014. When we were ready to close, I discovered a lien against the property that Hubzu/Altisource had not revealed. I asked them to resolve the lien, and they threatened to cancel the sale. After some back and forth, they agreed to investigate. For most of the next year, they did not nothing to resolve the lien until I contacted the lien holder. Ultimately, it took almost a year to get the lien released.
While the house sat waiting for the lean to be resolved, the house was vandalized and fell into disrepair. After closing, I found that all of the wiring had been torn from the attic. The entire house had to be rewired. Hubzu would not take resonsibility.
I am pursuing legal action (civil and criminal) against them, and would be interested in hearing about other Hubzu experiences.
I bid on a Hubzu property whereby a fire had occurred in the garage of the house, but Hubzu did not disclose this fact and infact said in black and white in an email that there had been no fire on the property. I had been to the property and they had a large piece of plywood screwed over the garage opening and inside they had the garage access locked with a metal lock. Then, when I said in returning to the property, I spotted charring, then they said "there was no active fire." Then, when I pressed further by talking in more details about the neighbors witnessing the fire, then they said "there was not much fire damage and then when I told them the fire department was aware of the fire and I had spoken to the fire department, then they coughed up the report.
They asked me what I would offer now in being unhappy and feeling I had overbid due to non-disclosure of the fire and I offered $1k over the second highest bidder and I formally requested they accept my modified bid or redo the auction WITH DISCLOSURE OF THE FIRE. The seller refused my offer although it met their reserve and claimed it was "as is" and I knew it. I told them that by law they must disclose a fire being on the property and should allow the public to see the garage, since they won't allow inspectors to inspect the premises. They redid the auction with no disclosure again.
Their defiance to disclose where disclosure is required by law is intentional deception. I have all the emails to prove every bit of what I'm saying. It is all in black and white.
I was planning to place a bit on a house via Hubzu but with most all reviews being terrible how could I? Why doesn't the attorney Generals close down these people?
Hubzu.com Listed a property located at 1195 schenectady avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11203 as a 5 bedroom 2 bath on their website. Buyers beware this is a 3 bedroom 1 bath home with an additional half bath in the basement if you can call it that. The house has extreme fire damage on the second floor, everything is burnt to a crisp all the way to the ceiling, with possible roof repair. the outside of the property looks good enough, but do not bid without inspecting the property. Also water damage on the first floor. basement is stripped clean to the bareback. I was fortunate enough that I inspected before commiting.
I read another report like about www.hubzu.com this so it is not uncommon.
Working through a highly acclaimed realtor to place my bid on an absolute auction for a piece of foreclosed property, I had a high bid of $75600 on the property in Port St Joe Florida. The property had a hurricane damaged house to be demolished, was reported as owned by the bank and up for absolute auction to highest bidder. Near the end the bid marched up to $74900 and stayed there for several minutes. Then the bidding ended and website stated my realtor's name had WON.
I was sitting with my realtor and we were all overjoyed that the bidding came so close to our limit but we still won. We clicked to sign in and begin to take possession of the property. The web site changed and then said, "auction is under review".
For three days, the hubzu auction stated that we were the winners, but also stated the auction was under review. Then the auction changed to "closed". My realtor contacted a personal connection at hubzu and the person simply said the auction was retracted and hung up.
My realtor was mystified and said she has never seen such a thing, but heard that hubzu had a lot of strings attached to their auctions.
Just a warning to all you hopeful owners - forget www.hubzu.com. Its not worth the time to bother to bid.
On October 25th of 2017 I purchased a home through the website hubzu.com located at , Land O'Lakes, Fl .
Sale price was $214,000 and the premium was $9,630. I was told that I had to use their title company, Premium Title Services, Inc, 1000 Abernathy Rd NE, Suite 200,Atlanta Ga 30328 (855)339-6325 sd the closing agent. I closed on the house with the promise that Altisource, another Hubzu company, would clear all the defects that I had been informed of which was the HOA arrears and fines.
I had to pay the county water company more than $600 to get my water turned on and had to also pay the HOA to be up to date. I spent more than $50,000 to rehab the house and sold the house on 2/28/2017. The buyer's agent came back a few days later with 2 sinkhole findings listed with the county from 2011 and 2012.
The seller, the title company nor my realtor disclosed these reports to me. I am a 74 year old investor and not able to navigate all the necessary sites myself.
This company lures bidders in (by the HUBZU.com) promising closing in 20 days or less. They expedite the signing of the contract and take you deposit almost immediately. They also offer you their own title search company, offering you up to $400 credit, do not trust; get your own title. However, once you submit your deposit then they change their tune by postponing the closing, telling you that the deed is ready but they do not provide so you can close and the title is not clear/clean. This company does not appear to have clear title to the properties they advertise on Hubzu.com. They have you execute the contract expeditiously but if you try to cancel the deal due to their postponement of closing, they threaten you that the seller will retain your deposit and in most cases they will because the contract you sign, protects them only. In the meantime closing is postponed indefinitely, property keeps deteriorating.
Lessons learned:
Don’t trust this group, including the attorney’s they do business with!
Have your attorney stipulate on the contract that if closing is postponed by them that some penalty is agreed upon.
3. If the property deteriorates or its not in the same condition as you originally bid on, should have the right to cancel. Take pictures before and after of everything!
I couldn't agree more with the last complaint. The on-line auction is deceptive and fraudulent. I placed a bid, and at the end of the auction the bid was increased at the last minute. The propery went bid for bid which i ended up losing. I ended up losing the auction but was contacted by hubzu a few days later saying i won the auction. I contaced Altisource, who is the actual owner of the property, it is a company owned and run from India, but they use a Georgia phone line. I was able to speak to the asset manager and i stated my case as being this: The auction was between two bidders, since the winning bidder backed out, curious if there even was one, all his bids should be null and voided.
my bid that met the reserve should be the amount payable for the property. The asset manger declined and said i had to pay the higher bid amount. I refused and walked away. The property was relisted a day later. still interested in the property i started my bid at the last reserve and noticed the site read, reserve not met. Curious as i was i let the auction go at the initial bid. I won! Hubzu contacted me and said even though you won, the bid did not meet the sellers reserve price. I am confused! I started the bid a thousand above the last reserve price and lost. I contaced the asset manager and found out that they increased the reserve number.
He said if you want the property i had to pay the additional amount. I refused and was disgusted. Next day, the property was listed again, this time they listed at my offer. where is the end my friends. Did a little digging into Altisource and found out, it is also called Ocwen Financial. It is a india owned company using a bank out of the Camen Islands. They buy distressed properties from banks at a major discount and flip them on a auction site called Hubzu. This company has a lawsuit pending from its shareholders claiming deceptive dealings. Be very weary when bidding and expect the unexpected. This company definately needs to be looked at from a legal view. looks very shady to me.
Good evening, i've been working hard to find someone who may be able to help me in my situation with hubzu. Hubzu in my situation has allowed the banks to do whatever they want on their site with me the buyer. I've been stuck with strict terms and conditions by this site such as, premium fees associated with the purchase price of the properties listed on hubzu.com. The fees hubzu, and seller are asking me to pay are outrageous and i've asked why am i paying thousands of dollars for premium fees and what the fees are put towards regarding the house of interest, they say it’s for running the auction. I didn’t realize it cost $7,500.00 plus a technology fee of $299.00, in my situation to run an online site. My experience with this site has been awful not only for me but for my family too. I first learned of hubzu by being forced to go to hubzu.com to place an offer. I saw the property for sale on a real estate website Weichert.com which doesn't state anything about an auction, or hubzu), and wanted to see it.
When i went to the property to see it, i was very interested in placing an offer on property. I asked my realtor to place an offer on it. He advised me at that point, in order to place an offer, i would have to go to hubzu.com to bid on the house. There was no other way to place an offer on the home of interest. I knew nothing about online auctions, or any fees associated with them. So, i decided to go for it since there was no other way of submitting an offer on property. After the 3rd time of bidding on the property and being the highest bidder all three times, i finally met the reserve of the bank of $166,000.00 but it showed a total of 173,769.00, plus a technology fee of 299. Which i didn't understand why i was paying thousands of dollars more than what i place my bid for. Once i met the reserve and advised my realtor of the results, my realtor asked me if there were any fees associated with this purchase. At first, i told him no because i was not aware that i would have to pay any fees associated with the property, especially since the seller sought out hubzu’s services and was forced to their site to place an offer. I went back to hubzu and asked them if the seller can pay the fees associated with the property. The seller which is the bank said no and placed the property back on hubzu at a much higher reserve amount than what they accepted from me.
I continued to bid on the property at least 3 more times being the highest bidder up until last week when i was shocked to see what hubzu and the seller had done. Hubzu restarted the auction on this property which would make it my 7th time total being the highest bidder on this property. I had decided to place another bid on the property. The auction started july 6, 2017 and was supposed to be over july 13, 2017 at 6pm. I was the highest bidder at the time once again, until hubzu and seller decided july 12th to stop the auction 1 day and 22hrs earlier. Hubzu sent me a message stating that i requested to have my bid withdrawn, cleared out by bidding history on the site, and 7 minutes later they restarted the time to 6 days and put it back on hubzu starting the bid 22k lesser than my bid amount offered prior to. I made a call to hubzu and advised them that i never requested to have my bid withdrawn and they tried blaming me stating, for a bid to be withdrawn i must call in and request my bid be withdrawn. I informed the customer service rep that i was at work and there could not be any possible way i could have called in to withdraw my bid. I totally believe hubzu, and the seller have made the changes to my bid history in my account on hubzu.com to show no evidence of any bidding ever taken place. Which i have pictures to show prior bidding on the property, and generated a letter stating, per my request my bid has been withdrawn.
Hubzu is an awful company for allowing banks to take total advantage of buyers and doesn't deserve to be in business. Hubzu should be held accountable for unfair actions done against buyers trying to purchase properties through there site. Hubzu is not an auction site. I was always under the impression that an auction is based on the highest bidder winning what is being auctioned with no kickback from the seller auctioning product. This is my family’s livelihood there playing around with. Not only mine but others who is experiencing some type of illegal and unfair treatment from this horrible company. This company should be investigated, i’m sure if they were people would see all the illegal actions they’ve done against them. It is not fair for banks along with hubzu to walk all over hard-working people who are trying to find a safe place for their families to live. I totally believe everything stated about this company, especially regarding bids, and fees, it’s happened to me. I'm so frustrated, i hope to hear one day this business receiving the biggest lawsuit in history.
Purchased home from HUBZU.COM paid for home with cash. The property I purchased has so many violations that 3 years later im still fixing code violations. Ive spent over $80,000.00 dollars and im still not up to code. I'm being fined and when codes are fixed Miami Dade will be charging me taxes on monies I spent to fix code violations. This is fraud! Worst part in Miami Dade owner must clear violations or Miami Dade county fines owner for non compliance and that fine starts at $10,000 dollars, nor can I as property owner sell property until all code violations are fixed. This IS FRAUDULENT BUSINESS PRACTICES and something should be done so others dont get stuck like i have. All my saving was used to purchase this property. *please note I did have title company check for liens and code violations but none was found. All properties around me are working illegally with code violations but only my property was targeted.
Fraudulently accusations against home owners.i need help trying to get my land back,less than an acre.that I have lived at for 20 years.the trailer has been condemned and they are asking 48,00.00 dollars for.it is on homes.com for sale that is false advertisement.the home is vacant and unlivable.nobody from the top officials will answer the phone and talk to me.they have had two foreclosure sales and it did not even get but one bid of a thousand dollars.all I want is my land and that is it.
I wanted to help my daughter get her first home since she is now an icu night nurse at the local trauma hospital. I had bid on several hubzu properties before for investments, but had been outbid or not met the reserve so didn't win the properties That's the way auctions work). This time i saw the mls ad for the house listed at $47,000 and went by to look at the outside. Huge dangerous hole in the back yard where an above ground pool had been and had been dug half in the ground and had metal brace pieces sticking up on the sides of the hole and nothing keeping people from falling in and getting hurt.
Called my realtor to make an offer, wrote up a contract over asking and when she went to present it learned it was in a hubzu auction. The opening bid was in the 30's,, so i made the first bid and marked that i had not visited the property since i had not been inside the house and inspected it. Had my contractor meet me and my contractor meet at the house I knew it wouldn't go for the opening bid since it was below the reserve) and i raised my bids several times. When you bid on hubzu, you just raise your bid amount and don't change any of the other terms I had originally marked all cash, no contingencies and earliest closing date).
I then had my daughter meet me and my agent at the property and raised my bid prior to the end of the auction. Later that day i received an email from hubzu that the auction had ended and i had the highest bid. They have a disclaimer that they have the right to reject any offer at their discretion, but since mine was all cash, no inspection required, and the earliest closing they allowed i was just waiting for wiring instructions and a sales contract to start the ball rolling, which they state may take up to a week to prepare.
I had my contractor meet again with the realtor earlier today and we spent nearly an hour checking out everything and going over approximate repair costs Replace kitchen cabinets, redo bathrooms, fill the hole with 5 - 6 dump truck loads of dirt dumped in the front yard and moved to the back with a backhoe since no access to the area). Upon returning home i found an email stating that my offer had been rejected and immediately called my agent. I then contacted realhome services and solutions but got the listing agents voicemail and spoke to another employee. When i asked why my offer was rejected i was told that there was a higher offer. Asking further i was told it was $1,000 more than mine, which i found strange since i had the email stating i was the high bidder.
She transferred me to hubzu to find out if the offer was rejected because of my hispanic female name Some people don't even return calls or emails with a hispanic last name - it happens). Hubzu also gave me the story that the winning bidder was $1,000 over my final bid and she couldn't explain why i got the email since the winning bid was $49,000 and mine was only $48,000. I mentioned wanting to know the reason my offer was rejected before i spoke to my real estate attorney and she managed to transfer me to the listing agent, stephanie mccall. Ms. Mccall was very nice on the phone and said the other bid was higher and i must have not read the email correctly.
I pulled up the email The auction is over and you are the high bidder) which is hard to misunderstand. All three people i spoke to mentioned the clause they can reject any offer at will, but why would an owner reject an all cash offer with no contingencies to back out They could keep the earnest money deposit if i didn't fulfill the contract as liquidated damages) and i was willing and able to close at the earliest closing date. Ms. Mccall requested i forward the email to her and my own real estate agent Who was cheated out of her commision when i was rejected).
Now the story changed from i was outbid by antonio lopez to he placed a later bid for the same amount as me, but he had checked the box that said he had visited the property and in ocwen's infinite wisdom, they felt he knew more about the property and it's problems than i did. At no time did any of the above companies contact me to ask if i had been to the property to inspect and when you raise you bid on hubzu all you do is raise the amount of money and there is no box to change any of the other info Such as inspecting the property).
As any auction where you bid "as is where is", it's the buyer's responsibility to inspect prior to bidding and if i suddenly backed out, then i would lose the earnest money deposit and the backup bidder would be contacted. I still don't know why the story changed - you either were the high bidder or you weren't, dollar amounts don't change. Was i rejected because i am a woman and couldn't possibly know as much about rehabs and remodeling as a man? Cash is cash, no contingency is you bought it as is, earliest closing date is just that - as soon as you get a title policy showing no liens or fines on the property we close. What more could a seller want?
We bid on a house at 819 Azelia, Alamogordo, NM back in Feb of this year. We won the bid and met the reserve. Hubzu called us right away and wanted the earnest money of $23,000 within 48 hours. I read through the fine print of the terms of agreement of the contract and there was a clause that stated "no inspection" clause. We could not reach anyone at any of the contact numbers to tell us if that meant we could not have an inspection done of the house and even though we left messages, nobody called us back. I got a hold of the realtor who bid for us at auction and had to ask over and over to answer my direct question of "do we get our earnest money back if there are major problems found on the inspection". He finally answered and stated an inspection is not allowed at all and that we would lose our earnest money if we did not follow through with buying the house. When I told him that he told me that we could get our earnest money back under such circumstances prior to bidding, he stated "I mistakenly told you the wrong information". We have watched since and this same house has been "under contract" many times and then will go back to auction. I have a hunch that this auction house is only out to take one person's earnest money after another, knowing the house will not pass an inspection for a loan. With earnest money of $23,000 every couple months, they never have to sell the house and can continue to scam people. This auction company has changed its name several times. It is a scam in my opinion and should be considered a white collar crime on the magnitude of the stories that get exposed such as "American Greed". BE WARNED. Read the fine print. Don't give earnest money if the contract states "no" to the category of "Inspection Clause".
victim of HUBZU's unethical bidding timers - CLOSED AUCTION REOPENS!
I've just finished filing a complaint with the BBB and emailed Contact 6 in Milwaukee hoping one or the other or both will help. Now time to hit FB and hopefully (with your help) get this moving far, wide and fast. I want others to *not* experience the same raw deal we got and maybe just MAYBE the truth being shared will cause the company to have a change of heart and do the right thing ... ok, so a girl can hope!
NOTE: This will be very long, PLEASE please bear with me. It's unbelievably important not only to us but other consumers as well. I don't know how this company is growing with how they do things but it is (yes, in our local area, too!). Mine isn't the only complaint, I've found numerous others in my research.
On 11/9/2015 we participated in an online house auction. We already knew before we got involved, NOT the best way to buy a house but because it didn't cost a dime to bid and it was the ONLY way to get this house we want so bad that after some research we decided to give the company the benefit of the doubt and gave it a try.
After all, people will complain loudly online but happy customers share a lot less than angry disgruntled people. I found 21 complaints filed against them at the BBB and for a nationwide organization I figured not bad odds. Additionally each of the BBB results showed HUBZU fixed the problem in short order in the complainant's favor. This all gave me a tiny bit less to be skeptical about.
I had already located the actual seller which wasn't easy. It's Ocwen who *just happens* to be just one cog in the wheel of a multi-company conglomerate one owned by the other and the other and on and on. There were enough companies owning one another & working together to make your head spin which refueled my skepticism. Altisource, HUBZU, Ocwen + several more are all in cahoots together. RED FLAG!
I watched the auction from my computer while our Realtor did the bidding from her office about a mile away and we chatted on the phone off & on during the bidding war which was between us and one other bidder (or an employee or computer @ HUBZU - we don't know for sure). We both noticed early in the game that the timers on our two screens were different, with hers being about a minute or so ahead of mine. RED FLAG!
A few moments after our Realtor placed a bid the bidding timers on both our computers hit zero's and the screen automatically changed to display a new message that went something like this: "The AUCTION IS CLOSED, all bids are being processed and sent to the seller ... blah blah blah." Our Realtor got an almost immediate notification email containing the same basic message and our individual screens showed her latest bid for us was the one that triggered this. My thought was "This is too easy." I was not jumping for joy for winning but instead was skeptical and shortly found out I had good reason to be.
A few moments later another higher bid displayed on the screen and the bidding timer was reactivated. What happened to our CLOSED AUCTION we both wondered? Neither of us having participated in an online *house* auction before we both were scratching our heads.
Now you all might say that it's the different times on different computers meaning the other bidder's screen didn't show closed likely because his/her timer was behind ours. Thought about that but something bugged me so I contacted a non-involved, objective bystander website hosting company and spoke directly w/their techs. I did not tell them we were involved in this, did not name *anyone* as participants, didn't even say it was a *house* auction. I wanted an unbiased answer so I laid it out strictly as to what had happened and then asked about the bidding timers which I was questioning. They assured me I was right and that when it comes to auctions the bidding timers display *from the auction company's servers* and ALL timers on ALL their servers SHOULD be properly synchronized for each auction so each bidder sees the same screen at the same time ... no matter how many bidders there are. Interesting, works like eBay, right? But I've never had a problem with eBay timers.
We continued to bid as we were willing to go higher and thought maybe just maybe the other bidder would drop out before we hit our max bid. Didn't happen, we had to drop out, they obviously have more money than we do.
I stewed about this for awhile wondering what to do. The house *should* have been awarded to us ... we placed the bid that initially closed the auction! Later that day I got onto the HUBZU online chat, explained the problem and was assured the proper people would be notified so this could be investigated.
Two days later I was on the phone with the investigator of my complaint. Very nice man (yeah, ok, so he's got to be) he asked some questions, I answered them honestly. His last question was "What do you want to come out of this?"
I told him we want the house awarded to us @ the bid that closed the auction initially. We already knew we'd not hit the reserve bid that there would likely be a counter-offer from the seller and we were OK with that. But we weren't OK with the fact that we'd been cheated out of the opportunity to see this through because the CLOSED auction had been allowed to be re-opened by the other person's bid causing us to eventually have to drop out. ALL bids should have been prevented when the screen showed AUCTION CLOSED. He said he'd have to gather more info and would get back to us in a day or two.
This morning our investigator called to advise us that Altisource / HUBZU would NOT honor our bid or our request. They will NOT honor the initial CLOSED AUCTION - the house will remain with the other bidder. It doesn't matter to them that their timers weren't synchronized, it doesn't matter that what they're doing is unethical ... it boils down to greed and that in their eyes WE dropped out after the auction re-opened so basically they're saying it's our own fault. If we wanted the house we should have bid higher than the other guy. REALLY???? The reserve bid was met approximately $8,000 BELOW our highest bid so the RESERVE WAS MET but they're greedy!
We've been looking for a house for THREE YEARS! We recently lost the first one we fell in love with after all that time due to the sellers having accepted another offer just one day after we put ours in. Now we wind up in this mess. We really want this house (provided all inspections pass muster!)!!!
To any of you looking for a house - BUYER BEWARE OF HUBZU!
Hubzu.com Reviews
This transaction took over 50 days to close!
The sellers forced my closing agent of nine years to write, re-write then rewrite over and over again the deed.
After closing, HUBZU left me with an unpaid sewer bill.
The sellers closing agents have been given over six months to get this bill paid. After over a dozen email exchanged back and forth - they still haven't provided reimbursement.
As an investor of over 26 years, I haven't had as bad of experience with the sellers closing agent!
There is a shady on-line auction company known as Hubzu that specializes in real estate short sales and foreclosures. They are a subsidiary of Altisource, which also operates as OWCEN, in conjunction with an in-house title compay (Premium Title), and various in-house real esate brokerages, such as Real Home Services and Solutions. Did I say they were shady? Well, that is an understatement.
The list of abuses is long, but here are two recent examples that occurred in Florida that should give you the gist.
Example 1. Hubzu advertised a property on the Florida Brevard County MLS as a house and three adjacent lots, with a link to the county tax assessor identifying the house and three lots. After the closing, I discovered that Altisource had deeded me the house, and not the three lots. I further found that the seller did not even own the three lots. They refused to compensate me on the grounds that I had signed a Hold Harmless waiver in the purchase & sales contract. This is the blanket statement that they believe protects them against their misrepresentations and other scams.
Example 2. I was the winning bidder on a home in May of 2014. When we were ready to close, I discovered a lien against the property that Hubzu/Altisource had not revealed. I asked them to resolve the lien, and they threatened to cancel the sale. After some back and forth, they agreed to investigate. For most of the next year, they did not nothing to resolve the lien until I contacted the lien holder. Ultimately, it took almost a year to get the lien released.
While the house sat waiting for the lean to be resolved, the house was vandalized and fell into disrepair. After closing, I found that all of the wiring had been torn from the attic. The entire house had to be rewired. Hubzu would not take resonsibility.
I am pursuing legal action (civil and criminal) against them, and would be interested in hearing about other Hubzu experiences.
I bid on a Hubzu property whereby a fire had occurred in the garage of the house, but Hubzu did not disclose this fact and infact said in black and white in an email that there had been no fire on the property. I had been to the property and they had a large piece of plywood screwed over the garage opening and inside they had the garage access locked with a metal lock. Then, when I said in returning to the property, I spotted charring, then they said "there was no active fire." Then, when I pressed further by talking in more details about the neighbors witnessing the fire, then they said "there was not much fire damage and then when I told them the fire department was aware of the fire and I had spoken to the fire department, then they coughed up the report.
They asked me what I would offer now in being unhappy and feeling I had overbid due to non-disclosure of the fire and I offered $1k over the second highest bidder and I formally requested they accept my modified bid or redo the auction WITH DISCLOSURE OF THE FIRE. The seller refused my offer although it met their reserve and claimed it was "as is" and I knew it. I told them that by law they must disclose a fire being on the property and should allow the public to see the garage, since they won't allow inspectors to inspect the premises. They redid the auction with no disclosure again.
Their defiance to disclose where disclosure is required by law is intentional deception. I have all the emails to prove every bit of what I'm saying. It is all in black and white.
Watch out
I was planning to place a bit on a house via Hubzu but with most all reviews being terrible how could I? Why doesn't the attorney Generals close down these people?
Hubzu.com Listed a property located at 1195 schenectady avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11203 as a 5 bedroom 2 bath on their website. Buyers beware this is a 3 bedroom 1 bath home with an additional half bath in the basement if you can call it that. The house has extreme fire damage on the second floor, everything is burnt to a crisp all the way to the ceiling, with possible roof repair. the outside of the property looks good enough, but do not bid without inspecting the property. Also water damage on the first floor. basement is stripped clean to the bareback. I was fortunate enough that I inspected before commiting.
I read another report like about www.hubzu.com this so it is not uncommon.
Working through a highly acclaimed realtor to place my bid on an absolute auction for a piece of foreclosed property, I had a high bid of $75600 on the property in Port St Joe Florida. The property had a hurricane damaged house to be demolished, was reported as owned by the bank and up for absolute auction to highest bidder. Near the end the bid marched up to $74900 and stayed there for several minutes. Then the bidding ended and website stated my realtor's name had WON.
I was sitting with my realtor and we were all overjoyed that the bidding came so close to our limit but we still won. We clicked to sign in and begin to take possession of the property. The web site changed and then said, "auction is under review".
For three days, the hubzu auction stated that we were the winners, but also stated the auction was under review. Then the auction changed to "closed". My realtor contacted a personal connection at hubzu and the person simply said the auction was retracted and hung up.
My realtor was mystified and said she has never seen such a thing, but heard that hubzu had a lot of strings attached to their auctions.
Just a warning to all you hopeful owners - forget www.hubzu.com. Its not worth the time to bother to bid.
On October 25th of 2017 I purchased a home through the website hubzu.com located at , Land O'Lakes, Fl .
Sale price was $214,000 and the premium was $9,630. I was told that I had to use their title company, Premium Title Services, Inc, 1000 Abernathy Rd NE, Suite 200,Atlanta Ga 30328 (855)339-6325 sd the closing agent. I closed on the house with the promise that Altisource, another Hubzu company, would clear all the defects that I had been informed of which was the HOA arrears and fines.
I had to pay the county water company more than $600 to get my water turned on and had to also pay the HOA to be up to date. I spent more than $50,000 to rehab the house and sold the house on 2/28/2017. The buyer's agent came back a few days later with 2 sinkhole findings listed with the county from 2011 and 2012.
The seller, the title company nor my realtor disclosed these reports to me. I am a 74 year old investor and not able to navigate all the necessary sites myself.
I contacted Hubzu's****.>
This company lures bidders in (by the HUBZU.com) promising closing in 20 days or less. They expedite the signing of the contract and take you deposit almost immediately. They also offer you their own title search company, offering you up to $400 credit, do not trust; get your own title. However, once you submit your deposit then they change their tune by postponing the closing, telling you that the deed is ready but they do not provide so you can close and the title is not clear/clean. This company does not appear to have clear title to the properties they advertise on Hubzu.com. They have you execute the contract expeditiously but if you try to cancel the deal due to their postponement of closing, they threaten you that the seller will retain your deposit and in most cases they will because the contract you sign, protects them only. In the meantime closing is postponed indefinitely, property keeps deteriorating.
Lessons learned:
Don’t trust this group, including the attorney’s they do business with!
Have your attorney stipulate on the contract that if closing is postponed by them that some penalty is agreed upon.
3. If the property deteriorates or its not in the same condition as you originally bid on, should have the right to cancel. Take pictures before and after of everything!
I couldn't agree more with the last complaint. The on-line auction is deceptive and fraudulent. I placed a bid, and at the end of the auction the bid was increased at the last minute. The propery went bid for bid which i ended up losing. I ended up losing the auction but was contacted by hubzu a few days later saying i won the auction. I contaced Altisource, who is the actual owner of the property, it is a company owned and run from India, but they use a Georgia phone line. I was able to speak to the asset manager and i stated my case as being this: The auction was between two bidders, since the winning bidder backed out, curious if there even was one, all his bids should be null and voided.
my bid that met the reserve should be the amount payable for the property. The asset manger declined and said i had to pay the higher bid amount. I refused and walked away. The property was relisted a day later. still interested in the property i started my bid at the last reserve and noticed the site read, reserve not met. Curious as i was i let the auction go at the initial bid. I won! Hubzu contacted me and said even though you won, the bid did not meet the sellers reserve price. I am confused! I started the bid a thousand above the last reserve price and lost. I contaced the asset manager and found out that they increased the reserve number.
He said if you want the property i had to pay the additional amount. I refused and was disgusted. Next day, the property was listed again, this time they listed at my offer. where is the end my friends. Did a little digging into Altisource and found out, it is also called Ocwen Financial. It is a india owned company using a bank out of the Camen Islands. They buy distressed properties from banks at a major discount and flip them on a auction site called Hubzu. This company has a lawsuit pending from its shareholders claiming deceptive dealings. Be very weary when bidding and expect the unexpected. This company definately needs to be looked at from a legal view. looks very shady to me.
Good evening, i've been working hard to find someone who may be able to help me in my situation with hubzu. Hubzu in my situation has allowed the banks to do whatever they want on their site with me the buyer. I've been stuck with strict terms and conditions by this site such as, premium fees associated with the purchase price of the properties listed on hubzu.com. The fees hubzu, and seller are asking me to pay are outrageous and i've asked why am i paying thousands of dollars for premium fees and what the fees are put towards regarding the house of interest, they say it’s for running the auction. I didn’t realize it cost $7,500.00 plus a technology fee of $299.00, in my situation to run an online site. My experience with this site has been awful not only for me but for my family too. I first learned of hubzu by being forced to go to hubzu.com to place an offer. I saw the property for sale on a real estate website Weichert.com which doesn't state anything about an auction, or hubzu), and wanted to see it.
When i went to the property to see it, i was very interested in placing an offer on property. I asked my realtor to place an offer on it. He advised me at that point, in order to place an offer, i would have to go to hubzu.com to bid on the house. There was no other way to place an offer on the home of interest. I knew nothing about online auctions, or any fees associated with them. So, i decided to go for it since there was no other way of submitting an offer on property. After the 3rd time of bidding on the property and being the highest bidder all three times, i finally met the reserve of the bank of $166,000.00 but it showed a total of 173,769.00, plus a technology fee of 299. Which i didn't understand why i was paying thousands of dollars more than what i place my bid for. Once i met the reserve and advised my realtor of the results, my realtor asked me if there were any fees associated with this purchase. At first, i told him no because i was not aware that i would have to pay any fees associated with the property, especially since the seller sought out hubzu’s services and was forced to their site to place an offer. I went back to hubzu and asked them if the seller can pay the fees associated with the property. The seller which is the bank said no and placed the property back on hubzu at a much higher reserve amount than what they accepted from me.
I continued to bid on the property at least 3 more times being the highest bidder up until last week when i was shocked to see what hubzu and the seller had done. Hubzu restarted the auction on this property which would make it my 7th time total being the highest bidder on this property. I had decided to place another bid on the property. The auction started july 6, 2017 and was supposed to be over july 13, 2017 at 6pm. I was the highest bidder at the time once again, until hubzu and seller decided july 12th to stop the auction 1 day and 22hrs earlier. Hubzu sent me a message stating that i requested to have my bid withdrawn, cleared out by bidding history on the site, and 7 minutes later they restarted the time to 6 days and put it back on hubzu starting the bid 22k lesser than my bid amount offered prior to. I made a call to hubzu and advised them that i never requested to have my bid withdrawn and they tried blaming me stating, for a bid to be withdrawn i must call in and request my bid be withdrawn. I informed the customer service rep that i was at work and there could not be any possible way i could have called in to withdraw my bid. I totally believe hubzu, and the seller have made the changes to my bid history in my account on hubzu.com to show no evidence of any bidding ever taken place. Which i have pictures to show prior bidding on the property, and generated a letter stating, per my request my bid has been withdrawn.
Hubzu is an awful company for allowing banks to take total advantage of buyers and doesn't deserve to be in business. Hubzu should be held accountable for unfair actions done against buyers trying to purchase properties through there site. Hubzu is not an auction site. I was always under the impression that an auction is based on the highest bidder winning what is being auctioned with no kickback from the seller auctioning product. This is my family’s livelihood there playing around with. Not only mine but others who is experiencing some type of illegal and unfair treatment from this horrible company. This company should be investigated, i’m sure if they were people would see all the illegal actions they’ve done against them. It is not fair for banks along with hubzu to walk all over hard-working people who are trying to find a safe place for their families to live. I totally believe everything stated about this company, especially regarding bids, and fees, it’s happened to me. I'm so frustrated, i hope to hear one day this business receiving the biggest lawsuit in history.
Purchased home from HUBZU.COM paid for home with cash. The property I purchased has so many violations that 3 years later im still fixing code violations. Ive spent over $80,000.00 dollars and im still not up to code. I'm being fined and when codes are fixed Miami Dade will be charging me taxes on monies I spent to fix code violations. This is fraud! Worst part in Miami Dade owner must clear violations or Miami Dade county fines owner for non compliance and that fine starts at $10,000 dollars, nor can I as property owner sell property until all code violations are fixed. This IS FRAUDULENT BUSINESS PRACTICES and something should be done so others dont get stuck like i have. All my saving was used to purchase this property. *please note I did have title company check for liens and code violations but none was found. All properties around me are working illegally with code violations but only my property was targeted.
Fraudulently accusations against home owners.i need help trying to get my land back,less than an acre.that I have lived at for 20 years.the trailer has been condemned and they are asking 48,00.00 dollars for.it is on homes.com for sale that is false advertisement.the home is vacant and unlivable.nobody from the top officials will answer the phone and talk to me.they have had two foreclosure sales and it did not even get but one bid of a thousand dollars.all I want is my land and that is it.
I wanted to help my daughter get her first home since she is now an icu night nurse at the local trauma hospital. I had bid on several hubzu properties before for investments, but had been outbid or not met the reserve so didn't win the properties That's the way auctions work). This time i saw the mls ad for the house listed at $47,000 and went by to look at the outside. Huge dangerous hole in the back yard where an above ground pool had been and had been dug half in the ground and had metal brace pieces sticking up on the sides of the hole and nothing keeping people from falling in and getting hurt.
Called my realtor to make an offer, wrote up a contract over asking and when she went to present it learned it was in a hubzu auction. The opening bid was in the 30's,, so i made the first bid and marked that i had not visited the property since i had not been inside the house and inspected it. Had my contractor meet me and my contractor meet at the house I knew it wouldn't go for the opening bid since it was below the reserve) and i raised my bids several times. When you bid on hubzu, you just raise your bid amount and don't change any of the other terms I had originally marked all cash, no contingencies and earliest closing date).
I then had my daughter meet me and my agent at the property and raised my bid prior to the end of the auction. Later that day i received an email from hubzu that the auction had ended and i had the highest bid. They have a disclaimer that they have the right to reject any offer at their discretion, but since mine was all cash, no inspection required, and the earliest closing they allowed i was just waiting for wiring instructions and a sales contract to start the ball rolling, which they state may take up to a week to prepare.
I had my contractor meet again with the realtor earlier today and we spent nearly an hour checking out everything and going over approximate repair costs Replace kitchen cabinets, redo bathrooms, fill the hole with 5 - 6 dump truck loads of dirt dumped in the front yard and moved to the back with a backhoe since no access to the area). Upon returning home i found an email stating that my offer had been rejected and immediately called my agent. I then contacted realhome services and solutions but got the listing agents voicemail and spoke to another employee. When i asked why my offer was rejected i was told that there was a higher offer. Asking further i was told it was $1,000 more than mine, which i found strange since i had the email stating i was the high bidder.
She transferred me to hubzu to find out if the offer was rejected because of my hispanic female name Some people don't even return calls or emails with a hispanic last name - it happens). Hubzu also gave me the story that the winning bidder was $1,000 over my final bid and she couldn't explain why i got the email since the winning bid was $49,000 and mine was only $48,000. I mentioned wanting to know the reason my offer was rejected before i spoke to my real estate attorney and she managed to transfer me to the listing agent, stephanie mccall. Ms. Mccall was very nice on the phone and said the other bid was higher and i must have not read the email correctly.
I pulled up the email The auction is over and you are the high bidder) which is hard to misunderstand. All three people i spoke to mentioned the clause they can reject any offer at will, but why would an owner reject an all cash offer with no contingencies to back out They could keep the earnest money deposit if i didn't fulfill the contract as liquidated damages) and i was willing and able to close at the earliest closing date. Ms. Mccall requested i forward the email to her and my own real estate agent Who was cheated out of her commision when i was rejected).
Now the story changed from i was outbid by antonio lopez to he placed a later bid for the same amount as me, but he had checked the box that said he had visited the property and in ocwen's infinite wisdom, they felt he knew more about the property and it's problems than i did. At no time did any of the above companies contact me to ask if i had been to the property to inspect and when you raise you bid on hubzu all you do is raise the amount of money and there is no box to change any of the other info Such as inspecting the property).
As any auction where you bid "as is where is", it's the buyer's responsibility to inspect prior to bidding and if i suddenly backed out, then i would lose the earnest money deposit and the backup bidder would be contacted. I still don't know why the story changed - you either were the high bidder or you weren't, dollar amounts don't change. Was i rejected because i am a woman and couldn't possibly know as much about rehabs and remodeling as a man? Cash is cash, no contingency is you bought it as is, earliest closing date is just that - as soon as you get a title policy showing no liens or fines on the property we close. What more could a seller want?
We bid on a house at 819 Azelia, Alamogordo, NM back in Feb of this year. We won the bid and met the reserve. Hubzu called us right away and wanted the earnest money of $23,000 within 48 hours. I read through the fine print of the terms of agreement of the contract and there was a clause that stated "no inspection" clause. We could not reach anyone at any of the contact numbers to tell us if that meant we could not have an inspection done of the house and even though we left messages, nobody called us back. I got a hold of the realtor who bid for us at auction and had to ask over and over to answer my direct question of "do we get our earnest money back if there are major problems found on the inspection". He finally answered and stated an inspection is not allowed at all and that we would lose our earnest money if we did not follow through with buying the house. When I told him that he told me that we could get our earnest money back under such circumstances prior to bidding, he stated "I mistakenly told you the wrong information". We have watched since and this same house has been "under contract" many times and then will go back to auction. I have a hunch that this auction house is only out to take one person's earnest money after another, knowing the house will not pass an inspection for a loan. With earnest money of $23,000 every couple months, they never have to sell the house and can continue to scam people. This auction company has changed its name several times. It is a scam in my opinion and should be considered a white collar crime on the magnitude of the stories that get exposed such as "American Greed". BE WARNED. Read the fine print. Don't give earnest money if the contract states "no" to the category of "Inspection Clause".
victim of HUBZU's unethical bidding timers - CLOSED AUCTION REOPENS!
I've just finished filing a complaint with the BBB and emailed Contact 6 in Milwaukee hoping one or the other or both will help. Now time to hit FB and hopefully (with your help) get this moving far, wide and fast. I want others to *not* experience the same raw deal we got and maybe just MAYBE the truth being shared will cause the company to have a change of heart and do the right thing ... ok, so a girl can hope!
NOTE: This will be very long, PLEASE please bear with me. It's unbelievably important not only to us but other consumers as well. I don't know how this company is growing with how they do things but it is (yes, in our local area, too!). Mine isn't the only complaint, I've found numerous others in my research.
On 11/9/2015 we participated in an online house auction. We already knew before we got involved, NOT the best way to buy a house but because it didn't cost a dime to bid and it was the ONLY way to get this house we want so bad that after some research we decided to give the company the benefit of the doubt and gave it a try.
After all, people will complain loudly online but happy customers share a lot less than angry disgruntled people. I found 21 complaints filed against them at the BBB and for a nationwide organization I figured not bad odds. Additionally each of the BBB results showed HUBZU fixed the problem in short order in the complainant's favor. This all gave me a tiny bit less to be skeptical about.
I had already located the actual seller which wasn't easy. It's Ocwen who *just happens* to be just one cog in the wheel of a multi-company conglomerate one owned by the other and the other and on and on. There were enough companies owning one another & working together to make your head spin which refueled my skepticism. Altisource, HUBZU, Ocwen + several more are all in cahoots together. RED FLAG!
I watched the auction from my computer while our Realtor did the bidding from her office about a mile away and we chatted on the phone off & on during the bidding war which was between us and one other bidder (or an employee or computer @ HUBZU - we don't know for sure). We both noticed early in the game that the timers on our two screens were different, with hers being about a minute or so ahead of mine. RED FLAG!
A few moments after our Realtor placed a bid the bidding timers on both our computers hit zero's and the screen automatically changed to display a new message that went something like this: "The AUCTION IS CLOSED, all bids are being processed and sent to the seller ... blah blah blah." Our Realtor got an almost immediate notification email containing the same basic message and our individual screens showed her latest bid for us was the one that triggered this. My thought was "This is too easy." I was not jumping for joy for winning but instead was skeptical and shortly found out I had good reason to be.
A few moments later another higher bid displayed on the screen and the bidding timer was reactivated. What happened to our CLOSED AUCTION we both wondered? Neither of us having participated in an online *house* auction before we both were scratching our heads.
Now you all might say that it's the different times on different computers meaning the other bidder's screen didn't show closed likely because his/her timer was behind ours. Thought about that but something bugged me so I contacted a non-involved, objective bystander website hosting company and spoke directly w/their techs. I did not tell them we were involved in this, did not name *anyone* as participants, didn't even say it was a *house* auction. I wanted an unbiased answer so I laid it out strictly as to what had happened and then asked about the bidding timers which I was questioning. They assured me I was right and that when it comes to auctions the bidding timers display *from the auction company's servers* and ALL timers on ALL their servers SHOULD be properly synchronized for each auction so each bidder sees the same screen at the same time ... no matter how many bidders there are. Interesting, works like eBay, right? But I've never had a problem with eBay timers.
We continued to bid as we were willing to go higher and thought maybe just maybe the other bidder would drop out before we hit our max bid. Didn't happen, we had to drop out, they obviously have more money than we do.
I stewed about this for awhile wondering what to do. The house *should* have been awarded to us ... we placed the bid that initially closed the auction! Later that day I got onto the HUBZU online chat, explained the problem and was assured the proper people would be notified so this could be investigated.
Two days later I was on the phone with the investigator of my complaint. Very nice man (yeah, ok, so he's got to be) he asked some questions, I answered them honestly. His last question was "What do you want to come out of this?"
I told him we want the house awarded to us @ the bid that closed the auction initially. We already knew we'd not hit the reserve bid that there would likely be a counter-offer from the seller and we were OK with that. But we weren't OK with the fact that we'd been cheated out of the opportunity to see this through because the CLOSED auction had been allowed to be re-opened by the other person's bid causing us to eventually have to drop out. ALL bids should have been prevented when the screen showed AUCTION CLOSED. He said he'd have to gather more info and would get back to us in a day or two.
This morning our investigator called to advise us that Altisource / HUBZU would NOT honor our bid or our request. They will NOT honor the initial CLOSED AUCTION - the house will remain with the other bidder. It doesn't matter to them that their timers weren't synchronized, it doesn't matter that what they're doing is unethical ... it boils down to greed and that in their eyes WE dropped out after the auction re-opened so basically they're saying it's our own fault. If we wanted the house we should have bid higher than the other guy. REALLY???? The reserve bid was met approximately $8,000 BELOW our highest bid so the RESERVE WAS MET but they're greedy!
We've been looking for a house for THREE YEARS! We recently lost the first one we fell in love with after all that time due to the sellers having accepted another offer just one day after we put ours in. Now we wind up in this mess. We really want this house (provided all inspections pass muster!)!!!
To any of you looking for a house - BUYER BEWARE OF HUBZU!