Web site helping link sore investors

The Internet features Web sites for finding old high school friends, that someone special or just other people with interests similar to yours.

Corrine Cordon, owner of Capella Commercial Mortgage and president of the Private Lenders Group, probably has the only Web site for Nevada investors who want to share information about busted hard-money loans.

Web surfers who visit www.nevadatrustdeeds.com aren't looking for love. They typically aren't looking for new hard-money lending opportunities either. What they are looking for, though, is help recovering some of the money they entrusted to hard-money lenders and to developers who borrowed the money.

Most hard-money loans are in default because of the collapse of Southern Nevada's real estate market. In many cases, investors in these loans need to manage the property, pay the taxes and look for potential buyers.

During a recent state regulation workshop, industry leaders discussed the need for a Web site with detailed, specific information for investors who hold fractional interests in hard-money loans and properties foreclosed on by hard-money lenders. Cordon volunteered to set up the site.

It is designed to help investors who say hard-money lenders are withholding information they need to contact other investors who have fractional interests in the same loans.

Kim, who didn't provide her last name, explained in a comment posted on nevadatrustdeeds.com: "Once the loan defaults, minimal information -- name, address, phone number ­-- must be (disclosed by hard-money lenders) so the new owners can communicate and determine what is best for them."

Cordon agreed.

"One of the major reasons an investor will lend his money out is because he has recourse against the property if the loan goes bad," Cordon said. "That is a benefit that you don't get with a stock or bond or mutual fund investment, and to deny an investor the ability to manage his asset with his fellow owners is to deny him one of his fundamental rights as an investor -- and as a capitalist."

The state appears to have no law or rule requiring hard-money lenders to share that information the loan investors. So nevadatrustdeeds.com probably provides the easiest way for investors to identify other owners of fractional interests in the loans and repossessed real estate.

Investors may register as having an interest in a specific loan or foreclosed property. They can disclose their identity or, if they wish, they can remain anonymous, but still get e-mails about the loan or parcel.

Cordon is preparing to add software that enables investors to form and manage their own groups through nevadatrustdeeds.com.

The Web site also has the agenda for an April 30 meeting on those regulations.

The Mortgage Lending Division is considering new regulations for the hard money lending industry because of new legislation and because hard-money lending has all but stopped with the collapse of the economy and realty prices.

There are two separate but somewhat related sites.

Law firm Marquis & Aurbach set up a Web site for investors in USA Capital, the hard-money lender that collapsed in 2006. Visit llcreceiver.com to see that Web site.

The Nevada Association of Mortgage Professionals maintains a Web site (www.namp.us) for mortgage brokers, including those who originate home loans and some hard-money lenders, President Janis Grady said.

Contact reporter John G. Edwards
at jedwards@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0420.