2005 - For many people, falling behind on the house payment is just a job loss or serious injury away. So imagine how you would feel if someone promised they could help save your home from foreclosure, then sold it out from under you. Or consider putting money into a guaranteed investment, only to have the company suddenly close down. That's what some Bay Area real estate investors say happened to them.
Nick Martinez came to the Bay Area two years ago, claiming he and his company could help homeowners and offer new investment opportunities.
"I thought it was a good way to make a quick investment," says Clyde Wong. Wong says that Nick Martinez and the Princess Properties company offered him a real estate investment deal that almost anyone would jump at. All he had to do was loan money so that Princess Properties could fix up a house in Mill Valley CA., and resell it within months for a quick profit.
"They had a whole list of properties that they said they had been able to purchase," Wong recalls; and with a "guaranteed" 18 percent return in three months, Wong gave them $100,000. But two years later, he's still waiting.
"I don't think there was ever intent to make an effort to pay back," Wong says.
Rita and Alfredo Cruz say that Princess Properties offered to rescue them from foreclosure. Their son Marlon says they were told that if they transferred their home ownership, they could stay and just make payments to Princess Properties.
"It's actually worse than getting robbed at gunpoint, because these people pretended to help and they didn't," Marlon says.
Just a few weeks after signing their home over, Princess sold the house to someone else, and the Cruzes were evicted.
"These people took $200,000 of equity, our home, our joy, our happiness," Marlon says.
So just what is Princess Properties, and who is Nick Martinez?
He set up an office in Pleasanton CA., advertising himself as a "Foreclosure Consultant," Telling homeowners in trouble that he could help them, and promising investors that they could make money buying foreclosed properties, turning and selling them for quick profits.
Princess Properties made lots of deals all over the Bay Area, involving millions of dollars. But now, many people involved in those deals are suing. We discovered more than a dozen lawsuits. Lawyer James Hand says his clients were taken too.
"What it suggests to me is that it's not a legitimate business," Hand says. "One of them lost $100,000, the other lost $50,000."
Hand won default judgments against Princess Properties. But contacting Martinez to try to get the money back from him proved difficult.
"It all came back return to sender, he had moved," Hand says.
Princess Properties had suddenly closed up shop, and Nick Martinez had left town.
As for what happened to the investor's money, Martinez claims: "It's the old catch-22, I want to pay your money now, but I don't have it. You want your money now, but I don't have it."
Mr. Martinez is a convicted felon who appears on the Megan's Law website. He's a child sex offender who went back and forth to jail seven times on parole violations.
"I would like the government to take his assets and pay back all the investors, pay back the homeowners that he has taken advantage of, then put him away for a long time," says Clyde Wong. "I just don't want him to do that to anyone else…I just want people to speak up so that the government can do something about it."
Martinez denies that he was doing anything illegal, and claims some of those homeowners and investors were paid back. He also claims that his new business Trusted Solution Enterprises Inc. isn't doing real estate deals anymore. He says that they are selling health and wellness products.
Nick Martinez Information as of 2023
Megans Law Site
Megans Law Site
Victims
Previous Location
Current Address:
1233 S. WILLOW AVE, WEST COVINA, 91790
County: LOS ANGELES
Additional Reported Address:
5640 ROSEMEAD BLVD, PICO RIVERA, 90660
County: LOS ANGELES
This is the most current information available on this scam artist/pedophile Nicholas John Martinez.
Martinez should never be around children and anyone contemplated doing business with him is strongly advised to learn as much as you can about him prior to entering into any agreement with him; especially regarding real estate. He has brought a lot of misery to a lot of people, especially children.
Princess Properties President Nick Martinez In Custody
