News About Properties

Subprime mortgage, but no foreclosure

“You deserve to lose your home.”

That’s what David Abel’s father told him when David and his wife, Gloria, bought their Springettsbury Township home.

In order to take on the risk of their credit history, the lender offered the Abels a loan with a higher interest rate than the norm — typically referred to as a subprime mortgage.

Trashed homes part of foreclosure crisis

Mounting foreclosures have created a cottage industry in Lee County: the trashout business.

Here’s how it works:

When a lender takes back a home in foreclosure, or a landlord kicks out a recalcitrant tenant, the trashout specialists are called in to clean up their mess.
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Jillian Miller, a real estate agent with Century 21 Sunbelt in Cape Coral, said when a lender retains her to sell a house, she typically has 48 hours to change the lock and a week to get an estimate on what the house would sell for in 30 days or less.

Strategy to stave off foreclosure falls short

More than 7,000 homeowners facing foreclosure in the Valley are trying to sell their homes through a process known as a short sale, according to Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service data.

But less than 5 percent manage to sell before lenders seize their houses.

The failure by banks and homeowners to agree to a short sale – to sell a home for less than the amount still owed on the mortgage – is adding to the Valley’s growing foreclosure problem.

And the government’s recent financial-bailout package to help alleviate the nation’s housing crisis will do little to address the problem of short

Vultures in Miami’s Real Estate Market [South Florida]

On the 79th Street Causeway that connects inner Miami to the city’s beaches, a colony of giant turkey vultures sits ominously on a radio tower, staring at the downtown skyline. Migratory scavengers, they’re drawn to tall buildings.

Across the bay, vulture investors, that other breed of migratory scavenger, are feasting. South Florida is in the throes of a truly hellish real estate bust. Home prices are down 24% in the past year, with many places changing hands for less than half their height-of-bubble values. The region has seen foreclosures on more than $14.2 billion worth of property this year—a record. Developers can’t sell enough units to pay construction loans. Condo boards are trying to keep the stairwells of their half-empty buildings clear of vagrants. Landlords are renting out units at daily rates to makers of porn films.

The bleak tableau is exactly what vulture investors have been waiting for. Having sat out the bubble, they’re flocking to the Magic City to make lowball, often all-cash offers for numerous properties at once. Some members of this motley assortment of foreign professionals, U.S. money managers, and retired corporate executives learned how to prey by picking through the detritus of the U.S. savings and loan bust. Others earned their stripes in emerging- market financial crises. They differ in their tactics; what unites them is their absolute insistence on paying bottom dollar.

St. Petersburg condos thrive amid economic turmoil [Tampa Bay Florida]

Its recent record of bankruptcies, broken contracts and busted lenders aside, the Tampa Bay area’s condo tower market still has a pulse on the St. Petersburg waterfront.

As all-but-dead projects like Trump Tower Tampa hold off creditors in bankruptcy court, Ovation in downtown St. Petersburg will spend the week pouring concrete for its final — 27th — floor at Beach Drive and Second Avenue NE.

The $85-million building offers 45 units ranging from about $1.2-million to $4.4-million. Despite the high prices, two-thirds have sold.

“Amazingly, September was an excellent month. We had three new sales,” said Mike Cheezem, president of JMC Communities, the project’s builder/developer.

26 sue law firm over West Palm Beach condo money [South Florida]

More than two dozen buyers trying to recover deposits on the failed Palladio Terrace condo have filed a $2.5 million lawsuit against the Gunster Yoakley law firm, claiming the firm failed to properly guard their cash when it served as the condo’s escrow agent.

Merco Group of the Palm Beaches, Palladio Terrace’s developer, abandoned plans to build the West Palm Beach luxury condo two years ago, but it has not returned all $10 million in deposits it obtained from would-be buyers. These and other buyers have lobbed lawsuits against Merco, seeking the return of their money. Some judgments have been reached but not paid by Miami-based Merco.

Now, 26 would-be Palladio Terrace buyers are pointing the finger at Gunster Yoakley, saying the firm was negligent in releasing their money to Merco in the first place.

“Knowing you have one of the largest, most important law firms in the county protecting your money – only to find out that they didn’t – is outrageous,” said Steve Katzman, a Boca Raton lawyer representing the group. “If a project fails, the only thing standing between you and the loss of your money is the escrow agent.”