News About Properties

Florida Foreclosure Auction Web Sites Confuse Consumers

Over the past year, I’ve covered Florida’s deep foreclosure problem on multiple occasions. To attempt to cope with the growing foreclosure inventory, the state government has turned to an eBay-like online foreclosure auction system. While utilizing the Internet may be a smart means for making the auction process easier, it also opens up these auctions to a much wider, less experienced pool of potential buyers — anyone with an Internet connection. But some of those new users who think they’re getting an incredible deal on a foreclosed property are actually getting ripped off instead.

Florida’s housing market was one of the most brutalized by the housing bubble’s pop. The state’s economy was very dependent on its real estate industry. In 2009 alone it recorded over a half-million foreclosures, according to RealtyTrac. In Florida 26% of all mortgages are at least one payment past due, reports the Mortgage Bankers Association. So you can see why the state needs to do something to whittle down its growing inventory of foreclosed properties.

The state government is trying to do just that through its new online auction system, administered through realauction.com. First rolled out late last year, counties across the state are slowly adopting these online auction systems accessed through their Clerk of Court’s webites. Miami-Dade’s site went live in January.

Weak insurers put Floridians at risk

Millions of Floridians now bet their homes on property insurers that teeter on the edge of financial failure, a Herald-Tribune investigation has found.

These companies look nothing like the Allstates and State Farms that insure the rest of America — legacy carriers that command bankrolls the size of small nations.

Instead, because State Farm and Allstate are fleeing Florida, a growing number of homeowners get their insurance from tiny, untested companies that have a few million dollars in the bank but insure billions worth of property they could never hope to rebuild on their own.

No one knows what will happen when the next big storm strikes Florida shores. But the signs are not promising.

Corcoran exec Pamela Liebman says realistic expectations are key to real estate sales success

It’s been six years since The Corcoran Group made its dramatic entrance from New York City onto the Palm Beach real estate stage, instantly acquiring local cachet by acquiring successful broker Paulette Koch’s namesake agency here in late 2003 and, shortly thereafter, purchasing McCann, Coyner & Clarke.

For the next five years, as the nation’s real estate bubble over-inflated, Corcoran enjoyed heady success. And so did Pamela Liebman, once the protege of the legendary Barbara Corcoran, who left the Manhattan-based agency after selling it to the massive NRT Inc. in 2001. The year before, Liebman had become Corcoran’s president and CEO, the position she still holds today, overseeing 2,300 employees and a company with sales totaling $10 billion last year.

Palm Beach was a natural fit for Corcoran, company officials said in 2003, as were the offices Corcoran was adding in The Hamptons, decisions that created a synergistic real estate triangle — with New York at its key point — to serve higher-end clients in all three markets.

Under Liebman’s leadership, Corcoran also expanded its reach in Palm Beach County, acquiring an office in Delray Beach and opening an office — since closed — in Palm Beach Gardens.

Dezer Properties takes stake in Sunny Isles Beach Trump Towers

As the Related Group unwinds projects, Dezer Properties has taken over the Miami mega-condo developer’s ownership stake at Trump Towers in Sunny Isles Beach and is assuming the remaining debt on the property.

Condominium prices are being cut by at least 30 percent at the newly built skyscrapers, said Dezer Properties President Gil Dezer, as the company tries to unload hundreds of unsold units amid a troubled real-estate market.

Real-estate experts say the prices now rank below competing new oceanfront properties countywide.

The three-tower, 813-unit oceanfront condominium project at 16001 Collins Ave. was co-developed by Related and Dezer — with Related responsible for construction and financing and Dezer in charge of sales and marketing, Dezer said. The towers derived their name through a licensing deal with New York real-estate mogul Donald Trump.

Lakewood Ranch firm buys lots … $81 million worth [Central Florida]

Starwood Land Ventures, a Lakewood Ranch firm formed three years ago to acquire distressed real estate, has scored one of the largest land purchases in Florida in the past year.

Starwood Land officials say the company’s $81 million acquisition of nearly 5,500 lots from the bankrupt Tousa Homes Inc. will allow it to re-energize communities from Jacksonville to Miami and generate sales to builders.

“This is really the culmination of Starwood Land’s efforts in regards to searching and bidding on residential assets,” said Mike Moser, the local company’s east regional president.

As part of the acquisition, Miami-based Lennar Corp. has committed to buy 1,400 of the Starwood lots, and has options to buy another 1,350.

For some, mortgage relief ends up costing more

In 2008, Southwest Airlines flight attendant Kevin Parker slammed his shoulder so hard during severe turbulence that he was out of work for months.

His lender, Bank of America, allowed him to skip payments on his St. Petersburg home for 90 days. But when Parker sought a permanent loan modification, he began a journey as bumpy as anything he had encountered in the air.

“I sent the first e-mail probably last February and didn’t get a response, so I started e-mailing every other day trying to talk to someone,'’ Parker says. “Then it seemed like every time I called them, I was turned over to another caseworker who didn’t have the information I had sent.'’

Five months and some 40 e-mails and phone calls later, Parker got the bank to reduce his payments by about $126 a month. But there was a big tradeoff: His late payments were tacked onto the balance, increasing the amount he owes to $157,805 — $10,300 more than he originally borrowed.