News About Properties

Board-certified real estate attorney Gary M. Singer answers housing questions in this space each Friday.

Q: I am elderly and got involved with a rental property with the help of a family member. Now the family member is nowhere in sight, the tenant left and the mortgage is underwater. I don’t have the energy or desire to deal with it. I am on Social Security and living check to check. I can’t afford the payments, and the collections calls are raising my blood pressure. What can I do? – Anonymous

via Ask a real estate pro: Short sale or bankruptcy?.

The first disaster for Ron Benitez was losing his DeBary home to the massive flooding caused by Tropical Storm Fay in 2008.

Now, the retiree is facing a financial calamity: paying far more for flood insurance because of newly revised federal maps that have made his rebuilt home part of a high-risk flood zone.

Benitez, whose home was among 130 in DeBary flooded during Fay, used to carry a minimal flood-insurance policy. But with the new designation, his rates will climb sharply.

via Florida flood insurance: FEMA’s redrawn maps mean many in Metro Orlando need costly flood insurance .

It’s starting to feel as if there are two housing markets. One for the rich — and international buyers — and one for everyone else.

Consider foreclosure-ravaged Detroit. In the historic Green Acres district, a haven for hipsters, a pristine, three-bedroom brick Tudor recently sold for $6,000 — about what a buyer would have paid during the Great Depression.

Yet just 15 miles away, in the posh suburban enclave of Birmingham, bidding wars are back. Multimillion-dollar mansions are selling quickly. Sales this August were up 21% from the previous year. The country club has ended its stealth discounts on new memberships. And Main Street’s retail storefronts are full.

via Housing market is terrific, if you are rich – USATODAY.com.

South Florida is about to go from condo bust to apartment boom.Developers are set to kick off a new round of housing construction with plans to build more than 4,000 rental apartments. Five years have passed since the collapse of the housing market brought an end to the condo construction craze that swept the region.Two high-rises are proposed in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Other projects being pitched include a cluster of towers with almost 400 apartments on Young Circle in Hollywood and a sprawling complex with almost the same number of units at the old Levitz shopping center in Boca Raton.

via Apartment construction set to sweep Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Those who want even more help are turning to rental-management professionals. “It’s been a huge boon for us,” said Brenton Hayden, president and CEO of Renters Warehouse, Golden Valley. Unintentional landlords now represent more than 50 percent of his firm’s customers, up from about 10 percent just two years ago. “We’ve had to staff up and train people on the ins and outs.”

Real-Time Leasing, a Burnsville company, also has seen an increase in accidental landlords, according to co-owner James Wagley. The chores that such landlords are most eager to outsource are “confrontations,” often related to collecting rent, and maintenance, he said. Many amateur landlords seek professional help after a tenant fails to pay rent for several months. “They [landlords] try to be nice, then feel duped and embarrassed” when the nonpayment persists, Wagley said.

Anne Healy’s year as a landlord was so frustrating that she put her St. Paul house back on the market and recently sold it — for $50,000 less than an offer she turned down last year.

via Sign of the times: Accidental landlords.

Like thousands of local homeowners in their golden years, Rosemary Chandler took out a reverse mortgage in 2005 to help pay her expenses and remain in the Elk Grove home that’s been in her family since the 1940s.

The decision worked out fine during her lifetime. But since her death in January 2010, it has created a legal mess for her son, who now faces foreclosure and eviction from the family home.

This month, Robert Chandler, 66, filed a class-action lawsuit against Wells Fargo Bank in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleging that the San Francisco banking giant routinely violated federal rules on reverse mortgages, forcing the homes of deceased borrowers to go into foreclosure instead of allowing family members to purchase them from the bank.

via Reverse mortgage turns sour for heir – San Jose Mercury News.