Some homeowners have had to beef up the amount of property insurance they buy to cover what they say are inflated cost estimates to rebuild their homes.
It’s a double whammy for homeowners because for many, rebuilding costs didn’t go down when the economic downturn lowered construction costs over the past few years.
Take John Hutelin, a pilot in Plantation whose premium increased 24 percent, to $3,873, after Citizens Property Insurance recalculated the cost to rebuild his home.
Flush with cash from an oil boom and plentiful jobs, North Dakotans are snapping up homes 1,500 miles away in balmy Arizona, where prices have plunged since the real estate bubble burst.
“It boils down to the weather and taking advantage of the market,” says real estate agent Rocky Parra of HomeSmart Realty in Gilbert, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb.
He and wife Beverly, a native of Minot, N.D., have sold eight homes to North Dakotans in recent months. Parra is heading to North Dakota this month to meet with possible buyers.
About a five-minute walk from the Ritz-Carlton hotel in south Orange County is a town-home community that has seen its share of hard times.
Not that long ago, Whisper Lakes was collecting only about two-thirds of the association dues its owners were supposed to pay to keep the place running. Town homes that had sold for $175,000 at the peak of the homebuying frenzy five and six years ago were going for $40,000. Shrubbery was dying, and owners complained that the buildings’ quarter-century-old, hunter-green paint scheme resembled that of military barracks.
via Townhomes in Orlando: Whisper Lakes townhomes in Orlando renovated – OrlandoSentinel.com.
Several years ago, we were talked into getting what I believe was a predatory loan – a negatively amortizing mortgage for 100 percent of the purchase price of our home. The loan broker assured us we could refinance the following year to a more traditional mortgage.
We paid the minimum monthly payment required, which didn’t cover all the interest owed, so that amount was added to our mortgage balance. Like others, we have experienced the nightmare of the current housing market, and with the negative amortization adding on even more debt, we are severely underwater.
We’ve worked with two companies trying to get a workable loan modification but to no avail. The bank is not cooperating at all.
via Law exempts forgiven foreclosure debt from income on tax return.
Condominiums, like homes, are selling at a healthy pace in Southwest Florida, but the median sales price continues to give ground — the result of more realistic sellers and a greater mix of units at the low end of the market and distressed properties.
Sales during November rose 7 percent in Sarasota-Bradenton and 19 percent in Charlotte County-North Port.
Meanwhile prices fell 16 percent to $110,000 in Sarasota-Bradenton from a year ago and 7.6 percent from just the previous month.
Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Canady shut down the state’s 2-year-old foreclosure mediation program Monday, after low success rates and criticism from both lenders and borrowers deemed the program unsustainable.
The court system, which has faced a torrent of foreclosure cases in the past several years, has seen its budgets cut and staff reduced. That combined with a rising number of foreclosure cases led to substantial backlogs for many of the court circuits around the state.
The Supreme Court’s solution was mediation, which it mandated throughout the court system.
via Florida justice shuts down foreclosure mediation program.
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