Buy a house, get a check

Buy a house, get a check

If you’re thinking of buying a house, run, don’t walk, to the nearest real estate office. Time is running out for first-time homebuyers to get an $8,000 tax credit.

“We’re seeing closings take 30 to 45 days, so they’d better do it right now,” advised EiIeen Mikulecky, a Keller Williams Realty broker associate. Her latest customer will use the money to fix up his new home.

The credit is available to anyone who hasn’t owned a home in the last three years. Unlike Cash for Clunkers, the $8,000 can’t be used in the closing.

Most homebuyers will declare the credit on their 2009 tax return. If they don’t owe that much, they’ll get a tax rebate check.

New wave of commercial foreclosures looms

New wave of commercial foreclosures looms

Banks have foreclosed on more than 400,000 square feet of office space, more than 400 hotel rooms, more than 1,250 condominum units, more than 100,000 square feet of warehouse space and more than 150 acres of raw commercial land in Sarasota and Manatee counties since November.

This is prime commercial real estate that about 80 investors bought and developed during the real estate boom with loans totaling nearly $300 million.

With those investors unable to make interest payments, the properties will soon be taken over by banks — a prospect that few in the financial community look forward to.

South Florida homeowners walking away from underwater mortgages

South Florida homeowners walking away from underwater mortgages

Many South Florida homeowners who can afford to make their mortgage payments are choosing not to, forcing the lender to foreclose. It’s called strategic default.

Andres Duque thought he got a real steal when he paid $125,000 for his Little Haiti condo. But four years later, similar units are selling for $35,000 and even less.

And so, faced with the prospect of being underwater on his mortgage — owing more than the unit is worth — for the next 20 years, Duque, 33, made what seemed to him like a rational choice: to cut and run.

He stopped paying the mortgage, basically forcing the lender to take the condo off his hands through foreclosure.

Personal finance: What if you don’t pay the mortgage?

Personal finance: What if you don’t pay the mortgage?

We all talk about what ifs.

One big what if that many South Florida homeowners have today has to do with mortgages.

About one-third of South Florida mortgages are underwater, meaning the homeowners owe more than the home is worth at today’s depressed prices, according to First American CoreLogic. Some homeowners are certainly wondering why they’re sending in the payment on, say, a $300,000 mortgage, when the house today would only sell for $210,000.

Your options: Keep paying or try to change your loan’s terms.

`Shadow market’ clouds housing recovery

`Shadow market’ clouds housing recovery

A new study of homes likely to be put on the market for sale suggests S. Florida’s housing market will see more price declines just as values have been appearing to stabilize.

The number of properties on the market may be much larger than anyone thought and appears likely to swamp South Florida with more deeply discounted homes, clouding the prospects for a housing recovery.

Figures from the Florida Association of Realtors released Friday show that South Florida’s median home prices have stabilized over the past several months and sales are up year-over-year as the number of properties on the market shrinks.

Feared flood of foreclosures in California may be averted

Feared flood of foreclosures in California may be averted

Signs are emerging that a much-feared escalation of California home foreclosures may not happen, as banks respond to government pressure and scale back their repossessions of troubled properties.

Statewide, the number of homes taken back by lenders dropped sharply in the three months ended Sept. 30, falling 37% over the same period a year earlier, when foreclosures were at an all-time high.

If the trend continues, it will give momentum to the fledgling recovery in the housing market. Although home prices appear to have bottomed out in much of the state, industry analysts have cautioned that a glut of foreclosed properties coming on the market could send values plunging again.

“I certainly don’t think there’s going to be a deluge, or second wave of foreclosures,” said UC Berkeley economist Kenneth Rosen, who believes federal officials will do whatever it takes to see the backlog of foreclosures clear gradually. “There’s now an appetite to make sure we get this right.”