The market for homeowners looking to sell

The market for homeowners looking to sell

Melissa Morris put her Haight-Ashbury flat on the market in mid-September. It was priced right and she accepted an offer of $825,000 within days.

The contractor’s inspection was set for Sept. 29 and as the buyer toured the home, the stock market was in the midst of its historic meltdown. The Dow Jones industrial average would ultimately drop 777.68 points that day, setting a record for the worst point drop in its history.

The buyer’s stock portfolio took a hit and he walked away from the deal. Though the buyer ultimately came back, Morris agreed to a lower sale price of $815,000.

Volatility in the stock market, falling home prices and tightening credit markets mean that the lousy times for Bay Area home sellers roll on. The median price for a home or condo in San Francisco fell 12.7 percent to $675,000 in September from $773,500 a year earlier, according to MDA DataQuick. At the same time, the number of homes sold inside San Francisco’s city limits held steady in September, while foreclosures helped that number increase 45 percent across the Bay Area’s nine counties.

Cap may make it harder to obtain mortgage

Cap may make it harder to obtain mortgage

The cap on single-family home loans in San Diego County that can be purchased by government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be reduced in January from $697,500 to $546,250.

In a move that’s expected to make it harder for some consumers to get mortgages, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced yesterday that it is replacing temporary caps that expire on Dec. 31.

Consumers who take out loans greater than the “conforming limit” typically pay higher interest rates. And they may have trouble getting a loan at all, because the two mortgage giants have become the main source of home-loan funding since the collapse of the nation’s subprime lending market last summer.

Lowering the limit is expected to place downward pressure on home prices, which have declined sharply since the median home price here peaked at $517,500 in November 2005. The median in September was $328,000, down nearly 37 percent from the peak, according to the MDA DataQuick research firm.

Wall Streetwalkers: The Sleazy Lehman Brothers Subsidiary

Wall Streetwalkers: The Sleazy Lehman Brothers Subsidiary

Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld told Congress on October 6 that the Wall Street investment bank was destroyed by a “financial tsunami”—a natural disaster, an act of God.

In other words, it wasn’t his fault.

But the truth is that Lehman’s fall in the subprime-mortgage crisis was a man-made disaster. The white-shoe firm was not just deeply involved in the murky subprime-mortgage market; Lehman and the other dominant Wall Street investment banks, experts tell the Voice, actually created the demand for the mortgages that they would then package and swap for enormous returns. Addicted to the profits that such securities brought in, Lehman was desperate for the risky mortgages they required

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Who backed out of St. Joe’s $130-million deal?

Who backed out of St. Joe’s $130-million deal?

Wake up and good morning. I know, we’ve all got the buzz of the presidential election on our fuzzy minds this morning. Congratulations on a hard-fought, historical event. We’ll be sorting this one out for months if not years.

But for now, I want to go instead to the 607,000-acre behemoth known as St. Joe Co., Florida’s biggest private landowner (though it will lose that title as it continues to sell acreage). It reported earnings, a loss in fact, on Tuesday. Here’s a basic story and here are greater details. You may remember, that St. Joe assembled the bulk of its rural land holdings in the 1920s and 1930s for pennies on the acre. The company has no debt and no mortgage on these holdings. The company’s cost to keep it is minimal. Lucky St. Joe.

What’s more compelling is St. Joe’s strategy to keep reshaping the Florida Panhandle — dare we still call it the Redneck Riviera? — or, as St. Joe’s marketing hammer dubs it, Florida’s Great Northwest.

Policy forbids renting condo until all fees are paid | MiamiHerald.com

Policy forbids renting condo until all fees are paid

We now have a policy in effect forbidding an owner from renting their condominium unit until the arrears are paid in full. If a delinquent owner sneaks in a renter, how can they be denied occupancy? Can we deny the renter access to the pool area and other amenities? Can we turn off the electricity and water during eviction action?

A: It is good to have a policy. However, the board should have a way to enforce the policy.

Condominiums cannot take away rights to use common areas. No, do not turn off electricity or water or any other service. You have the power to lien and foreclose to collect delinquent fees, but trying to restrict rentals is not the way to force collections. To create a rule, there should be a specific need and a way to enforce the rule. Define the problem and ascertain if a new rule is necessary. Determine if the new rule will conflict with an existing rule or other provisions of the association’s documents. Ask if the rule will be reasonable and not arbitrary or capricious and if the rule will be enforceable and what powers will be required to enforce the rule. Get the members involved in creating the rule by allowing input and communications. Once you have a draft of the rule, present it to the association attorney for his/her review.

Condo Project Beats The Odds, Builds Hope

Condo Project Beats The Odds, Builds Hope

From a penthouse balcony on the 29th floor of the best building he ever built, Richard Sacchi stared out over downtown Tampa.

He was broken, a developer whose company had just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It was a last-ditch effort to stop foreclosure on The Towers of Channelside, twin condos that got stuck in the housing downturn.

From that balcony, he had a view of two other new condominium complexes, one that filed for bankruptcy a month earlier and another that handed the keys over to the lender and walked away.

“We fully expect to come out of this on the other side,” Sacchi said at the time.