Cocoa Housing debacle may oust tenant

A public housing tenant could become a casualty in battle between the Cocoa Housing Authority and HUD over a $1.3 million debt.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development will sanction Cocoa Housing Authority board members if they fail to justify not repaying another Brevard County housing authority’s Section 8 voucher program, according to a letter from HUD to board members.

Sanctions would forbid board members from participating in public housing programs, which would leave tenant and board member Celestine Sutton homeless.

via Cocoa Housing debacle may oust tenant.

$8 billion in mortgage relief arriving in Florida mailboxes

The jackpot of a lifetime arrived last month inside a letter from GMAC Mortgage: an offer to make more than $200,000 in debt instantly disappear.

The lender, the letter said, would slash what the homeowner owed to ribbons, including shrinking her $204,000 mortgage principal to about a third its size.

Far be it from a hoax, the letter was one of thousands sent to homeowners across the country. The offers, free and unsolicited, proved nearly impossible to resist.

via $8 billion in mortgage relief arriving in Florida mailboxes.

Cerabino: Surburban West Palm Beach condo assocation looking…

Alan Meltzer has a fantasy about walking into a Wells Fargo branch and making a dramatic announcement.“I’m here to collect,” he imagines himself saying. “Give me your cash registers.”Meltzer isn’t a would-be bank robber. He’s a condominium president who has turned the tables on one of America’s megabanks.

via Cerabino: Surburban West Palm Beach condo assocation looking….

Longboat Key Club in talks with Ocean Properties

The owner of the Longboat Key Club is in talks to sell a financial stake in the tony resort that could jump-start its long-delayed $400 million redevelopment.

Loeb Partners Realty is discussing a joint venture with Ocean Properties Ltd., a major hotel owner and operator whose holdings include three local properties, including the Lido Beach Resort.

Loeb, which has owned the 400-acre resort since 1990, has been looking for a financial partner since a sweeping redevelopment and expansion plan was approved more than two years ago.

via Longboat Key Club in talks with Ocean Properties.

Some boomers to their mortgage: ‘Til death do us part’

More baby boomers are retiring while still paying mortgages — and some expect to make house payments into their 90s, mortgage brokers and financial planners say.

It’s part of a trend: Many current and future retirees are opting not to follow the traditional golden rule of paying off their home before their last day at work so they will have less expenses in retirement.

“It’s a very hot topic,” said Howard Dvorkin, founder of the Fort Lauderdale-based Consolidated Credit Counseling Services, which is now seeing more seniors grappling with large debt loads, including mortgages. In the past two decades, seniors have increasingly retired while still making house payments, Dvorkin said.

>

via Some boomers to their mortgage: ‘Til death do us part’.

Property in College Towns a Boon to Real Estate Investors, Parents

For some parents, sending kids off to college means equipping the budding academics with a laptop and carting their stuff to a closet-sized dorm room on the far side of campus.For others, it involves making a different kind of investment: real estate.

According to Realtors in some of the nation’s hottest rental markets, more parents are opting to purchase property for students to live in during their four-year college stint instead of forking over big bucks for on-campus housing or sky-high rents

via Property in College Towns a Boon to Real Estate Investors, Parents.