Citizens board approves 10.2 percent insurance increase [Florida]

State-run insurer Citizens backed off proposals to uncap rates for new customers and limit coverage for water damage but its board voted Friday to approve an average 10.2 percent increase in premiums.

In an unusual move, the board approved sending regulators two sets of rates. One is an average 8.8 percent increase statewide. But the board later narrowly voted to recommend a second set of rates reflecting risk factors that amounted to a 10.2 percent increase.

The rate filings would take effect in 2013 and are subject to approval by the state’s Office of Insurance Regulation. Citizens, the state’s largest property insurer, has 1.4 million customers statewide and 140,000 in Palm Beach County

via Citizens board approves 10.2 percent insurance increase.

Strip Off: When Bankruptcy and a Second Mortgage Are an Opportunity for Florida Homeowners

As a consumer attorney, it isn’t often that I get to say “bankruptcy” and “exciting news” in the same conversation, let alone in the same breath.But in May, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers all of Florida, made some exciting bankruptcy news. A three-judge panel ruled that homeowners with a completely underwater second or junior mortgage can now wipe the mortgage away, or strip it, in chapter 7 bankruptcy.

For example, you purchased a home in 2005 during the height of the market for $250,000.  Your first mortgage was $200,000, and you took a second mortgage maybe to avoid private mortgage insurance PMI, or maybe you cashed out equity later for $50,000.  With the mortgage meltdown, your home is now worth $175,000.  Your second mortgage is completely underwater, or unsecured, because there is no equity protecting the mortgage.

via Strip Off: When Bankruptcy and a Second Mortgage Are an Opportunity for Florida Homeowners.

Bidders Get Feisty Over Foreclosed Homes

For-sale homes in California are sparse, even in areas with high foreclosure rates. It has led to buyers like Jennifer Bryant, who is willing to throw money at just about anyone willing to sell her a house.

Since February, Bryant has made 35 offers on homes in Riverside, only to be elbowed out by other bids.

With few houses available and many bidders chasing these properties, she feels she has, at most, an hour to consider each house.

“Some of these houses that I’ve offered on, I haven’t even actually seen,” she says. “If my husband can’t go by it, I’ll just make an offer on it. If I haven’t seen pictures of it, I’ll just make the offer on it.”

via Bidders Get Feisty Over Foreclosed Homes.

Tax Report: Rules for Renting Out Your Vacation Home

Summer is here, and so is this year’s crop of summer rentals. In some areas, the market for vacation properties is even perking up after a string of down years.

If you are a vacation-home landlord or thinking of becoming one, it is time to review the tax rules on rental income from second homes.

This isn’t beach reading. Apart from one simple provision, this area is among the messiest in the tax code—”worse than luxury-car depreciation and almost as bad as the alternative minimum tax,” says CPA Douglas Stives of Monmouth University in New Jersey.

via Tax Report: Rules for Renting Out Your Vacation Home.

Young homeowner takes condo from cookie-cutter to cool

Caroline Cornelius, a young schoolteacher, could barely afford the builder’s model villa condominium she bought in Sarasota in 2003. Upgrades were not an option.But from the start she had major ambitions for her two-bedroom, two-bath home in the Villa Rosa subdivision.

And so she made a list, saved her money and spent free time working on home improvement projects. Along the way, she learned to lay tile, paint, wallpaper and shop online and at local outlets just like a pro.Her most recent project: transforming her cookie-cutter bland kitchen to custom and personal.

via Young homeowner takes condo from cookie-cutter to cool.

3 Things Insiders Ask When Getting a Mortgage

There’s great news for that most elusive of consumers — the house hunter with a golden credit rating and cash in the bank to buy a new home.

Home prices remain low, as supply exceeds demand across the U.S. In addition, the National Association of Realtors reports that pending U.S. home prices declined on a monthly basis by 5.5% in April (although home sales are up over April 2011).

The NAR’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun, implies that buyers may want to strike while the iron is hot — and prices are low. He says that the April numbers represent a short-term dip, and that the long-term fundamentals in the housing market are actually fairly sound if Congress and the White House can get their financial act together.

via 3 Things Insiders Ask When Getting a Mortgage.