Reality show real estate rakes in profit

Reality show real estate rakes in profit

Want to rent the “Jersey Shore” house in Seaside Heights, New Jersey? It’ll cost you.

What used to be just one of the many homes along Seaside Heights’ stretch of boardwalk is now a prime rental property that can cost as much as $4,000 a night, said the property’s broker, Mike Loundy of Seaside Realty.

On the low end, the property rents for $1,800 a night for a three-night minimum, but as availability decreases, the per-night cost will go in the opposite direction, although Loundy is quick to note that the owners are flexible with pricing.

Since production on the reality show wrapped, the house has been rented for a variety of uses, from a Sweet Sixteen bash — $4,400 total for the night, which included access to the whole house plus a DJ and catering — to a production set for a few television personalities who thought it would be fun to stay there with cameras of their own.

Miami-Dade foreclosure auction site baffles bargain hunt

Miami-Dade foreclosure auction site baffles bargain hunters

A new online foreclosure auction system started with a mission of quickly moving a chunk of foreclosed properties while opening up the bidding process to regular folks.

A little more than a month later, some of the newcomers who bought property online say they were misled by the site and ended up spending thousands of dollars on condo liens and properties laden with hefty mortgages.

In some cases, after purchasing, they found the properties were still subject to foreclosure.

Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts Harvey Ruvin said the online auction process is working as planned, and the few complaints he has received have come from people who did not take the time to understand the process.

A new look at foreclosures and mediation

A new look at foreclosures and mediation

The Florida Supreme Court and Florida’s banking industry agree there’s a logjam of foreclosure cases clogging the state’s circuit courts, but they disagree on what to do about it.

The Supreme Court issued an order in December mandating each foreclosure case go through mediation before a judge can rule on the matter.

After a Supreme Court task force studied the state’s foreclosure backlog for several months — there were 296,000 foreclosure filings and 456,000 pending foreclosures in the last quarter of 2009, the court reported — it recommended to the state’s highest court that a formal process for mediation for each case be established. The Supreme Court ordered a mediation process Dec. 28, leaving each court circuit, including the Fourth circuit covering Clay, Duval and Nassau counties, to create its own system or adopt a pre-made model.

The court didn’t issue a deadline, but the circuit courts are eager to get their mediation processes in place soon to comply, Fourth Circuit Court Judge Frederick Tygart said.

Refinancing fails to hit potential

Refinancing fails to hit potential

The refinancing wave that swept the nation when mortgage rates hit historic lows last year is petering out, leaving behind millions of homeowners who could not qualify for the best rates.

Half of the nation’s borrowers have mortgages with rates above 6 percent, even though the average rate on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages has been about 5 percent for most of the past year, according to research firm First American CoreLogic. More refinancing activity would have helped not only household budgets, but also the national economy, because homeowners might have spent some of the extra cash they pocketed, giving the recovery an added lift.

Many borrowers who tried to refinance have found they’re stuck because the value of their homes has tumbled and their equity has melted away. Others have been shut out because lenders tightened their requirements, demanding stellar credit and low debt. It’s especially frustrating for many now that interest rates are expected to rise.

Second jury finds fault with controversial foreclosure rescue deals

Second jury finds fault with controversial foreclosure rescue deals

In 2005, Thomas Cook told 68-year-old Yolanda Rodriguez that the St. Petersburg company he worked for could help save her home from foreclosure.

Instead, Garco Inc. got the deed to the house, and Rodriguez, who was evicted, lost as much as $200,000 in equity. But on Thursday, a Sarasota County jury found that the transaction that cost Rodriguez her home was invalid because Cook, acting as a broker on the deal, did not have a Florida real estate license.

The verdict paves the way for Rodriguez to get back her 2,300-square-foot Englewood pool home. It could also provide legal ammunition for others who have lost their houses to “foreclosure rescue” companies like Garco and its owner, Gideon Rechnitz, whose real estate license was revoked for alleged fraud in 1990.

“A licensed real estate agent would not have been allowed to do anything Thomas Cook did,” says Elizabeth Boyle, a Gulfcoast Legal Services attorney who represented Rodriguez.

Homeowners rent out rooms to stave off foreclosure

Homeowners rent out rooms to stave off foreclosure

Reeling from the recession’s one-two-three-punch of job woes, climbing mortgage payments and evaporating equity, desperate homeowners are dipping into a nearby income stream to avoid foreclosure:

That bedroom just down the hall.

While renting out a room has been around for years, especially in the California’s Latino neighborhoods, sharing a home in order to save it has become an increasingly popular way to hang on to the front-door keys to the American dream