Now that the holidays are behind us and we’re well into the new year, news that will impact the foreclosure market in 2012 is starting to cross our desk. So what headlines were we talking about this week?
This week we blogged about the Federal Reserve finally coming around and looking out for the homeowners, instead of the banks. A 26-page white paper released by The Fed offered up their suggestions on how to fix the broken housing market. They also finally came to the conclusion that government MUST come down harder on lenders. Some of the ideas offered up by The Fed may be tough for Congress to swallow, but we believe they have a good chance of keeping more people in their homes.
We particularly liked the idea of turning more foreclosed and vacant properties into rental homes (so much better for the neighborhoods) and the need to offer principal reduction to more homeowners. Roy Oppenheim expands on this issue in his latest “From The Trenches” video.
Foreclosures were in steep decline across the country in 2011, including a 67 percent drop here in Broward County, according to RealtyTrac. Thanks to the ‘robo-signer’ scandal, lenders were suddenly much more careful about bringing foreclosure cases to the courts. While that is likely to continue in 2012, Roy Oppenheim told the Sun-Sentinel that things could start to pick up.
“It’s going to pick up, but it’s not going to be insane like it was,” he explained.
Palm Beach County also saw a significant drop last year, 58 percent, while Florida was down 63 percent, RealtyTrac reported.
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