Archive for the ‘Florida real estate’ Category
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
Florida foreclosures and good news all in one story? Yes, it is true.
A new federally funded program is now accepting applications for mortgage assistance payments in Florida. The Florida Hardest-Hit program pays an applicant’s mortgage for up to six months to help them to focus on finding a job. There is a maximum, however, of $12,000. Also, the program will pay out up to $6,000 to bring loans current. If this seems meager, it is. Governor Scott gutted the program and stripped it of all effectiveness by changing the terms from 18 months of assistance to six. Ostensibly, this was done to open the program to more people. The problem with such a change is that the assistance provided will do little good to the people that need it most, those who bought houses during the height of the bubble and thus are extremely underwater. Additionally, loans that only need $6,000 to be current are hardly the loans that merit special federal assistance.
Oppenheim Law encourages homeowners to participate! The lack of effectiveness is not stopping homeowners from applying, nor should it. Any help is better than no help at all. Yesterday, the first day of the program, saw many more applications than were expected. However, an official tally for the state won’t be available until the end of the week.
Tags: FL Governor, Florida Foreclosure help, Florida Hardest-Hit Fund, Gov. Scott, Governor Rick Scott, HHF, How to stop a foreclosure, Oppenheim Law, Rick Scott, Roy Oppenheim
Posted in Florida real estate, Florida short sales, Foreclosure Defense, Hardest-Hit Fund, Underwater Mortgage | 1 Comment »
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
There is an interesting practice developing at our nation’s big banks. Borrowers who are in or nearing foreclosure are being offered thousands of dollars to short sale their homes. Some are even being offered $35,000 to get rid of their homes, and quickly. This situation presents an intriguing insight into the way banks are thinking at the moment. Banks would rather pay you and take a loss rather than foreclose on homes.
Do such offers signify that banks have learned their lesson and are trying to get out of sub-prime loans, or are they looking to just prevent further losses? Perhaps the answer is that the banks are concerned about existing home prices. Bank of America’s chief economist, Mickey Levy, while speaking privately, spoke of the concern that the 1.8 million bad loans in the nation will drive down the market if they go into foreclosure. Such fears help explain why the banks are desperate to avoid foreclosing on homes. They don’t want the rest of their loans to become vulnerable: the more foreclosures, the more house prices fall, therefore, the value of the banks’ loans go down and more people want to walk away from their homes, causing the banks even more losses.
In the end, this situation is a win-win. Not only do banks protect home prices, but they stand to get back more money quicker from a short sale than a foreclosure and the good publicity would be a nice change of pace for their PR departments. Homeowners in trouble are also helped because they can get out of their houses with some cash in their pockets and get on with the rest of their lives.
Tags: deficiency judgment, desperately seeking short sales, FL short sales, Florida Foreclosure Defense, Florida foreclosures, Florida short sales, foreclosure, How to stop a foreclosure, Oppenheim Law, Roy Oppenheim, Short Sales
Posted in Deficiency Judgements, Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Florida short sales, Foreclosure Defense, Roy Oppenheim, Short Sales | 2 Comments »
Friday, April 15th, 2011
Who would ever have thought that the most respected names on Wall Street would cheat the house by playing with a marked deck?
Dear Wall Street: We’re not in Vegas anymore! The Sin City “players” of Wall Street might be trading in the fancy hotel rooms for prison cells.
The SEC is now following the Federal Reserve and the Senate is chastising Wall Street for effectively causing the economic crisis. The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that they too will be joining the bandwagon and fining the major banks on Wall Street for fraudulently causing the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression. They follow on the heels of the Federal Reserve and the United States Senate in lambasting the “banksters”.
Nearly 2
Tags: AC360, Anderson Cooper, bank fraud, Bernie Madoff, CNN, Main Street, Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine, Roy Oppenheim, SEC, Securites and Exchange Commision, wall street
Posted in AC 360, Anderson Cooper, Bank Fraud, CNN, Florida foreclosures, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud, From the Heart, International News | No Comments »
Thursday, April 14th, 2011
Like the never ending horror franchise, deficiency judgments are back. A Florida deficiency judgment occurs when a bank pursues the remaining balance on a mortgage either after a foreclosure or, in theory, after a Florida short sale. Most banks are currently too busy to process deficiency judgments because they are dealing with foreclosures and short sales. Due to the large costs associated with pursuing deficiency judgments, few homeowners who were foreclosed upon will be pursued. Those people whose mortgages were owned by trusts will probably not face a deficiency judgment because of the large costs. Unfortunately, if a community bank owns the mortgage the story might be a little different. Most community banks still have the loans on their books so they will pursue the deficiencies. Also, some community banks have started to buy deficiency judgments for pennies on the dollar for the express purpose of acting like a collection agency. This is good news to keep in mind because, in these situations, the banks will be eager to settle.
While we have addressed the deficiency judgment issue for years now, the Sun-Sentinel has now also reported on the danger of what will soon happen. In two or three years, when big banks catch up with their foreclosures, we will see a flood of such deficiency judgments. The main targets of the big banks will be strategic defaulters. Strategic defaulters are the folks who could afford their mortgages but defaulted because they are so underwater that it didn’t make any sense to pay. Not every strategic defaulter has to worry though. A deficiency judgment can only be entered in foreclosure cases. Short sales cannot lead to a judgment being entered against you unless the bank decides to file an action and litigate in court. An action would require the bank to pay attorneys and other fees with no guarantee of success and scrutiny of their documents, which might lead to sanction if fraud is uncovered.
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Tags: deficiency judgements, Florida real estate, Fraudclosure, Friday the 13, Jason, Oppenheim Law, Roy Oppenheim, Short Sales, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Sun Sentinel
Posted in Deficiency Judgements, Florida foreclosures, Florida real estate, Florida short sales, Foreclosure Defense, Roy Oppenheim, Short Sales, Sun Sentinel | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
Weston is Number One! Zip codes with good schools, high paying jobs are topping list.
Some areas of South Florida are finally seeing the first steps of a tentative recovery. As reported by the Sun-Sentinel, ten zip codes in Broward and six in Palm Beach County are seeing higher home prices.
33327, in Weston, saw the largest price increase from February 2010 with a 9.3% increase. The areas that have had a price recovery have generally been close to good schools or high paying jobs. While only a few zip codes are showing signs of recovery, the news is nevertheless good for all of South Florida. As an area that was one of the worst hit by the real estate crisis, we are now seeing a recovery before the rest of the country. Prices are still low in other areas because foreclosures and short sales make up the majority of sales.
Every recovery has to start somewhere and it seems to be starting in our own back yard here in Weston.
There is a large backlog of these “distressed” loans and the only way property values are going to go up in the rest of South Florida is if they are cleared out. This is what is happening right now and is the first step on a long road to recovery.
This news comes on the heels of reports that traffic to real estate websites increased 27 percent during the month of February – the largest jump since the first half of 2009. This combined with news that single family home sales across South Florida also went up in February and an encouraging job market leads Oppenheim Law and Weston Title to believe that the economy here in South Florida is showing signs of life after all.
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Tags: House Keys, Oppenheim Law, Paul Owers, Real Estate News, Roy Oppenheim, south florida real estate, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Weston, Weston Title, Zillow
Posted in Florida real estate, Roy Oppenheim, Sun Sentinel | No Comments »
Saturday, April 9th, 2011
The Florida Court system, including judges, nearly faced mandatory furloughs and unpaid vacations due to an emergency shortfall in its budget. Court employees faced up to 30 days of unpaid vacation through the end of May. The reason for the short fall was the precipitous drop in foreclosure filings, which generated the fees the courts relied upon for the majority of their budget. With the huge numbers of foreclosures in years past, the estimated revenue from the foreclosure fees meant that the Florida legislature allocated less money from the general state funds to the courts. This reliance on foreclosure filings fees resulted in the courts seeming a bit too amenable to the big banks and the rushing through of foreclosures that would have benefited from more scrutiny. Knowing that the courts were not examining the documents carefully, big banks were able to forge the required paperwork on a massive scale. The forging continued until the document mill scam was uncovered.
With the major banks virtually halting all of their foreclosures due to the document mill scandals, the fees have dried up and now we can see the impact of the courts falling asleep at the switch. The tremendous irony in the matter is that the failure of the courts to properly scrutinize fraudulent foreclosures, leading to the halting of new foreclosures and the drying up of the courts’ fees, would have lead to new foreclosures. Only this time, court employees would have been processing their own foreclosures. According to the Sun-Sentinel, most of the hardship of the court furloughs would’ve been felt by low income employees who are already struggling to make ends meet.
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Tags: Florida Foreclosure Defense, Florida foreclosures, mortgage fraud, Oppenheim Law, Real Estate, Roy Oppenheim, South Florida Business Journal, south florida real estate, subprime bonds, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Weston Title
Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud, Roy Oppenheim, Sun Sentinel | 4 Comments »
Friday, April 8th, 2011
Investors looking for a great deal at Florida foreclosure auctions may want to think twice before clicking “Buy Now”. Records show amateur investors are falling victim to a simple mistake that’s costing them thousands. When novice real estate investors turn up at foreclosure auctions, what they don’t know is they are often bidding on second or third mortgages. These mortgages get trumped by first, or primary, mortgages when the first mortgages foreclose; leaving the investors with only the money left after the first mortgage has been paid off, which in this market usually means nothing.
The Sun-Sentinel interviewed investor, Gus Armenakis. Armenakis bought what he thought was the only mortgage on a home for $102,600. The County had appraised the home at $325,800. After the sale, Armenakis found out that Wells Fargo had a first mortgage on the home for $386,593. This means that as soon as Wells Fargo forecloses on the house, the bank will be able to recoup as much of the value of the house as they can, up to the value of their mortgage, effectively leaving Armenakis out of the entire $102,600 he spent.
This problem is getting worse now that counties offer foreclosure auctions online. Online access opens up the bidding process to more people, most of whom are inexperienced. While the counties do disclose the risks of the bidding process, marketing ploys have effectively played down the risks involved. One such tactic suggested that bidding on real estate is as easy as eBay.
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Tags: eBay, Florida foreclosure auctions, Florida foreclosures, Florida real estate, foreclosures, Gus Armenakis, House Keys blog, Oppenheim Law, Paul Owers, Roy Oppenheim, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Weston Title
Posted in Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Sun Sentinel | No Comments »
