Reporting on the winning and losing headlines, South Florida Law Blog brings you the break down and what this means to the Florida homeowner.
While South Florida is #1 for mortgage fraud and foreclosure settlement talks between banks and the Obama administration appear futile at best, this week’s new was not all doom and gloom.
Check out Oppenheim Law’s and Weston Title’s picks in the week’s winners and losers for Florida foreclosure, real estate and the economy.
Winners
Pending home sales up 18% in Miami-Dade
Pending home sales rose 18 percent in Miami-Dade County over the course of the past month, according to new data released today by the Miami Association of Realtors.
Pending home sales, which include single-family home and condominium unit sales, were also up 3.24 percent month-over-month in March, the figures show.
“Increased pending sales reflect the existence of pent-up demand and should result in strengthening home values as distressed housing inventory continues to be absorbed,” said Jack Levine, chairman of the board of Miami Realtors.
Hiring Shows Growing Strength
The American job market is starting to show some muscle, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The jobless rate, our most politically salient measure of economic health, edged down to 8.8% in the fourth consecutive monthly decline despite the fact that more Americans entered the job market.
“It’s a very solid report that shows the labor market gaining momentum,” said David Greenlaw, an economist with Morgan Stanley in New York.
The public sector remained a weak point, as local governments shed 15,000 jobs last month in an effort to close budget gaps, but many other sectors showed strong growth, according to The Wall Street Journal.
(more…)
