Posts Tagged ‘Florida real estate’
Friday, July 8th, 2011
Is homeownership still part of today’s American Dream? A recent article in the Wall Street Journal shared some old school advice on buying a home in today’s economy, more along the lines of Depression Era thinkers versus Baby Boomer spenders.
1. Buy what you can afford without scrimping on other needs. If you need to save for retirement or college, save. Don’t think your Florida home is going to pay for them.
2. If you need to move in less that seven years, then rent, don’t buy. You will be hard pressed to break even on your Florida home unless you live in it for a long time.
3. Values could stay depressed for many years. The only way you can plan to build equity in your Florida home is to pay down the mortgage.
Whether buying or selling a Florida short sale or foreclosure or renting; make smart decisions in light of today’s economy. Today’s housing market is still unraveling.
Tags: florida foreclosure, Florida real estate, Real Estate, The Wall Street Journal
Posted in Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Florida short sales, The Wall Street Journal | 5 Comments »
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Florida Real Estate Goes From Bad to Worse…
Securitized Trusts Face Scrutiny and Housing Crisis Now Worse Than the Great Depression Questions Roy Oppenheim.
From Bad...
Florida real estate is not alone. Serious questions are being raised about the validity and legality of mortgage backed securities, the negotiable instruments at the center of our country’s mortgage boom and subsequent bust.
Now, the state attorney generals of New York and Delaware, the two states whose laws govern the trusts in charge of mortgage backed securities, are investigating whether Wall Street properly bundled and documented the loans that they turned into securities.
The two attorney generals are investigating Bank of New York Mellon and Deutsche Bank, the two largest firms acting as trustees, who were supposed to be responsible for ensuring that the documentation of the securities was proper and complete.
Rules governing the securitization process are very complex, and there are specific steps to be followed to ensure the trusts comply with federal tax laws.
Serious consequences would result if the banks did not follow the proper procedures for establishing a chain of ownership of the loans through the securitization process including the rescission of beneficial tax treatment that trusts are normally given.
These Trusts actually put form over substance to the extent that form is the substance. If the Trustees really did not follow the law, the damages would likely be devastating.
To Worse…
Florida real estate can get worse? The housing crisis that resulted from these mortgage backed securities and Wall Street greed is now worse than the Great Depression.
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Tags: Florida real estate, Great Depression, housing crisis, Roy Oppenheim
Posted in Florida Law News | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
‘Hope’ stands as a fleeting memory for most Americans as unemployment stagnates, housing prices fall and economic growth looms as a lofty promise unfulfilled. And as we get closer to the 2012 Presidential Election, it’s becoming clear that the ideological political landscape that dominated the 2008 election cycle will be eclipsed by a menacing elephant in the room: the economy.
The President is well aware of the uphill battle he faces when it comes to convincing voters and campaign financers that his economic policies and regulations have not only been what we needed the past three years, but also what we need in the next four. According to The New York Times, President Obama has already started reaching out to the skeptical financial industry on Wall Street, hoping to win back one of his most vital sources of campaign cash.
While many on Wall Street view the President’s financial rhetoric as unfair to their industry, his apparent goal is to prove that his fiscal policies have helped to bring the banks and financial markets back to health and toward sustained growth.
The argument goes that the economy would have been dramatically worse at this stage had the Obama administration not taken the action it did in the wake of the real estate and financial crisis.
But how do you prove a negative? You can’t.
Historically, recessions have been ended by a wave of homeowner refinancing that predictably follows a lowering of interest rates. The President faces a number of obstacles to accomplishing a refinancing boom, however.
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Tags: 2012 Election, economic news, Florida real estate, Hope, housing, load modifications, Obama, Oppenheim Law, political news, politics, presidential election, Roy Oppenheim, The New York Times, underwater homeowners, unemployment
Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Fraud, International News, Loan Modification, Roy Oppenheim, The New York Times, Underwater Mortgage | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
What is killing Florida real estate? Excess inventories and falling home prices.
House prices have been continuously falling for the first time in 70 years, and South Florida homeowners should expect the trend to continue.
A surplus inventory of houses caused by Florida foreclosures and short sales is the mortal enemy of home prices. Lower prices are needed to sell off excess inventories of residential properties, and in turn lower prices encourage more inventories from anxious sellers.
So how big are excess inventories and how long will it take for the real estate market to absorb them?
According to Economic Consultant Gary Shilling, we are currently facing a surplus of up to 2.5 million excess house inventories in the United States, a number that is subject to rise with further foreclosures and falling home prices.
To forecast the length of time to work off this excess inventory and have the market return to more favorable inventory and price conditions, Shilling developed projections of supply and demand for residential units.
Household formation averaged about 900,000 per year over the past decade as measured by the Census Bureau. Shilling uses this number as a reasonable estimate of yearly housing demand. However, with many college students moving back with their parents after graduation, household formation is not happening as fast as it once did.
New construction of single family homes and apartment units is running about 700,000 per year, and about 300,000 U.S. homes are torn down, converted or removed from housing stock each year. Based on these numbers, Shilling calculates new housing supply to be about 400,000.
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Tags: Census Bureau, economy, Florida foreclosures, Florida real estate, Florida short sales, Gary Shilling, housing inventory, housing inventory excess, Miami, Oppenheim Law, Real Estate, Real Estate News, Roy Oppenheim, Weston Title
Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud, Infographic, Roy Oppenheim | 2 Comments »
Saturday, May 28th, 2011
Florida real estate finally makes the #1 list for something positive.
With the real estate market in recovery mode, owning a home is more affordable than renting in 72 percent of major U.S. cities. Miami, Las Vegas and Arlington, Texas round out the top three cities where buying is a safer bet.
Renting is more affordable than buying in only eight percent of America’s largest cities, including New York City, Seattle, and Kansas City. The Offices of Weston Title and Oppenheim Law continue to help homeowners navigate through the waters (and under waters) of Florida real estate buying, selling and investing.
Tags: Arlington, buying vs. renting, economy, Florida real estate, Las Vegas, Miami, Oppenheim Law, Real Estate, real estate crisis, real estate outlook, RealtyTrac, Roy Oppenheim, Trulia, Weston Title
Posted in Florida real estate, Infographic, International News, Weston Title & Escrow | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
Wall Street corruption blurs the lines between good guys and bad guys as this week’s headlines bubble to the top.
Government's Long Enforcement Slumber is Over, says Roy Oppenheim
Unbelievably guilty in the court of public opinion. Now ultimately guilty in a court of law.
The conviction of Galleon hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam on all 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud is a prime example of rampant Wall Street greed and conspiracy.
It’s become clear that bankers took advantage of us all through the tricks and frauds of petty crooks. Ironically, these crooks bankers are now being brought down by the same investigatory wiretap techniques once used only in drug and mob cases. Perhaps “Bankster” is now the appropriate moniker.
Rajaratnam, formerly viewed as a skilled investor and stock market genius, should have stuck to “counting cards.” It’s one thing to make informed, intelligent investments by counting cards through legitimate research and public knowledge. It’s another matter entirely to “mark the cards” through insider secrets, privileged tips and paid informants.
Now, after a mosaic of insider trading and deception has been uncovered, the billionaire Rajaratnam is exposed as a card marker. Consequently, he faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in federal prison.
Not surprisingly, this card marking culture is closely tied to the banks and mortgage-baked securities (MBS) industry that brought down the American real estate market. Banks simply were playing a game they new they couldn’t lose.
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Tags: Deutsche Bank, Florida real estate, foreclosure mills, How to stop a foreclosure, Oppenheim Law, Raj Rajaratnam, real estate crisis, Roy Oppenheim, wall street
Posted in Bank Fraud, Bernie Madoff, Florida foreclosures, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Fraud, From The Trenches, International News, Roy Oppenheim | 4 Comments »
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
As Florida real estate slowly pulls itself out of the foreclosure fraud files; there is finally a government agency standing up to the bully of banks!
The IRS.
Last week, Reuters News Service published an exclusive article exposing yet another way the banks have been defrauding taxpayers. This time it wasn’t directly through improper lending practices, robo-signing or bad assignments of mortgage.
Now, the IRS discovered that banks acting as servicers for “REMICs”, otherwise known as Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits, have been claiming tax-exempt status on the income they generate under favorable tax code provisions.
So what is a REMIC? A REMIC is a passive entity where mortgages are pooled and securitized into investments. Generally, the investors in REMICs are large funds, pension plans, and 401ks.
Not only did the banks failed to comply in any manner with the requirements of the Internal Revenue Code that allow this favorable tax treatment, they have apparently decided to ignore the IRC altogether.
So what does this mean for taxpayers?
It means that the banks have been systematically ignoring IRC provisions, thinking the IRS is too sheepish to enforce the law. These entities, as a result of the actions of the banks servicing the mortgages, have failed to pay billions of dollars in taxes, and robbed the government, and thus the American people, of that money.
The reason that REMICs were afforded this massive tax break is due to the fact that they are meant to be vehicles for passive investing, and as such they have rules for strict compliance that require that all mortgages passing into a REMIC must be transferred into a trust within 90 days of trust formation.
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Tags: Florida Foreclosure Defense, Florida foreclosures, Florida real estate, Florida short sales, foreclosure crisis, Foreclosure Fraud, government agency, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Oppenheim Law, Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits, REMICS, Reuters, robo signers, Roy Oppenheim, taxpayers
Posted in Reuters | 2 Comments »
