Posts Tagged ‘Real Estate News’

Just Listed: South Florida Law Blog Named AllTop’s “Best of the Best”

Friday, June 10th, 2011
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Just Listed: South Florida Law Blog Named AllTop’s “Best of the Best”All the top headlines from popular topics around the web: that’s AllTop.

And now the South Florida Law Blog is listed on this popular directory of top news sources. Fresh off the South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best of Blogs Awards, Oppenheim Law is proud to announce we are part of the feed to the AllTop Real Estate topic: http://real-estate.alltop.com/

What is AllTop?
The website helps users answer the question, “What’s happening?” Alltop prides itself on providing aggregation without aggravation, according to its homepage.

The “online magazine rack” collects the latest headlines from the best sites and blogs. Topics include celebrities, fashion, sports, politics – and real estate. The South Florida Law blog is in good company alongside news giants such as The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC and The New York Times and local blogs from Hanoi to Chicago.

The selection process for Alltop is “highly subjective and judgmental”, not based on an algorithm, as with search engines, so to be included is a special honor. South Florida Law Blog fans are now able to subscribe and view the latest real estate news and commentary alongside their other favorite blogs.

About Alltop and Guy Kawasaki
Named “the granddaddy of blog discovery tools” by Mashable, Alltop was founded by former Apple evangelist and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki. Kawasaki was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. Kawasaki is a renowned public speaker and best-selling author of 10 books including his latest, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. Although he’s been described as a business legend, Kawasaki says that being a legend shouldn’t be your goal in life: “What you should do is create a great product or service…the goal is to change the world…if you do that, maybe you’ll be a legend.”

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Posted in AllTop, Best of Blogs Awards, Florida Law News, Foreclosure Defense, Roy Oppenheim | 1 Comment »

Florida Real Estate’s Mortal Enemy: Excess Inventories

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
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Florida Real Estate’s Mortal Enemy: Excess InventoriesWhat 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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Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud, Infographic, Roy Oppenheim | 2 Comments »

Oppenheim Says: Don’t Give up on Miami, the Heat is on!

Saturday, May 7th, 2011
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Orlando's got the real estate Magic, Miami's got the Heat!Orlando’s got the Florida real estate Magic and Miami has the Heat!

Reports are in that Miami and Orlando are dragging Florida out of recession, but for now only Orlando is performing above its economic weight class.

The Miami Herald reported this week that while Orlando represents just 14 percent of Florida’s 7.2 million-person workforce, it accounts for 46 percent of the Sunshine State’s 44,000 new jobs last month, eighty percent of which came from the tourism industry.

Given the city’s abundance of theme parks, brand new “Medical City” popping up with the opening of the University of Central Florida’s new medical school and strong video game industry, it’s no surprise Orlando outperformed its economic class.

Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner told reporters Thursday during his annual review of Florida’s economic outlook that Orlando is “certainly coming out ahead of the other large metropolitan areas in this recession.’’

Here in South Florida, Miami is doing its part to reverse the economic slide the state has weathered over the last three years as well. In the last 12 months, South Florida added 1,100 jobs in the finance sector alone. “Companies are hiring,’’ said Jaap Donath, vice president of research for the Beacon Council, Miami-Dade’s economic development agency. “They’re hiring across the board.’’

While Orlando has certainly grown by leaps and bounds, it’s important to keep the numbers in perspective. The South Florida metro area’s $253 billion economy is more than twice the size of Orlando’s, according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. The smaller the economy and workforce, the easier it is to show big gains. Additionally, Miami has been sheltered from the brunt of the economic freeze due to its frequent interactions with booming South American consumers.
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Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Miami Herald | 2 Comments »

More Good News! Higher Real Estate Prices in Select South Florida Cities

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
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City of Weston, FLWeston 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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Posted in Florida real estate, Roy Oppenheim, Sun Sentinel | No Comments »

The Stunning Hypocrisy In Foreclosures: Scott Pelley Interviews Robo-Signers

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
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Scott Pelley on 60 MinutesIn an eye-opening piece by 60 Minutes this week, Scott Pelley managed to actually interview robo-signers who had forged documents that allowed banks to foreclose on thousands of homes illegally. As we have discussed over the past few years, these document mills re-created the necessary documents that banks were too lazy to keep track of in the heyday of the housing bubble.

Signing 4000 documents a day for $10/hour
Pelley interviews Chris Pindley, a former robo-signer who estimates that he signed over 4,000 documents a day. Pindley signed the documents using a coworker’s name because her name was short and easy to write. This coworker, Linda Green, was given the title of “vice president” of about 20 different banks… at the same time. This “vice president” of multiple banks and her coworkers were paid 10 dollars an hour for their work. Pindley even remarked that as they sat around a table signing papers, he told the others that one day they would be on 60 Minutes: how prophetic.

Homeowner must have all paperwork perfect, while banks cheat and forge
While requiring thousands of everyday folks to have all of their paperwork perfect and wait in line for days just for the chance to beg for some sort of a reprieve, these banks felt that they could forge the documents they needed to throw people out of their homes. These kinds of double standards are endemic in the industry and are an unconscionable assault on the public. Scott Pelley’s work here is an invaluable insight behind the colossal corporate wall into the shenanigans of the banks and the everyday people caught up in the mess.
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Posted in 60 Minutes, Bank Fraud, Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud | 4 Comments »

Oppenheim Week in Review: Foreclosures News, Views and Video Workshops Replay

Saturday, August 7th, 2010
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Homeownership Reaches Record Lows

According to new industry estimates, millions of houses on the verge of foreclosure could send homeownership to its lowest level since 1960.

Long considered a cornerstone of the American dream, homeownership has been sliding since the housing bubble burst in 2006. New projections say the rate could plummet to about 62%, compared with 69.4% in 2004. Homeownership rates haven’t been that low since 1960, when they hit 61.9%.

14 Million Underwater, Deutsche Banks Predicts 20% Increase by 2011

In other real estate news, more than 14 million homeowners are underwater on their mortgage today and Deutsche Bank expects that number to increase to 20 million by the end of 2011. The bank also expects a rise in strategic defaults.

Foreclosure Workshop Shares Tips to Learn from the Wealthy

Roy Oppenheim shared what homeowners can learn from the wealthy during his monthly Strategic Foreclosure Workshop this week. Hundreds participated as Oppenheim shed some light on strategic defaults, short sales and loan modifications strategies.

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Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Foreclosure Workshop, Roy Oppenheim, Short Sales, strategic default | 2 Comments »

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