Posts Tagged ‘Weston Title’

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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 »

The Heat is On! Miami Real Estate Ranked #1 City to Buy

Saturday, May 28th, 2011
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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.

Roy Oppenheim on Miami Real Estate: Ranked best place to buy

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Posted in Florida real estate, Infographic, International News, Weston Title & Escrow | No 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 »

Budgetary Hardball Almost Forces Court Closures: Courts’ Reliance On Foreclosure Fees Exposed

Saturday, April 9th, 2011
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Courts Reliance on Foreclosure Fees ExposedThe 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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Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud, Roy Oppenheim, Sun Sentinel | 4 Comments »

Foreclosure Auctions are not eBay or Child’s Play. Novice Investors Beware!

Friday, April 8th, 2011
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Beware the Florida Foreclosure AuctionInvestors 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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Posted in Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Sun Sentinel | No Comments »

Oppenheim Law Weekly Winners and Losers: Pending Home Sales, Mortgage Fraud, Job Markets and Subprime Bonds

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
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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.
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Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Florida short sales, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud, Roy Oppenheim, Short Sales, South Florida Business Journal, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Weston Title & Escrow | No Comments »

Sun Begins to Break on Florida Housing Market

Thursday, March 31st, 2011
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Sun begins to shine on Florida real estateAfter a few years of torrential storms blowing against the housing market, residential real estate in the Sunshine State is breaking through the dark clouds. Although the forecast calls for scattered rain showers in 2011, the media is starting to report rays of light that signal a recovery.

Consumers are definitely shopping—and they are buying even if it is for good deals.

On the shopping front, an Experian Hitwise webinar reveals traffic to real estate web sites is up 27 percent in February. That’s the highest gain since the first half of 2009. Although rentals are the key beneficiary, it still bodes well for investors trying to rent property and hold on until property values rise.

But consumers are also buying single-family homes and condos across Florida, and specifically in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Seems that confidence is starting to slowly come back even if prices are not moving much.

Home and condo sales rose in Florida rose during February, according to the Florida Realtors. Existing home sales increased 13 percent in February with a total of 13,701 homes sold statewide compared to 12,164 homes sold in February 2010. And February’s statewide sales of existing condos rose 29 percent compared to the previous year’s sales figure. Meanwhile, Florida’s median sales price for existing homes last month was $121,900. A year ago, it was $124,500 for a 2 percent decrease.

The Miami Association of Realtors and the Southeast Florida Multiple Listing Service is also reporting good news. Single-family homes and condominiums sales in Miami-Dade County increased 22 percent in February compared to a year earlier. One stand out on the condo front is Canyon Ranch in Miami Beach, where 46 units have sold since October 2010. Ft. Lauderdale posted an 8 percent month-over-month gain in February even as housing inventory declined.
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Posted in Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, International News, Roy Oppenheim, Weston Title & Escrow | 3 Comments »

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