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Jan. pending home sales rise, market on uptrend
WASHINGTON – Feb. 27, 2012 – Pending home sales are on an upward trend – an admittedly uneven but meaningful trend – since reaching a cyclical low last April, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Today’s national Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) rose 2 percent compared to December 2011. The PHSI, a forward-looking indicator [...]
Read More >>U.S. government converts first foreclosure to rental
WASHINGTON – Feb. 28, 2012 – The U.S. government has started selling off its stock of homes in foreclosure. The Federal Housing Finance Agency said Monday that a group of investors purchased the first of 2,500 homes being sold as part of a foreclosure-to-rental program. The government has control over roughly 250,000 foreclosed homes owned [...]
Read More >>Bill to streamline foreclosures moves one step closer to Fla. law
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Feb. 28, 2012 – For the first time since the real estate crash crippled Florida’s economy and battered struggling homeowners, a bill to hasten foreclosures through the courts is headed to the full House and Senate. A narrow 6-4 vote Monday in a specially scheduled meeting of the Senate Banking and Insurance [...]
Read More >>FHA increases buyers’ fees
WASHINGTON – Feb. 28, 2012 – Acting Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Commissioner Carol Galante announced a new premium structure for FHA-insured single-family mortgage loans: FHA will increase its annual mortgage insurance premium (MIP) by 0.10 percent for loans under $625,500 and by 0.35 percent for loans above that amount. Upfront premiums (UFMIP) will increase by [...]
Read More >>Bank of America: $20,000 short sale incentive to struggling homeowners
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Oct. 7, 2011 – Bank of America, the nation’s largest mortgage servicer, is offering Florida homeowners up to $20,000 to short sale their homes rather than letting them linger in foreclosure. The limited time offer has received little promotion from the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, which sent emails to select Florida Realtors earlier [...]
Read More >>Wells Fargo: Fla. economy to grow slowly, but still outperform national average
NEW YORK – Oct. 11, 2011 – Wells Fargo released its Economic Outlook for Florida yesterday, and the news was positive, though not by much. The company says the state is recovering more quickly that the nation in general, but part of the reason is that the state fell so far during the crash. Still, [...]
Read More >>State may expedite Florida foreclosures..
OVIEDO, Fla. – Oct. 11, 2011 – Retirees Neil and Marilyn Strawbridge haven’t made a mortgage payment so far this year, and yet Bank of America has not sent them even a foreclosure notice. With foreclosures taking an average of 21 months to get through the court system in Florida – longer than in almost [...]
Read More >>Short sale scam cheats banks, sellers
SANTA ANA, Calif. – June 8, 2011 – Banks and distressed home sellers stand to lose more than $375 million this year from a short sale scam that has sellers and banks agreeing to sell homes at very undervalued prices, according to a new study by CoreLogic. In discovering the short sale fraud scam, CoreLogic [...]
Read More >>Lawyers get more time to finish foreclosures
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. – June 9, 2011 – Federal mortgage giant Fannie Mae more than doubled the amount of time Florida attorneys have to complete a foreclosure, acknowledging the reality of the state’s overwhelmed court system and problems with foreclosure paperwork. Law firms now have 450 days (about 15 months), up from 185 (six [...]
Read More >>Bondi: Don’t cut homeowners’ mortgage principal
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – May 17, 2011 – The Attorney General of Florida, a state where almost half of all mortgaged homes are underwater – opposes efforts that would force the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers to reduce the principal on loans owed by struggling U.S. homeowners. Attorneys general in all 50 states are part of [...]
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