DAILY BRIEFING: Thursday, October 9, 2008

DAILY BRIEFING
Thursday, October 9, 2008


PROPERTY TAXES

Real estate ads include listing after listing of bargain-basement prices, but those who buy a home in foreclosure should know that the property bills may not be such a bargain. Florida regulations bar counties from factoring in foreclosures when they draw up tax rolls.

INTERNATIONAL

Increasingly, foreign investors find Florida an attractive bargain, and local real estate professionals are working to establish more international relationships. "The past couple of years with the declining dollar, Florida has become a magnet to international investors," says Ivo Travnicek, of Sarasota-based Florida Venture Partners LLC.

MORTGAGE RESCUE

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Wednesday touted his new mortgage rescue plan, which would buy bad mortgages directly using funds from the $700 billion financial bailout approved by Congress last week. Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Barack Obama says McCain's approach helps bad lenders and hurts taxpayers.

INTEREST RATES

In a coordinated move, the Federal Reserve and other major central banks from around the world slashed interest rates Wednesday. The move should make ATMs and home equity lines of credit more affordable.

HOMEOWNERSHIP

After a housing slump that has pushed home values down in most areas, roughly 12 million households, or 16 percent, now owe more than their homes are worth

DAILY BRIEFING: Wednesday, October 8, 2008

DAILY BRIEFING
Wednesday, October 8, 2008


PENDING HOME SALES

Pending home sales surged 7.4 percent, according to NAR's latest Pending Home Sales Index, and the number is 8.8 percent higher year-over-year. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says homebuyers were responding to improved affordability, especially in states such as Florida, California, Nevada, Arizona and Rhode Island.

CITIZENS PROPERTY INSURANCE

The state's insurer of last resort still has almost 2,000 unresolved homeowner-damage claims from the 2004 and 2005 storm seasons, and several Volusia County beachfront condominiums are now taking Citizens to court. According to public adjusters, attorneys and former Citizens employees, the insurer often delays paying claims and lowballs storm damage.

TAXES

Several popular tax breaks were renewed or extended under the just-passed federal bailout package, including a three-year extension for the home seller protection law that forbids the IRS from taxing a mortgage debt forgiven by a lender as part of a short sale.

HOUSING COSTS

The financial squeeze on Americans got tighter over the last decade as housing expenses - everything from mortgage payments and rent, to utilities and insurance - far outpaced the growth in incomes, according to a new study by the Center for Housing Policy.

FORECLOSURES

During yesterday's presidential debate, Republican candidate John McCain proposed a $300 billion federal program to buy up bad home mortgages and allow homeowners to keep their house.

DAILY BRIEFING: Tuesday, October 7, 2008

DAILY BRIEFING
Tuesday, October 7, 2008



COUNTRYWIDE FINANCIAL CORP.

Countrywide Financial, now owned by Bank of America, will provide financial relief to 52,000 Florida homeowners, who could see their mortgage principal or interest rate reduced. The deal will cost up to $1 billion under a settlement reached with the state's attorney general.

FORECLOSURE AUCTIONS

Florida's Duval County is set to become the first county in the nation to hold an Internet foreclosure auction next month, forgoing the traditional courthouse sale in the hope of attracting buyers from other areas. But some real estate professionals think it's a bad idea, since Internet searches may not tell a buyer everything about a property's title.

REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT

Real estate investors want to buy low and sell high, but which neighborhoods will see an increase in value? Look for the artists. They generally flock to lower-valued properties, but hip boutiques and cool restaurants usually follow.


AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Many lower-income families find their dream of homeownership coming true as Habitat for Humanity organizations across the nation are able to buy more affordable properties due in part to the sluggish economy. In Miami, the local group has been getting calls from residents trying to sell their homes and recently began looking into purchasing foreclosures.

HOMEOWNERSHIP

The Census Bureau's 2007 American Housing Survey reports that total residential units across the U.S. hit 128.2 million last year, up about 4 million from 2005. Detached single-family homes accounted for 80 million units, with manufactured or mobile homes making up 6.3 million units.

DAILY BRIEFING: Monday, October 6, 2008

DAILY BRIEFING
Monday, October 6, 2008


COUNTRYWIDE FINANCIAL

Facing a lawsuit over deceptive mortgage practices, Bank of America Corp. has agreed to modify tens of thousands of Countrywide loans to keep people in 11 states, including Florida, from losing their homes. The new mortgage aid program should launch in December.

ECONOMY

It's easy to be concerned about the economy right now, but older adults who remember the Great Depression of 1929 have some advice for Americans scared of the news headlines: Don't worry about it. Few, if any, analysts predict that current financial problems will get that bad.

FEDERAL AID

The federal bailout is complicated, but almost all experts agree on one thing: For the plan to work, housing prices must hit bottom first. Roughly one in eight U.S. jobs depends on housing directly or indirectly - from construction workers to bank loan officers to big brokers on Wall Street.

PROPERTY INSURANCE

Many Florida homeowners have voluntarily given up windstorm coverage, called "going bare," to save money. But recent hurricane threats have caused them to wonder if the added stress is worth it.

FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC

It's unclear, even to employees, whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now government entities or private corporations. For the moment, the companies are focused on more pressing issues to help the economy rebound.

DAILY BRIEFING: Thursday, October 2, 2008

DAILY BRIEFING
Thursday, October 2, 2008


SUBPRIME MORTGAGES

A new program rolled out by HUD yesterday could help more homeowners avoid foreclosure. Under the program, the lender of an existing subprime mortgage forgives part of the debt as if it's a short sale, and the balance is rolled into a fixed-rate FHA mortgage.

FLORIDA REAL ESTATE

Sagging property values and soaring mortgage payments triggered in part by adjustable interest rates and increasing taxes have impacted Florida's housing sector long before the debate over a federal bailout of U.S. financial institutions. The state experienced a homebuilding boom earlier this decade, according to UF professor and research economist David Denslow. "The homeownership rate here goes up from 66 percent to 72 percent between 2000 and 2006 - that's a huge change," he says.

CITIZENS PROPERTY INSURANCE

In the wake of criticism by key lawmakers, the state-backed property and casualty insurer, Citizens Property Insurance Corp., is backing off plans to seek a new, larger office complex that once included a gymnasium, cafeteria and concierge service.

PIGGYBACK MORTGAGES

Between 2000 and 2007, many lenders offered homebuyers without a 20 percent downpayment several ways to get a house without mortgage insurance, such as so-called "piggyback" loans. "The loans that are in the most trouble are the loans that circumvented mortgage insurance," says Jeff Lubar, spokesman for the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America.

AUCTIONS

If the government follows through with its bailout plan, auctioneers are hoping to see an eventual boom in business. That's what happened in the 1980s after shopping centers and apartment buildings of failed savings and loans went on the auction block after being seized by the government.

DAILY BRIEFING :Tuesday, September 30, 2008

DAILY BRIEFING
Tuesday, September 30, 2008


FEDERAL AID

NAR issued a statement saying it is "extremely disappointed in the actions of the U.S. House of Representatives" in not passing the $700 billion bailout package yesterday.

FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC

Adding to their woes, mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now also facing a federal grand jury investigation into their accounting practices and corporate governance issues.

MORTGAGES

A number of small community banks are unexpected victims of the mortgage meltdown, despite their conservative lending practices. Many invested in the "safe" preferred stock of mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but the recent U.S. government takeover is expected to make those stocks worthless.

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had improved moderately in August, also posted a slight gain in September to 59.8. The Conference Board's Consumer Research Center Director Lynn Franco attributed this month's increase to an improvement in the short-term outlook, adding, "These results did not capture all of the tumultuous events in the financial sector this month, and until the dust settles a bit more, we will not know the full impact on consumers' expectations."

MORTGAGE MELTDOWN

News stories may point to Wall Street as the culprit behind the mortgage meltdown, but the mess all began with a lot of bad mortgages made by consumers who never came within a hundred miles of New York. And these toxic mortgages are continuing to unwind.