Archive for the 'Foreclosures' Category
Pensacola Foreclosures
March 17th, 2010 Categories: Foreclosures
Foreclosures are big news and Pensacola real estate is no exception. There are a fair number of Pensacola Foreclosures on the Pensacola real estate market at this time. In addition, there are an even greater number of short sales.
If you are not familiar with the term Short Sales, I provide a great overview of short sales in the article Real Estate Short Sales – Is It Worth It? .
In August 2008, data from Realty Trac showed that in the United States, 1 in 5 homes for sale were foreclosures. The Pensacola Real Estate market has never had this high of a percentage of foreclosed homes on the market. You can see from the table provided that foreclosures in Pensacola are nowhere near the level of 1 in 5 homes.
(NOTE: The table is a snapshot of the Pensacola Foreclosures and Pensacola Short Sales on March 16, 2010. Real estate market data is in a state of constant change. The numbers in the table were obtained from the Pensacola MLS and are deemed reliable, but not guaranteed.)
How to read the table:
Column 1: Each area of Pensacola is delineated based on boundaries in the Pensacola MLS (View Map).
Column 2: Total Active Listings (i.e.Pensacola Homes For Sale) on the market
Column 3: Total Active Listings that are Foreclosures
Column 4: Percentage of total active listings that are foreclosures
The rest of the columns should be self explanatory based on the descriptions provided above.
Based on the Pensacola Foreclosure table numbers:
- 1 in 25 Pensacola Homes For Sale is a foreclosure
- 1 in 8 Pensacola Homes for Sale is a short sale.
How many of these short sales will eventually become Pensacola foreclosures is impossible to determine. Many short sales will end up being sold, with the bank taking a loss. Others will be foreclosed, and still others will have the situation resolved in alternate ways.
More interesting points about the Pensacola Foreclosure table:
- Historical data prior to 2009 on Pensacola Foreclosures and Short sales is not available in the Pensacola MLS. New categories for these special sale types were just added last year.
- Most Pensacola areas had foreclosures in the range of 4% to 6%. There was greater variation on short sale percentages.
- In almost all areas, the average list price of short sales was higher than the average list price of Pensacola Foreclosures. Interpretation: Foreclosed homes in Pensacola tend to be lower valued homes on average. However, more residents in higher valued homes are facing the prospect of foreclosure in the future. This interpretation assumes that homes are being listed at current real estate market value.
- On Pensacola Beach, all foreclosures were in the Portofino Condos. In addition, 24 of the 35 short sales were condos (not all Portofino).
- Southwest Pensacola has the highest number of Pensacola Homes For Sale, the highest number of foreclosures, and the highest number of short sales.
Related Articles On Pensacola Real Estate News:
Free Legal Advice For Florida Real Estate Owners Facing Foreclosure
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Home Foreclosure – 2 Important Things To Know
March 14th, 2010 Categories: Foreclosures
Homeowners facing foreclosure are becoming increasingly frustrated with the nation’s foreclosure prevention programs. This frustration is causing many to just give up and walk away from their homes.
Others have been known to vent their frustration in more extreme ways.
See the Pensacola Real Estate News article about Terry Hoskins who bulldozed his home before the bank could take it.
If you or someone you know is facing foreclosure, here are a couple of helpful things you should know.
1. Florida has a free hotline that people facing foreclosure can call for help. If you are already in foreclosure, they cannot help you. But if you are not yet in foreclosure, they will work to get you help from an attorney at no cost to you. More information can be found here: Free Legal Advice For Homeowners Facing Foreclosure
The phone number to call is (866) 607-2187
2. Walking away from your home is not without consequences
As Boca Raton real estate attorney Marlyn Wiener says there’s no “right way” to walk away from a home. If you know the consequences, you can at least make an informed decision. If a homeowner decides to just walk away from a home, the lender has the option to try and seize that person’s assets to pay for losses. This is called a deficiency judgement, and the lender has up to 20 years to collect on a deficiency judgement in Florida.
Banks are far more likely to go after a deficiency judgement on someone who walks away from a home even though they can afford the mortgage, but decides to stop paying because the home is no longer a good investment. If a person cannot afford the payments and has no assets, banks generally are not going to waste the legal expenses to go after this person, since the person has no way of compensating the bank for real estate losses.
There are now also rules in place to prevent the “Buy and Bail” tactic, described in this Pensacola Real Estate News article. In this situation, a person with money and decent credit buys a home at current market value, and then walks away from their previous home where the mortgage is much higher than the current market value of the home.
Most importantly, talk to an attorney if you are facing foreclosure. Call the free hotline listed above and see if you can get help. Foreclosure is a very sad business. It is depressing to walk into a home that has been foreclosed upon and see it littered with children’s toys and furniture. You just wonder, hope and pray that the children and homeowners are doing OK, and that the children can end up in a comfortable stable environment.
This old house of ours was built on dreams
And a business man don’t know what that means
There’s a yard outside the kids play in every day
And tomorrow morning the man from the bank
Is gonna come and take it all away
- Neil Young
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Unusual Real Estate Foreclosures In The News
February 25th, 2010 Categories: Foreclosures, Pensacola Real Estate News
Real estate foreclosure is a grim reality of this current real estate market. In the Pensacola Real Estate market, on February 25, 2010, there were 213 foreclosure properties and 564 short sales listed as Pensacola Homes For Sale. The total number of homes and condos listed in the Pensacola real estate market was just over 4400. This means approximately 17% of the Pensacola homes for sale are either foreclosures or short sales.
Foreclosure properties are already owned by the bank. Short sales are still owned by the homeowner, but are destined for foreclosure if they cannot be sold at a price lower than the amount owed to the bank. See the article Short Sales – Is It Really Worth It?
A couple of interesting real estate foreclosure stories have surfaced this week that I thought were worth noting. Fortunately, no one got so frustrated that they flew a plane into a bank building, as in the case of the Joe Stack who piloted his plane into the Austin Texas IRS building.
However, a man in Ohio bulldozed his home in retaliation of a bank’s plans to foreclose on his home. Apparently, Terry Hoskins only owed $160,000 on the home, which was valued close to $350,000. He was already in hot water with the IRS in relation to his businesses. Then the bank refused to stop foreclosure proceedings even though he indicated that he had a buyer who would pay off the balance of the mortgage. As the story goes, the bank wanted to foreclose so they could resell the home for more than the balance owed and actually profit from the deal. There is always more to a story than you read in the news, so I’m not sure of all the details. Either way, the home is now a mound covered by snow. 
Terry has now become somewhat of a hero to those who resent how banks have been so generously treated by the government with bailout money while still giving out large bonuses to employees. Ronnie Ray Jenkins even wrote a song called the Ballad of Terry Hoskins. Check out the video below. Here are some teaser lyrics:
There were no bailouts for Terry
There were no bonuses to spend
So he grabbed the keys to his dozer
It was the beginning of the end
Thanks for the great song Ronnie!
In an unrelated story, Bank Of America foreclosed on a home that was owned by a couple who had paid cash for it. Yes, they owned the home outright.
The couple filed a lawsuit on January 20 that alleges Bank of America seized the house, removed the belongings, and changed the locks on the their home. The bank had an incorrect address on foreclosure documents. The house it meant to seize was across the street and about 10 doors down. But the couple and a Realtor employed by Bank of America were unable to convince the bank that it had the wrong house. The couple are seeking unspecified damages from Bank of America, including negligence, trespassing, emotional distress, defamation, libel, and a tarnished reputation.
When the media made an inquiry to the bank regarding this situation, here is the email response they received. ”We have reached out to the Cardosos’ representatives and hope to have the opportunity to work with them to properly assess and address their allegations”. “We are reviewing the allegations in the lawsuit, the actual events that led to them and the causes of those events, and will consider any hardship that resulted.”
Talk about legal speak. After the travesty perpetrated by the bank, you would think they could show a little more compassion and understanding when dealing with these sensitive situations. With the money they have, I would think they could hire some PR people that could do a much better job of publicly addressing this embarrasing mistake.
These are pretty extreme stories, but foreclosures are so common today that these types of situations do not come as a big surprise to me. Look for me to publish an article shortly detailing some important things you need to know about foreclosure.
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Data Shows 1 in 5 Homes For Sale In U.S. Are Foreclosures
August 16th, 2008 Categories: Foreclosures, Pensacola Real Estate News
According to a RealtyTrac report released this week, one in five homes for sale in the United States are properties repossessed by lenders. The report also noted that foreclosure-related filings rose 8 percent from June to July, and 55 percent from a year ago.
Foreclosure-related filings include default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. However, not all homes subjected to foreclosure filings are ultimately repossessed by lenders.
RealtyTrac is a real estate data aggregator and has said it now has more than 750,000 properties in its active real-estate-owned database, which represents 17 percent of the inventory of existing homes for sale in June, as reported by the National Association of Realtors.
While this is not good news for the economy of the United States, there is a bright spot for Pensacola Florida real estate. According to the Pensacola MLS, of the 6300+ homes for sale on the Pensacola real estate market, only 218 are foreclosure or bank-owned properties. Another 229 are listed as short sales.
That makes foreclosures only 3.5% of the Pensacola real estate market, and short sales just over 3.5%. This is significantly less than the estimated 20% reported by RealtyTrac.
The rate of foreclosure-related filings reported by RealtyTrac was highest in Nevada, California and Florida.
The Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., area had the highest rate of foreclosure-related filings in the nation — one in 64 households, RealtyTrac said.
This shows that Pensacola has a much more stable real estate market than southern Florida, where speculators went crazy during the real estate boom years and basically ended up being part of the cause of the big crash we are seeing now in southern Florida. See my article Did Speculators Accelerate The Florida Housing Downturn? .
Related Articles On Pensacola Real Estate News:
Real Estate “Buy and Bail” – Financial Smarts or Mortgage Fraud
Free Legal Advice For Florida Real Estate Owners Facing Foreclosure
Real Estate Short Sales, Is It Worth It?
Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a list of articles indexed by category.
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Real Estate “Buy and Bail” – Financial Smarts or Mortgage Fraud
July 28th, 2008 Categories: Credit And Financing, Foreclosures
A new real estate strategy is emerging in real estate markets hardest hit by falling home prices and rising foreclosures. This strategy has been called “Buy and Bail”. The Wall Street Journal article Some Buy a New Home To Bail On The Old gives a good description of the Buy and Bail process. Fortunately, the Pensacola Real Estate market was not hit as hard as other Florida markets by the recent drastic price declines in property values.
Buy and Bail is a very simple strategy, but also very sketchy. Basically, a homeowner who paid a lot for a home when the market was at peak levels now decides to buy another home at a much lower market value and walk away from the original home, leaving the lender holding the bag.
Here is a brief example of the process. 
Bill borrowed money to buy a $400,000 home at the heightof the market. That home is now worth only $200,000 fair market value.
Bill feels cheated by this down real estate market and wants out of the $400,000 mortgage.
Bill has good credit and some cash reserves.
Bill buys a comparable home for only $200,000 in the down real estate market.
Bill walks away from the home with $400,000 mortgage and leaves the bank to foreclose on the property.
Bill’s credit is damaged, and the bank stands to lose over $200,000 on the deal.
Mortgage Fraud?
Many lenders and real estate agents call this mortgage fraud. The homeowners are taking advantage of mortgage-lending practices that allow them to buy a new primary residence before their existing residence has been sold.
In some cases real estate agents and brokers are actually participating in this process. They are coaching homeowners through the buy-and-bail process. “It’s just a business decision,” says Linda Caoili, a Sacramento real-estate agent who has worked with people who are considering walking away from their mortgages. “If you’re upside-down $250,000, why would you keep it? It just doesn’t make sense.”
In this situation, some homeowners opt to ‘buy and bail’. These owners are using their good credit rating to buy a second home at a lower price, assuring the lender they’ll rent out their first home. Then they just walk away from the first home, and leave the lender holding the bag.
To be sure, walking away from a mortgage, even if legal, has plenty of drawbacks:
Borrowers lose the ability to take out unsecured loans, since foreclosures can stay on a credit report for seven years.
In some states, lenders can sue for assets, including a new house.
Here Comes Uncle Sam
Now the government intends to step in and put an end to “buy and bail”. Under revised Fannie Mae guidelines, loan applicants who claim they will rent out their first home will have to produce supporting evidence, including an executed lease agreement. Borrowers also will have to prove that they can pay the mortgage, property taxes and insurance for both residences. The guidelines will make an exception only for borrowers who have at least 30 percent equity in their current home.
Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored mortgage underwriter, recently revised the amount of time borrowers with a foreclosure must wait to receive a home loan to five years from four. Proposed Fannie Mae guidelines, which could take effect later this month, also would require those borrowers to make a 10% down payment and meet a minimum credit score after the five-year period.
Note that the buy and bail strategy is not common in the Pensacola real estate market. Home values have not dropped as drastically as in other areas of the country where this technique is more used.
How much is it worth to lose your good credit rating?
Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a the most popular articles indexed by category.
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Free Legal Advice For Florida Real Estate Owners Facing Foreclosure
July 16th, 2008 Categories: Credit And Financing, Foreclosures, Pensacola Real Estate News
Thanks to the the Florida Bar and Florida Legal Services, Florida homeowners facing foreclosure can now get access to a lawyer and free legal advice.
With the surge in real estate foreclosures, especially in Florida, this program comes none too soon.
According to Florida Legal Services Inc., 77,000 state homeowners are in foreclosure, making Florida second in the nation only to California. And many other homeowners are at least 30 days past due on their mortgage payment. Fortunately for the Pensacola real estate market, we are not seeing the high foreclosure rates that other parts of the state are seeing.
Florida Legal Services and the Florida Bar Association have partnered in establishing a toll-free hotline that consumers can call.
They’ll be asked some initial questions about their situation to ensure accurate placement, and then be sent to a free attorney.
The attorney will then negotiate with the lender on behalf of the client to keep the home from being foreclosed.
Here is the toll free number: (866) 607-2187
Hours to call are Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
More than 10,000 Florida attorneys have volunteered their services in the program, according to Florida Legal Services Inc. Remember that next time you feel the need to tell a bad lawyer joke.
Related Articles On Pensacola Real Estate News:
Real Estate Short Sales – Is It Worth It?
Did Speculators Accelerate The Florida Housing Downturn?
Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a list of articles indexed by category.
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Real Estate Short Sales, Is It Worth It?
March 28th, 2008 Categories: Foreclosures, Pensacola Real Estate News, Working With Realtors
A few years ago, very few people, including real estate agents, had heard the term “short sale”. With the growing foreclosure rate, short sale is now a well known term to both real estate professionals and many consumers. A search of the Pensacola MLS shows that of 6693 residential properties for sale on the Pensacola real estate market, 417 are short sales or foreclosures. That amounts to 6.2% of the properties on the market.
For updated statistics on Pensacola Foreclosures and Short Sales, see the article Pensacola Foreclosures from March 2010.
For those not familiar with the term “short sale”, think of a short sale as a pre-foreclosure sale. You are purchasing from a very motivated seller who needs to sell to avoid foreclosure. And you are negotiating with a motivated lender who wants to get their money, but doesn’t want to own a home.
For the lender, foreclosure can be an expensive proposition, due to the fact that many buyers owe more on their home than the home is worth. The lender has to pay all the legal fees process the foreclosure through the legal system, and then turn around and pay all the fees related to selling the home. For these reasons, banks are often willing to accept less than is owed on the home just to avoid losing more money on a foreclosure.
But how good of a deal can you really get buying a short sale? And if you are a seller, what are the chances of getting your bank to accept a short sale? Are the banks really motivated to sell at a discount?
The answer to these questions is that “it depends”. Every bank is different, and every situation is unique.
I read a post on the real estate site Active Rain regarding experiences that many agents were having with short sales. I wanted to share assorted quotes from this post with my readers so everyone could see the reality behind short sales, which are often advertised as the way to get properties dirt cheap in this market. These quotes are from the author of the article and from agents who left comments. The bank names have been removed. 
- “I realize that many agents are struggling with short sales right now. Because the system is screwed up, and some banks in particular are almost impossible to work with. Bank staff are overworked, probably underpaid and buried in paperwork. I tell my buyers to throw out the short sale listings they get from me, because they’re not worth the effort. Buyers can purchase a home that comes with warranties, where sellers will pay buyer’s closing costs and the price is comparable to a short sale, so why bother pursuing what is guaranteed to become a headache without resolution?”
- “ I have worked with some great asset managers, some of whom I actually have a real, on the phone conversation with once a week. They all say the same thing — handling 750+/- files, buried in the paper, and depressed when they look at their voicemail because they know they can’t possibly get back to everyone on everything. ”
- “I have a short sale with BANK since last October. They finally approved the primary loan 2 weeks ago…the second loan is still pending. This has been six month’s…my buyer is ready to forget it. “
- “Here in Florida many of us agents have been throwing cash and buyers at the short sales to no avail. There are not enough processors. What I am being told is that they cannot find enough “qualified” people to make decisions and that the board of director’s only meets once or twice a month to make these decisions.
“ - “I know an agent here who had a great offer on a short sale – it was almost full price, or “retail” as she said. The servicer for the lenders took 90 days to respond and by then the value of the property had fallen 10% and the buyers did not want to buy at that price any more. The delay cost the lenders $50,000. “
- BANK ”refused an offer at $462k with the seller coming in with an additional $2000 and willing to do a promissory note only to foreclose and have the bank’s real estate agent list it at $454k. That really baffled me.”
- “I recommend anyone considering getting into short sales contact their attorney first to see what they could be held liable for. And please, inform your sellers to first contact an attorney and try to work out a deed in lieu of foreclosure before agreeing to take a short sale listing. Short sales should be the last effort before foreclosure…not the first step.”
- “I suggest you take your ready and willing buyers to very motivated listings that are ready to close NOW…My time is too valuable to work with a known 80% failure rate….The only ones making any money in the actual short sales end of the business are the seminars and books & CD sellers on EBAY. ”
- “I currently have an bank owned property here in Florida. I have two offers sitting on the table for it and the bank still has yet to respond. I call the asset manager 3 times a day and he tells me the same thing, “still waiting to hear if the bank approves it”.This is Karl writing again. The previous paragraphs were quotes from the other thread. So what is my point in sharing these messages? Think twice before going after that super deal on a short sale. It may end up being an unproductive and stressful waste of your time and energy. I’m sure there are a short sale success stories where buyers ended up with a great deal on a property, but just beware that it may not always be that easy to get a property below market value through a short sale.
Related Articles On Pensacola Real Estate News:
Free Legal Advice For Florida Homeowners Facing Foreclosure
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