Real Estate News

Fort Myers Short Sale Sleaze

My e-mail inbox today contained an e-mail that really troubled me, here it is with the senders name redacted:

Subject
I BUY AND SELL SHORT SALES…

Lenders Pursuing Deficiency Judgments

Business Week reports that lenders are stepping up their efforts to collect on deficiency judgments of mortgage defaulters. The article reports that banks are seeking deficiency judgments in both short sale and foreclosure scenarios.

Lee Properties Sold For 94% Of Asking in 2009

One of the buyer misconceptions about our current Fort Myers area real estate market is that banks will approve ultra-aggressive, low-ball offers on short sales and foreclosures. Approving low-ball offers in Lee County has absolutely not been the operating model for lending institutions during 2009.

10 Day Short Sale Guidelines Coming

The Miami Press reports on new guidelines coming out from the U.S. Treasury that will place a 10 day limit on bank approval for a short sale. These guidelines cover mortgages for institutions participating in the Home Affordable Modification Program including JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America.

Foreclosure Rescue Scammers Targeted

The St. Petersburg Times reports that the bottom feeding foreclosure workout firms will face significantly more scrutiny in Florida.  These workout specialists promise miracles, typically charge a desperate homeowner a large upfront fee and then don’t do anything to help save the home from foreclosure.

Here locally, there are firms operating in under the guises of [...]

Short Sale Flipping Fraud

The Sarasota Herald Tribune reports on short sale flipping fraud that is becoming more prevalent here in Southwest Florida.

In a nutshell, real estate professionals and investors are teaming up to by undervalued distressed properties from banks and then immediately flipping the property to a new buyer at a hefty increase.  The short sale flippers often [...]

Only 23% of Short Sales Ever Close

According to a recent USA Today article, only 23% of short sale deals actually ever close. This figure came from a February 2009 survey by Campbell Communications of 1,300 Realtors. More than 90% of the agents cited slow responses from the lender as the reason that short sales were lost.

These figures certainly jive [...]

Short Sale Option Loophole Closed

One of Florida’s major title insurance companies, Attorneys Title Insurance, announced that they will no longer insure transactions involving a short sale option contract.

A short sale option contract is a technique being used by opportunists to buy a short sale from a bank at below market value and then flip to a true buyer at [...]

President Obama Visiting Fort Myers

In recognition of President Obama’s visit to Southwest Florida tomorrow, here is a brief poem titled Hey Mr. President:

Hey Mr. PresidentYou’re coming to Lehigh AcresTo tour the despairWith our movers and shakers

Hey Mr. PresidentPlease buy my Lehigh lotI acquired it in ‘05Now it’s worth squat

Hey Mr. PresidentSamir embarrassed our countyHe flipped without disclosureAnd charged investors [...]

NY Times on Lehigh Acres

The New York Times covers the economic challenges facing Southwest Florida, and in particular Lehigh Acres in an article titled In Florida, Despair and Foreclosures.

The article details the boom years and what has occurred since the real estate market busted. This article is a must read for anyone that has an interest in [...]

Area Real Estate Searches Up 57%

According to statistics released by Realtor.com, the official website of the National Association of Realtors, real estate web searches in the greater Fort Myers area increased by 57% in October 2008 vs. October of last year.

We are seeing similar trends on our www.greaterftmyers.com site. Searches with significant consumer interest are for short sale [...]

Fort Myers REO Listings Popular

I was just reviewing stats for my web site, www.greaterftmyers.com to see what pages buyers have been looking at over the last 30 days. As has been the case for the past several quarters, Fort Myers foreclosures, Fort Myers short sales, Cape Coral foreclosures and Cape Coral short sales topped the list.

There certainly is [...]

Affordable Homes in Southwest Florida

NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams ran a story, The flip side of foreclosures: Affordable homes, which prominently featured the Fort Myers and Cape Coral area.

The net-net take away is that affordability has returned to the area in a big way. If you are just starting your search for a new affordable home in [...]

Foreclosure Investing

The NY Times recently featured an article about investors that are focused on distressed property investing. The article touches on the three stages of distressed property: pre-foreclosure/short sale; properties in default that are being auctioned and real estate owned (REO) property.

It is estimated on a national basis that one in every 416 families is [...]

Buyer Tip – Short Sale Questions

Short sales are by far the most controversial and least understood type of real estate transaction in the market today. Many local Fort Myers short sale realtors are just fishing for an offer to start the short sale process. If this is the case, don’t be the unlucky one to have the 6 [...]

Foreclosure Listings

While the entire Southwest Florida real estate universe suffers from a nagging ailment known as “shortsaleitis,” I have been busy at the keyboard of my MacBookPro, with a robust supply of Red Bull and Oreos creating community specific foreclosure pages.

These pages display all the listings identified as foreclosures in the Greater Fort Myers and the [...]

SW Florida Short Sales

Here is an informative WINK 6 video on the challenges that buyers face when dealing with short sales here in SW Florida.

Make yourself a cup of coffee or a couple of margaritas and check out all the Fort Myers short sale, Estero short sale and Cape Coral short sale listings. We have agents very experienced [...]

Cape Coral Short Sales

Interesting overview of the current real estate market conditions in Cape Coral by the St. Petersburg Times. My takeaway about the market from this article is that affordability has returned in a big way to Cape Coral.The growing short sale and foreclosure inventory has significantly changed the market dynamics in Cape Coral. These [...]

On Deck…….ARM Recasts

The buzz in the mortgage industry is that the other shoe is expected to drop starting in April 2009. Here in Southwest Florida, we are truly living and breathing the havoc created by the subprime mortgage crisis. Rarely a day goes by without at least a single discussion about short sales, foreclosures, lis pendans [...]

Short Sales vs. Foreclosures

One of the big challenges in the SW Florida market right now are the ever increasing number of short sale listings hitting the market. Cape Coral short sales, account for over 1,800 listings on the market right now.

Many are very attractively priced and are also attracting offers. The issue is that the banks are not [...]