The Sun Sentinel reports from Florida. "Turmoil in the housing market is swirling around an increase in troubled loans and a new threat, rising interest rates. Around the nation, late home-mortgage payments and adjustable-rate loans going into foreclosure hit all-time highs in the first three months of this year."

"The problem is acute in Florida, which had the second-largest increase for new foreclosures through the end of March, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. 'That's a leading indicator that problems are rising,' said Doug Duncan, the organization's chief economist."

"Another negative: Huge inventories of homes are for sale in South Florida. The number of houses and condos on the market is so large that it would take almost three years to sell them all in Palm Beach and 31 months in Broward, if the pace of recent sales continues."

"'The speculators are gone, they left,' said Chappy Adams, president of Illustrated Properties in Palm Beach County. 'Not only did they stop buying but they pretty much put their properties on the market all at the same time.'"

"The most obvious trouble is in the subprime market, where 11.61 percent of all subprime loans in Florida are past due and 2.15 percent of subprime loans entered foreclosure during the first three months of the year. Another 6.29 percent are considered seriously delinquent, because payments are more than 90 days past due."

"Those higher rates will also make it more difficult for troubled borrowers to refinance their mortgages. 'If there are a lot of people out there who do have the ability to refinance, the time to do it is now,' said Jim Dean of Trust House, an investment advisory firm in Fort Lauderdale."

From Florida Today. "This year's HomeBuyer Expo in Orlando could be a challenge for builders, lenders and others in the housing industry. Housing prices have dropped steadily in the past 1-1/2 years, although they are still high compared to other southern states; construction has slowed; and home insurance rates and property taxes have risen, spurring reports that some people are moving out of Florida."

"'As the housing market has cooled off, and the investors have left the market, and the subprime loans have dried up, people really should find a lot of bargains and concessions from sellers,' said David Westcott, director of homeownership programs for the Florida Housing Finance Corp."

"Lennar, which has been building several communities in Palm Bay and Viera, already has adjusted to the housing market slowdown. The focus is on 'the greatest value we can offer,' said Laureen Ramsey, Space Coast division president for Miami-based Lennar Homes. 'We're focused on bulk purchases and economies of scale.'"

The Voice of America. "Stockbroker Scott Brown of St. Petersburg, Florida, says the growth deceleration is mainly the result of weakness in the housing sector. Brown says home owners are seeing a painful correction from the buying frenzy that in many areas sent home prices soaring between 2000 and 2005."

"'Home prices in many areas may have doubled and now you're seeing a 10 or 20 percent correction,' he said. 'It's really going to affect recent homebuyers more than anything. If you bought a home in the last year or two, your net worth in that home is probably going to be down.'"

The Miami Herald. "Amid a weakening housing market, foreclosures in South Florida are mounting with staggering speed, they have tripled in Miami-Dade County and more than doubled in Broward County from this time last year. Since January, lenders have started to take over nearly 9,000 properties in Miami-Dade and close to 8,000 in Broward, with thousands more foreclosures pending from 2006."

"Florida outpaced all but Nevada in new foreclosures from January through March. The surge is due, in part, to speculators now saddled with souring investments, but also to borrowers who got high-priced loans during the boom."

"In Bunche Park, cardboard signs tacked on light poles offer reverse mortgages to the elderly and foreclosure rescue services to others. Piles of furnishings dot the streets, the evidence of evictions."

"This ZIP Code, 33054, has one of the highest loan-delinquency rates in South Florida. The main reason lies in subprime loans, once touted as a blessing and now the curse of poor neighborhoods like this one."

"Earlier this decade, financial institutions, protected by fast-rising property values, eagerly loosened lending standards and gave about $1.3 trillion in subprime loans to borrowers with less than stellar payment histories. Florida homeowners are shouldering about a tenth of that debt, more than any other state except California, according to data from First American Loan Performance."

"Roughly 23 percent of loans in Miami-Dade are subprime, and 18 percent in Broward. In areas like Miami Gardens, home to Bunche Park, it's more like 66 percent."

"'Some lenders try to find creative ways just to get the owners in the house, and they succeed,' said Julene Wade, program director of Harvest Fire Homeownership Program. 'Lenders don't consider [that borrowers have to] put food on the table, and that property taxes and insurance are going to kill them.'"

The Herald Tribune. "The shareholders of Coast Bank of Florida sued first. Now, it's the customers. Fifty borrowers filed lawsuits Thursday against Coast, saying the Bradenton-based bank schemed to defraud them on their home loans."

"Sarasota attorney Alan Tannenbaum says he will file another 75 lawsuits for Coast borrowers who claim they are stuck with homes or lots that are worth less than what they owe on their mortgages. Most of his clients have stopped making payments on their loans, Tannenbaum said."

"Bank spokesman Tramm Hudson said...the bank expects borrowers to pay their loans. 'Obviously we're not going to rescind any contracts,' he said."

"The bank made $110 million in loans to nearly 500 customers of Construction Compliance Inc., a now-bankrupt home builder in St. Petersburg. In one of the new lawsuits, Michael J. and Telma L. Dorcey of Tarzana, Calif., say they borrowed $228,600 to build a CCI home in North Port."

"Coast disbursed $83,055 to CCI, but the company did no work on the Dorceys' lot. 'Somewhere between 80 and 100 of my clients have just lots,' Tannenbaum said."

The St Petersburg Times. "He's down on the mat, he's bloody, the fans are booing. But can the Tampa Bay area housing market rise from the arena as the Comeback Kid? You can bet the house on it, said Lawrence Yun, senior economist at the National Association of Realtors."

"'Five years from now you will be very happy you're in this business and located in Tampa,' Yun said over a brown-bag lunch to about 75 real estate agents."

"In Yun's view, rising incomes and declining home prices ought to have stimulated sales this year were it not for housing bubble scares in the media."

"Yun was appointed last month as the top economic spokesman for the Realtors group. He succeeded economist David Lereah, discredited after maintaining rosy outlooks amid an increasingly troubled housing market and promoting his 2005 book, 'Are You Missing The Real Estate Boom - Why Home Values and Other Real Estate Investments Will Climb Through the End of the Decade.'"

"In one worst-case scenario, an economist suggested the gap between incomes and home prices would depress housing values 40 percent."

"Yun scoffed at the idea: The real measure of affordability, he said citing a formula, is mortgage obligation relative to income. He clicked a slide showing Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater hovering at the national average. Much of California isn't so lucky, nor is high-priced Miami and Naples."

"Yun based his housing projections on a list of economic trends: speculators leaving the market, strong job creation, baby boomers buying second homes and reform, a slow process now under way, of Florida's property tax and insurance systems."

"On that last item, Yun predicted a 'sonic boom,' should the state Legislature succeed in bringing insurance premiums back to earth."

"The local housing market's biggest problem is a record-high inventory of homes for sale. Listings hold about 40,000 houses and condos, quadruple the number of two years ago."

"Ever optimistic, Yun suggested a way out of the thicket: Thousands of homes will peel off into the rental market, while others drop off the charts as owners wait out the slump. 'In a job-growth area, people can hold onto the house without being desperate,' he said."

"Carlos Fuentes, the association's elected president, urged member's to spread the gospel according to Yun. 'You need to know the facts,' Fuentes said. 'You need to know how to present them as well.'"

"While lawmakers were slapping one another on the back in Tallahassee on Thursday, pleased with the property tax reform they had wrought, the bill does next to nothing for those who are already carrying the biggest property tax loads in the state: landlords, business owners and snowbirds, those players say."

"'They're beginning to call Florida the U-turn state,' said Terri Noyes, a Massachusetts hotelier who owns a winter house and two rental properties on Bradenton Beach. 'People come down here. They see the property taxes,, and they turn around and go home.'"

"Noyes saw the levy on a property in Bradenton Beach go up 313 percent, from $3,603 in 2002 to $11,279, last year. Another nearby property went up 284 percent from $4,288 to $12,219. The total increase comes to $15,607. With the rollback, Noyes' tax bill would drop $2,396."

"Noyes has only been able to raise rents by $50 per month on each residence, or $600 per year. 'In the beginning we were breaking even on rent, but now we're deep in the red and can't give the property away,' she said."

"Two residences are assessed at $1.2 million, and Noyes initially listed them for sale at $895,000. She has reduced the price in two $100,000 increments to $695,000, and still no bites."

"'This is the worst place in the country to own property,' Noyes said. 'Investors are no longer coming down the highway. They have no interest in being here.'"