The Miami Herald reports from Florida. "Horacio and Patsy Parra cashed out two retirement accounts last year to buy an Orlando condominium they couldn't afford. The developer, Cay Clubs Resorts & Marinas, agreed to lease back the $307,000 unit for 15 percent of the sales price, enough cash to cover the mortgage for nearly two years. But the Parras now expect to lose their unit to foreclosure, they say, because Cay Clubs owes them about $40,000 in unpaid rent."

"The nationwide real-estate downturn has brought a cash squeeze that forced Cay Clubs to lay off dozens of workers, slow redevelopment plans, and ask roughly 140 buyers like the Parras to wait for their rent checks."

"The 'money is just not available to make the necessary payments and continue to maintain Cay Clubs' long-term viability during this down market,' CEO Dave Clark in May wrote to condo buyers awaiting lease-back checks."

"The troubles that the Clearwater company faces symbolize wider concerns about South Florida's battered condominium market. Real-estate analysts say too many developers depended on investors who stretched their bankbooks buying condominiums during the housing boom on the assumption that others would buy or rent them only a year or two later."

"Faced instead with anemic demand for real estate, those investors are left scrambling to pay the bills, said Jack Winston, a condominium analyst with Goodkin Consulting in Miami. 'It's the same people: 'Hey, let's invest in some real estate! We'll flip it. Then, all of a sudden, they find they have to reach into their pocket every month to cover the mortgage. And it's a shock.'"

"Ricky Stokes, a top seller for Cay Clubs, touted the lease-back arrangement in a May 2006 online presentation as providing 'virtually two years of free appreciation' because, for most buyers, it would cover ownership costs for 20 months. Stokes did not respond to interview requests."

"Even with their large real-estate holdings in Colorado, Patsy Parra says she and her husband do not have the extra income to handle another mortgage payment."

"They took out four loans to buy two Cay Clubs units: the one in Orlando and another in a planned Las Vegas hotel. They counted on 20 months of lease-back payments to cover the $4,500 in monthly costs for both. After that, the Parras needed appreciation gains to make the investment work."

"'I'd have to refinance to get the next five or six months of payments,' Parra said. 'They were supposed to be very valuable.'"

"Other buyers depended on the lease-back cash to pay their mortgages, too. 'I have clients that are filing bankruptcy because they can't afford their payments,' said Gene Denton, president of a Colorado firm that sold Cay Club units through Internet presentations."

"NAWREI wrote to Clark on June 7 that Cay Clubs owed members nearly $240,000 in back rent, leaving members 'facing personal financial hardship including bankruptcy.'"

"Patsy Parra said Friday that she has no cash to pay the mortgage in July or August, a scenario she said she never anticipated. 'When we first bought these condos, I thought everything was fine,' she said. 'I never in my wildest dreams thought something like this would go wrong.'"

The Orlando Sentinel. "The housing boom may seem a distant memory, but experts say the real-estate speculation and 'creative' financing it generated are now driving many investors and homeowners into bankruptcy, especially in Central Florida."

"Personal bankruptcies in the Orlando area were up 80 percent during the first half of 2007, the biggest rate increase in the federal court system's Middle District of Florida,. Orlando's jump in bankruptcies also far outstripped the national rate, which was up 43 percent compared with the first six months of 2006."

"Orlando bankruptcy lawyer Richard Heller is seeing a lot of people these days who thought they had placed a sure bet during the recent housing boom."

"'Some would buy land for, say, $750,000, then use all their 401(k) and other money to keep the mortgage paid,' Heller said. 'At the end, the best they could get for it was $550,000 -- and they'd still owe $750,000. They didn't understand the risk they were taking.'"

"Many of those with mortgage problems are trying to fend off bankruptcy by renegotiating their loan terms, downsizing their lifestyles, taking second jobs or and making other changes to save money, lawyers say."

"'We're not talking just about people who are hardly making ends meet," said Raymond Rotella, a partner in (a) Orlando law firm. 'We're talking about some people with a sizable net worth and income-earning potential who are facing a serious dilemma.'"

"Chapter 13 filings have surged the past two years and now comprise about 40 percent of all bankruptcies in the court's Middle District of Florida, double their historic rate."

"'People are trying desperately to avoid filing,' said Andrew Baron, a veteran consumer-bankruptcy lawyer in Orlando. 'But for a lot of them, it's going to be the only sensible way out. Too many have been tapping their home equity to pay other bills in the past. Now that avenue is blocked off.'"

From TC Palm. "The number of mortgage foreclosures filed in St. Lucie this summer has skyrocketed. Court officials say it's a nationwide trend and there are themes running through many of the cases, such as home buyers taking on adjustable-rate mortgages that now carry higher interest rates and the rise in insurance and property taxes for some residents."

"Others bought the homes as investment properties, but are now having trouble keeping up with payments."

"Of the 550 civil cases filed in circuit court in July, nearly 80 percent were mortgage foreclosures, records show. There were four times as many foreclosures filed in July as there were during the same time period last year and it is likely more than 3,000 will have been filed by year's end."

"Clerk of Court Ed Fry and his office has been swamped with calls from the public. Fry hired an additional clerk earlier this year to deal with the growing demand and employees have begun working on Saturdays."

"'It's a little disheartening actually to see that kind of volume,' Fry said. 'You hate to see this many foreclosures being filed in the county.'"

"The sinkhole in Jill Dienemann's backyard, eroding away from the canal retaining wall put up by the builder of the empty house next door, isn't technically the city's problem."

"But the owner, Todd Stolfi, is unreachable. His address on the property deed is a Post Office box and a listed phone number has been disconnected. So Dienemann, frustrated and fearing further erosion, demanded help from the city, and the city has promised to deliver."

"'Who else is going to fix it?' City Manager Don Cooper said."

"To make it easier to fix problems with the hundreds of empty homes in Port St. Lucie, Councilwoman Michelle Berger and City Attorney Roger Orr are looking into the legality of designating the homes as public nuisances."

"'There are a lot of empty houses and we have to get a handle on these issues,' Berger said. 'It's not just high grass. It starts out with high grass and then the whole neighborhood begins to fall apart.'"

"The nuisance designation, if legal, would allow the city to make repairs to empty homes without the threat of losing cash because the home is in foreclosure. Foreclosures have quadrupled in St. Lucie County in the past year, and a foreclosure exempts an owner from repaying cash spent to fix it."

"With a public nuisance designation, the city could put a lien on the home until any repair money was paid back."

"Dienemann wants the city to find a way to get all the vacant homes, many of which were built by speculators who have turned into absentee-owners, under control. 'All these people who live next door to these empty houses are being held hostage,' Dienemann said. 'This town has to be accountable.'"

"For 33 years I have been employed in the construction industry. Lake County, like the national economy, has an excess inventory of new and existing homes. In my neighborhood in Mount Plymouth, a subdivision called the Fairways has 23 homes for sale and four for rent. In the surrounding streets in Mount Plymouth, another 34 homes are for sale, and that covers only about a third of the community."

"With all of these homes for sale in this tiny part of Lake County, can building new homes be justified? I think not. The events leading up to this excess in housing inventory include a developer-friendly County Commission that approved too many developments without sufficient infrastructure."

"For Lake County to prosper, it must attract high-paying jobs in sustainable industries. Residential construction is not sustainable. The labor force, for example, is transient. The New York Times reported in April that one in five construction workers in California was an illegal immigrant. Does anyone think it is any different here?"

"Everyone's home is losing value because there is an excess in the supply."

"Forbes.com has just ranked Miami and Orlando as the two riskiest housing markets in the country. Obviously this isn't a good thing. Talk of a Florida recession grows."

"But common wisdom says not to worry. The real-estate Ponzi scheme that got us into this fix will be replaced by the next get-rich-quick gimmick."

"There are disturbing reports of school enrollment declines and of moving companies moving more people out than in."

"We are in a unique situation with the cost of property insurance often exceeding the cost of property taxes. Talk of leaving Florida has become a pastime, with the quality of life as big a complaint as the cost of life."