This One Is Different
The Gainesville Sun reports from Florida. “The Windmeadows Apartments complex is now the property of Comerica Bank after no one but an attorney for the bank showed up to bid on it at a foreclosure auction. The complex was built in 1972 by the late Clark Butler. Butler and partners sold it in 2006 for $26.6 million to a group of Kuwaiti-backed investors in New York. Florida South East Development Corporation of Tampa, owned by Ken Mamula, managed the property for the owners. Mamula said Windmeadows converted to condos but went back to rentals by 2008 because the ‘the market had already dried up.’”
“Mamula said the owners never missed a payment for four years and put $5 million into renovations, but the bank asked for a major paydown to renew the loan. ‘The argument from the investor was ‘You knew we were going to spend $5 million. If you wanted a paydown, you should have told us,’ Mamula said.”
The St Petersburg Times. “While other parts of Tampa Bay’s economy pick up steam, its construction industry just hit a new low. The recent numbers have startled veterans of an industry that used to pride itself as Florida’s chief growth engine. ‘Our industry has historically led out of recessions in years past,’ said Thorson of William Ryan Homes. ‘This one, obviously, is a lot different.’”
Florida Today. “Concrete mixing companies, as well as contractors who pour concrete, have seen up to a 75 percent decrease in business since the 2005-06 peak of the housing industry, which had collapsed by 2008. The construction shutdown has battered contractors, hauling companies and building supply dealers, who had grown used to rapid growth.”
“‘Every year for three years we’ve said this has to be the bottom, and every year we’re proven wrong,’ said Mike Murtha, president of the Florida Concrete and Products Association, which is based in Orlando.”
“‘We’re just surviving,’ Debbie Crusan, office manager at Absolute Concrete Pump in Melbourne, said. ‘Most of them still in business are accepting prices they haven’t been paid since the late 1990s. A lot of these guys out here are cutting each other’s throats.’”
The Ledger. “‘We at the Federal Reserve are moving vigorously to promote a stronger economic recovery,’ said Janet Yellin, the Fed’s vice chairman, in a speech in San Francisco this week. ‘However, monetary policy is not a panacea, and it is essential for other policy makers to also do their part. In particular, there is a strong case for additional measures to address the dysfunctional housing market.’”
“William C. Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, laid out a housing agenda when he spoke at West Point last month. He said action was needed to make it easier for more people to qualify for mortgage loans, and also broached an idea for something that so far has gotten little political support but probably will be necessary: reducing the amount that many borrowers owe while letting them keep their homes.”
“To many Republicans, the answer is simply to let the markets sort it out. That prescription seems to be based more on ideology than on any actual analysis of how the housing market is functioning, and it seems to infuriate Fed officials. ‘Regardless of how we got here, we, as a nation, currently have a housing market that is so severely out of balance that it is hampering our economic recovery,’ said Elizabeth A. Duke, a Fed governor, in a speech in September.”
The Sun Sentinel. “Q: I filed bankruptcy and abandoned a home in 2008. Since then the bank has not foreclosed and the homeowner’s association keeps sending me bills. What can I do? A: While it may sound obvious, you own your home until you don’t anymore. By this I mean you can’t just walk away without being responsible to your association, the tax collector and your neighbors. You need to find someone to take the home from you.”
The Naples News. “A Southwest Florida lawmaker has revived a bill that could speed up foreclosures in Florida. State Rep. Kathleen Passidomo first filed a foreclosure bill last session in hopes of changing a judicial process that can drag out for years. That bill was never heard. Her goal is to get the distressed homes back on the market faster.”
“‘Most of the foreclosures that are sitting there and not going anywhere are abandoned homes,’ Passidomo said. ‘The borrower has already moved out. So we have these empty homes, where the borrower is not paying anything and the lender is not paying anything, creating problems in the neighborhoods. No one is mowing the lawn, no one is maintaining them.’”
“Matt Weidner, a foreclosure defense attorney in St. Petersburg who is running for a House seat, is one of the most vocal critics of the bill. Weidner said speeding up the foreclosure process may hurt, rather than help, the housing market. If a flood of homes come on the market at once, it could depress prices.”
“Alan Fields, executive director of the Florida Land Title Association in Tallahassee, said speeding up foreclosure is the right thing to do, causing less pain in the end. ‘It’s less painful to rip the Band-Aid off,’ he said.”
The News Chief. “Being in debt seems to be a way of life in America, but according to Janet Folkerts, Executive Director of Spectrum Resource and Development Center, Inc. dba Spectrum Resources, our lives don’t have to be this way. ‘Spectrum Resources was also in place to guide families during the bubble burst in the real estate market, and to assist families facing foreclosure,’ she said.”
“Folkert said anybody who has a plan and works the plan, is going to get out of debt, but until that bubble bursts, people can’t talk about it. ‘They can talk about their sex lives, their drug addiction, but talking about money is taboo. Discussing the fact you can’t make it month to month, was taboo, but with the global melt down of the economy, debt is coming out of the closet,’ she said.”
The Destin Log. “If you really care about the community and about people, you’ve got to want to do something about the economy and about the housing market. I am convinced personally that there is no one cause for our housing misery, and there is no one answer. While it’s hard to be optimistic, within the general advice that you simply never give up, I offer the following baby steps that may help.”
“We may all find that we must get by with less income. Get serious about budgeting within the income you have. Work to modify mortgages. Don’t assume that this problem will go away by itself. Sell properties that are a drain. Their values are not likely to improve significantly quickly enough to help.”
“Remember the adage represented by the question, ‘how do you eat an elephant’? The answer: ‘one bite at a time.’”
The Tampa Tribune. “It appears Barry Cohen, one of Tampa’s legal giants, hasn’t done as well in real estate as in high-profile court cases. The criminal defense lawyer is facing foreclosure on a Redington Shores condo and has lost millions on a Tierra Verde mansion, which he handed back to the bank last year.”
“Pinellas County records show he handed over his beachfront Tierra Verde mansion to an entity affiliated with the Bank of Tampa last December in a deed in lieu of foreclosure. Cohen bought it in 2000 for about $1.7 million, county records show, but said he put as much as $10 million into the property over the years. He let the property go because he was making $20,000 in monthly payments on a home that had lost much in value.”
“‘In a firm like us, you go way up and then you have valleys,’ Cohen said. ‘You have to sustain yourself during those valleys.’”
The University of Florida. “Real estate experts have been looking forward to Florida’s housing marketing hitting bottom as a sign that things will start improving. But the University of Florida’s latest quarterly survey on real estate in the Sunshine State shows most experts remain as depressed as the housing market.”
“Timothy Becker/UF real estate researcher: ‘It’s going to be down in doldrums for a long period of time. I mean we have foreclosure issues that are going to go on for the next 2, 3, maybe even 4 years. They’re going to keep that market really depressed I think.’”
