The Housing Bubble

The News Journal reports from Florida. “Pending home sales are climbing in West Volusia, with homes in the lower price ranges attracting the most interest. In March, 456 pending sales of new and existing homes and condominiums were counted on the county’s west side, double the number tallied the same month in 2010, according to the West Volusia Board of Realtors. The median price for those pending sales in March was $75,000, a 16 percent decline compared to the median price the same month last year.”

“The median price means an equal number were priced higher and lower than that amount. ‘These prices are pre-2000 prices and even below that,’ said Mike Williams, a Realtor with ReMax Associates in Deltona. ‘Also a lot of sellers who missed the big boom from 2004 to the end of 2006 were reluctant to lower their prices. Many have come around.’”

The Fort Myers News Press. “For two years, Victor Vangelakos was the only resident of a 32-story riverfront tower in Fort Myers. Now, he has dozens of new neighbors at the Oasis, thanks to new ownership and a new push to sell homes at the high-rise condominium development. The sales push, started with an auction Nov. 20, by new owner Oasis Associates LLC of 40 units to get sales going. Those units were sold at absolute auction, meaning the high bid took the unit with no minimum price by the seller.”

“Sales at the towers fell sharply, however, after the housing market imploded starting in early 2006. Units at Oasis, for example, now go for less than half their pre-construction prices.”

The Herald Tribune. “Casey Key is one of Florida’s most beautiful barrier islands. Home to quaint beach cottages, elegant mansions, scenic beaches and attractive landscaping, it offers a quiet, luxurious lifestyle. Values have dropped considerably since the peak of the housing boom. One of the properties Annette Ayers shows on the north end is a 16,500-square-foot mansion with competition tennis courts, swimming pool and a scenic old dock. Originally priced at $20 million, it now lists for $9 million.”

The News Press. “The real estate market may be rebounding, but uncertainty still lives in the minds of some buyers. ‘Homeownership was the American dream. Nowadays when people are thinking of buying a house, they all know someone who will make a comment along the lines of, ‘Buying a house is the worst thing I ever did in my life,’ said Scott DiGregorio, sales manager at Primary Residential Mortgage in Fort Myers. ‘Never before has that happened.’”

“‘I firmly believe some people shouldn’t buy a house right now,’ DiGregorio said. ‘We have to be OK with that and we have to help people make that decision.’”

The Tampa Tribune. “For the second time in recent months, Yvette Swain moved into a vacant Hillsborough County home without the property owner’s permission, authorities said. Deputies arrested Swain late Tuesday on warrants for grand theft of $100,000 or more and burglary of an unoccupied dwelling. In the first instance, Swain moved into a Dover house after a company called Chateau Lan took possession of it, citing Florida’s adverse possession law. That law allows a person to take possession of abandoned property if he lives on it and pays taxes on it for seven years.”

“Homeowner Danuta Brown moved back into that four-bedroom, three-bath house property after a costly, four-month ordeal.”

“A real estate agent had ‘For Sale’ sign in front of the house at 13409 Sydney Road. Neighbors told the agent in April that someone had moved in. The agent went to the property, saw the sign was missing and that the home’s locks had been changed. On April 10, he contacted deputies. He told authorities the home wasn’t being foreclosed upon and was in the process of a short sale.”

“No one was home when deputies responded April 10, but 10 days later deputies spoke to Swain. She said she had lived in the home for three weeks and had been in the process of legally claiming the property under adverse possession, said Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Debbie Carter. After deputies spoke with the state attorney’s office, a warrant was issued for Swain’s arrest. She was charged because the home wasn’t in foreclosure, it had a rightful property owner and was in the process of being sold, Carter said.”

The Palm Beach Post. “Carl Alexander and Carol Asbury bet big on Versailles real estate deals. This week, they lost big, indicted for their part in alleged mortgage fraud in the upscale Wellington community. They join 24 others who have been indicted or charged in Versailles schemes worth millions, first outlined in a Palm Beach Post series in 2009.”

“Asbury founded the Save My Home Law Group in late 2009, state records show. She also sponsors the popular blog 4closurefraud.com. That blog’s daily postings of foreclosure documents and regular nationwide updates on court actions are partly credited for exposing the robo-signing scandal that pushed banks to freeze home repossessions in the fall.”

“‘I find it very disturbing that the government must use all their resources to attack the people that are exposing the fraud and corruption,’ said Michael Redman, who runs the foreclosure blog. ‘Where are the indictments on all the known felonies committed by the banks, foreclosure mills and doc shops?’”

“Fraudulent closing documents prepared by Parkland real estate broker David Lam and Asbury concealed the fact that lenders were loaning more money than the actual price of the home, prosecutors said. The difference between the loan and the home price, they said, ultimately was pocketed by Alexander, Asbury and Lam - an estimated $1.8 million on the sale of four homes.”

The Orlando Sentinel. “A small group of private investors has overpaid taxes on more than 100 Orange County real-estate purchases since January 2010, artificially inflating recorded sales prices to show the properties sold for $2.77 million more than the investors paid. New buyers of some of these properties contacted by the Sentinel hadn’t looked into the previous purchase prices. But a Brooklyn buyer who purchased a MetroWest unit with her husband for $65,000 in December was surprised to learn it was bought by an investor at auction two months earlier for $25,000.”

“Asked whether they would have lowered their offer if they had known how much was paid by the investor group, she said: ‘I probably would have lowered it quite a bit.’”

“A Palm Beach Post analysis of deficiency judgments showed only 133 claims were filed between April 2006 and November 2010 on foreclosed residential properties in Palm Beach County. But experts said more may be coming as banks work through the bulk of foreclosures or even sell the claims to debt collection companies. Mark Stopa, a Tampa-based foreclosure defense attorney and proponent of strategic default, said financial institutions are just trying to scare homeowners, discouraging strategic defaults by convincing borrowers they are easily identifiable targets.”

“‘Strategic default is a sound business decision for many people,’ Stopa said. ‘Bankers try to make it about morality, but they have to realize that there is an overwhelming incentive at this point for people to strategically default.’”

“That’s because home values have sunk so much from their boom-time prices. In Palm Beach County, the median price for an existing home in March was $186,500, down 52 percent from the March 2006 median price of $393,700, according to Florida Realtors reports.”

“West Palm Beach resident Anthony Armenti has seen his home value plummet from his 2006 purchase price of $274,100 to a total market value today of $77,000. Retired, Armenti can afford the payments, but he’s also scrimping a little on other things and using coupons. ‘I never had to live like that before,’ said Armenti, who has considered a strategic default. ‘I don’t really need a credit score anymore. It would mean $1,600 in my pocket every month.’”

“But Armenti said he won’t walk away. ‘I won’t do it because it’s not the right thing to do for the United States,’ he said.”

“Four years ago, the homes in Meadow Walk and Palmer Glen were valued at an average of $425,000, and for good reason. The typical home is large, with 2,500 square feet of living area. The neighborhoods are reclusive, shielded to the west by the 300-acre Celery Fields, one of the state’s top bird sanctuaries. Only two of the 164 homes were assessed at under $300,000 in 2007, and both were still above $290,000.”

“By last year, those values had fallen by nearly half and the appealing subdivisions — Palmer Glen is a gated community — had the sixth highest foreclosure rate among Sarasota County’s 227 neighborhoods, according to a Herald-Tribune’s analysis. Meadow Walk and Palmer Glen still sport an average value of $234,000, despite the housing decline.”

“Gary Walsh, president of the Meadow Walk Homeowners Association, gets the news that another foreclosure has hit his neighborhood when the knock at his door comes, usually at around 11 p.m. During the boom, Walsh’s home, on a larger-than-average lot and with a backyard surrounded by water, was appraised at $630,000. It could probably still sell for $260,000 or so, he says, but the sign next door and others like it around the neighborhood were setting the market rate.”

“The pace of foreclosure filings has greatly slowed amid a scandal that has has left many of the nation’s largest banks and their attorneys accused of misconduct or negligence. And while there are still the eight homes, or nearly one-eighth of the neighborhood, going through foreclosure, there is a renewed pressure on banks’ attorneys to move the process along, Walsh said. Still, the HOA president expects this hiatus will be short-lived. ‘I think we’re going to see another rash of foreclosures.’”

“Jack McCabe, a Deerfield Beach real estate analyst expects the hiatus in residential foreclosures to be temporary and that ‘a huge wave’ will come once lenders and their lawyers retool. That help could come from Tallahassee, where industry lobbyists are attempting to change laws that will ease the foreclosure process for them, he said.”

“A statistic McCabe finds particularly interesting is that the average Sarasota County home was built in 1985, and that homes going through foreclosure are, on average, only seven months younger. The common perception is that homes built at the top of the boom are most often those that went under. But if the average home going through foreclosure in Sarasota County is more than 20 years old, something else is the cause.”

“‘What you had,’ McCabe said, ‘was not only people taking out crappy mortgages to buy new homes, but to buy used homes.’”

“And second mortgages were taken out on these used homes too. ‘That second note caused them to go under,’ McCabe said. ‘The point is the greed — everyone experienced the greed and everybody wanted to get the pot of gold that was the real estate market.’”