Archive for the 'States' Category

One can buy a bank foreclosed home in South Florida and turn it into a rental home or fix it and then resell it later. This is what flippers have been doing and many flippers now are more responsible because they have learned lessons from the past housing boom and the current downturn.

Flippers now are choosing cheap foreclosed properties with the most potential, rehabilitating them and making them more enticing to renters or buyers. They also now have deeper commitment to their property investments because of the repair costs.

Besides, they are now more prepared for times when there are no buyers or renters, unlike in the past when flippers just walked away from troubled investments.

Prospective buyers can choose from a lot of foreclosures in South Florida because the pace of foreclosure in the area is still rising, based on realtor associations in the area.

In Palm Beach County, more than 4,100 housing units received foreclosure actions in August, a sharp rise of 110 percent from August last year.

In Saint Lucie, nearly 1,700 foreclosures were filed, an increase of 57 percent from the same month in 2008. Martin County experienced nearly 250 foreclosure filings, up 8 percent compared to August last year.

According to Curtis Lowe, head of the St. Lucie Realtors Association, foreclosures and foreclosure sales on the Treasure Coast have also been rising. He said he has just sold a move-in ready bank foreclosed home at the asking price.

David Denslow, economics professor at the University of Florida, added that out-of-state property investors have started returning to South Florida. One of these is California-based investment fund LE 1 LLC led by Paul Elis.

Elis, who has been flipping houses for 40 years, has just bought a four-bedroom house in Palm Beach for $125,000 with the help of a local partner. He has remodeled it and has put it back for sale for $244,900. If the house is not purchased at his asking price, he can rent it out and wait for about two years before selling.

Some groups have been criticizing flippers because many of them contributed to the worsening of the foreclosure crisis, but many others recognize the role of the responsible flipper who buys an abandoned bank foreclosed home, repair it, remodel it and then put it back on the market for other responsible investors or homebuyers to buy.

Some companies have organized a fund raising event to help homeowners avoid Fort Worth bank foreclosures. Proceeds from the fund raising event went to the Foreclosure Angel Foundation which has been helping distressed homeowners save their properties from foreclosures.

In November 2008, Rockwall, Texas-based Marilyn Mock attended a foreclosure auction with her son. At the event, she saw a woman who was crying over the lost of her home to foreclosure. Mock decided to loan her rock yard business’ dump truck and used the money to purchase the woman’s house.

She sold the house back to the woman for its auction value, which was $50,000 less compared to what the homeowner has owed. The media learned about Mock’s deed which led to her guest appearances on the 20/20 program of ABC-TV and on Oprah Winfrey’s show.

After her first rescue, Mock decided to do more Forth Worth bank foreclosures prevention efforts. But this time, she wants to expand her campaign on a national level. She formed the Foreclosure Angel Foundation with the aim to help distressed homeowners who are at risk of foreclosures.

Mock’s television appearances brought in donations and provided much needed relief to distressed homeowners. Mock has received about 5,000 applications from distressed homeowners who want to save their properties from foreclosures. So far, she has saved nearly 40 houses from foreclosures nationwide.

Mock explained that her foundation tries to find people who are really in dire need of help and not just those that have overspent. She said that there are so many people who are desperate and have no one to turn to for help.

A homeowner from Goldsboro, North Carolina who could not find a job because of an injury from a car accident, was on the verge of selling her electric cart to pay for her mortgage when Mock and her team came to the rescue.

The woman said that what Mock and her team did made her realize that a lot of people are out there willing to help others. She said that Mock lets her know that she is not alone.

In the Fort Worth fund raising event, Mock received a check amounting to $27,275 for her foundation.

Bank homes for sale in the city of Quincy, Illinois will soon receive a facelift. The city has received federal and state money for a combined amount of 2.1 million to rehabilitate 22 foreclosed houses.

Some of the foreclosure properties that will be renovated are rentals and single family homes. Industry experts said that the buying and rehabilitation project will help create jobs, prevent the spread of foreclosures and stop abandoned and vacant foreclosure homes from becoming blights in neighborhoods. The city has so far identified 22 properties that will be purchased and renovated. Majority of these foreclosure homes are located in riverview neighborhoods.

Chuck Bevelheimer, a city planner, said that Quincy has been managing and operating a flatten or fix program for almost 15 years now. He said that the city has been monitoring houses that are derelict, vacant, abandoned and complained about.

Most of these foreclosed properties have overgrown grasses on their lawns and the utilities were shutoff. He added that some of these bank homes for sale will be repaired and restored while some will be demolished and replaced with new houses.

Quincy Mayor John Spring said that the properties that the city plans to purchase are non-occupied, in foreclosure or their property taxes are unpaid. To prepare for possible demolition, the city has hired an Indiana company as project manager.

Spring said that the rehabilitation program is very competitive. He explained that Quincy was one of the cities that applied to avail of state funds, adding that only 19 cities were chosen to receive the state funds.

The West Central Illinois Center for Independent Living and YWCA will each have four homes to use for rehabilitation programs. Industry experts said that new places to live around the city will soon emerge.

Meanwhile, the city of Quincy plans to use the proceeds from the sale of renovated foreclosed properties to rehabilitate other repossessed houses in the community. Also, the money from the Neighborhood Stabilization program will be used for down payment assistance.

According to experts, the funds can be used in combination with other initiatives to provide families with down payment assistance. The city also plans to hire minority contractors in the rehabilitation program. Since 1995, the city has rehabilitated over 50 bank homes for sale.

There is hope for better days ahead soon despite the continuing increase in the number of bank foreclosure homes and unemployment in Idaho, according to industry experts.

Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S Housing and Urban Development (HUD), has announced that his agency will speed up the release of federal disaster assistance to people in Georgia who lost their properties to bank house foreclosures.

The Wellington gated community in South Florida is now home to million-dollar bank property foreclosures. Many of these Versailles mansions that are now in foreclosure were acquired by a group of homebuyers from Opa-Locka. The million-dollar Versailles mansions are a far cry from the cinder-block houses where buyers lived in Opa-Locka.

The State Bureau of Financial Institutions’ quarterly survey showed that the number of foreclosed houses for sale in Maine continues to rise. But the survey also indicated that the number of new home loans in the state is also rising for the same period.

Auctions in October will see a lot of Texas bank foreclosures as postings of distressed properties grew to record high in Tarrant County and Dallas-Fort Worth areas.

Homeowners who default on their mortgage payments may end up losing their properties to Georgia bank foreclosures without any judicial review in just over a month. And before they realize what really happened, their distressed properties are already on the auction block.

The languishing economy, rising unemployment and crippling credit crunch are starting to strangle many commercial property owners that it would not be long and Florida bank foreclosures would start to flood the real estate market again.