MortgageOrb.com is reporting that new funding from the U.S. Treasury Department will likely bring a pilot version for mortgage payment assistance for unemployed borrowers to Lee County first. Primarily due to the large economic problems in the Fort Myers area, it is expected that the Florida Housing Finance Corp. will first allocate a portion of the $656 million of federal money to Lee County homeowners to make mortgage payments for a period of up to 18 months.
Archive for the ‘Lee County’ Category
Mortgage Payment Assistance Likely Coming To Lee County Soon
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010Cape Coral/Ft. Myers and Orlando Top Foreclosure List
Thursday, July 29th, 2010RealtyTrac released a little more than just their monthly tracking yesterday. Also included were year to date statistics. If you read my posts you know I do not spend a lot of time on the monthly data results as I find them to be for too narrow of a window. When provided with six months of data, I think some conclusions can be reached.
According to RealtyTrac, year to date, Cape Coral-Ft. Myers is the number two foreclosure market in the country. Making its debut in the top ten, Orlando has now in at number 8. The Miami area has actually dropped a few notches to come in at #10.
Foreclosure activity in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., metro area decreased nearly 22 percent from the previous six months and was down nearly 30 percent from the first half of 2009, but the metro area still documented the nation’s second highest metro foreclosure rate — 4.98 percent of its housing units (one in 20) received a foreclosure filing during the six-month period.
Other Florida cities in the top 10 foreclosure rates were Orlando-Kissimmee at No. 8 (4.15 percent of housing units) and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach at No. 10 (3.89 percent).
It is also interesting to distinguish these foreclosure rates (% of total housing stock) versus actual foreclosure totals. When foreclosure totals are considered large metropolitan areas take over the rankings. For instance, the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Pompano Beach metropolitan area is 10th year to date in foreclosure rates, but actually leads the nation in total foreclosures with 94,466 properties receiving a notice during the first six months of 2010. This total rate beats out the Los Angeles metropolitan area in second place with 93,263 filings.
The big picture from this news is foreclosure filings are back on the upswing with 154 of the 206 metropoliatan markets in the USA, with populations in excess of 200,000, posting year over year increases in activity. These widespread increases occurred while activity actually decreased in nine of the 10 areas with the highest rates.
“While we’re seeing early signs that foreclosure activity may have peaked in some of the hardest-hit markets, foreclosures continued to rise in three-quarters of the nation’s metropolitan areas in the first half of the year,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “The fragile stability achieved in many local housing markets hinges on improvements in the underlying economy, specifically job growth. If unemployment remains persistently high and foreclosure prevention efforts only delay the inevitable, then we could continue to see increased foreclosure activity and a corresponding weakness in home prices in many metro areas.”
Homes With Defective (Chinese) Drywall Will Be Valued At $0
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010A new law signed last week, will allow as many as 1500 homes in Lee County, and many more throughout Florida, to be provided a write down of value for property taxes if they are certified to have defective chinese drywall. Even without the drywall adjustments, property valuations for Lee County decreased 15% from 2009 values and it is estimated that the reduction of value for these 1500 homes will make an additional $65 million loss to the tax base, assuming the average home value of $86,000. So, a further dent in the amount of property tax available to fund the county will mean what? Homeowners deserve the break due to the nightmare they are facing, and the reality of the cost to eliminate the problem. Local leaders are going to be faced with tough budget issues with the loss of these taxes, combined with the volume of people not even paying their taxes due to default on their mortgages.
The new law requires these write downs for the structure only, so there will still be land value for taxation. More details.
Lee County Is Declared Worse Job Market In The Country
Saturday, March 20th, 2010The Brookings Institution released a study this week placing Lee County Florida in last place of the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas in job market performance. According to thsi study, the number of jobs dropped 17% in Lee County from the peak early 2006 level to the fourth quarter of 2009. Not surprizing, the hardest hit sector of the employment market is the construction sector where most jobs have completely disappeared. Other Florida markets are also not creating new jobs. Noted in the study that Lee County was rated 100: Bradenton-Sarasota-97, Melbourne-92, and Tampa-St. Petersburg-89. Read more.
Lee County Florida Foreclosure Statistics
Saturday, March 7th, 2009There were 2,109 foreclosure actions filed in the Lee County courts in February, up 7 percent from January’s 1,963 and up 19 percent from 1,774 in February 2008.
However, February’s number was 21 percent off the all-time high of 2,665 in October, according to the Southwest Florida Real Estate Investment Association.
In January, the latest month available, of 827 total sales listed with the Realtor Association of Greater Fort Myers and the Beach, foreclosure resales accounted for 542 and short sales for 107.
That left only 181 sales — 22 percent — that were not distressed sales involving a bank.
In Lehigh Acres, the area hardest hit by foreclosures, only 8 percent were non-distressed sales.
Those lucky enough to be buyers in this market say they’re getting phenomenal deals as banks get rid of the houses as fast as they can, experts say.
There are about 14,000 houses listed for sale in the county and 30,000 foreclosures working their way through the courts.
