Love the weather but hate the housing market – a familiar refrain for many Floridians as the Florida Foreclosure Crisis has dominated the lives of homeowners for the past several years.
Florida leads the nation in just about every negative foreclosure category and currently has more than 350,000 active foreclosure cases swamping the courts with a lot more to follow. Unfortunately the number of foreclosure lawsuits is likely to double and the Florida Foreclosure Crisis worsen by 2014 due to 500,000 seriously delinquent mortgages that are not yet in foreclosure proceedings. Defending Florida Foreclosure Lawsuits. Incredibly the current number of Florida loans in some stage of the foreclosure process – about 460,000 loans – is more than the total number of mortgages in 22 other states! Florida Foreclosure Process
Finally, at least one in every four Florida home sale involves a property in foreclosure which means dramatically lower home values exceeding 50% in many counties with no signs of stabilizing anytime soon. In fact well known housing analyst Jack McCabe, one of the few to predict the housing bust years before it happened, warns that it may take a decade or more for home prices to return to previous highs.
Broward County Foreclosure Help
Palm Beach County Foreclosure Help
Despite the negative outlook overall there’s a few reasons for short term optimism. One positive sign is that many lenders are increasingly dealing with defaults through Short Sales rather than foreclosure lawsuits in a trend that will hopefully expand. Recently major lenders Wells Fargo and Chase have actually been offering homeowners thousands of dollars to encourage short sales as banks are finally figuring out that its in their best interests to stabilize the housing market and work with rather than against homeowners to do so.
A second positive development that may help Florida homeowners is an influx of roughly $8 billion dollars in cash for Loan Modifications and other benefits from the Nationwide Foreclosure Settlement. Although $8 billion dollars barely puts a dent in the $110 billion dollars in underwater Florida mortgages, something is better than nothing and will ultimately lead to more deals with banks and a few less foreclosures. Is Your Mortgage Underwater?
The combination of funding from the multi-state Settlement and the increased willingness of lenders to push short sales over foreclosures are good signs but won’t fix the long term problem with largely unregulated predatory banks continuing to exploit the financial system. Blame the Banks – Foreclosure is Not Your Fault
You can read more about the Foreclosure Settlement and why it won’t help in our recent blog and as a result its more important than ever to learn about the Foreclosure Process to take advantage of favorable conditions when and if they happen to give your foreclosure plans the best chance to work for.
Ten Foreclosure Options to Beat the Bank
You can use our Sample Foreclosure Documents to assist in getting your Florida short sale or loan modification approved and we’ve also included Sample Florida Legal Documents to help you defend your own foreclosure lawsuit. Tips to Get Your Short Sale Approved
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Stop Foreclosure Stress and Enjoy Life
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