Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is making the rounds in South Florida on Thursday, signing a condominium relief bill in three ceremonies.

Crist officially signed Senate Bill 1196 on June 1 but is in town to shake hands and hobnob with some of the people instrumental in getting the measure approved.

The bill is meant to help condo boards hammered by financial problems caused the housing meltdow ...

Pick your CU Vendor Carefully in Miami-Dade

Miami-Dade County- Certificate of Use Inspections, Ordinance No. 08-133

The Certificate of Use (CU) requirement is a consumer-protection legislation enacted in December 2008 for unincorporated Miami-Dade County. There are several municipalities in Miami-Dade where the CU legislation is not required. The APN parcel number (folio #) should star ...

"Due to the high levels of home price declines and unemployment in the Sunshine State, Florida Housing Finance Corporation (Florida Housing) was selected as one

of five state housing finance agencies to receive funding through the administration's Hardest Hit Fund. Of the initial $1.5 billion in federal funding allocated for these markets, Florida Housing is slated to receive $418 million, p ...

"The housing crisis has been good for Florida's biggest processor of foreclosure lawsuits: Its revenue has multiplied sixfold since the housing bust began..."

A great read. For the full article click here.

"...instead of representing a triumph for Mr. Perez, 59, Icon Brickell has become a symbol of the excesses of the building boom in downtown Miami. Since 2003, 83 towers with nearly 23,000 condo units have been added to the downtown skyline, from fancy Brickell Avenue through the more modest Biscayne Corridor, causing an oversupply of epic proportions in this city of 400,000 people.

As of Dec ...

"The CocoWalk retail center in Coconut Grove, FL, is reportedly at least three-months behind on payments to CWCapital.

CWCapital, who services the defaulted $79 million dollar loan, has already rejected two workout proposals. While moving forward toward foreclosure, the loan service company is weighing a third proposal to modify the loan for owner PMAT Real Estate Investments of Mandeville, ...

"Fannie Mae announced Monday the opening of a mortgage help center in Miami to help distressed borrowers in South Florida with loans owned by the GSE."

"The Miami facility is the first in a series of local centers that the mortgage financier plans to open across the country. Fannie Mae says the goal is to accelerate the response time for struggling homeowners and improve the company's resolu ...

"Explains Rick Sharga, senior vice president of RealtyTrac Inc., "Essentially, the 7 million 'shadow inventory' number consists of all the properties currently in foreclosure (about 1.2 million), all the loans that are delinquent (about 5.5 million), and some of the REOs (about 900,000 in our database)." However, he says, "it appears that the analyst is working on the assumption that 100% of ...

"According to a new report from Condo Vultures, a Bal Harbour Florida based real estate consultancy firm, more than 30,000 properties in the tricounty South Florida region were repossessed through foreclosure in 2009, representing a 16 percent year-over-year increase compared to 2008 when 26,000 properties were taken back by lenders."

"Lenders repossessed an average of 83 properties per day ...

For those interested in seeing the statistics of mortgage foreclosures since 2002, here is a good link: click here