The cork in the bottle

Foreclosures leap in Sarasota County

Foreclosure filings in Sarasota County spiked by 50 percent in September, even as an end-of-summer lull continued in Manatee and Charlotte counties.

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During August, filings dropped by double digits in Sarasota and Manatee counties. The drop in Sarasota was nearly 34 percent from the previous month and 17 percent from the year before.

In Manatee, the monthly drop was 19 percent and up 3 percent from a year ago.

But some think the 50 percent spike in Sarasota County last month foreshadows another wave of filings.

The cork in the bottle is the different ways banks are processing their distressed properties, with some giving borrowers a three-month reprieve to stay in their homes while others are simply ignoring whole sectors where they have foreclosures to keep the toxic assets off their balance sheets. More...

Free Enterprise?

Banks set to become region's largest landholders

All in all, banks are set to become some of Southwest Florida's largest landholders.

So far in 2009, they have begun foreclosing on at least 5,500 acres in Manatee and Sarasota counties that were bought for $420 million during the boom. more...

How do banks think? See here.

Fla. faces $2.6 billion shortfall

Just months after patching together a budget by cutting spending, raising fees and gobbling up federal money, Florida lawmakers are bracing for more tough times next year.

Florida could face a budget shortfall of as much as $2.6 billion for the 2010-11 fiscal year that starts in July, as state tax collections continue sagging and costs increase for programs such as Medicaid.

From boom to reality?

Unfinished projects part of real estate collapse

Unfinished buildings, dead dogs, foreclosures, code violations, skeletons of commercial dreams, condos becoming homeless camps. More...

A new normal for home sales

By ADRIAN SAINZ AP
Real Estate Writer

Published: Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 7:54 p.m.

The American dream of home ownership is still attainable. Buyers just have to deal with a new set of realities. More...

Mapping the fallout

A list of the biggest increases in foreclosure rates across Florida reads like a map of the fallout from the unbridled real estate boom.

Foreclosures spiked 788 percent during the last three years in the 20th Judicial Circuit, home to Port Charlotte, Fort Myers and Cape Coral. In the 12th Circuit -- Bradenton, Sarasota, North Port, Venice and Arcadia -- filings rose 631 percent from 2006 to 2008.

Statewide, foreclosures rose nearly 400 percent, with 623,570 properties receiving unwelcome attention from banks and mortgage lenders. Through May, another 175,612 properties entered the pipeline, according to a study prepared by a task force advising the Florida Supreme Court about how the judicial system can deal with the worst foreclosure crisis since the Great Depression.

Foreclosure fallout hangs heaviest here

Teeth, please

Slow-to-no mortgage fixes

Banks and other mortgage lenders have been slow so far to modify struggling homeowners' loans, but they now face a deadline. Congress and the White House should hold them strictly to it.

Obama administration officials recently gave the lenders until November to record 500,000 mortgage loan modifications under a voluntary federal program designed to avoid foreclosures.

So far, the results of the federal program, called Making Home Affordable, are not encouraging. A report issued Tuesday by the Treasury Department showed that only 9 percent of the 2.7 million delinquent borrowers eligible for loan modifications have received help. Those homeowners have missed at least two mortgage payments.

Meanwhile, the number of foreclosures continues to rise. More...

Special report from Lehigh Acres

Citizen Special Report and Analysis: Financial crises loom in Lehigh Acres

For example a home with a $100,000 mortgage is now selling for $26,000. A sign outside a real estate office in Lehigh Acres advertises "Foreclosures from $25,000."

Holders of subprime mortgage bonds have flooded the market with foreclosed homes. More...

Foreclosure rate increases dramatically over 2008

Delinquency rates up as well:

How bad as the foreclosure situation gotten in Sarasota? Things were twice as bad in May as they were in the same month a year ago.

According to First American Core Logic, a national provider of real estate ownership data, 7.9 percent of mortgaged properties in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice market were in foreclosure in May. In May 2008, that rate was 4.0 percent. More...

The mortgage delinquency rate in Sarasota was 12.9 percent in May 2009. The national average is 6.5 percent.