Low Mortgage Rates a Mirage as Fees Climb, Eligibility Tightens

Bankers around the country say one reason the housing market hasn’t stabilized is that while mortgage rates have come down, hurdles have gone up. Rising default rates and bank losses have made lenders more risk-averse, leading to higher fees, increased insurance rates and difficulties refinancing loans. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage dropped to 5.07 percent for the week ending Feb. 26 from 6.63 percent for the one ending July 24, according to data compiled by McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac. Meanwhile, the percent of mortgage applications that led to closings fell nationwide to 59 percent in the first half of 2008 from 66.3 percent in 2006, the most recent period for which data is available, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported.

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Price break plus a tax break equals a bargain on real estate

It's a terrible time to buy a home, the naysayers claim. They cite the uncertain job market, the threat of further home price declines, the plundering of retirement accounts. At the risk of raining brimstone on my head, I'll take the opposite view. Home buyers enjoy three discounts that might not survive 2009: a foreclosure discount, a tax credit discount and an interest rate discount.

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Mortgage Rates Little Changed This Week

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 5.07 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending February 26, 2009, up from last week when it averaged 5.04 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 6.24 percent.

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Foreclosures Are Harming Neighbors

Florida homeowner associations are beset with foreclosures, vacancies and refusals by banks to cover unpaid fees, according to a survey by Fort Lauderdale, Fla., law firm Becker & Paliakoff. The law firm surveyed condos with foreclosures and concluded that the housing crisis is having a seriously detrimental affect on condo owners. Two-third of residents in condo communities who responded to the survey said the crisis is reducing revenue and causing a shortfall. One third of residents say their buildings have postponed upkeep or repair. More than 90 percent of respondents said state lawmaker should increase the liability of first-mortgage holders for unpaid assessments. Right now banks are only legally required to pay six months of maintenance fees or 1 percent of the mortgage, whichever is less.

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January Tampa Area Home Sales Up 17%, Prices Down 33%

The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA reported a total of 1,573 homes sold in January compared to 1,342 homes a year ago for a 17 percent increase. The existing home median sales price was $122,400; a year ago, it was $182,500 for a 33 percent decrease (and down 49% from the record high of $237,800 in August 2006). In the year-to-year comparison for the existing condo market, a total of 310 units sold in the MSA last month, down 7 percent compared to 333 condos sold the previous January. The market’s existing condo median price was $108,600; a year ago, it was $159,500 for a 32 percent decrease.

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Experts: More Insurers Could Pull Out Of Florida

State Farm won't be the last property insurer to pull up stakes in Florida if insurance companies aren't allowed to charge their customers higher rates, industry experts said Tuesday. During a property insurance summit hosted by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, participants urged Florida lawmakers to reduce the state's regulatory grip on homeowner rates and find a way to fully fund Florida's Hurricane Catastrophe Fund. Without those changes, more property insurers will join State Farm on its path toward insolvency, they warned.

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New report may show home sales on the rise

A trade group report today on sales of existing homes is expected to show selling increased slightly in January. The increase would mark the second straight month of improvement from November's record low. Sales are expected to rise to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.79 million units, from 4.74 million a month earlier, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters. The National Association of Realtors' report is due at 10 a.m. EST.

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Florida condo foreclosures driving up fees, survey finds

An epidemic of condo foreclosures is forcing Florida homeowners associations to raise fees and delay building improvements, a majority of 1,589 respondents said in a condo owner survey released today. The results of the survey, published in a report called "State of Distress," will be used by the Community Association Leadership Lobby to persuade the Legislature to force banks to pay association fees during foreclosure proceedings. "Unpaid assessments from foreclosed properties have undercut maintenance, repairs and safety, while generating higher assessments for the entire community that threaten to push more owners into default," said David Muller, an executive with the community association lobby.

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US Home prices post record annual decline in 4Q

A widely watched index shows home prices tumbled by the sharpest annual rate on record in the fourth quarter and in December. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index plunged 18.2 percent during the quarter from the same period a year ago, the largest drop in its 21-year history. Prices are now at levels not seen since the third quarter of 2003. In the month of December, the Case-Shiller 20-city index plunged 18.5 percent from December 2007 levels, while the 10-city index dropped 19.2 percent. Prices in the 20-city index have plummeted 27 percent from their peak in the summer of 2006, and the 10-city index has fallen more than 28 percent.

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New Port Tampa Bay Project Site Being Sold

New Port Tampa Bay was billed as the first of its kind in the Bay area. Touted as the next great gateway to Tampa, the project, a 54-acre site near West Shore and Gandy Boulevards, was to be a mix of high-end condos with restaurants, unlimited waterfront access, parks and a boardwalk. Prices for the exclusive waterfront condos ranged from $400,000 to upwards of $3 million. Last year, Bank of America began foreclosure proceedings on the developer, Tampa-based EcoGroup. In November, EcoGroup returned deposits to buyers who had contracts to purchase condos, telling them the project was on hold until the real estate market improved. So now the property is being sold.

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Questions surround improved homebuying tax credit

People who buy homes between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1 of this year may qualify for the $8,000 nonrepayable updated credit. But they'll still have to pass most of the key eligibility tests imposed under the 2008 program. For example, they must be "first-time" buyers under the 2008 definition: Either you've never owned a house before, or you haven't owned or co-owned one during the three years preceding the date you close on your 2009 purchase. Carefully planning the timing of your closing could be worth thousands of dollars to you. Say you once owned a house earlier in the decade, but sold it on March 25, 2006. If you close on a house this year before March 25, you lose eligibility for the $8,000 credit. Push settlement back to March 26 or later — anytime before Dec. 1, when the new credit program's eligibility period expires — and you're $8,000 to the better. As in the 2008 credit, there's a household income test as well. The 2009 version phases out eligibility for the credit starting at $75,000 adjusted gross income for single taxpayers, and $150,000 for joint-filing couples.

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Bad Economic News Leads To Lower Mortgage Rates

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 5.04 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending February 19, 2009, down from last week when it averaged 5.16 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 6.04 percent.

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AP Analysis: Fewer Outsiders Are Moving to Florida

Is the love affair outsiders have with Florida losing its zest? A drop in driver's license applications from out-of-state residents certainly suggests they've cooled to the Sunshine State's charms. The number of applications from outsiders has tumbled 30 percent during the past five years -- dropping from more than 585,000 in 2003 to about 410,000 in 2008, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. New Yorkers have snubbed Florida in the largest numbers, with 34,000 fewer applicants coming from what has long been Florida's No. 1 feeder state. That's a decline of almost 50 percent. The next biggest drop came from New Jersey, with 11,000 fewer applicants.

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$75 Billion Mortgage Rescue Plan Unlikely To Help Florida

Obama's plan offers protections to homeowners possibly facing foreclosure, as well as to those who are making their mortgage payments but whose home values have dropped to the point that refinancing is impossible. The rescue package could protect up to 9 million of the 52 million U.S. homeowners with a mortgage, administration officials say. To qualify for the refinancing plan, a homeowner's mortgage debt must be no more than 105 percent of the value of the home. But home values sank so fast and so low in the Tampa Bay area that many people owe much more than they own. The Tampa Bay area has seen property values drop as much as 42 percent the past two years, estimates say. A house purchased for $120,000 in 2006 might be valued at $80,000 now. The house's $100,000 mortgage (after a $20,000 down payment) would have seemed prudent in 2006, but now that homeowner owes 125 percent more than he owns, making him ineligible for help under Obama's plan.

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Tampa homeowners' rallying cry: Produce the note

Kathy Lovelace lost her job and was about to lose her house, too. But then she made a seemingly simple request of the bank: Show me the original mortgage paperwork. And just like that, the foreclosure proceedings came to a standstill. Lovelace and other homeowners around the country are managing to stave off foreclosure by employing a strategy that goes to the heart of the whole nationwide mess. During the real estate frenzy of the past decade, mortgages were sold and resold, bundled into securities and peddled to investors. In many cases, the original note signed by the homeowner was lost, stored away in a distant warehouse or destroyed. Persuading a judge to compel production of hard-to-find or nonexistent documents can, at the very least, delay foreclosure, buying the homeowner some time and turning up the pressure on the lender to renegotiate the mortgage. "I'm going to hang on for dear life until they can prove to me it belongs to them," said Lovelace, a 50-year-old divorced mother who owns a $200,000 home in Zephyrhills, near Tampa. "I'll try everything I can because it's all I have left."

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US housing starts, permits plunge to new record lows

US housing starts and building permits plunged again in January to new record 50-year lows amid the deepening recession, government data showed Wednesday. The Commerce Department said the number of housing starts in January dived 16.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 466,000 units from December, far worse than analysts' consensus forecast of 547,000 units. Permits to build new homes, an indicator of future activity in the housing sector, dropped 4.8 percent from the prior month to an annualized rate of 521,000. That level also was sharply below expectations of 530,000. Starts and permits were at their lowest pace since the Commerce Department began tracking the data in January 1959 amid a US housing slump at the epicenter of the global financial crisis.

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Survey: Homeowners’ sinking feeling is real

Poor loan-to-value ratios are spreading. The volume of property owners with debt that exceeds value is high, according to the latest Business Pulse survey, the nonscientific weekly online poll from the Tampa Bay Business Journal. Of the 379 respondents to a question about whether property owners are 'underwater' on their home debt, 46 percent, or 173 said they were, and 22, or 5 percent said they were flat. Just under half, 49 percent or 184 respondents, said they didn’t owe more than their property was worth. Of those that are underwater, a 37 percent majority said they owe between $50,001 and $75,000 while 26 percent owed between $1,000 and $25,000. One-fifth of the respondents owe $100,000 or more. Of those who still have equity, 39 percent said it is shrinking fast while 61 percent said it is stable or growing.

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Final score: $8,000 for homebuyers

There's a nice windfall for some homebuyers in the economic stimulus bill awaiting President Obama's signature on Tuesday. First-time buyers can claim a credit worth $8,000 - or 10% of the home's value, whichever is less - on their 2008 or 2009 taxes. To qualify for the credit, the purchase must be made between Jan. 1, 2009 and Nov. 30, 2009. Buyers may not have owned a home for the past three years to qualify as "first time" buyer. They must also live in the house for at least three years, or they will be obligated to pay back the credit. Additionally, there are income restrictions: To qualify, buyers must make less than $75,000 for singles or $150,000 for couples.

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Sales Inch Up for Florida Real Estate

The real estate business is improving in Florida, a state that was among the hardest hit by foreclosures. Sales of existing single-family homes in Florida rose 13 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared to the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the Florida Association of REALTORS®. This is the second consecutive quarter that Florida has reported higher existing home sales. Sales were up 5 percent in the third quarter compared to the previous year. Twelve Florida metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) reported increases, as well as a growing number of smaller markets. Lower price is one reason why sales are up. The statewide existing-home median sales price was $161,200 in the fourth quarter; a year earlier, it was $216,600--for a decrease of 26 percent. But low lending rates have an impact as well. Holding mortgage rates to less than 5 percent will encourage more buyers and significantly stabilize the market, predicts Wayne Archer, director of University of Florida's Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies.

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Construction On Progress Energy Trail Underway

The Progress Energy Trail's wide asphalt path is being constructed in five stages. The first leg, completed last year, stretches about 2-1/2 miles from Belleair Road up to Bright House Networks Field. Running south from Belleair Road, the trail will cross U.S. 19 again, pass underneath Ulmerton Road, and link up with the Pinellas Trail system, a 70-mile bicycle trail looping all the way around Pinellas County. Heading north, it will follow the power line corridor to connect with a trail running alongside East Lake Road, which will link to a Pinellas Trail extension along Keystone Road. In Clearwater, the trail already connects to the Ream Wilson East-West Trail, which will one day stretch from the beach to Tampa Bay, Clearwater officials say. Much of that trail will eventually run alongside Druid Road.

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Obama to outline plan to stem home foreclosures

The White House said President Barack Obama on Wednesday will outline his much-anticipated plan to spend at least $50 billion to prevent foreclosures in a speech in Arizona, one of the states hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. "It's not intended to be measured by one day's market scorekeeping, but instead to ensure that the 10,000 Americans each day that have their homes foreclosed on, and the millions more that are barely getting by, are protected," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday without providing other details.

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Tampa Bay has three of the worst ZIP codes for home prices

Three Tampa Bay area neighborhoods were singled out for having some of the coldest ZIP codes in the country when it comes to home prices. The firm ZipRealty said Tampa's 33607 and Clearwater's 33767 and 33756 have shown the biggest gap between the price a home was listed for and the price it sold for. ZIP code 33607 includes a poorer section of west Tampa near Raymond James Stadium. ZIP code 33767 includes Clearwater Beach, and 33756 takes in middle-income neighborhoods south of downtown Clearwater. The region's warmest ZIP codes for housing— where sales prices approximated list prices — include Gibsonton, Riverview and Land O'Lakes.

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State Farm gets conditional approval to drop Florida property insurance policies

State Farm has the green light to pull out of Florida's property insurance market — as long as it meets a laundry list of demands from regulators. Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said the "conditional'' approval granted Friday is meant to ensure that the exodus of the state's biggest property insurer isn't "hazardous'' to its policyholders and the public at large. Among the biggest conditions, State Farm has to free up its agents to steer discarded policyholders to other private insurers so the state-run Citizens Property Insurance doesn't become a dumping ground. As "captive'' agents, State Farm's network of 800 agents statewide are compelled to write policies for State Farm first and, if they cannot place someone, turn to Citizens Property Insurance, the state-run insurer of last resort. All told, State Farm is dropping about 1.2 million policies, 700,000 of them covering homeowners.

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JPMorgan, Citigroup halting foreclosures

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. are expanding their efforts to halt home foreclosures while the Obama administration develops its plans to help the U.S. housing market. JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said the New York company plans to halt new foreclosures for owner-occupied home loans through March 6. Dimon made the pledge in a letter to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who released it on Friday.

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Tampa on list for Chase home centers

Several Florida communities, including Tampa, are next in line for Chase homeownership centers, designed to help families struggling with their mortgage payments. Chase, the U.S. consumer and commercial banking business of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYE: JPM), already has opened centers in the Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino County areas, and plans to have nine centers in California by the end of the month. They will serve borrowers who have a home loan serviced by Chase, Washington Mutual or EMC, which all are now part of JPMorgan Chase. The centers were created as a place for borrowers to sit down and discuss their situation face-to-face with trained loan advisers, so they can help families stay in their homes whenever possible, David Schneider, head of Chase mortgaging services, said in a release. Chase expects to open homeownership centers later this month in Tampa, Aventura, Miami, Fort Myers and Orlando. By the end of March, there will be 24 centers in cities around the country including in Washington, Atlanta, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago and Las Vegas.

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Stimulus Advances With Tax Credit Changes

The $790 billion stimulus package hammered out by House and Senate conferees late yesterday afternoon drops the repayment feature on the home buyer tax credit. The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS ® has sought removal of the repayment requirement because it discourages buyers from taking advantage of the tax credit. The legislation also extends the effective date of the tax credit, which is for up to $7,500, to September 1 from June 30. Households that purchase in 2009 using financing assistance from state and local mortgage bonds will be permitted to use the credit as well.

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Fees stack up for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac borrowers

It's not what homebuyers, sellers and refinancers want to hear, but they need to know: Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are ratcheting up their mandatory fees and toughening credit score and down payment rules as of April 1. Most major lenders already are pricing in the higher fees, effectively raising costs to consumers immediately and reducing the impact of housing stimulus efforts from Congress and the Obama administration. Under Fannie's and Freddie's new guidelines, even applicants who assumed that their FICO scores would get them favorable rates will be charged more unless they can come up with down payments of 30 percent or higher. For example, a buyer with a 699 FICO score who can bring a sizable down payment of about 25 percent to the table will now get hit with a 1.5 percent "delivery" fee at closing under the new guidelines. A buyer with a FICO score between 700 and 720 will pay an extra three-quarters of a point. Even someone with a 739 FICO — once considered a platinum guarantee of the best rates available — will get dinged with a quarter-point add-on.

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Long Term Mortgage Rates Drop In Latest Weekly Survey

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 5.16 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending February 12, 2009, down from last week when it averaged 5.25 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 5.72 percent.

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4th Quarter NAR Report Shows Florida Had 4th Largest Sales Gain

Home prices dropped the most on record in the fourth quarter as foreclosures dragged down values and the recession pushed buyers out of the market. The steepest price decline was in Florida’s Ft. Myers metropolitan area, down 51 percent, according to the Realtors’ report. Saginaw, Michigan, was second, with a 41 percent drop. The next five biggest decreases were all in California: Riverside, 41 percent; San Jose, 38 percent; San Francisco and Sacramento, 37 percent; and San Diego, 36 percent. The largest sales gain in the fourth quarter from a year earlier was in Nevada, up 133.7 percent, followed by California which rose 84.7 percent, Arizona, up 42.6 percent, and Florida with a 12.5 percent increase.

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New Condo Tower For Tampa Nears Final Approval

A proposed condo tower on Bayshore Boulevard passed another hurdle last week with a final approval from the city's Architectural Review Commission, pending several conditions. Citivest Construction, the builder, must work with the commission on placement of air conditioners and generators, window types, grilles and buffers to block views of the tower's garage, which faces the front door of a neighboring 10-story condo. But even with those conditions, neighbors in Bayshore Royal call it a public nuisance.

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As Tampa Bay home prices plummet, sales go up

January home sales rose 19 percent year over year in Hillsborough County and parts of Pasco County. Prices plunged 35 percent over the same January-to-January period. According to the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, sales totaled 942 in January compared with sales of 791 in January 2008. The average price last month was $160,530. A year earlier it was $246,260. Sales of distressed properties, some in foreclosure, accounted for much of the rise in closings, though prices suffered as a result. Another sign of encouragement: The inventory of homes for sale stood at 17,733 in January, about 2,500 fewer than a year earlier.

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U.S. January foreclosures fall

U.S. home foreclosure filings in January decreased from December, an indication that an array of efforts to curb the process may be making an impact, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said on Thursday. Foreclosure activity was still 18 percent higher than a year earlier, the 37th consecutive month with a year-over-year increase. Nevertheless, the fall in foreclosure filings last month provides a glimmer of hope for the hard-hit U.S. housing market. Home foreclosure filings in January totaled 274,399, down 10 percent from December, RealtyTrac, an online market of foreclosure properties, said in its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. The figure is a total of default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. Florida ranked fourth highest in the nation following Nevada, California and Arizona with one foreclosure filing for every 214 households in January, with 40,770 filings, down nearly 20 percent from December and 35 percent higher than a year earlier.

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Florida Property Tax Hike Possible

Less than a month ago, state House and Senate leaders were talking about more property tax relief for homeowners. This week, the Senate's top budget writer raised the specter of raising the tax rate. That's because next fiscal year, local property tax collections could fall $1 billion short of what will be needed to maintain the status quo for K-12 public education. Local property taxes provide the lion's share of per-student funding to operate public schools in Florida. That $1 billion loss for schools doesn't even factor in the nearly $6-billion hole in the state budget that lawmakers are anticipating for the current and coming fiscal years through June 2010.

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Deadline extended for interest-free loans

A Pinellas County interest-free home improvement loans program has pushed back its deadline to March 31 to allow homeowners more time to apply. Through the program, certain Pinellas homeowners qualify for loans up to $45,000, which they can apply to roof replacement, windows installation, kitchen or bath improvements, electrical systems upgrade and other uses. Repayment of the loans is deferred until the sale, transfer or refinance of the property, said a release. To qualify, homeowners must be at or below 50 percent of the area’s median income and the properties must be located within Pinellas but outside the city limits of St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Largo. The program gives families with limited means the chance to improve the safety and soundness of their homes during the economic downturn, community development director Anthony Jones said in the release.

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Home value realities elude Southerners, says survey

Floridians and other southerners are still in denial about how much their home values have suffered, according to a homeowner confidence survey by Zillow.com. While places such as the Northeast had the "firmest grip on reality," Zillow said, southerners were most unrealistic about home prices. About 47 percent of people surveyed in the South believed their home values had fallen in 2008. In reality, 70 percent of homes in the region lost value last year. Overall, most U.S. homeowners assume prices have hit bottom, a view not shared by Zillow. "With year-over-year home value losses continuing to accelerate, most areas of the country will see housing values get worse before they begin to stabilize," Zillow vice president Stan Humphries said.

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When Will Prices Bottom Out?

Housing prices will hit bottom in the fourth quarter of 2009, predicts Moody’s Economy.com in a new report. "Despite the darkening national economic outlook and the weak conditions in the housing market, some positive signs give hope that a bottom in the housing market is coming into view," the report says. On average, home prices will decline 36 percent from the peak in the first quarter of 2006, the report says. By the end of the housing downturn, nearly 62 percent of the nation's 381 metropolitan areas will have experienced double-digit-percent declines in house prices, peak-to-trough, says the report. The declines will exceed 20 percent in about 100 metro areas, according to the report, scheduled to be discussed in a Webcast on Thursday. The recovery will be “lackluster,” the report continues. "A number of uncertainties in both the housing and economic outlooks remain, and the risks tilt to the downside," says Moody’s Economy.com Chief Economist, Mark Zandi.

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Vote's Still Out on $15,000 Housing Credit

Critics of the proposed $15,000 housing allowance amendment to the economic stimulus bill say it won’t work. The Senate version of the proposal would give $15,000 (or 10 percent of the purchase price, whichever is lower) to every buyer of a house in 2009. The idea is to bring more buyers to the market, but some suggest that this won’t happen if people are worried about losing their jobs or if they are concerned that the value of the property will decline. Rajeev Dhawan, director of Georgia State University's Robinson College of Business, argues that the plan is an insignificant amount in the high-end market and at the lower end, it won’t help those who can’t afford to buy a home because they can’t get a loan. "How are those at the lower end [of the market] going to get financing?" asks Dhawan. "The banks aren't lending." Other critics say the plan will cost too much – an estimated $75 billion if 5 million homes are sold. Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic & Policy Research, a Washington think thank, says those homes would have been sold anyway. "It seems a total waste of government money for no reason," said Baker.

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Recovery in '09? Some Analysts Not So Sure

Economists are watching the housing market closely to determine whether this year’s spring buying season will be an improvement over last year’s. Mortgage rates and home prices are lower and home builders are offering more incentives. But some observers are still pessimistic. "I don't have a lot of hope for the spring selling season absent a massive program from the government," said Robert Stevenson at international bankers Fox-Pitt Kelton. "We also have escalating job losses. Every day you see headlines about a different company cutting 10 percent of its work force," Stevenson said. "This is bound to have an impact eventually as people losing their jobs fall further underwater on their mortgages and credit-card bills." "We expect a further 10 percent decline in home prices in 2009, " Credit Suisse analyst Dan Oppenheim wrote in a Jan. 26 report to clients. “Similar to retailers, we expect home builders to lower prices in order to generate sales. However, the lenders remain the most motivated of sellers so builders will likely struggle to sell homes in foreclosure-rich markets."

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Luxury doesn’t preclude discounts at Signature Place

Rising 36 stories above the St. Petersburg skyline, Signature Place is the final relic of a housing boom now becoming a fading memory. As just weeks remain before the $170 million tower welcomes its first residents, Gulf Atlantic Communities Inc. is offering buyers “significant” reductions on pre-construction prices, a bid some observers believe is a consequence of unfriendly appraisals. But its nothing more than recognizing value loss in the market and giving buyers a fair deal, said developer Joel Cantor. The building was constructed at a cost of $238 a square foot. Units sold pre-construction between $299,000 and $3.2 million.

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Despite Amendment 1, Floridians are still trapped in their homes

The centerpiece of the amendment was portability, the ability for homeowners to transfer from one home to another up to $500,000 in property tax benefits accrued from the Save Our Homes Act. Save Our Homes caps the increase in a home's assessed value at 3 percent a year, regardless of the increase in market value, substantially lowering tax bills. As home values soared, homeowners were afraid to move and lose the tax break. Expecting Amendment 1 to release homeowners from that fear and trigger sales of long-held homes, revenue estimators predicted that in the first year, homeowners would transfer $112 billion in tax savings from one home to another. But the converging forces of the worldwide credit crunch, the explosion of home foreclosures and the resulting surplus of homes had a chilling effect. By the end of 2008, 39,000 homeowners transferred only $3.1 billion worth of tax savings to new homes, according to revenue department reports.

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Mortgage delinquencies top 2.7 percent

The number of homeowners now at least 60 days behind on mortgages guaranteed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae rose to 2.73 percent in November, almost double the delinquency rate of 1.43 percent in January 2008. A monthly report on delinquencies and foreclosures from the Federal Housing Finance Agency says 834,831 borrowers were at least 60 days behind on payments, compared to 431,310 at the beginning of last year. There were 43,627 foreclosure starts in November, also nearly double the number 10 months earlier. Home foreclosures are further driving down housing prices, but low prices are also spurring sales. The National Association of Realtors this week reported pending sales of existing homes jumped 6.3 percent in December.

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Mortgage Rates Climb But Still Remain Very Affordable

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 5.25 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week ending February 5, 2009, up from last week when it averaged 5.10 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 5.67 percent.

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Fannie Mae Gets Stricter On Condo Loans

Buyers eager to snatch up deals on Florida condos may have to fork over bigger down payments and face more intense reviews of their potential purchases. Under the new rules, Fannie Mae requires a minimum 15 percent down payment from investors and 10 percent from second-home buyers. The median sales price of condos in the metropolitan area that includes Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater was $128,800 in December. That's down 29 percent from $181,700 a year earlier. Moody's Economy.com predicts sales prices will continue to fall until at least the third quarter of this year. Fannie Mae insists its new regulations will not hinder Florida's housing recovery.

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200 foreclosure homes to be auctioned this weekend in Tampa

Though it's only a smidgen of the region's tens of thousands of foreclosure homes, auctioneers plan to dispose of 200 bank-confiscated properties this weekend at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay. The auction starts at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at the hotel's Audubon Pavilion off the Veterans Expressway near the Courtney Campbell Parkway. REDC, the country's largest real estate auction house, is selling 1,800 bank-owned homes across Florida this weekend. The California company auctioned a record 4,065 Florida homes for $386 million last year. According to the firm RealtyTrac, the Tampa Bay area accounted for 53,630 foreclosure filings in 2008.

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Don't bet that the Tampa Bay's housing market has already hit bottom

Florida gained 128,814 new residents last year, but that was built on immigration and natural increase, i.e., babies. We suffered a net outflow of 9,286 U.S. citizens. Pinellas was second biggest population loser among the state's 67 counties.

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Bay Area Loses $35.6 Billion In Home Value

We all know Bay area home prices have tumbled, but this hurts: The Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area lost $35.6 billion in home value in 2008, according to a report released Tuesday morning by Seattle-based Zillow.com. The area, with a skyrocketing foreclosure rate, fared worse than the nation. Nearly every area in the country, however, was hit hard by falling prices in 2008, says Zillow, which lists values and sales information on millions of U.S. homes on its Web site. There is some good news, however. Home sales nationally and in the Tampa Bay area are picking up. The national and local associations of Realtors reported an uptick of home sales last month. Zillow's report suggests buyers are snatching up distressed properties.

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New Airport Landing Procedure To Reduce Noise Problems For Safety Harbor

The Federal Aviation Administration has approved a new instrument landing approach procedure for commercial airlines at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. The procedure was developed to reduce noise impacts to communities to the north in close proximity to the airport, a release said. The new noise-abatement landing procedure, which is voluntary, allows airlines to fly – day or night and weather permitting – over Old Tampa Bay. An airport task force, United Parcel Service and a consulting firm developed the new procedure. The FAA required that an airline sponsor the new approach, the release said. Scheduled carriers are expected to start flying the new approach in good weather conditions, Noah Lagos, airport director, said in a statement.

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It's Been Worse for the U.S. Housing Market

Historically, this housing decline has been a bear, but not the worst of the bear housing markets. The Winans International Real Estate Index calculates that new home prices in the United States are down 23 percent since March 31, 2007. New homes sales have fallen 71 percent and new property listings are down 34 percent in the same time period. Sounds bad, but the worst decline of new home prices in the last 150 years was the 68 percent decline from 1929 to 1932. The longest housing bear market was from 1853 to 1858. "This bear market will probably not end in 2009. Past real estate bear markets ended when the average time it took to sell a new house dropped to 3 1/2 months. Currently, it is taking over 9 months for transactions to close due to tight credit conditions," says company founder Ken Winans.

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Insurers not taking in Tampa Bay's State Farm policyholders

Nothing comes easy for the Florida homeowners State Farm plans to dump, particularly those who live in the Tampa Bay area. Although state regulators are hopeful that smaller Florida-based insurers will pick up the bulk of the 1.2 million State Farm property insurance policies, the bay area's proximity to water and legacy of costly sinkhole damage continues to scare away insurers.

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Senate OKs $15,000 tax break for homebuyers

The Senate voted Wednesday night to give a tax break of up to $15,000 to homebuyers in hopes of revitalizing the housing industry. The proposal would allow a tax credit of 10 percent of the value of new or existing residences, up to a $15,000 limit. Current law provides for a $7,500 tax break for the purchase of new homes only.

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Recent bay area home buyers likely owe more than home's value

If you bought took out a mortgage in the Tampa Bay area in 2006, there's an 80 percent chance you owe more than your home is worth. Your chances of being under water on your home are slightly less if you bought in 2005 or 2007, but not by much. Such was the rotten news buried in the latest housing report from Zillow.com. The company said local housing values have fallen to $145,778, a decline of 33.7 percent since the price peak. Of those people who bought at the peak in 2006, a typical homeowner owes $38,333 more than the home is worth.

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Pending home sales post increase of 6.3%

Pending U.S. home sales rebounded in December, as buyers snapped up properties at deep discounts, especially in the South and Midwest. The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday its seasonally adjusted index of pending sales for preowned homes for December rose 6.3% to 87.7 from an upwardly revised November reading of 82.5. That's better than the 82.3 reading economists expected, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters. The reading also was up 2.1% from December 2007.

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Fla. Supreme Court knocks tax cap from 2010 ballot

The Florida Supreme Court has knocked a proposal for a property tax cap off the 2010 ballot. The proposal is a citizen initiative that would cap property taxes at 1.35 percent of the highest taxable value of a home, business or other real estate, although voters could approve exceptions. Petition sponsors Cut Property Taxes Now said tax cuts ordered by law last year and through another state constitutional amendment passed in January 2008 don’t go far enough. The justices could only determine if the proposal covered a single subject and had a clear and accurate title and ballot summary. In an opinion posted Friday, five justices said the proposal was exempt from the single-subject requirement, but its ballot summary was misleading.

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Will Option ARMs Be the Next Big Crisis?

Option adjustable-rate mortgages, better known as option ARMS, are becoming a serious problem for banks – a problem that analysts say could ultimately rival the issues surrounding subprime loans. Both Bank of America and Wells Fargo announced this week that they were anticipating higher than previously expected losses from option ARM products. Option ARMs give borrowers the ability to pay less than the monthly interest due. As a result, with home prices falling, more than 55 percent of borrowers with option ARMs are underwater, according to J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. As of December, 28 percent of option ARMs were delinquent or in foreclosure, according to LPS Applied Analytics, a firm that analyzes mortgage data. Lenders have already foreclosed on 7 percent of option ARM properties. Goldman Sachs calculates that nearly 61 percent of option ARMs originated in 2007 will default. And more than 50 percent of all option ARMs outstanding will default.

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Proposed Pinellas County School Zones

Here is a map of the 2009-2010 Pinellas County school zones. Many families want to know their zoned school assignments before they apply to a special program. These are the approved zones for middle and high schools and preliminary elementary school zones. The school board will not finalize elementary school zones for 2009-10 until Feb. 10. Can’t tell your zoned school from these maps? Consult the district’s online “Zoned School Locator.” Go to www.pcsb.org and find the link in the box headlined “pcsNEWS.”

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