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'Trash-out' Crews Find Work As Foreclosures Mount In Lee County

October 22nd, 2008 11:21 AM

Hello, i am Dan Pearce, a real estate broker serving Lee and Collier Counties. Thanks for reading my blog and I hope that you find this information useful and informative. The News-Press had an article today about this and I thought you might find it interesting.

Mounting foreclosures (www.foreclosuresinswfl.com) have created a cottage industry in Lee County: the trash-out business. Here's how it works: When a lender takes back a home in foreclosure, or a landlord kicks out a recalcitrant tenant, the trash-out specialists are called in to clean up their mess. When a real estate agent is retained by a lender to sell a house, typically within 48 hours the lock is changed and an estimate is made on what the house would sell for in 30 days marketing time or less. Then a trash-out company is hired to get rid of any leftover belongings and make the property presentable for sale. The field is a godsend for people who find them selves looking for work..

There are no statistics on how many trash-outs are being done, but with more than 2,000 foreclosure actions filed per month in the Lee County in recent months, people in the field say there's plenty of work. There are 2,644 residences seized by lenders and offered for resale on the Multiple Listing Service in Lee County. For many of those properties, the trash-out teams clean out everything in the house; put it in Dumpsters and haul it to the landfill.

What they find sometimes is heart breaking. Kids toys, photo albums, different types of collections are pretty common. Not all the unusual items found in homes are such grim reminders of the former resident's desperation. Sometimes the crews find money, even abandoned pets. Other items left behind are just strange. At one house, there were 200 one-gallon milk jugs in the garage, all in perfect rows. All empty, all capped, all 200 of them. Many people operating trash-out businesses say it is a financial stroke of luck at a time when jobs are scarce and the prospects look grim.

Cape Coral is the foreclosure capital of the world right now and this is the perfect place for this kind of business. Lehigh Acres has many foreclosures also. Traditional real estate companies are also getting more involved in the business. As an agent that deals with selling and listing lots of foreclosed properties in Lee and Collier counties, there' is definitely an increase and a lot of business now is taking care of houses in some form of the foreclosure process.

Sales of foreclosed houses are picking up all over the state. If you look at the listing on this website, www.ForeclosuresinSWFL.com, you will see many of the homes listed there are either sold or are pending. Often, the houses have been stripped by vandals or by their former occupants. At one house I listed this week, someone has ripped the plants out of the ground and took them along with all the kitchen appliances.

Houses are moving here quickly and the bank appear to be aggressively pricing then to clear their inventory. If you are looking for a home, foreclosure or not, now is the time to buy in SW Florida. Home prices are lower than they were in 2001. Cape Coral, Lehigh Acres, Naples, Fort Myers, Estero and Bonita Springs are all great places to enjoy the beaches and the sun. Please let me know if I can help you with your listing or purchase of you piece of paradise,

Thanks for reading my website. Contact me, Dan Pearce, if you have any questions at 239-940-1747.

Posted by Daniel W. Pearce on October 22nd, 2008 11:21 AMPost a Comment (0)

Foreclusures Up 70% in Third Quarter

October 23rd, 2008 2:47 PM

The number of homeowners ensnared in the foreclosure crisis grew by more than 70 percent in the third quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2007, according to data released Thursday.

Nationwide, nearly 766,000 homes received at least one

foreclosure-related notice from July through September, up 71 percent from a year earlier, said foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc. By the end of the year, RealtyTrac expects more than a million bank-owned properties to have piled up on the market, representing around a third of all properties for sale in the U.S.

That's bad news for anyone who lives nearby and wants to sell their home. While foreclosure sales are booming in many areas like Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres, Estero and Naples, those properties are commanding deep discounts and pulling down neighboring property values. "It has a pretty significant impact in terms of pricing," said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac's vice president for marketing. The great new for buyers is that this gives them the opportunity of a lifetime to own Florida property.

RealtyTrac monitors default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. More than 250,000 properties were repossessed by lenders nationwide in the third quarter, 81,000 of which were taken back last month.

Six states — California, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, Michigan and Nevada — accounted for more than 60 percent of all foreclosure activity in the quarter, with California alone making up more than a quarter of all U.S. foreclosure filings.

Detroit and Atlanta were the only cities outside California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona to make RealtyTrac's list of the 20 hardest-hit metropolitan areas.

The combination of sinking home values, tighter mortgage lending criteria and an economy that many economists think has already slipped into recession has left hundreds of thousands of homeowners with few options. Many can't find buyers or owe more than their home is worth and can't refinance into an affordable loan, with the global credit crisis making loans far less available.

For those who can qualify for a loan, or have cash to invest, there are bargains to be had, especially in ravaged markets like Nevada and California. Last month, foreclosure resales accounted for more than half of existing home sales in California last month, as home sales jumped 65 percent from a year ago, while the statewide median home price fell 34 percent to $283,000, according to MDA DataQuick.

RealtyTrac, however, reported foreclosure filings in September were actually down 12 percent from August. But much of that decline was the result of new state laws that delay the foreclosure process. In California, for example, lenders are now required to contact borrowers at least 30 days before filing a default notice. A similar law in North Carolina gives borrowers an extra 45 days.

Still, that's not likely to be enough to save homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Nearly 12 million of the 52 million Americans with a mortgage — that's 23 percent of them — are in that position. It remains to be seen how much the government's intervention will stem the housing crisis. Earlier this month, the Federal Housing Administration launched a program that aims to prevent foreclosures by allowing homeowners to swap their mortgages for more affordable loans, but only if their lender agrees to take a loss on the initial loan. The bill is projected to help about 400,000 households.

Meanwhile, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which took over Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bank over the summer, has been aggressively modifying troubled home loans since August in an effort to stave off foreclosures. Congressional Democrats are calling for that approach to be expanded as the Treasury Department buys billions in troubled mortgage debt as part of a $700 billion financial industry bailout.

Posted by Daniel W. Pearce on October 23rd, 2008 2:47 PMPost a Comment (0)

NBC News Cast, October 09, 2008

October 9th, 2008 1:09 PM

Last evening on the NBC national news, there was a report on the activity of Lee county and the housing market. I am attaching news report so that you may see actively what is happening in the marketplace.

Foreclosures are really beginning to drive the market and this is good news as out inventory is beginning to shrink. It is a great time to invest in the market whether you plan to live here or invest here.

Click on this link to see the newscast:

"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/27087106#27087106"

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Dan

Posted by Daniel W. Pearce on October 9th, 2008 1:09 PMPost a Comment (0)

House prices are at an all time low!

October 3rd, 2008 5:41 PM

Permits for single-family homes in September tied a record low in unincorporated Lee County and set a new low in Cape Coral, according to figures released October 02, 2008. Meanwhile, 2,462 foreclosure actions were filed in the entire county — just five under the record high of 2,467 in July.

In Cape Coral there were seven permits issued, compared to 11 in August. The previous record low had been nine in December, 2007, according to a report by the city. In unincorporated Lee County, the number dropped to 32 in September, according to figures released by the county’s Community Development Office. The figure tied the record monthly low set in December 2007. Last month, 37 permits were pulled in the unincorporated county. A year ago, it was 49.

The city of Fort Myers issued 15 single-family permits in September, down from 16 in August. There were also 16 issued in September 2007.

No permits were issued in the city of Sanibel and numbers weren’t available for Bonita Springs and Fort Myers Beach.

Builders are finding it hard to keep going under current circumstances. According to local builders, they are basically in a state of hibernation. They haven’t closed down. They know they can’t compete with the prices of foreclosures. It would be impossible for you to build a new construction, compared to the price of a foreclosure.

There were permits issued for six multi-family units, all in duplexes, during September in the unincorporated county, compared to 32 the previous month and 18 in September 2007.

Permits were issued for seven new commercial buildings valued at $3.2 million in the unincorporated county, compared to $6.2 million the previous month. In September 2007, newly permitted commercial buildings were valued at $5.1 million.

ow is a great time to buy a home is SW FL. Prices are now back to the 2001 level!

Posted by Daniel W. Pearce on October 3rd, 2008 5:41 PMPost a Comment (0)