Yipee! We’ve Done It! (again!)
I’ve spent the last several years…especially during the legislative session, traveling to Florida’s legislature to talk about foreclosures. The conversation goes exactly like this….
Me: “The bills you’re proposing won’t “fix” the foreclosure problem. We need to focus on keeping people in their homes.”
Them: “I don’t care, we need to “fix” foreclosures and this is the bill I’m going to vote for.”
And so here we are after many, many years and untold wasted millions of dollars. What exactly have we accomplished? Well, state policy makers haven’t even begun to address the problems and especially right now when they’re all busy shoveling foreclosure judgments out the back door of courthouses…(just a little bit slower than new ones are being filed.)
We should have all been focused on stabilizing homes, families and communities…but instead we’re creating the very bubble conditions that caused the problems in the first place. Here in Pinellas, there have only been 454 foreclosure auctions posted and of those auctions all 87 were returned to “The Banks”….(The Banks, holding onto the properties for just a short while until the turn the properties/judgements over to God Only Knows Who….) What we do know is there is fairly active bidding taking place, a fact that shows the market is ready to absorb these properties….but the plaintiffs will not allow this to occur…instead, they consistently outbid the third party bidders, ensuring that the vast majority of foreclosed properties return back to the hands of foreclosing plaintiffs. (Holding onto the properties for …who?)
There is certainly a riddle buried within the foreclosure sales data. There is certainly sophisticated market manipulation that explains part of what is occurring….which begs the question..
Have the foreclosing plaintiffs all gotten together and agreed on a plan to manipulate the market or are they all….just by chance…largely adopting the same foreclosure auction playbook?
I cannot believe that the Plaintiff’s hold ’em close strategy results in higher yield across the foreclosure auction inventory….there’s got to be something more to it.
But enough of all that thinkin…
WE GOT FORECLOSING TO DO!
And the headline reads….Florida is #1 in Foreclosures!
ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida had the nation’s highest foreclosure rate in April, even though it was lower than the same time last year.
The research firm RealtyTrac reported last week that Florida’s April foreclosure rate was the highest in the nation, despite being down 9 percent from April 2012.
RealtyTrac says one in 400 Florida homes had a foreclosure filing in April.
Among U.S. metro areas with populations of more than 200,000 people, 11 of the 20 cities with the highest foreclosure rates were in Florida.