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By  ILYCE GLINK / MONEYWATCH/ (MoneyWatch) So-called zombie homes are appearing on the real estate market, but they’re not built to keep out the walking dead. Hundreds of thousands of homes in the U.S. are now labeled as “zombie” foreclosures. That’s when the owner of a foreclosed home leaves only to find out years later that heRead more

A split has emerged between the Florida House and Senate on how to use $200 million the state received as part of a multi-state agreement with five major lenders. The main spending panel in the Senate will take up a proposed committee bill (SB 7146) Wednesday that would divide the money into a number ofRead more

Calling Florida’s No. 1 ranking on foreclosures “shameful,” some lawmakers are pushing for reforms to the foreclosure law, hoping to help homeowners keep their properties. At a Tuesday press conference, some Democrats in the Florida Legislature pushed for new changes to laws governing Florida’s hundreds of thousands distressed properties. They say the changes are necessary to protectRead more

Big banks are finding a way to benefit from what was supposed to be their punishment in the robo-signing scandal. In Florida, they have spent 75 percent of $7.7 billion in settlement outlays approving short sales and forgiving home-equity loans, earning credit for debts they were unlikely to collect or sales that would have happenedRead more

by Robin Sussingham | A decade ago, speculators in Florida were pumping up a huge housing bubble. “You couldn’t go wrong,” Tampa real estate attorney Charlie Hounchell says. In that overheated period from 2001 to 2006, “you could buy a house and make $100,000 a year later by selling it,” he says. But the party ended in 2007Read more

 Drew Harwell, Times Staff Writer | “Florida posted the country’s highest foreclosure rate in January for the fifth month in a row, as years of bad loans continued to blast through the pipeline, data released Thursday by research firm RealtyTrac show. One of every 300 Florida homes received a foreclosure filing, double the national average. Those noticesRead more

Look, I know what you are thinking. Every day, it seems, comes news of another mortgage lawsuit or settlement, including a foreclosure abuse deal between HSBC and federal regulators announced Friday. It’s hard to keep them all straight. Frankly, if you didn’t lose your home to foreclosure, or come close to doing so, you might notRead more

Wake up and good morning. Florida’s home price index rose 7.9 percent in the past year (November 2011 to November 2012), ranking the Sunshine State 10th among states in rising home prices in that period. So says new CoreLogic data out this week. Note in the map above that Florida appreciation topped that of nearby Georgia, Alabama,Read more

WASHINGTON (AP) — British bank HSBC will pay $249 million to settle federal complaints that its U.S. division wrongfully foreclosed on homeowners who should have been allowed to stay in their homes. The agreement with the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is similar to deals with 12 other banksRead more

By Kimberly Miller | Palm Beach Post Staff Writer | State lawmakers this week divvied up how $60 million of Florida’s mortgage settlement money will be used to aid struggling homeowners, with more than half flowing to first-time homebuyers for down payment assistance and millions directed at borrowers through legal aid and housing counseling. Also, Florida’s circuitRead more