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By Scott Blake |     Banks and other mortgage servicers are holding many homes in foreclosure without putting them up for sale, according to local market watchers.    In fact, Florida leads the nation by far in vacant homes in foreclosure, with more than 55,000 homes in foreclosure sitting empty, according to a recent report by RealtyTracRead more

TheRealDeal.com | “Tens of thousands of Florida homeowners have abandoned properties threatened by foreclosure, a dark spot in the Sunshine State’s otherwise brightening real estate market, the Palm Beach Post reported. About 55,000 Florida homes with defaulted mortgages are deserted, nearly one third of the national total and more than triple second-place Illinois, which hasRead more

By Les Christie | @CNNMoney | “The long national foreclosure nightmare is nearing its end, with foreclosure filings hitting their lowest level since before the housing bust.   Total foreclosure filings, including notices of default, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, dropped to 127,790 in June, down 35% over the past 12 months, according to RealtyTrac. Overall, filings haveRead more

Cameron Davis | ThinkProgress | “The number of completed foreclosures in May was down 27 percent, to 50,000, compared to May of last year, analytics firm Core Logic reported Tuesday. One million homes remain in some stage of foreclosure, although that figure is down 29 percent from a year earlier. But while foreclosure rates are downRead more

Martha Brannigan | Miami Herald “It is a condominium association’s version of winning the lotto. A big bank missed its deadline to file for foreclosure on a million-dollar condo unit by 10 days. As a result, Peninsula Condominium Association in Aventura will get to keep the condo — a fancy three-bedroom, three-bathroom bayfront pad thatRead more

Huffington Post | “My father arrived in this country from Europe in the late 1940s with a love of all things American but was especially fond of the post-war boom in emerging technology. To satisfy this hunger, he bought himself a new-fangled Webcor reel-to-reel tape recorder replete with a throbbing green “magic eye” (to monitorRead more

by Kim Miller |  Palm Beach Post | “The founder of a Florida-based mortgage servicing firm was sentenced to five years in prison yesterday for her participation in a six-year scheme to prepare and file more than 1 million fraudulently-signed and notarized documents. Lorraine Brown, 56, launched the company DocX, which later became Jacksonville-based LPSRead more

TampaBay Newspapers | CLEARWATER – “One judge’s caseload will be distributed to other Civil Division judges so that he can work fulltime on clearing the more than 16,000 foreclosure cases that are backlogged in Pinellas County. Effective Sept. 1, Circuit Judge Thomas M. Minkoff’s court dockets and calendars will be filled with foreclosure cases that wereRead more

BRIAN J. O’CONNOR | DETROIT NEWS FINANCE EDITOR | “The former president of a Georgia company that filed more than 1 million forged foreclosure documents in Michigan and other states was sentenced to five years in federal prison Tuesday. Lorraine Brown: Former President of DocX Lorraine Brown, the former president of the DocX document processing firmRead more

by Kim Miller | “The number of foreclosed homes that have been abandoned by their owners is by far the highest in Florida with 55,503 properties sitting empty and in some stage of a bank takeover. That’s 33 percent of the national total with Illinois coming second with 17,672 vacant and foreclosed homes. In aRead more