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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

Gray Rohrer | “Florida has more vacant homes in foreclosure than any other state in the nation, easily beating out other large states with troubled housing markets, according to a report released Thursday by RealtyTrac, a California company that tracks distressed properties. There are 55,503 housing units in foreclosure in Florida that are vacant. That’s 33Read more

winknews.com | “RealtyTrac® (www.realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for real estate data, today released a report showing that as of June owners had vacated 167,680 foreclosure properties nationwide, representing 20 percent of all U.S. properties in the foreclosure process. These owner-vacated foreclosures are in addition to 544,274 bank-owned homes nationwide that have been foreclosed onRead more

  Article By: Alexander Dobrev | “House Bill 87, also known as the Florida Fair Foreclosure Act, has successfully made its way through both chambers of the legislature, ordered “enrolled” as of the date of this writing, and should be on its way to the Governor’s desk in the very near future. So what does thisRead more

By Kerri Ann Panchuk | “Florida’s governor signed a much-discussed foreclosure bill Friday, enacting a series of provisions aimed at speeding up the default process in the state. While the legislation is considered a response to Florida’s untimely foreclosure timelines, it’s a big shift that has attracted a great deal of attention. Attorneys working withinRead more

BY JAMES L. ROSICA | Tribune staff | TALLAHASSEE – “In the week before Gov. Rick Scott’s deadline to sign a bill that would speed up the state’s residential mortgage foreclosure process, bank employees flooded his inbox with a form letter urging his approval. The bill “will help Florida’s real estate market, and ultimately the economy,Read more

By Marianela Toledo | Florida Watchdog | “MIAMI —It’s a great law for the economy, banks and bargain hunters. But it may be a raw deal for homeowners struggling to hang on to their homes. A NEED FOR SPEED: New law accelerates the foreclosure process in Florida. The proposal sponsored by Florida State Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, and Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, looksRead more

By Mary Shanklin, Orlando Sentinel | A homeowner-advocacy group is pressuring Florida Gov. Rick Scott to veto a bill that would expedite foreclosures in the state starting July 1. The new state law would allow banks to complete foreclosures without court hearings, unless a homeowner requests to have a specific case heard by a judge.In the past, allRead more

Drew Harwell, TampaBay Times Staff Writer | “Half a decade since the housing bust, many foreclosures are showing their age.A quarter of cases now in Hillsborough court are at least 3 years old. So who’s keeping Florida’s more than 350,000 pending foreclosures in court?Judges largely blame the banks. State court data show banks regularly delay casesRead more

A few lenders are offering loans to borrowers with damaged credit. But, unlike during the boom, they are asking for big down payments and lots of documentation. By Teresa at MSN Real Estate They’re ba-ack. We don’t mean ghosts. But some may see the ghosts of the real-estate crash past in the reappearance of subprime loans.Read more