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Dick Hogan | “Lee County’s housing market got a double dose of good news Thursday as July foreclosures dove to the lowest level in more than six years while new home permits stayed strong. Even with Fort Myers Beach statistics not available, builders throughout the county pulled 247 permits for single-family homes — nearly as manyRead more

Robert Trigaux | Times Business Columnist | “Consumer ripoffs, scams and disputes are alive, well and changing as the nation emerges from recession, consumer protection experts said Tuesday. “There is a boundless creativity of scammers to find new ways to fleece consumers,” warns Susan Grant, the Consumer Federation of America’s director of consumer protection. Unlicensed contractingRead more

Lisa Mahapatra | International Business Times | “A total of 55,000 foreclosures were completed in June, a 20 percent decline from a year earlier, according to a just-released report from CoreLogic , a financial services and analytics firm. The number of distressed homes have fallen for 19 consecutive months, as have the number of homes that are seriouslyRead more

“HARP Mortgage Lenders, a national network of mortgage professionals who are approved for the Home Affordable Refinance Program , reported that recent Florida foreclosure rates are improving, but some counties are still swimming in waves of foreclosures and HARP 2.0 may just be the solution to their problem. According to RealtyTrac (the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties and real estateRead more

MortgageOrb.com | “After five consecutive months of steady decline, the delinquency rate for U.S. home mortgages spiked nearly 10% in June, month over month, according to Lender Processing Services’ (LPS) “First Look” Mortgage Report. The total U.S. loan delinquency rate (loans 30 or more days past due but not in foreclosure) reached 6.68%, an increase ofRead more

Fox23.com | “Ally Financial and its related companies are paying about $198 million to settle federal complaints that the companies wrongfully foreclosed on homeowners. The Federal Reserve announced the agreement Friday with Ally Financial, the former lending arm of General Motors known as GMAC Mortgage. Ally’s settlement is similar to accords between federal regulators and 13 otherRead more

Paul Brinkmann | South Florida Business Journal | “An apparent oversight by JPMorgan Chase Bank recently led to the dismissal of a foreclosure on Valerie Kaan’s $8 million waterfront home in Boca Raton. The bank requested dismissal of the 2008 case when Kaan’s attorney, Roy Oppenheim, objected to the sudden appearance of the original note on the loan. The bankRead more

eCreditDaily | “There is a considerably larger volume of loans in the foreclosure process in judicial states — where a judge presides — and that appears to be impeding home price recovery in those states. An analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that the average number of days that a mortgageRead more

Michael Sasso | Tribune Staff | “Fewer people are losing homes in the Tampa Bay area, but the region still has the nation’s sixth-highest foreclosure rate, a new ranking shows. In fact, metropolitan areas in Florida take up five of the six top spots in the nationwide ranking by RealtyTrac, a foreclosure research firm. That’s likelyRead more

Watch List News | “HARP Mortgage Lender, a national Internet network of pre-approved loan specialists qualified to deal in the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), reports that recent government figures see Florida borrowers using more HARP loans for deeply underwater borrowers than any state in the nation—a clear signal that updates made to the program,Read more