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January, 11, 2012

Banks filed foreclosures on roughly 205,000 homes in December, the lowest monthly total since November 2007, according to RealtyTrac.

The 1.8 million foreclosures for 2011 dropped nearly 35% from 2010.

Unexpected delays kept 2011 numbers from passing the previous year's total as was originally expected. Still, one in every 69 homes received at least one filing.

"Foreclosures were in full delay mode in 2011, resulting in a dramatic drop in foreclosure activity for the year," said Brandon Moore, RealtyTrac's new CEO. "The lack of clarity regarding many of the documentation and legal issues plaguing the foreclosure industry means that we are continuing to see a highly dysfunctional foreclosure process that is inefficiently dealing with delinquent mortgages — particularly in states with a judicial foreclosure process."

Problems arose late in 2010 of improper filings at the state courthouses. Mortgage servicers and third-party firms will spend much of 2012 sorting through any financial harm done to borrowers, and settlement talks with the state attorneys general continue.

Foreclosure timelines vary wildly from state to state. It takes the longest in New York. The foreclosures completed there in the fourth quarter of 2011 took an average 1,019 days to complete, up 37% from the same period one year ago. The next longest was Florida at 964 days.

In Texas, a nonjudicial state, foreclosures took an average of 90 days to complete. The national average for the foreclosure process increased to nearly one year from start to finish: 348 days.

 
 
October 25, 2011. Latest consumer confidence report.
 
October 24, 2011 - HUD just announced a program to sell its REO properties utilizing FHA 203k (rehab) loans with $100 down. In addition HUD will pay up to 3% of the closing cost. Homeowners who are behind on their mortgages totals 6,373,000 of which 2,172,000 are in the foreclosure process. Florida has the highest percentage of problem properties.
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October 19, 2011 - Banks will continue to shrink as Dodd-Frank adds 24,000 pages of new regulations and fees. Banks currently hold 10% of deposits in reserves. A new mortgage requires an additional 5% to be escrowed. Banks sell loans to the GSE's but in the future they become the insurer of failed loans. The result will be fewer loans. Government regulations caused the housing boom and bust and its fix is preventing its recovery.
 
October 3, 2011 - Just returned for the AAREA Convention in San Francisco. Banks expect to begin releasing REO properties soon. Filings at the Pinellas County Court House for the early days in November are averaging around 180 per day. Since October its been 1-5 or 0 listings going into foreclosure. 28 days after filing a hearing is held and 2 days after that a new listing is given out. You can read about supply and demand in the latest issue of the Roe Report.
 
September 22, 2011 - in Aug. I won the top-10 award for the third time this year; I have 5,700 peers. The latest comment from the banks is to expect two REO listings for each one that sells once the moratorium is lifted from the ROBO signatures. The estimate of when to expect releases are late October or mid-point second quarter of 2012. Buyers are loving the Roe Boat.
 
August 30, 2011-Certain members of our government are talking about selling bad loans in bulk to investors who will clear title and rent the underling properties. Large investors who can manage this type of program require 100 unit apartment complexes to cover the cost of a manager. The manager starts with D tenants, improves to C and finally B's. If this concept is approved properties won't be maintained, values in the neighborhoods will decline and the housing crisis will continue much longer than necessary. Tampa Bay price have declined 7% in the past 12 months but sales are up slightly. Since REO and Short Sales are declining in share of market this is the ideal time to sell.
 
August 10, 2011-Stock market is suffering wild swings. Common Sense says this rollercoaster will last 7-10 days before cooler heads prevail. From a real estate prospective waterfront / luxury properties are gaining a buyer pool. Assume you were fairly well to do and lived outside the U.S.? Where is the safest place to be? Where is the world's largest economy (25% of the total)? Where is the strongest military? Where do people with diverse backgrounds get along best? What country is the world's breadbasket? We are here and naturally a little shaken, but if you were anywhere else the U.S. would be looking awfully good.
 
August 5, 2011- The U.S. received a downgrade to AA+. The world won't end but the ride will be bumpy for a while.
 
July 21, 2011-Got caught in a storm. I was able to dock the boat without banging the pilings in 15-20 mph winds and 1' waves.
 
July 4, 2011-The Roe Boat is launched to introduce foreign buyers to our Florida lifestyle. Canadians usually know one or two Florida locations where they would like to own. Most overseas buyers also consider the Mediterranean, the Caribbean or parts of Central and South America. Since overseas buyers are 65% of my personal business I wanted to show them how good we live.

 
2010-Decided to buy a cruiser to help sell high-end homes. I had a presence in the waterfront condo business but was relatively unknown in the waterfront home market. I had to determine the style and features I would need. Decided it needed a bathroom, a kitchen and air conditioning. A tablet PC would allow me to write and sign offers aboard the boat. Needed Internet so bought a cell phone to act as a wi-fi hot spot. I had owned boats before but never a dual engine. Could someone teach an old dog to dock a larger boat? Yes you can. :-) Added waterfront home sales to the Roe Report.
 
2007-While attending a real estate convention someone in the audience mentioned a couple of tragedies that had happened to Realtors resulting in the loss of lives causing their estates to lose the income from contracts under agreement and accounts receivables. I immediately volunteered to teach Disaster Recovery. As luck would have it some major banks were in the audience. Within 100 days I had over 250 REO (bank owned listings) which created the need for a staff of 11 to manage this new business. I now teach how to manage and grow a real estate business, disaster prepardness and I sit on expert panels at several conventions.
 
2006- Launched the Roe Report. It is designed to inform buyers and sellers on the market, town by town in Pinellas County. It has links to each towns website for condo sales...waterfront only. You can read past quarters at www.RoeReport.com.
 
2005- Having introduced Ziploc Bags and having consolidated 36 corporations into a single sales and marketing department for the world's largest consumer products company I decided to create a newsletter based on information rather than "Hi I sold something - hire me". Before I could write the newsletter the way I wanted I needed websites for each town and some of the major condos. I increased my website count to over 100 allowing me to dominate the Internet for this area.
 
2003-moved to FL. Took the real estate brokers course so I could meet people. When someone in the class asked me where I wanted to sell....I said Sand Key and the beaches. They said you and 8,300 other agents, good luck, you will need it. I built some website and had my first closing 6 weeks later. My company was named Cliff Roe Realty and I had 3% of the waterfront condo sales after a year.
 
1999-retired and got cancer. After beating the big C, I bought a zip code directory and built a website that ranked number 50 in worldwide traffic. Signed up a 1,000 Realtors and was doing $6.5M a week in referrals. The only Realtor I knew was my ex so I got a license; and a brokers license the next year. As an executive I had sold over $2B in businesses and had $1.6B in Mergers and Acquisitions, real estate seemed a natural transition to a new business and a good way to eliminate the boredom of retirement. Living in the NE the winters kept getting colder and colder so I decided to plan a return to Florida.