Investment and Vacation Real Estate - Orlando, Florida

New Fannie Mae Program - Orlando Short Sales as Alternative to Foreclosures

Fannie Mae is testing a new program to stave off foreclosures by preapproving "short sales" of homes, in which mortgage companies allow homeowners to sell houses for less than the value of existing loans, forgiving the difference.

As the number of homeowners in default on their mortgages began to rise several years ago, real-estate agents started touting short sales as a way for troubled borrowers to sell their homes quickly to potential buyers looking for bargains. Real-estate agents reasoned that banks and mortgage companies would go along with short sales, because they tended to lose less money in the transactions than if a home fell into foreclosure.

Fannie Mae wants to reduce that delay and spur sales by agreeing on a price for a home -- and the loss Fannie is willing to take on the sale -- even before a buyer has been found.

Two pilot projects, in Phoenix and Orlando, Fla., began at the end of December and will last for three months. The test run is limited to properties secured by a Fannie Mae mortgage and serviced by Countrywide Financial Corp., a subsidiary of Bank of America Corp. Only homes already listed at less than the unpaid balance on the mortgage are eligible for the pilot. So far, about 400 homes have qualified for preapproval between the two markets. complete story

Source: Wall Street Journal - Nick Timiraos

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Filings continued to soar through the end of the year - and there's no relief in sight for 2009.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. foreclosure filings spiked by more than 81% in 2008, a record, according to a report released Thursday, and they're up 225% compared with 2006.

A total of 861,664 families lost their homes to foreclosure last year, according to RealtyTrac, which released its year-end report Thursday. There were more than 3.1 million foreclosure filings issued during 2008, which means that one of every 54 households received a notice last year.

"Clearly the foreclosure prevention programs implemented to date have not had any real success in slowing down this foreclosure tsunami," said James Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac in a statement.

The three states hit hardest by foreclosure in 2008 were Nevada, Florida and Arizona. In Nevada, 7% of homes received a foreclosure filing - such as a notice of default, auction sale notice or foreclosure sale - during the year, up 126% from 2007.

Florida filings soared 133%, hitting more than 4.5% of all households, while Arizona filings jumped 203%, also to about 4.5%. California had the highest total number of filings for any state, 523,624, more than double 2007 levels.

Stockton, Calif. had the highest rate of foreclosures of any metropolitan area, at 9.5%. Las Vegas was second with 8.9% and Riverside/San Bernardino Calif. was third with 8%.

Of the top 20 cities for foreclosures, most are in the Sun Belt, with the exception of Detroit at number 10, Memphis, which ranked 18th and Denver which was 19th.  complete story

Orlando area hotel occupancy up 14.7%

Bucking a national trend, metro Orlando’s hotel room occupancy levels rose last week, posting the second largest year-over-year increase of the nation’s top 25 lodging markets, according to a Smith Travel Research survey.

Orlando area occupancy increased 14.7 percent during the week ended Jan. 3, compared to the same week a year earlier. Nationally, occupancy dropped 0.5 percent.

Metro Orlando revenue per room, a key measure of hotel industry performance, rose 11.2 percent. Room revenue decreased 3.6 percent nationally.

San Francisco/San Mateo was the only market to surpass Orlando’s weekly performance, with a 17.5 percent increase in occupancy and a 12.4 percent increase in revenue per room.

Source: Orlando Business Journal

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