Today's Local Real Estate News: "Florida is at epicenter of U.S. housing bust."

Broward County may provide affordable housing for their teachers. The Sun-Sentinel reports:

“Broward County school officials are considering the unique idea of providing affordable housing to employees, which some hope could offset high housing costs they say deter teachers from working in the county.”

“‘Retention of existing school teachers is economically critical,’ states a report to be presented to the School Board for discussion on Tuesday. ‘To protect the educational system and to sustain Broward County Public Schools into the future, a districtwide housing plan for its teachers and other employees is necessary.’”

“Some educators, however, say affordable housing exclusively for school employees would do little to retain the county's teacher corps.”

“‘They're making determination on where people should be living,’ said Pat Santeramo, president of the Broward Teachers Union. ‘[Teachers] should be able to live wherever they want to live and afford it.’”

Meanwhile, the City of Miami Beach are making plans to provide affordable housing to artists. The Miami Herald reports:

“In an effort to bring new artists to the city, Miami Beach commissioners are expected to give preliminary approval on Wednesday to measures that would create affordable housing in the new Cultural Arts Neighborhood Overlay or CANDO.”

“Mayor David Dermer came up with the CANDO idea as a way to not only lure new artists to the city, but to also encourage new arts-related businesses to open up there.”

“To qualify for affordable housing in the CANDO district, the artist would have to be an employee of a cultural arts organization, like New World Symphony or the Miami Ballet, or is an artist ‘who creates art as an occupation or work in an art-related nonprofit field, which sponsors, creates of exhibits art.’ Also, they would have earn between 80 and 120-percent of Miami-Dade's median income of about $39-thousand for an individual, $4,700 for a couple.”

The Contra Costa Times reports on how some lenders encouraged borrowers to take out toxic loans:

“Patricia Clemons had a serious heart condition and she was living on a $1,094-a-month disability check when she answered a letter from a Florida mortgage broker in 2004. It promised what sounded like easy money and cash-back refinancing of her small home in St. Petersburg.”

“Financial planners warn against taking home loans whose monthly payments exceed 40 percent of income. Yet Clemons, 62, later learned that she'd signed up for a new loan whose costs exceeded 62 percent of her fixed income. To her horror, the loan from Advanced Funding didn't even have an escrow account to include taxes and insurance in her monthly payment.”

“‘When it came in the mail, it was telling me how much my mortgage was ... and they were saying we can refinance you for this much, and it was only up a few more dollars,’ Clemons said.”

“Weeks later, pressured by a loan officer, she signed the paperwork that began her nightmare. The ad that seemed too good to be true was.”

“‘How did I qualify to pay $688 a month when I could barely pay $500? How could they take me up that far?’ she asked in an interview, still angry. Add in insurance and taxes and her new monthly total was $813 -- 74 percent of her monthly disability check.”
The Palm Beach Post reports on insignificant property tax savings:

“When Palm City resident Sally Curtis heard that state legislators changed property tax laws this year to lower homeowners' tax bills, she envisioned savings hundreds of dollars.”

“Her tax notice arrived in the mail last week with word she would save $83, barely enough to cover a weekly trip to the grocery store.”

“‘This doesn't amount to a row of beans,’ Curtis said. ‘Eighty-three dollars? For a whole year? I was expecting a couple hundred dollars at least, at a minimum.’”

“Anthony DeMatteo, who lives in the Savanna Club on U.S. 1 near Port St. Lucie, found out he would save $41 on this year's tax bill. He blames a high taxable value on his manufactured house for the miserly amount and thinks his $83,089 assessed value is too high.”

“‘Places are selling for $69,000 now and were going for $90,000 four years ago,’ DeMatteo said. ‘You can't increase the taxable value and lower taxes. If I tried to borrow money on this place, I couldn't get the $127,500 market value they say it's worth.’”

Finally, a recent L.A. Time editorial echoed an earlier post (click here to see that post) that I made that pointed out that the housing mess is NOT a local phenomena:

The aftershocks of the sub-prime mortgage crisis are being felt across the country. But how many epicenters can one meltdown have?

* ". . . Stockton may be the epicenter of the earthquake, with the highest foreclosure
rate in the United States. . ."

--International Herald Tribune,
Aug. 14

* "In California, Perris is at the epicenter of mortgage problems. From November to January, 177 homes in Perris' central ZIP Code have received notices of default, the first step toward foreclosure."

--Los Angeles Times, March 16

* "Las Vegas . . . is the new epicenter of the sub-prime loan crisis, with more than
40% of all homes and condos on the market for sale vacant."

--Webwire, Aug. 27

* "Florida is at epicenter of U.S. housing bust."

--FT.com, Aug. 9

* "While tonight's congressional hearing on predatory lending unfolds in downtown Minneapolis, the epicenter of foreclosures and loan scams is just a few miles away, on the North Side."

--Minneapolis Star Tribune, Aug. 9

* " 'You are in the epicenter of the sub-prime-induced bubble.' "

--Wharton professor Susan Wachter in the Sarasota (Fla.)Herald-Tribune, Aug.
26

* "The witnesses we have here today are at the epicenter of the
sub-prime storm."

--Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), referring to Cleveland at a Senate hearing, July 25

* ". . . Southeast Queens is the epicenter of the sub-prime mortgage foreclosure crisis. . . . "

--New York Beacon, July 12

* " 'Welcome to the epicenter of the mortgage meltdown in America.' "

--Cuyahoga County Treasurer Jim Rokakis in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 4

* "Florida has been an epicenter of speculation-driven real estate purchases in the past few years."

--St. Petersburg Times, May 18