Archive for the 'Repo Home Listings' Category

As many homebuyers in Florida continue to ignore condo units and prefer buying single-family detached homes, developers of condo complexes are finding it difficult to sell condo units and failing to pay their construction loans.

During the past several months, condo developers across Florida have been losing their projects to bank foreclosures, adding more condo units to repo homes lists.

Among Miami Beach condo towers foreclosed by their lenders is the 148-unit Inland Towers Condominium located in North Miami Beach. Investment company Mazal Investments 26 filed in Miami-Dade County a foreclosure lawsuit against the developer called Inland Towers Condos LLC and its managing member Jorge
Mederos for failure to pay a $7.2 million loan. A total of 81 unsold condo units have been targeted by the lawsuit.

In 2005, the developer Inland Towers borrowed $18.5 million from Banco Popular North America to turn a residential building built in North Miami Beach in 1971 into a condo complex. In May, lender Banco Popular sold the loan balance to Mazal Investments, an investment firm based in Bay Harbor Islands and run by Israel Kopel.

The Inland Towers lawsuit is the sixth South Florida foreclosure case filed against Mederos, head of Mederos & Associates Real Estate, during the past 12 months.

Another foreclosure target is the Solabella Townhomes in Miami Gardens. An undeveloped portion of the project and 43 unsold units are scheduled to be offered for sale on September 9, but the undeveloped portion may be returned to developer Legacy Pointe if it is able to pay lender Regions Bank the amount of $1.75 million before the scheduled foreclosure sale.

Alabama-based bank Regions Bank won its $15.3-million foreclosure lawsuit after the Miami-Dade County Court ruled that Legacy Pointe owed the bank $13 million in delinquent loan, in addition to accumulated interests.

Solabella has developed 118 units of the 12.5-acre townhome project out of 210 units it signed to develop. It was able to sell 75 units, while the other units have not been completed and have been left unattended for months.

For the past 18 months, this Solabella foreclosure lawsuit is only one of 6 foreclosure cases filed against Legacy Pointe, one of the affiliates of Coral Gables-based Cornerstone Group.

Another Cornerstone Group affiliate, Cornerstone CW, has agreed with its lender Regions Bank for the foreclosure of its 46-acre development project in Miami Gardens due to a $10.5 million outstanding loan.

Meanwhile, in other parts of South Florida, such as Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, condo towers are also being foreclosed by their lenders for millions in unpaid construction loans.

Considering that the first half of the year did not bode well for the national foreclosure situation, the number of properties in North Carolina repo home lists declined compared to that of the previous year.

There was a considerable 26 percent drop from the last half of 2008, with only 12,000 homes entering some stage of foreclosure from January to June this year. Industry experts believe that the drop can be attributed to the efforts made by the federal government as well as non-profit organizations to encourage lenders to enter into a refinancing or loan modification agreement with troubled borrowers. For this reason, a lot of homeowners managed to prevent their homes from ending up in repo home lists.

Unfortunately, there was an increase in the number of homeowners who lost their houses to foreclosure for the period of May to June. According to Roy Cooper, North Carolina Attorney General, the spike could be due to lenders starting to refuse any form of negotiation with the distressed homeowners. In fact, there was a research that showed more than 50 percent of foreclosure-related cases where the lenders and borrowers did not communicate.

To address this, a legislation called Consumer Economic Protection Act will literally force communication between lenders and distressed homeowners. Based on the new law, extension of the foreclosure process is even possible if the mortgage lender failed to prove that they have shown any effort to assist borrowers. For cooper, the legislation is actually protecting both lenders and borrowers. Lenders will have a chance to recover their losses while homes of borrowers do not end up in repo home lists.

In addition to the lenders and distressed homeowners, the community and the economy will also come out as winners. As everyone knows, home values in neighborhoods blighted by numerous foreclosure properties suffer in terms of home values.

With the North Carolina bankers Association becoming a member of the Bankers Association, which advocates for lenders to help out borrowers, it is likely that the process of keeping people inside their houses and away from repo home lists will be improved.

To date, the new legislation has been given the thumbs up by the Senate and is on its way to the governor’s office for final approval.

Businessman Maurice Jenkins of Fayetteville, North Carolina has been sued for repo home listing fraud for the second time this month. Jenkins was sued at Cumberland County Superior Court by Latoya Haywood.

In her lawsuit, Haywood also named Jenkins’ companies Lessane Properties and Fayetteville Property Center, his wife Wanda, two lawyers and Wachovia Bank for repo home listing fraud.

Haywood’s lawsuit is the second fraud case filed against Jenkins and his group. The first fraud case was filed by Robert Moreau. Both Moreau and Haywood hired Thomas Neville as their lawyer.

In their lawsuits, Haywood and Moreau claimed that they were property investors and both of them were swindled by Jenkins and his group. Each of them purchased rental properties which were managed by Jenkins.

Jenkins admitted operating a real estate fraudulent scheme between 2004 and 2008. In her complaint, Haywood said that after she purchased a rental property from Jenkins, he faked the documents in order to deed the property’s title to one of the companies he owned.

She added that one property that he acquired from Jenkins had hidden debts which the latter did not disclose. The property with hidden liens acquired by Haywood was foreclosed within a year.

According to authorities, the repo home listing fraud scheme operated by Jenkins and his group involved over 120 houses located in the Cape Fear region.

Last April, Jenkins pleaded guilty to defrauding $1 million from four banking institutions following state and federal investigation. He is facing a 30-year maximum penalty in prison, a $1 million fine and a five-year supervised release.

Meanwhile, Jenkins, together with Holly Stevens, was sued by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper last year for defrauding investors. The lawsuit was settled and both Jenkins and Stevens promised not to defraud investors again.

Fraudulent schemes like the one operated by Jenkins has been spreading across the state despite data showing a 42 percent decline in foreclosures activity in the first quarter of this year compared with figures for the same quarter last year.

Properties that received foreclosure filings and were at risk of being placed on repo home listing declined by 20 percent to 5,988 in the first quarter of 2009 compared with the last quarter of 2008.

In March, foreclosure filings in the state slide by 3 percent to 1,977 properties compared with February total and 40 percent less from the March 2008 figures.

In the first quarter of this year, the state of West Virginia received a jolt when its filings for repo home listings jumped by almost 96 percent compared to figures from the last quarter of 2008 and 134 percent higher from the first quarter of last year.