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By Scott Blake |     Banks and other mortgage servicers are holding many homes in foreclosure without putting them up for sale, according to local market watchers.    In fact, Florida leads the nation by far in vacant homes in foreclosure, with more than 55,000 homes in foreclosure sitting empty, according to a recent report by RealtyTracRead more

TheRealDeal.com | “Tens of thousands of Florida homeowners have abandoned properties threatened by foreclosure, a dark spot in the Sunshine State’s otherwise brightening real estate market, the Palm Beach Post reported. About 55,000 Florida homes with defaulted mortgages are deserted, nearly one third of the national total and more than triple second-place Illinois, which hasRead more

By Les Christie | @CNNMoney | “The long national foreclosure nightmare is nearing its end, with foreclosure filings hitting their lowest level since before the housing bust.   Total foreclosure filings, including notices of default, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, dropped to 127,790 in June, down 35% over the past 12 months, according to RealtyTrac. Overall, filings haveRead more

Cameron Davis | ThinkProgress | “The number of completed foreclosures in May was down 27 percent, to 50,000, compared to May of last year, analytics firm Core Logic reported Tuesday. One million homes remain in some stage of foreclosure, although that figure is down 29 percent from a year earlier. But while foreclosure rates are downRead more

Heather Perlberg & John Gittelsohn | “Jonathan Gray, global head of real estate at Blackstone Group LP, talks about Blackstone’s investment in residential real estate and the outlook for the U.S. housing and commercial property market. He speaks with Erik Schatzker and Deirdre Bolton on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers.” (Source: Bloomberg) The firm, which already ownsRead more

Reuters with CNBC.com | “Fewer U.S. foreclosures were completed in May compared to a year ago, while the number of houses in the foreclosure process also declined as the market continued to heal, data analysis firm CoreLogic said Tuesday. There were 52,000 foreclosures completed, well below the 71,000 in May 2012, CoreLogic said. Even so, thatRead more

Al Sunshine | Checks earmarked for thousands of Florida foreclosure victims are finally in the process of being sent out and hundreds of millions of additional dollars more are being earmarked for new housing programs statewide. Yet there is a growing debate about where most of the money is going and if foreclosure victims are reallyRead more

Martha Brannigan | Miami Herald “It is a condominium association’s version of winning the lotto. A big bank missed its deadline to file for foreclosure on a million-dollar condo unit by 10 days. As a result, Peninsula Condominium Association in Aventura will get to keep the condo — a fancy three-bedroom, three-bathroom bayfront pad thatRead more

BY: ESTHER CHO | “As Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue their efforts to prevent millions of foreclosures, delinquency rates are also declining, with 60-plus delinquencies down to the lowest level since the first quarter of 2009, according to a report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).    So far, efforts from the GSEs have led to nearly 2.8 millionRead more

Huffington Post | “My father arrived in this country from Europe in the late 1940s with a love of all things American but was especially fond of the post-war boom in emerging technology. To satisfy this hunger, he bought himself a new-fangled Webcor reel-to-reel tape recorder replete with a throbbing green “magic eye” (to monitorRead more