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Drew Harwell | Tampa Bay Times | “Tampa Bay saw 20 percent fewer foreclosure filings last month than in January 2013, a sign that lingering distress from the housing crash continues to slowly fade from view, RealtyTrac data released today show. But the good news ends there. Tampa Bay posted the seventh-highest foreclosure rate inRead more

Alexander E.M. Hess, Michael B. Sauter and Thomas C. Frohlich | 24/7 Wall St. | USA Today “Last December, 16.2% of all home sales involved distressed properties, according to a recent report. These homes were sold at an average discount of nearly 40% when compared to conventional, non-distressed homes. Housing data site RealtyTrac recently releasedRead more

Rich Shopes | Tampa Bay Times | “The county’s community development office on Tuesday rolled out a new interest-free loan program aimed at helping low-income seniors burdened by big tax bills. The program, which is intended to curb foreclosures from delinquent taxes, is funded by a $300,000 state housing grant. It’s aimed at low-income folksRead more

Michael Sasso | The Tampa Tribune | “The median sale price of an existing home in the Tampa Bay area rose by 16.2 percent in December when compared with a year earlier, new figures from Florida Realtors show. Last month, the median sale price of a single-family home in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area was $158,000.Read more

Jennifer Titus | WTSP | “The Bay area has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the county and as a result squatters are popping up all around. With thousands of foreclosed homes in the Bay area, it’s attracting some unwanted visitors in many parts of the city; something Tampa police officers have caught on to.Read more

 Michael Sasso | Tampa Tribune | “It’s getting harder to find homes to flip for a profit in the Tampa Bay area as big rental home companies crowd out traditional flippers, according to new data from real estate and foreclosure marketplace RealtyTrac. Irvine, Calif.-based Realty­Trac researches millions of real estate sales across the country and estimates how manyRead more

Francys Vallecillo | World Property Channel | “The total number of completed foreclosures in the U.S. dropped 24 percent in 2013, compared to 2012, according to the latest report from CoreLogic. There were 620,111 homes lost to foreclosure nationwide in 2013, compared to a total of 820,498 homes in 2012. Foreclosure numbers have been droppingRead more

Eric Snider | Tampa Bay Business Journal | “We’re not out of this foreclosure/short sale mess yet. More than a quarter of homes sales in December in 10 of the country’s largest metro areas were processed as either foreclosures or short sales, a new report says. Tampa ranked fourth, with such transactions making up 30.1 percent ofRead more

Franco Fernandez | CBS 12 News | “Banks pay FL homeowners as part of settlement.” Watch Video Here

Josh Salman | Herald-Tribune | “Foreclosure rates in Southwest Florida fell in November from the same time last year, continuing a trend of home loan delinquencies that have slowly waned throughout the past year. The rate of foreclosures among all outstanding mortgage loans in the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton area was 6.04 percent in November, the latest dataRead more