Real Estate News

While the foreclosure freeze got attacked by many as being damaging to the housing market and to lenders, some home sellers actually benefited from the crisis. Those sales that were not foreclosures or short sales increased by 9.3 percent in the Tampa Bay, Fla.-area in October, according to real estate firm Home Encounter, which tracks sales data in the Tampa Bay area.

In contrast, foreclosure sales declined, also by 9.3 percent, as nearly 25 percent of Tampa Bay foreclosure properties were taken off the market due to the freeze. The likely reason: When lenders halted foreclosure cases to re-examine faulty paperwork, sales of conventional homes suddenly had less competition.

Unfortunately the surge in conventional home sales did not include a rise in conventional home prices, which dropped 2.2 percent compared to the previous October's figures.


For more on related topics see these AOL Real Estate guides:

• Stop Foreclosure Rescue Scammers Before They Scam You
• Foreclosure Help: What a Housing Counselor Can Do
• Mortgage Jargon in Simple Terms
• How to Sell Your Home in a Short Sale
• How to Buy Foreclosures

When celebrities such as Sting, Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen are selling their multimillion-dollar celebrity homes, awestruck fans and potential buyers ogle the listing photos to catch a glimpse of what these stars home lives are like.

What's on the coffee table, adorning the walls or decorating the bookcases? Do they live like you, Joe and Jane next door, or like the demigods we want them to be? Well, one man has had an upclose look at many of these homes: photographer Evan Joseph.

Joseph (pictured left) says, "The thing that has always struck me most about celebrity homes is how comfortable they are."

If you're having trouble taking advantage of today's historically low interest rates, you're not alone. Even someone whose been in the real estate business for years as a real estate appraiser, Anthony Lavia, told HousingWatch that he's been denied refis by two banks even though he owes just about 60 percent on his home in San Francisco.

Lavia says he makes more than $100,000 per year and has $100,000 in liquid assets. His home is worth $800,000, and he's looking to refinance $420,000. His FICO score is almost 800 and he hasn't missed any payments in seven years. If he got a refi at today's rate his payment would go down by $200 per month, putting him in even a better financial position.

In the past he would have been a prime candidate for a refinance, yet because he's self-employed he's been rejected after applying to two different banks for a refinance. "The days of getting a little help from a broker/lender as someone else 'in the biz' of real estate are no more," Lavia said.

Chelsea Handler, the Jay Leno of E! Network but better-looking -- and better-booking, these days -- just bought a 5,600-square-foot estate in Bel Air, Calif. for $5,942,500. As the caustic-tongued host of E!'s late-night talk show "Chelsea Lately," Handler has been reeling in the big-name guests and now appears to have bought herself a hardly humble abode to match her fame.

Her Nov. 22 "Chelsea's Big Interview Special" just landed Gwyneth Paltrow as one of the stars that the sassy Handler will be talking to. And her "Chelsea Lately," launched in 2007, continues to pick up in popularity.

Maybe that's where Obama should have headed to talk about the election results?

Coniel Norman, who is a former NBA player and a military veteran, was homeless right before he moved into Piquette Square, a new, $23-million 150-unit apartment project in Detroit built to house and care for homeless veterans.

Norman was a star on the University of Arizona basketball team in 1972 and was later drafted in the second round by the Philadelphia '76ers, where he played two seasons before heading to the Continental Basketball Association and then the San Diego Clippers. After being released by the Clippers in 1979, he enlisted in the military.

"My brother served in the Army and was in Vietnam," Norman says. "I was looking for a career after basketball and I wanted to see what military life was like."

In celebration of Veterans Day, HousingWatch is featuring stories about veterans and active military personnel and their real estate experiences. Here are the top posts:

1. Volunteers Build Homes for Wounded Vet
Operation: Coming Home, a team of veterans, homebuilders and other volunteers, are dedicated to providing free housing in the Raleigh/Durham area to wounded veterans of recent Middle East wars. Find out who they've helped when you read more.

2. Home Prices: Army Housing Buoys El Paso
The expansion of the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas has sparked a local building boom and kept the town from falling into the depths of the recession. See why when you read more.

In celebration of Veterans Day, HousingWatch is featuring stories about veterans and active military personnel and their real estate experiences.

When Hank Neigel, a 66-year-old disabled veteran, realized in February 2009 that he and his wife, Carol, would no longer be able to afford the monthly $1,300 mortgage payments on their three-bedroom, two-bath home in Hewitt, Texas, just south of Waco, he sought loan modification help from a company he found on the Internet.

Boy, was that a mistake.

The Mesa, Ariz..-based loan modification firm advertised a 100 percent performance-based, money-back guarantee. In exchange for a fee of $2,250, the company promised to handle all the paperwork and presentation to the lender of the modification of Neigel's $97,000 conventional loan.

In celebration of Veterans Day, HousingWatch is featuring stories about veterans and active military personnel and their real estate experiences.

You may recall the controversial story of Capt. Michael Clauer and his family in Frisco, Texas, whose home was foreclosed on by the Heritage Lakes Homeowners Assn. because they didn't pay their HOA dues.

The case was complicated by the fact that the Heritage Homeowners Assn. had, indeed, checked with the Department of the Army but was told that Capt. Clauer was not on active duty.

So they proceeded, after months of unanswered letters, with foreclosure proceedings.

Foreclosure -- the beast that is eating the housing market -- barely paused in October, despite the latest housing scandal.

Experts thought foreclosures might go into hibernation after lenders botched thousands of foreclosures with skipped steps and faulty documentation. In at least one case, a single bank official signed as many as 8,000 foreclosures a month, falsely claiming to have "personal knowledge" of each bad loan.

But banks keep seizing homes at close to record rates.

In celebration of Veterans Day, HousingWatch is featuring stories about veterans and active military personnel and their real estate experiences.

For Jon Wilke, a seven-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and Army National Guard including a tour just months after 9/11, buying a home is the hardest thing he's ever done.

"It kind of feels like another deployment," Wilke, who saw active duty on multiple deployments in Europe and Bosnia, told HousingWatch. "I'm here in Albuquerque while my family is 18 hours away in Kentucky."

Two years ago, Wilke purchased a three-bedroom home in Albuquerque with a VA loan, which allows qualified servicemen and women to buy with no down payment and no private mortgage insurance -- a major advantage in today's market. But after a series of difficult financial decisions and personal crises that forced his family to move to Kentucky, he now wonders if he can qualify for a second VA loan to buy a home closer to them. Until then, he must travel 18 hours to visit his wife and young daughter, while his dream house in Albuquerque sits idle.

But is selling Wilke's only option?