Question: We hear about home mortgages being made into investments here in the United States and sold to people and institutions all through the world. What are the consequences of this global market in home mortgage investments? Does it create any problems?
Question: I hear that there is some movement in the housing market. Who are the home buyers now? We used to hear about "flippers," along with those who were buying "up" or buying higher-priced homes. What motivates people now?
At the peak of the real-estate boom, upscale condominiums in the Venetian Bay development could have fetched more than $300,000 apiece, with their large master suites, granite countertops and balcony views of the village lake.
We all talk about what ifs.
The Senate on Wednesday reached a compromise on extending the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, a boost the housing industry believes will help it pull out of its two-year-old downturn.
Surprising some housing-industry analysts, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday that September's new-home sales fell 3.6 percent from August and 7.8 percent from September 2008.
The number of properties heading to the market may be much larger than anyone thought and appears likely to swamp South Florida with more deeply discounted homes, clouding the prospects for a housing recovery.
The long recession and a severe credit crunch are strangling commercial real estate, putting strain on already-battered Florida banks.
Shares of major builders of homes rose with a Commerce Department report of a steep monthly increase in sales of new housing.
Efforts to increase the amount banks must pay condo associations for units in foreclosure died in the legislative session, as legislators continue grappling with the state's budget problems.
Two years after fissures in the residential housing market gave way to a national collapse of home prices and sales, experts warn that the the commercial real estate market is next shoe to drop, bringing more woes to the battered economy. Thousands of commercial mortgages valued at hundreds of billions of dollars are approaching their renewal dates, and by some estimates, two out of every three no longer will meet the original loan conditions and won't be able to be refinanced.
South Florida property owners, expecting a silver lining in the collapse of real-estate prices, are challenging assessments in record numbers.
Property-tax notices due in August could bite harder because of questionable higher appraisals.
Some pointers for homeowners watching their 2009 property assessments.
Property-tax notices due in August could bite harder because of questionable higher appraisals.
A federation of lending and real estate professionals wants Florida lawmakers to find a way to get new home buyers an $8,000 federal tax credit upfront to help them make down payments.
Quarries have never exactly been a green endeavor. But a newly opened manufacturer of quartz and marble countertops is hoping to change that.
A switch was pulled and the shelves of equipment murmured softly and turned on the lights. A house in Miami's Bay Heights quietly went off the grid and onto hydrogen power.
Tangelia Sands watched Ario Lundy build affordable houses in her Liberty City neighborhood for several years, admiring them from afar. Next month, she and her four children finally will move into one of those homes.
South-facing small windows and Bahama shutters, light paint and a white roof offer clues to the character of this house within a hammock: It is a ''green'' home that proudly wears a photovoltaic system and thermal water heater on its roof and envelopes a 7,500-gallon cistern within its walls.
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