Homes For Sale

Two developers are transforming condo plans into apartments, and another developer intends to build homes and townhouses.

Compson Associates Inc. of Boca Raton is reviving plans to build a 338-unit complex at Renaissance Commons, the sprawling housing, shopping and dining center it built on Congress Avenue and Gateway Boulevard.

“It’s the last and best piece, right in the middle of the action,” said Bobby D’Angelo, Compson vice president.

It’s also the first time Compson has built housing at the site since 2007.

The 6-acre Compson Place Apartments was planned as the Santorini condominiums, the last of three condo complexes at Renaissance. The completed condos are the 242-unit San Raphael and the 328-unit Villa Lago, of which 130 are still owned by Compson and rented as apartments.

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How big a whack did your credit scores take during the grim years of economic distress following the housing bust? Was it 20 points, 50 points, 100 points or maybe no drop at all?

These are key questions affecting millions of potential homebuyers who hope to qualify for mortgages and current owners looking to refinance. New research from a major credit-risk evaluation company suggests that the drop in huge numbers of Americans’ scores was dramatic.

FICO (formerly known as Fair Isaac Corp.), which developed and markets the eponymous score that dominates the home mortgage field, found that during 2008-09, approximately 50 million consumers in this country saw their FICO scores plunge by more than 20 points. Nearly 21 million of these lost more than 50 points.

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Were certainly not out of the woods, but there is a lot of good news to report after the 3rd quarter of 2011.  Last year, we saw a summer driven by sales of distressed homes (short sales and foreclosures ) which really depressed the average and median prices.

This year, only 1 of these homes was a Foreclosure/ REO and 7 of the homes actually sold above $500,000.

The average home price for a home in Leavenworth in the third quarter of 2011 was up to $391,000 and the median price was $360,000.  Compared to last years horrible numbers this is incredible. A

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Its taking lenders 30% longer to complete a foreclosure in Orange County than a year ago, with the time needed to process a sale or repossession now stretching well past a year.

ForeclosureRadar.com reported that it took lenders an average of 411 days to foreclose on a home from the filing of a default notice (first step in the foreclosure process) to the actual trustee sale, or auction in which bidders either buy a home or let it go back to the bank.

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Dear Poliakoffs: First, I’d like to thank you for your advice. I read your column every week in my local paper. Thanks for your counsel.

Here’s some background: Our master homeowners association community consists of townhomes, condos and single-family homes. In April ’09 the HOA was successful in amending our covenants and bylaws to allow for the purchase of the golf course bordering our community. It is my understanding that the homeowners voted to accept this change (I did not own here at the time). To date, the purchase has not closed. In addition, in October of ’09 approximately 45 condos (more than 10 percent of total community) were sold at a foreclosure auction.

Here are my questions. First, is there a legal time frame in which the purchase of the golf course must be completed? Second, does the fact that a significant number of new owners were never asked to weigh in on the issue have any bearing on the amendment?

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