New York Attorney General bureau chief asks Related to release contracts

Copyright 2008 South Florida Business Journal - by Paul Brinkmann

The New York Attorney General's Office has requested Miami-based developer Related Group let New York condo buyers out of contracts at its 50 Biscayne and Harbour House properties in Miami.

In a letter written March 19, an attorney with the New York AG's office alleges that Related was illegally marketing and selling condos in New York without registering them as securities in that state. Such a lapse would constitute a violation of the Martin Act in New York, according to letter-writer Lewis Polishook, chief of enforcement for the AG's Real Estate Finance Bureau.

"The complainants have informed [the AG] that they seek to rescind the purchase agreement they signed," Polishook wrote. "Because the Harbour House Condominium sale to them was made in violation of New York General Business Law statute 352-e, they are entitled to a rescission. Please allow them to rescind and return all monies they have paid to you."

Polishook was responding to complaints filed with his office by New Yorkers who bought Related condos and now wish to back out of their contracts.

Related Group said in a statement that it is investigating the request from the AG's office and cooperating with the New York State's Attorney's Office. The company said it will respond with all requested documentation related to the New York buyers "as we categorically expect the New York Attorney General to conclude that we have violated no New York State law."

An attorney for the company also told the Business Journal in October that it was possible a broker - not a company employee - could have been selling units in New York.
Aventura attorney Robert Cooper said he represents more than 65 buyers at the two Related properties, and he estimates more than 5 percent of buyers at both locations are New York residents.

Cooper made the Martin Act allegations a count of a lawsuit filed against the company's 50 Biscayne entity, TRG Columbus Venture Ltd. The Related entity behind Harbour house is TRG-Harbour House Ltd.

Cooper said he thinks the AG's letter will spell trouble for Related, even if it denies the AG's allegations or intends to ignore the letter.

"Now that we have the AG opinion letter, I wonder what the effect is on Florida courts," he said. "I don't think the courts will ignore this, even if Related Group does."

Delinquent homeowners offered rescue plan

BY MARCY GORDON - Associated Press

At-risk borrowers with all types of mortgages, not just high-cost subprime loans, could be eligible for help under a new plan involving six big home lenders.The new plan, called Project Lifeline, applies to seriously delinquent homeowners, those whose mortgages are 90 days or more past due. That would help many Florida borrowers. Roughly 50,000 loans were 90 days or more past due in the state at the end of the third quarter of 2007, according to the most recent report by the Mortgage Bankers Association. It is likely that number has risen significantly in the last five months.

''Project Lifeline is a valuable response, literally a lifeline, for people on the brink of the final steps in foreclosure,'' Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson said Tuesday at a joint news conference with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Against a backdrop of surging defaults and administration officials' prodding of the mortgage industry, the plan allows seriously overdue homeowners to suspend foreclosures for 30 days while lenders try to work out more affordable loan terms.

On a pilot basis, the plan will involve six of the largest mortgage lenders, in hopes that more lenders will sign on. The participants are Bank of America, Citigroup, Countrywide Financial, JPMorgan Chase, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo.

All six are involved in Hope Now, an effort the Bush administration brokered with the mortgage industry late last year to freeze rates on some high-cost subprime mortgages for five years to aid borrowers whose teaser rates are jumping sharply higher. Since then, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has urged lenders to expand that effort to cover struggling homeowners with conventional mortgages.

With home prices falling, even some people with good credit have gotten behind on their payments. Like many subprime borrowers, they signed up for adjustable-rate mortgages that allowed them to make smaller, steady payments for several years until a higher, fluctuating interest rate kicked in.

Some borrowed against their rising equity as home prices climbed, assuming they would be able to refinance or sell their homes before the higher payments began. But as prices have plummeted, many homeowners now owe more than their home is worth, and banks have tightened their lending practices, leaving even people with stellar credit struggling with higher payments.

The Hope Now alliance, which includes lenders, investors and nonprofit groups, said last week that it helped nearly 8 percent of subprime borrowers in the second half of 2007 -- more than its original estimate.

The group said it helped 545,000 subprime borrowers with spotty credit in the second half of last year, compared with its January estimate of 370,000. That works out to 7.7 percent of 7.1 million subprime loans outstanding as of September.

Among the subprime borrowers aided, 150,000 were helped through permanent-loan modifications, such as lower interest rates, while 395,000 negotiated repayment plans, which often involveD a borrower getting back on track even after missing a few payments.

Consumer groups, however, point out that many borrowers still can't keep up, even after loan workouts. They say many of the borrowers in the Hope Now effort have negotiated short-term loan modifications or repayment plans, which often involve a borrower getting back on track after missing a few payments. A full-fledged refinancing at a lower rate is preferable, they say.

Caught In The Middle: Miami's Middle Class Exodus

David Sutta - MIAMI (CBS4)

For decades, South Florida has been proud of being a piece of paradise where you could raise a family, perhaps retire. In the last couple of years, calling the region home has changed dramatically, where more people are moving out than moving in.

The Bank of America building in downtown Miami was once known in the 1980's as the Centrust Tower when it eventually faced bankruptcy and a city in turmoil.

It still lights up the skyline, reinvented and thriving. Dozens of skyscrapers have popped up, and dozens more are on the way. The question posed is while this city appears to be headed to greatness, will the people who made South Florida still live here when all this is done?

Florida has been faced with more foreclosures in 2007 than 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992 combined. The year 2007 was a record.

In Broward County, foreclosures in 2006 were 8,995; in 2007, it was 23,476. For Miami-Dade County, there were 9,814 foreclosures in 2006; in 2007, there were 26,338.

Every week, inside our county courthouses, banks try to sell hundreds of foreclosed homes. Some of them are half off, most of them with little success.

ON THE EDGE

One foreclosure affects Cathi DeThomas.

"When we bought this house, we were to stay here for 10 years hopefully build enough equity with the improvement and sell it for a profit and hopefully have a little nest egg for retirement."

But now, foreclosure is what affects Cathi DeThomas, who took out an adjustable rate mortgage.

"They qualified me for the loan just by my credit score alone," she said.

Worried she would be priced out of South Florida, DeThomas took the mortgage.

In 2003, her Deerfield home appraised for $400,000; today, it's going for $250,000 and on the market for four months without a single offer.

"The idea of going into foreclosure, for me, from a midwestern viewpoint is 'you just don't do that'."

Despite her best efforts, she just missed her first mortgage payment.

"I don't think I'll ever have the possibility of owning a home down here again or anywhere else for that matter. And at my age, that is even more depressing because you know if I was my son's age it would be different. You can recover. You can build up again. You can give it another shot. But I'm at a point in my life where you don't get that many more shots."

DESPERATE TIMES

In April of 2005, the Miami-Dade Housing Authority created a list for anyone who needed affordable housing. Forty-thousand people signed up. Three years later, 25,000 on the list are still waiting for a phone call.

Cassandra is one of the lucky ones. "I never fathomed that we would find ourselves in this situation," she said.

Cassandra got help from the housing authority, where she was set up in Section 8 housing after a landlord stole their money and her husband lost his job in the construction market.

She added, "The situation is either here or our van. And we are a family of four and we can't very well stay in our van."

In a modest South Florida home, Cassandra is raising her family and losing sleep over it, "because it's not comfortable. This is not our house."

Ironically, Cassandra is living in a foreclosed home. The house is a bank- owned foreclosure.



"Any time between Monday and Friday, nine to five is the most nerve racking, because, of course, the city is open and operable."

The location, "New Locks", empowered by a community activist, Max Rameau, who views himself as a modern day Robin Hood.

He said "We're liberating units. We're not stealing anything. These places are locked up and enslaved and we are liberating them."

So far, Rameau has "liberated" a half a dozen foreclosures to struggling families. He has plans for dozens more despite threats from the law.

"I think the law, while the law certainly has some value, I think there are times when you can't obey the law. If slavery were legal, I think we would be obligated to disobey slavery. Now we have vacant housing while there are homeless people with children living on the street. I think we have obligation to make those units available."

Rameau added, "We need to take back land. We need to take back housing. And we need to take control of our own destiny and our own situation."

Cassandra added, "There are a lot of government entities that are set up and designed to help us but they don't really want to do that. Their hearts are not really there. They are just there for a paycheck and we found that out the hard way."

THE EXODUS

Then, there are those who fled to Greenville, South Carolina.

At a printing press plant about 100 miles southwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, dozens of South Floridians are hard at work.

Larry Kudeviz of Genesis Printing said, "I tried to stay in South Florida. I don't think anyone I talked to really thought I was going to move."

In 2007, during South Florida's record year for foreclosures, Larry Kudeviz decided he had enough.

"Listen. If you can't afford to live, and you can't afford to pay your taxes, and you're living week to week or less than week to week, you're not happy. You can't say this on camera, but you walk somewhere and you say hi and they say an 'expletive'. They grumble. But here you smile and everyone says hello."

Alongside Kudeviz is Heratio and Mario – both from Miami.

Kudeviz moved not just himself, but 120 jobs out of Hialeah. Employees were given the opportunity to follow him to South Carolina. Dozens did in pursuit of something they couldn't afford in Florida, the American dream.

Jorge Sierra is a Genesis employee and said, "I think we are going to find it. My wife is pregnant here. We are going to have a boy in South Carolina."

Jorge is earning as much as he did in South Florida. The difference: he can find a home he can afford.

Fritzi Barbour, a Coldwell Banker broker, showed what $182,500 gets a buyer: a 22,000-square-foot house with a backyard. She added, "And in our market, the average-priced home is around 186-187-thousand."

Is Genesis' exit out of South Florida just the tip of an exodus?

Barbour added, "It kind of started slowly and none of us realized it was happening until all of the sudden every broker that I know had people in their office out showing property to families from Florida."

Patrick Mason owns "Carolina Living," a magazine that markets to people from out of town. His research shows for the first time ever that Florida is now the number one exporter of people to South Carolina.

"People are seeking good value," Mason said. "They are leaving high cost regions and looking for reasonable cost regions."

Speaking about life in Florida's foreclosure capital, Kudeviz xplained, "South Florida has a real big issue. What's going to be of it? I don't know. I'm not a fortune teller. But I know I wasn't going to wait around to be a byproduct of what happened. I am going to make my own destiny."

Where American dreams are struggling, DeThomas said, "I don't think the middle class can survive here. Your nurses and teachers and postal workers, and all of our middle professional people who aren't upper management, it's like we don't have an option."

She reiterates a common theme in today's economy that people are caught in the middle.



"Every day it's getting worse. Every hour it's getting worse. It's getting harder and harder for people to survive. There are people who commit suicide over the same situation. It's just that serious."

By the numbers, South Florida appears to be in a state of metamorphosis. Its middle class is leaving, and quickly being replaced by a wealthier class. People may have to be wealthier not only to survive in South Florida, but to thrive.

The working class is either on the verge of losing everything, struggling to survive or just leaving. The gap will continue to widen between the have's and the have not's unless something is done to stop it.

Next week: A look at how South Florida became so unaffordable in a matter of four years, then, some solutions of how future generations will be able to live here.

Fed: Mortgages Are Harder to Get

"Significant Numbers" of Lenders Have Tightened Credit Standards, Survey Shows

By CHARLES HERMAN - ABC NEWS Business Unit

If you're a would-be homeowner, brace yourself for some bad news.

The Federal Reserve on Monday released a survey showing that "significant numbers" of lenders have tightened their standards for mortgage applicants.

The Fed's survey, which polled loan officers at 56 domestic banks and 23 foreign banking institutions, found that for a "prime" loan, 55 percent of domestic lenders, compared with 40 percent in October, have increased their scrutiny of potential borrowers. And if you are looking for a non-traditional loan like a subprime or an interest-only, 85 percent of the banks that issued these loans are making it harder to get one, up from 60 percent in October.

Looking for a home equity line of credit? That's going to be tougher to get as well.

Banks are even tightening lending standards for loans other than credit cards.

And as banks make it harder to borrow, loan officers report that demand for loans has decreased  consumers may realize it's harder to get a loan and they may be worried about purchasing a big-ticket item like a home when the economy may be in or headed toward a recession.

The loan officers said lenders want to help homeowners struggling with their mortgages, but doing so could be difficult. Some homeowners may be hard to contact and others might not be interested in even staying as their homes drop in value. Also, a shortage of bank employees knowledgeable in completing this type of work could also prevent the bank from finalizing any work-outs with struggling homeowners.

A majority of lenders expect current mortgages, lines of credit, even credit card and other loans to "deteriorate" in 2008, meaning the lenders expect people to struggle to make their regular payments.

Lenders also reported that 80 percent of domestic banks have tightened standards for commercial real estate loans, the highest proportion on record since the question was first posed 18 years ago.

Homeowners: Can't pay? Just walk away

More and more borrowers are watching their house values sink while the cost of their loans skyrockets. What to do? Skip out on the mortgage all together.

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Mortgage payments are set to jump. Home prices have plunged. "I'm outta here."

Homeowners are abandoning their homes and, more importantly, their mortgages, rather than trying to keep up with rising payments on deteriorating assets. So many people are handing their keys back to lenders that a new term has been coined for it: jingle mail.

"I stopped paying my mortgage in October, after shelling out about $70,000 in interest [over 15 months]," said one borrower, David, who doesn't want his last name used. "Now, I'm just waiting for the default notice."

The Los Angeles-based writer bought two properties in Hancock Park, west of downtown, using no-down, interest-only mortgages in 2006. He paid just over $1 million for both.

David had planned to sell them quickly but got caught in the slump. Soon his interest rate will jump by a few points, and his payments will go up by several hundred dollars a month for each place. He figures his properties have fallen in value by at least $60,000 each.

Current lending practices have created an environment where a measure as extreme as abandoning a home actually makes sense to some people.

Many buyers put little or no money down, so they don't have much invested in them. That leaves them with little incentive to keep making payments when a home's market value dips below the balance of the mortgage.

The most serious consequence is a tremendous hit to credit scores. For some, that's better than throwing away money they'll never recover by selling their home.

And while a mortgage default can savage a person's credit record, trying to pay off a loan they can't afford could be worse for borrowers if it leads to bankruptcy, said Craig Watts, a spokesman for the credit reporting firm Fair Isaac.

Credit scores are hurt much more by missing multiple payments - on credit cards, cars and so on - than by a single foreclosure.

"The time it takes to regain your credit score [after foreclosure] can be shorter than after bankruptcy," said Watts.

It typically takes three years of a spotless payment record after a bankruptcy before credit scores recover enough for someone to think about buying a home again, he said. After abandoning a mortgage, a person may be able to buy a new house in two years or less.

And now skipping out on a home is easier, thanks to the Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007. Previously, if a bank sold a foreclosed home for less than the mortgage balance and it forgave the difference, the borrower had to pay tax on that difference as if it were income. Now the IRS will ignore it.

"That's going to help a lot of people," said Mike Gray, a San Jose accountant who runs the web site Realestatetaxletter.com.

The trend of walking away is most pronounced among real estate investors, according to Jay Brinkman, an economist with the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

But families are doing it too. "If they have to stretch to make mortgage payments for a home that will not recover its value, then yes, they may walk away," he said.

Often they chose hybrid adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) that came with low initial payments. After a few years, interest rates on these loans reset higher. But buyers thought they could count on the increased value of their homes to refinance into affordable, fixed-rate loans.

Now, that may not be possible. Take Susan (not her real name), a client of HouseBuyerNetwork.com, which specializes in arranging short sales. A short sale is when a bank agrees to accept the sale price paid for a home - even if it is less than the outstanding mortgage on it - as payment in full. An owner might sell a house with a $200,000 mortgage for $180,000, and then the bank forgives the difference.

HouseBuyerNetwork.com CEO Duane LeGate says that Susan's two-bedroom condo in Sonoma County is worth $340,000, but the mortgage balance is $380,000. She can't refinance and it's difficult to sell.

She's still trying for a short sale but, said LeGate, "She'll almost certainly end up walking away."

Beyond anecdotes, some statistics indicate that hard-pressed owners are deliberately courting foreclosure. An analysis by the consumer credit rating agency Experian last spring found that many borrowers were choosing to pay off credit card and other consumer debt before making mortgage payments. They were electing to put their mortgage at risk rather than their credit cards or auto loans.

Similarly, Richard DeKaser, chief economist for National City Corp., notes that while all credit metrics are deteriorating, mortgage delinquencies are rising disproportionately. "That makes sense if people are choosing to walk away," he said.

And now reports are emerging of homeowners skipping out on mortgages even though they can still afford to pay them.

Wachovia CEO Ken Thompson described these people on an earnings call last month."[These are] people that have otherwise had the capacity to pay, but have basically just decided not to, because they feel like they've lost equity, value in their properties."

Lenders are afraid that borrowers may find it's worth the hit to their credit scores, if they can drastically reduce their housing expenses. Someone with good credit and a $600,000 home in a town with cratering real estate prices could buy a similar house nearby for $450,000, and then let the other $600,000 mortgage go into foreclosure.

The stage is set for this kind of thing particularly in California, where huge numbers of buyers used low or no-down deals to buy homes. The trend has even spawned at least one new business, San Diego-based YouWalkAway.com, which for a fee of $1,000 purports to guide clients through the process of ditching their mortgages. It launched in early January, and says it has already signed up 180 clients.

California is a bit of a safe haven for these borrowers, since banks that repossess and then sell a foreclosed property for less than the mortgage that was owed on it cannot come after borrowers for the difference - as long as it's the initial mortgage, one that has not been refinanced. So if a borrower owes $200,000 and the bank sells the house for $170,000, the borrower comes out of it debt-free.

And for many homeowners, the prospect of becoming debt-free is growing increasingly alluring.

Housing market booms in Mexico

Six years of economic growth have led to pent-up demand.

BY THERESA BRADLEY - © Associated Press - Miami Herald

MEXICO CITY --

In her bustling real estate brokerage, Ana Laura Pulido is doing her best business in years, enjoying a sort of Mexican immunity from the U.S. housing crash.''It's a time of hope,'' said Pulido, who has sold hundreds of homes to middle-income families since 1992. ``The buyer today is more aware. People buy with more ease; they can plan long-term.''

Long thrashed by swings in the U.S. economy, Mexico now boasts a thriving housing sector whose record growth leads Latin America -- a sign of increased economic stability and an outlet for investors looking to escape the U.S. downturn.

Giants including the California Public Employees Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension fund, are already bankrolling projects in Mexico, where they see ''more bang for the buck,'' said Clark McKinley, spokesman for CalPERS, which has invested more than $300 million in Mexican real estate funds.

EFFECT ON EMIGRATION

The trend could even slow emigration from Mexico, by generating millions in jobs and personal savings as a fresh supply of loans gives many their first chance to own a house.

President Felipe Calderon has set a national goal of a million new mortgages a year by 2010. He recently unveiled a set of measures to ensure growth continues, with plans to boost Mexico's small resale market and combat the urban sprawl that has begun to carpet valleys with hundreds of thousands of matchbox row homes.

Behind the boom are six years of economic growth and stability -- and a national shortage of 6 million dwellings. While interest rates are falling, just 6 percent of Mexico's 25.7 million homes are financed with mortgages -- compared with about 67 percent in the U.S. Most Mexicans still inherit their homes, buy them with cash, or build them by hand.

That pent-up mortgage demand in a nation of 108 million means lenders can be choosy, enforcing strict standards that held delinquency rates below 4 percent in third quarter-2007, compared to 5.6 percent in the U.S.

''Mexico is in the early stages of expansion,'' said Juan P. De Mollein, managing director for Latin American structured finance at Standard & Poor's. ``There are still plenty of points for evolution because there's still plenty of demand.''

NO SUBPRIME MARKET

In the United States, lenders looking to expand their portfolios granted risky mortgages to borrowers with weak credit, but in Mexico, that ''subprime'' category doesn't exist, because lenders don't need it to grow. Also, few Mexicans flip homes or refinance mortgages, keeping the market more stable.

''Mexico doesn't have a credit issue. We can still choose our borrowers because demand is so great,'' said Mark Zaltzman, chief financial officer at Su Casita, one of Mexico's largest mortgage lenders.

A recession north of the border could choke U.S. investment in Mexico, curbing job creation, discouraging new buyers and stalling housing growth.

But that won't likely lead to mass layoffs and defaults, said Rafael Amiel, managing director for Latin America at the financial consultancy Global Insight. Mexico simply has too much room to grow, and expanding local markets have insulated it somewhat from U.S. downturns.

Housing demand could swell more as migrants are pushed home by the souring U.S. economy and crackdown on illegal immigration -- generating four new jobs for every home raised, said Carlos Gutierrez, Mexico's housing policy director.

All this represents a major change from 1994, when Mexico devalued the peso, sending inflation and interest rates soaring, forcing homeowners into default and pushing banks to the brink of collapse. Credit was so tight that most Mexicans paid cash or constructed their own homes, often adding one room at a time.

Since then, Mexico has seen a housing recovery built on a mix of government initiatives, private investment and a winning gamble by a new group of entrepreneurs who took a local approach to mortgage lending, using knowledge of family and neighborhood connections to make sure loans got paid.

Rather than build public housing, the government restructured mortgage-lending laws, setting stricter credit guidelines, standardizing appraisals and urging lenders to raise cash on financial markets. It also overhauled Infonavit, a public agency that grants more than half Mexico's mortgages, funded by a 5 percent payroll tax. Some 20,000 jobs were outsourced as the agency more than doubled new loans to 458,700 in 2007, director Victor Borras said.

NONBANK LENDERS

And when commercial banks ran for the border, a new kind of lender stepped in, known as ''sofoles,'' for the Spanish acronym for ``limited financial association.''

Taking advantage of Mexico's tight family ties and government credits, these nonbank mortgage lenders set up neighborhood offices, requiring relatives to co-sign loans and collecting late payments door-to-door, proving profits could be made.

Banks have since returned, and blossoming competition drove average 15-year mortgage rates to 12.5 percent in November -- a deal in Mexico, where rates topped 65 percent in 1995. Construction is booming too, as just 30 percent of new homes were self-built by their owners last year, down from 50 percent in 2004, Gutierrez said.

While big banks target higher-income borrowers, sofoles are pioneering mortgages for street vendors and taxi drivers, who work in the huge informal economy without documented salary or credit histories. Sofoles study spending habits to establish borrowers' income, offering trial payment periods to prove borrowers can afford payments on entry-level homes that range from $17,000 to $37,000.

Another huge potential market is the estimated 11 million Mexicans in the U.S., who can now buy ''cross-border'' mortgages to pay off homes in Mexico, increasing their control over the earnings they send relatives and cutting the time they need to work in the U.S. to build a future back home.

Even as home lending soars, overall debt remains low, making a Mexican credit bubble unlikely. Major mortgage insurers, including U.S.-based AIG United Guaranty and Genworth Financial, now back Mexican loans, slashing risk and making it easier for lenders to bundle and sell debt to investors as mortgage-backed securities -- raising capital to grant yet more loans.

Nearly $5.8 billion of these securities have been sold since 2003, offering investors an alternative to tumbling U.S. markets and giving Mexico's nascent pension funds, which have relied on lower-yielding government bonds, a place to store assets long-term.

Mexico's housing sector is still full of risks, including land ownership disputes, infrastructure delays and limited access to water. The emphasis on private building has concentrated developments in wealthier states, while masses of poorer people still live on dirt floors.

`A ROOF IS BEST'

Even so, millions of first-time home buyers now have an asset to leave their children, or to use as collateral to finance future spending, fueling growth.

''I always had in my head that the only thing you can give your kids as inheritance is an education and a house,'' said Antonia Correa. The 37-year-old receptionist paid $7,200 down on a three-bedroom stucco town house in a sprawling new development in Cuautitlan, outside Mexico City.

''You could be short on things,'' she said. ``But a roof is the best. It's your world, your home.''

Courts grapple with foreclosure avalanche

BY MONICA HATCHER - © Miami Herald 2008
With more than a thousand foreclosed homes queued up for the auction block in February, the Miami-Dade County Clerk of Court's office is expanding the number of days it auctions properties from two to three per week.

''We've been running into some serious problems,'' said Michael Henderson, a spokesman for the clerk's office. ``We've needed [an extra day] now for a couple of months, because it is already unmanageable with two days and we expect the caseload to increase further.''

The extra auction day is expected to be added starting in March, most likely on Fridays. Henderson said the office was trying to find the resources to pay staff and make other arrangements for the change.

Huge numbers of foreclosures have made the extra day necessary. Nearly 320 homes are being auctioned weekly in Miami-Dade, as homeowners and investors go belly-up on spiking adjustable rate loan payments. Foreclosure filings in 2007 soared 168 percent over the year before.

While lenders are buying back most properties at the auctions, Henderson said the need to add an additional auction day was mainly out of concern for investors. Winning bidders must pay the full auction price for their purchases in cash by 3 p.m.

With auctions running later than usual, Julian Dominguez Jr., an investor and president of Foreclosure Information Systems, said the 3 p.m. time gives investors, who must put at least 5 percent down in cash upon winning a bid, only 90 minutes to get to the bank and return with the difference.

''It'll make you nervous. If you've ever gone to the bank to have a cashier's check made, you might get there and there's 20 people in front of you,'' Dominguez, said. ''By the time you're out of there with your check, you're stressed.'' In Broward County, new filings have also prompted discussions about adding an extra auction day to alleviate the backlog, said Barbara Brown, court operations manager for the Broward Circuit, Civil and Family courts.

Right now, the court is asking lenders and banks to agree to extend sale dates by nearly a month. So far, that seems to be working, Brown said. Civil filings in Broward have jumped 102 percent since last year, said Brown, who added more than 90 percent of those filings were foreclosures.

''It's never been like this, not for as long as I can remember,'' Brown said. She pointed out the court has been auctioning about 240 properties per week since January, up from about 30 or 40 per week the same month last year.

Florida Property Tax Reform: Florida newcomers' lawsuit targets Save Our Homes

A lawsuit from new Florida residents seeks to throw out Save Our Homes and the property tax amendment on Tuesday's ballot, if voters approve it.

BY MARY ELLEN KLAS - MiamiHerald

TALLAHASSEE --

Robert C. Bruner, Deborah Plitnick and Stanley C. Chamberlin don't need Amendment 1 to pass on Tuesday to make their case that the state's property tax system is unconstitutional.But, if voters approve the amendment, the three new Florida residents believe it strengthens the class action lawsuit they've already filed -- and increases their chances of having a judge throw out the Save Our Homes provisions of the state Constitution.

Their claim: the portability portion of the amendment, which allows a long-time homeowner to transfer his tax savings to a new home, discriminates against newcomers to Florida and violates their state and federal constitutional right to equal protection, and the right to move from another state without facing economic harm.

''I'm standing in my backyard right now looking in my neighbor's house, which is essentially the same,'' said Chamberlin, of North Palm Beach, last week. ``My neighbor pays about $8,000 in taxes and I pay $23,000, and it's just not fair.''

Chamberlin, 72, is a retired New York stock broker who bought his home in 1999 but didn't become a full-time resident of Florida until last year. He says that when Save Our Homes was passed in 1992, voters wanted to prevent sky-rocketing property values from taxing people out of their homes. But he believes it has gone too far.

''The taxes that I pay on this house are larger than my Social Security -- which I worked my entire career to build up,'' he said. ``I'm one of the guys in theory they were trying to protect -- a senior citizen on a fixed income -- and it's eating me alive.''

The lawsuit filed in Leon County Circuit Court on Nov. 21 claims the existing Save Our Homes cap on the taxable value of a home should be invalidated, and needs to be replaced with a more equitable system that doesn't discriminate against newcomers. It also asks a judge to stop the implementation of Amendment 1, if voters approve it, because it worsens the inequities.

Chamberlin is joined in the lawsuit by Bruner, a former Indiana attorney general who bought his Tallahassee home in 2006, and Deborah Plitnick, who moved to Port Charlotte in 2005.

`REAL INEQUALITY'

''The reason it's ripe right now is because the discrepancy and disparity has increased over the years so that it has created real inequity among the citizens,'' said Doug Lyons, one of several lawyers working on behalf of the homeowners.

Another argument: the Save Our Homes annual cap on tax assessments amounts to a ''defacto residency requirement,'' he said.

The Florida Supreme Court threw out residency requirements for property taxes in 1983, after the legislature imposed a 5-year residency requirement to qualify for the increased homestead exemption. Lyons and his legal team believe the court will do it again.

''The river has gotten too wide for the crossing and we need to find something that does provide equal protection and doesn't discriminate against how long you've been living here,'' he said.

Lyons and Tallahassee attorney Bill Owens are considering filing a second class action lawsuit against the state on behalf of Florida residents who are also new homebuyers but are locked into the highest tax bracket because of the law.

TAX EXPERT'S ADVICE

This legal battle was foreshadowed a year ago by University of Georgia professor Walter Hellerstein, a tax law expert hired by the Florida Legislature to evaluate the legal consequences of implementing Save Our Homes portability.

In his 93-page analysis, he warned lawmakers that if they didn't find a way to offset the unfairness of the tax burden on first-time homeowners and newcomers to the state, Save Our Homes ''would be subject to substantial constitutional objections'' and possibly struck down.

But Republican legislative leaders and Gov. Charlie Crist, who pushed for the constitutional amendment, disagree. ''They are wrong and we are right,'' Crist said at a recent property tax rally in Miami. ``It's constitutional. I listen to Florida lawyers more than Georgia lawyers.''

Crist, who is an attorney, also offered this legal opinion: ``We're changing the constitution. How can it be more constitutional?''

But two of the legislature's top lawyers have a different opinion. House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber, a former federal prosecutor who voted against putting amendment on the ballot, said Crist is ``flat wrong.''

''The challenge isn't a state constitutional challenge; it's a federal constitutional challenge,'' he said. ``The lawyer the state hired to advise them warned us not to do exactly what we're doing.''

Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller, who voted for the amendment, believes that passage ``clearly strengthens the lawsuit. The question is how much.''

Geller proposed an alternative that would have allowed people to keep their Save Our Homes savings when they moved, but would have phased it out over 10 years.

''I was told, `No, we're not going to do it that way, and the [Senate] president's -- and mostly the governor's -- office said they are confident this version is constitutional,'' he said.

One of the governor's top legal advisors, former chief of staff George LeMieux, said Thursday that he and Crist's general counsel Paul Huck advised the governor that ``Save Our Homes has been challenged and upheld several times.''

South Florida home prices decline

BY MONICA HATCHER - Miami Herald

Broward and Miami-Dade county home prices fell in December over a year ago.The median price on existing single-family houses in Broward fell 10 percent to $329,800, according to new figures from the Florida Association of Realtors.Miami-Dade's median house price fell 5 percent to $362,500.

In condos, the price declines were more pronounced, with Broward's median condo price falling 14 percent over last year to $171,800. Miami-Dade's median condo price fell 10 percent to $263,500.

Statewide, the median sales price for existing single-family homes last month was $208,900; a year ago, it was $239,900 for a 13 percent decrease, the Realtors group reported.

Miami developer bets on condos' future

Condo builder Jorge Perez said South Florida real estate is undervalued and he's setting up a $1 billion fund to start buying properties.

BY MATTHEW HAGGMAN- Miami Herald

The condominium developer who led South Florida's high-rise building boom is making a $1 billion bet that the region's real estate market is a bargain.

Amid a slumping condo market, developer Jorge Perez is joining with a Wall Street firm to create an investor fund that will buy troubled mortgages and distressed property that ranges from raw land to finished condominium units in the southeastern United States. He will look at properties built by other developers as well as by his own Miami-based Related Group.

For months, investors have been pooling money and waiting to pounce on bargains prompted by overdevelopment, a tight credit market and overzealous investing in housing. This year is expected to be the time when opportunities arise, in part, because so many condo projects will start closings -- and many jittery buyers are expected to walk away rather than close.

With $1 billion, Perez and his investors will rank among the most well-capitalized funds trolling for deals in the region, said real estate analyst Lew Goodkin, who is advising bargain hunters, though not Perez.

The moves of Perez, the biggest high-rise condo builder in Florida and among the biggest in the country, are closely watched in the industry because he has demonstrated a knack for spotting trends and quickly taking advantage of them. While his projects span from Argentina to Atlanta, he has built -- or is building -- 12 towers in Miami's downtown and Brickell areas and several in Broward County, including Trump Hollywood in Hollywood and ICON Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale.

He said his decision to launch a vulture fund -- or an ''opportunity fund'' as he calls it -- should be interpreted as a sign of confidence in South Florida's condo market, not a reason for worry.

''I strongly believe that Miami real estate is undervalued,'' Perez said. ``Three years from now, people will look back and be amazed. Nevertheless, right now there are some people stuck in the middle of a loan who don't have any cash and need to get rid of some inventory.

''We are going to try and take advantage of that situation,'' Perez said.

He said the money is in place and contract details for the investor fund are being finalized this week. He declined to name his partner until the deal closes.

Perez, chairman and CEO of privately held Related Group, said his plan is premised on the long-term growth and success of the region's real estate market: He's buying when the market dips, using his financial strength to carry him through the downturn, and then riding it back up.

The plan, he said, is to focus primarily on properties in the Southeast, from Atlanta and Jacksonville to Miami, though he said there may be opportunities elsewhere in the country. Big chunks of unsold condos will be targeted.

Perez said the investor group intends to hold units for two to five years at a loss and then sell at a profit when, he bets, the market will have improved.

That means Perez would become a much bigger renter of apartments across the region, at least in the short-term. Perez, who was an apartment developer before building luxury condo units, said his company currently leases and manages 7,000 rental units and could handle renting many more.

The builder said the fund could also buy raw land or mortgages. ''Anything we think has value,'' he said.

Creation of the fund also positions Perez with a ready source of capital to be used in purchasing his own units, if he chooses to do so, Goodkin said.

A big challenge for many builders is what to do with excess property in the down market. Typically, builders want to avoid hasty or high-profile sell-offs that undercut previous buyers or give the appearance of a fire sale. A highly capitalized fund with a joint venture partner can be an inviting alternative.

In November, Lennar, the Miami-based home builder that's among the country's biggest, announced it was joint-venturing with Morgan Stanley to buy, develop and sell real estate. Its first deal: buying Lennar-owned properties valued at $1.3 billion for $525 million.

Perez said he has not decided to use the investor fund to buy units that his company built -- though he said he anticipates as many as 20 percent of his buyers may default on some of his projects. Perez has a host of large condo projects that will close in the next 12 months, including Brickell Avenue projects in Miami such as The Plaza and 500 Brickell.

The developer said he plans to rent unsold units in those projects himself, without the investor fund.

Still, ''[the fund] gives him a lot of flexibility in addressing inventory issues that he may have, as well as picking up distressed properties on the cheap,'' Goodkin said.

Since the downturn, Perez has responded by launching more than 10 projects in Latin America in an attempt to diversify geographically. He also has been careful about starting new projects in South Florida; he recently canceled the proposed Loft 4 condo high-rise in downtown Miami and is still deciding whether to build another downtown project, Loft 3.

Miami Architecture: Revuelta Vega Leon: The Condo Firm

Miami Architecture: Revuelta Vega Leon: The Condo Firm

By ANDRES VIGLUCCI - Miami Herald

Building dealerships proves to be a helpful sideline

When Luis Revuelta was hired by developer Ugo Colombo to design the first new Brickell high-rise condo since the bust of the 1980s, no one, not even the architect himself, could have known it was the start of the next big wave.

But the gleaming, rounded Bristol tower set the template for the boom in waterfront, high-rise development that was taller, bigger and had more luxurious amenities than its 1980s predecessors.

Revuelta's firm, Revuelta Vega Leon, which was founded in 1995, became one of Miami's leading designers of ultra-luxe residential skyscrapers.

''Everything began to snowball from there. We just basically rode the wave of residential buildings,'' Revuelta said.

The firm would grow to 40 architects as commissions flooded in. Among them was Colombo's nearby Santa Maria, even bigger and grander than the Bristol, then Jade and, in Aventura, Porto Vita, among others. Now under construction is Miami Epic Condominiums on the site of the old Dupont Plaza along the Miami River.

There was also a brush with controversy: 900 Brickell, the massive condo tower behind the Freedom Tower that critics said overpowered the icon. Amid the housing slowdown, that one has yet to start construction.

These days new condo commissions are increasingly hard to come by, Revuelta said. But there is a saving grace. The firm also has developed a subspecialty in auto dealerships since designing The Collection car store.

The firm is also doing work in the Dominican Republic; has begun advertising its services in Santiago, Chile; and has just opened an office with two associates in Atlanta to develop business in that area of the country.

''We've maintained the office the same size because we have a lot of towers under construction and still have a lot of interest for schematic designs and preliminary proposals,'' Revuelta said. ``We'll see what 2008 brings. But the way Miami has been growing and given its location, I don't think it's going to fall like Houston, which just stopped.''

World takes notice of South Florida designs

World takes notice of South Florida designs

By MIMI WHITEFIELD - Miami Herald

For many people, South Florida architecture conjures up visions of a sea of sand-colored homes with red barrel-tile roofs in subdivisions that march to the horizon, or streamlined Art Deco buildings in tropical pastels.

Miami Modern (MiMo) -- those mid-century buildings with their fanciful fins and boomerang and kidney-bean shapes -- might also come to mind.

But in the past decade or so, as Miami has remade its skyline, a sleek style has emerged that takes its cues from not only the urban context but also this area's unique environment. In the new condo towers and public buildings, walls of glass ripple like waves, and roofs sometimes look like sails. There's a boldness to these new buildings in the sub-tropics, and the world has taken notice.

Miami architecture has become as hot as the blazing sun of a July day. Not only have world-renowned architects descended to create signature buildings but there's a

freshness and verve in homegrown architecture that translates well from South Florida to Las Vegas to Dubai.

In today's cover story, ''Miami Style, Global Appeal,'' reporter Andres Viglucci traces the factors that have put South Florida architects -- from the new urbanists to the up-and-coming stars -- on the map.

Now, with a lull in a condo boom, some of the architects' ambitious projects have been relegated to the drawing board, but I have no doubt that -- eventually -- they, too, will be built.

Miami style architecture has global appeal

Miami style architecture has global appeal

By ANDRES VIGLUCCI - Miami Herald

One recent Friday evening, Bernardo Fort-Brescia, the driving force behind the rapidly expanding Miami firm Arquitectonica, was still in his Brickell office, grappling with a last-minute glitch: Drawings for a massive commercial project had to be redrawn quickly.

They were due Monday.

Halfway around the globe in Dubai.

And that likely meant, because of time differences, an all-nighter for the energetic 55-year-old architect and some of his associates.

With all the cranes hovering over downtown Miami condo projects, South Floridians might be forgiven for thinking that's all local architects ever do. But, in fact, the business of architecture, long the domain of local firms focused on parochial work, has become globalized.

In Miami, architecture is suddenly a hot commodity. As the city goes about remaking its skyline, it has become both an exporter and importer of stylish architecture.

Even as a small invasion of international starchitects such as Cesar Pelli, Frank Gehry and the Swiss firm Herzog and de Meuron grab marquee projects -- performing arts centers and new museums -- a growing number of local architects have seized on the city's new global cachet as a red-hot center of contemporary design to win big jobs abroad.

Not only are their projects going up in the Caribbean and Latin America, as one might expect, but also in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The allure, they say, is not the local Mediterranean cliché but the sleek, modern design of this area's newest high-rise condos, office towers and luxe hotels. It doesn't hurt that, just as Miami Vice in the 1980s gave global exposure to Miami Beach's pastel Art Deco rehabs, CSI:Miami, popular the world over, now spotlights the city's glittering new skyline in seductive helicopter shots.

''Miami has become a brand. It has a buzz,'' said Julio Grabiel, managing partner at Coral Gables-based Spillis Candela DMJM, whose portfolio of projects reaches from Florida to Dubai, Cairo, Oman and Kuwait. ``People have a strong image of Miami as cutting-edge. It's almost like you're prequalified if you're from Miami.''

Local architects -- from those at established firms such as Arquitectonica and Spillis Candela to up-and-comers such as Chad Oppenheim, Kobi Karp and Reinaldo Borges -- are capitalizing on a global appetite for snazzy Miami design.

The city's high-rise condo boom has provided broad exposure and opportunity for young architects to tackle big projects. Otherwise, they might have had to wait years for a chance at a 50-story downtown tower like 10 Museum Park, which was designed by 37-year-old Oppenheim's firm.

Now that the housing market has cooled, local firms also have gone prospecting for work beyond the Sunshine State.

Oppenheim's 35-person Miami firm, founded just nine years ago as a one-man shop, has residential and hotel projects under way from the Turks and Caicos to Switzerland and Dubai. Though many of the local towers his firm designed are on hold, Oppenheim said he's hiring.

'People saw what we did here and contacted us to do projects outside of Miami. [They] said, `Oh, that would be great in Las Vegas.' So now we're doing projects in Vegas,'' said Oppenheim, an Arquitectonica alum.

``In Miami our architecture, especially the residential, is about lifestyle. Miami has a sort of knack for understanding lifestyle. It's been that way since the founding of the city. It's always been about this kind of allure; it's Eden. It's always been about pleasure and fulfilling desire.''

Miami architect Reinaldo Borges also started small with just three people eight years ago, but his firm has grown to 25 and has projects that reach from Mexico and the Caribbean to Dubai to Odessa in the Ukraine, where a developer asked him to ''bring the Miami modern style'' to a waterfront project.

''We're not limited anymore to being regional practitioners,'' said Borges, who specializes in residential design from town houses to 70-story towers.

''Now we get to explore all over, and it's because of the kind of exposure we have in Miami,'' he said. His local projects include Infinity in the Brickell district.

A handful of local firms known for innovation with a traditionalist tinge also have attained national and global stature.

NEW URBANISM

Focused more on planning than architecture, firms such as Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co. and Dover, Kohl & Partners are leading proponents of New Urbanism, a movement which espouses traditional, compact, pedestrian-friendly towns and neighborhoods for new development and urban retrofits.

Since first gaining fame for creating the Florida Panhandle town of Seaside in the 1980s, DPZ has designed new towns and developments across the United States and now has projects underway in Scotland, Belgium, England, Spain and Bulgaria, among other places.

But no one has taken the Miami style as far as Arquitectonica. When Oppenheim left the firm to go out on his own, there were fewer than 20 people in Arquitectonica's Miami office, he said.

Now Arquitectonica has become a veritable colossus, with 600 employees and offices and big projects in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Hong Kong and Shanghai, to name just a few of its global outposts. From a modest start in a Coconut Grove strip mall 30 years ago, Fort-Brescia and Laurinda Spear, his wife and design partner, have nurtured Arquitectonica into this area's largest homegrown architecture and design firm and one of the fastest-growing in the country.

SELLING AN IDEA

''What is amazing about Arquitectonica is that Bernardo just went out and sold design,'' said Jose Gelabert-Navia, architecture professor at the University of Miami and managing director of the Miami office of Perkins + Will, a Chicago-based giant. ``I really admire what they've done.''

At the same time their global profile has risen, Miami architects face increased competition for work at home. Now a new class of national architectural conglomerates -- huge firms with alphabet names like HKS, HOK and RTKL -- are competing for, and winning, jobs in South Florida out of local offices, which better satisfy clients' increasing demand for close access to their architects.

Perkins + Will, for instance, which opened here in 1996, is designing major buildings for the University of Miami's medical school at the Jackson Memorial campus.

HEALTHCARE FOCUS

Since working on Jackson Memorial's Ryder Trauma Center, HKS, a Texas firm specializing in healthcare facilities and hotels, has done work across South Florida, including additions and improvements for Baptist and Miami Children's hospitals and a new hospital and academic center at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. HKS is also responsible for the top-to-bottom rehab underway at the Fontainebleau Hotel on Miami Beach.

All that work and a good prospect of more prompted HKS to send partner Francisco Gonzalez from Dallas late last year to open a 12-person office at 1221 Brickell Ave., a tower the firm had designed in the 1980s.

''In the last five years, clients have put a lot more emphasis on local services,'' Gonzalez said. ``We'd been handling it well before, flying back and forth, but that put a little bit of wear on our staff.''

For architects whose strategy is to stay local, the influx of star architects and corporate players have meant not just more competition but also more opportunity.

The Coral Gables firm of Rodriguez and Quiroga, for instance, will work with renown Briton Sir Nicholas Grimshaw's firm as associate architects on the new science museum in downtown Miami.

INCREASING DIVERSITY

''Architecture in Miami has become more diverse, like the city itself,'' said co-principal Raul Rodriguez, whose 25-year-old firm focuses on civic, school and university work. ``No one has a lock on the business. Everyone has to earn their wings every day. It's very competitive, much more than it ever was.''

At Spillis Candela, the decision to broaden the firm's work -- which includes civic, educational and commercial buildings -- and geographic reach was a way to ride out the boom-and-bust cycles that characterize the profession. Many firms also have branched out into landscape design, planning, construction management and, in some cases, engineering.

BRANCHING OUT

''To keep growing and keep the firm strong, we can't depend on the local market,'' said Grabiel, whose firm also has designed courthouses and municipal buildings from Sunny Isles and Cape Coral to Michigan and Calgary, Canada. ``It's not big enough.''

But prospects are not equally rosy for all.

The coming year could be a painful one for local firms that expanded with South Florida's astounding but now troubled high-rise condo boom. Some are sure to contract as construction jobs wind down, with few immediate prospects for new work.

''I have to believe that if things continue like this, everyone will have to start scaling down,'' said Luis Revuelta, who was named Architect of the Year by the Miami chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2007. ``It's going to affect all of us.''

US Mortgage meltdown: Now the rents

More fallout from the current housing slump - the cost of renting a home stagnated in 2007, according to an exclusive report for CNNMoney.

By Les Christie - CNN Money

NEW YORK -- Home prices dropped last year in most cities around the nation, and now rents are flattening out in many of the markets worst hit by the housing downturn.

According to data from Investment Instruments Corp. generated by their Rentometer.com site and supplied the data exclusively to CNNMoney, the median monthly rental bill for a sampling of 10 metro areas all around the United States rose just 0.5 percent in 2007 from $1,457 to $1,465.

Rentometer, which publishes rent-comparison statistics online, does not have historical rent data prior to 2007, but according to real estate consultant M/PF YieldStar, national rent increases had averaged between 2 and 3 percent annually the previous several years.

"The major factors having an impact on housing prices are foreclosures, which make more rental property available," said Owen Johnson, president of Investment Instruments, "and also foreclosures that are not happening."

In the latter case, according to Johnson, many speculators bought properties to "flip," selling them quickly in a rapidly appreciating market. In some Sun-Belt areas, investors bought condos and other properties while they were still in development, to sell when a project finished.

Other investors bought existing single-family homes or other properties, intending to do cosmetic improvements and then sell them at a profit. But before they could do that, the slump hit, and home values dropped. Instead of selling at a loss, investors of all stripes are now renting them out.

Of the 10 areas sampled by Rentometer, Atlanta and Houston rents declined the most, plunging 12.8 percent for the year. Median monthly rent for all rentals in Atlanta is now $884, and in Houston it's $779.

The New York metro area had the highest median monthly rent in 2007, at $1,729, and it posted the biggest increase of 12.8 percent. San Francisco, where it grew 8.5 percent to $1,685, and Boston, where it rose 6.8 percent to $1,528, also had strong years.

San Francisco and New York are examples where Johnson said "massive demand" more than offset increased supply. These cities compete in a "global market," he said, and, by world standards, they're still relatively inexpensive for foreign currency-based consumers taking advantage of a weak dollar.

Other cities reporting big declines included Washington (11.8 percent), Miami (9.0 percent) and Phoenix (7.3 percent).

There are unique dynamics to the rental market, according to Johnson. Rents rise and fall independently of home prices. And there's often a push-pull to rental amounts: They're pushed up when foreclosures put homeowners back in the rental market but pulled back because the supply of rentals increases.

And, while national figures tend not to be too volatile, local markets can record large swings, as they did in 2007, when four of the 10 markets covered recorded double digit gains or losses.

Sometimes small events can leverage large changes, according to Johnson. "If MIT opens a new dormitory, for example, it can decrease rents substantially all over the Boston area," he said.

Pulling just a few hundred students out of the rental market in Cambridge (where the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is located) cascades down across many neighborhoods. Suddenly, there are a lot of empty apartments in the area, and renters from other places move in, increasing inventory in their old neighborhoods.

Foreclosure rates are a wild card as well. If foreclosures unleash so much supply on a local market that home prices plummet, that opens up affordable purchases for many renters. Cities enduring slumping economies, job losses and high foreclosure rates can also have very low barriers to home ownership.

In some Cleveland neighborhoods hit hard by foreclosures and an economic slump, there are homes for sale with terms of a mere $500 down payment and $350 a month. These are owner-financed, so there's not even any grueling loan-approval process. Buying a modest home there can be cheaper than renting.

As for 2008, Johnson predicts more of the same; the strong rental markets will stay strong and the weak ones weak.

"Foreclosures have not worked their way through the system yet," he said. Overall, that will mean both additional supply on the market but more renters as well, leading to a flat national market. To top of page