Foreclosure Freeze Already Having an Effect on South Florida

The Miami Realtors Association is already seeing the effects of the current decision by several banks to put a moratorium on foreclosures. In the past two weeks, 1,154 REOs have been cancelled, withdrawn, terminated or temporary taken off the market according to Southeast Florida Shared MLS Database. In the two-week period immediately preceeding the announcement, only 225 were removed.

A nationwide foreclosure moratorium (possibly being considered by Congress) would devastate the recovery of the home market, which is vital to our economic recovery. Realtors believe that all homeowners should have due process and are proposing that banks do the following while REO’s are under review:

Allow pending foreclosures to be considered for expedited short sales.
Streamline the short sale process by pre-approving the seller in advance and determining a list price and minimum net proceeds amount before accepting any offers on the property.
Establishing a process to review all offers within a specified time period with heavy consideration given to the highest and best offer, no the current model of one offer at a time.
Ask homeowners to consider a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure and negotiate the deficiency amount.

What are your thoughts or suggestions?