ATLANTA – July 28, 2011 – Florida emerged as something of a stand-out student in the Federal Reserve’s latest report on real estate in the Southeast.

Amid gloomy reports from brokers in the Fed’s Atlanta district, authors of the closely watched economic report card noted Florida was bucking the trend and reporting positive news.

This has been a running theme in the Fed’s monthly Beige Books, with sales of Florida homes outperforming the rest of the South. In tempered language for its July report, the Fed said the Atlanta district’s reports of modest growth in home sales over the prior year came thanks to the Sunshine State.

“Gains continued to be driven largely by reports from Florida brokers. Outside Florida, the majority of contacts reported sales declined,” the report stated. “The outlook among Florida brokers was somewhat positive, but elsewhere sales are expected to remain weak.”

Tourism fared the best in the Atlanta district’s write up, with Fed authors calling it “strong.” The report noted high-end retail seemed to be gaining traction, though the retail industry as a whole is less optimistic than a year ago.

In all, the Fed described the Southeast’s economy as basically flat compared to June. That’s a bit worse than the description for the national economy as a whole, which the Fed said continued to grow, but at a more modest pace.

Copyright © 2011 The Miami Herald, Douglas Hanks. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

WASHINGTON – July 25, 2011 – The Obama administration is considering a plan that would take foreclosed homes off the market and rent them out – in a move aimed at clearing the glut of unsold foreclosed homes and preventing home values from falling any more, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The talks come at a time when national rents are on the rise and home prices have been falling. By taking advantage of higher rents, lenders would be able to cover the costs of holding the properties until the homes can be resold after the market stabilizes – and maybe even make a profit on it later, experts note.

Nationally, sales of distressed homes, which are often sold at steep discounts, continue to pull down home values. Removing some of the high number of foreclosed homes for sale is “worth looking at,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week in testimony to Congress.

Just reducing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s foreclosed property sales from its current rate of 50,000 each month to 30,000 could lessen total distressed sales by one-third and help avoid a further 3 percent to 5 percent decline in home prices, analysts at Credit Suisse estimate.

However, turning foreclosed homes into rentals could place lenders and the government in an unknown role of playing landlord.

Another idea being tossed around, according to The Wall Street Journal: Federal officials selling thousands of foreclosed properties to private investors who would agree to rent them out, and who could then work with property management firms and handle the day-to-day tenant demands.

Source: “Uncle Sam Weighs Landlord Role to Ease Housing Slump,” The Wall Street Journal (July 22, 2011)

MIAMI – July 6, 2011 – Foreign buyers are helping to stoke home sales in U.S. vacation hot spots decimated by the real estate crash, especially in southern Florida.

For the 12 months ending in March, 31 percent of Florida’s home sales were to foreign buyers, up from 10 percent in 2007, according to a survey by the National Association of Realtors.

In Arizona, 6 percent of sales in the same period were to foreigners. That was down from 11 percent last year but still up from 5 percent in 2007, the data show.

Foreign buyers are being enticed by low U.S. home prices, down 30 percent nationwide since peaking in 2006, and the weakened dollar, which makes their money go further. Since the start of 2006, the Canadian dollar has soared 18 percent against the U.S. dollar, while the euro has gained 22 percent, says data tracker Oanda.

U.S. home prices, meanwhile, have fallen far more than the national average in some places, down 55 percent from their peaks in Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Phoenix, and 36 percent in Los Angeles, says Zillow.com. Those are three of the most popular areas for foreigners searching for real estate on Trulia’s website, that company says.

Sales are so brisk in the Miami region now that more houses and condominiums could sell this year than in 2005, the peak year, says Ronald Shuffield, president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realtors in Coral Gables, Fla.

“International buyers have been the fuel for the Miami recovery,” Shuffield says.

About 40 percent of buyers are international vs. less than 35 percent before the bust, he estimates. Many buyers are South American investors snapping up condominiums to rent out, says Peter Zalewski of market researcher Condo Vultures.

In the Phoenix region, there are at least 20 percent more foreigners in the market now than usual, says Don Hammer, manager of Realty Executives in Paradise Valley, Ariz.

One of those shoppers is retired hedge fund manager Peter Duerr of Austria. He’s planning to buy a home in Scottsdale, having sold one there in 2005. “The U.S. is a great buy right now,” Duerr says.

The largest share of foreign buyers, 23 percent, come from Canada, the Realtors’ survey found. China followed at 9 percent. The survey includes foreigners living abroad, those in the U.S. with long-term visas and new immigrants.

by USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc., Julie Schmit.