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| Florida bank woes linger as failures mount
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| If the banking industry is now in the "clean-up phase," as a top regulator puts it, the mops will be working overtime in Florida. Florida's financial institutions lost a combined $643 million in the first quarter of 2009. More than half of the banks and three-fourths of the thrifts were unprofitable. Still grappling with the real estate crash, only three of the 21 banks based in Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties turned a profit in the first quarter.
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| @ Sarasota Herald Tribune | Posted: 06/29/09 at 0201 EDST
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| Data suggest more moving out of Florida
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| Data from moving companies and the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles suggest that fewer people are moving to the state and, at the very least, an equal number of residents are moving out. Atlas Van Lines moved a total of 5,277 households into the state in 2008, but moved out 6,367 households, according to the moving company’s migration study. Those numbers compare with the 9,069 households moving into Florida and the 7,180 moving out in 2004, when the state’s real estate market was just heating up.
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| @ Bradenton Herald | Posted: 06/29/09 at 0315 EDST
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| Many of SE Florida's banks on shaky ground in 1st quarter
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| Many of the region's banks remained on shaky financial footing during the first three months of 2009, according to the latest data from BauerFinancial Inc., a research firm in Coral Gables. Of the 72 financial institutions that take deposits in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, 20 received safety ratings of "problematic" or lower.
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| @ Palm Beach Post | Posted: 06/29/09 at 0320 EDST
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| Appraisers attack new rules
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| In a blaring online video making the rounds in some real-estate circles, two men wearing black shirts denounce changes in the way properties now get appraised. The men verbally blast a set of national reforms called the Home Valuation Code of Conduct, which took effect in May and was drafted to keep appraisers from altering property values to please lenders. The code was initiated after New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo prosecuted the giant home-mortgage lender Washington Mutual in 2007 for working in collusion with a large appraisal firm. The code is the result of a 2008 agreement between the giant mortgage backer Fannie Mae and its government regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Cuomo's office imposing new appraisal policies that effectively distance appraisers and lenders.
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| @ Orlando Sentinel
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| Tampa Bay real estate market feels drag of Michigan, Ohio, New York
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| All real estate is local — until it isn't. You'd think that after eight months of home sale increases and five months of home price stability, the Tampa Bay housing market wouldn't still whimper like a 95-pound weakling. One of the causes of our real estate anemia is out-of-staters. Our feeder markets — the cities up North that supply the bulk of our domestic migration — just aren't feeding.
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| @ St. Petersburg Times | Posted: 06/29/09 at 0345 EDST
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| Personal income increased $167.1 billion, or 1.4 percent in May
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| Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $178.1 billion, or 1.6 percent. The May change in DPI was boosted as a result of provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Provisions of the Act reduced personal current taxes and increased government social benefit payments. Excluding these special factors, which are discussed more fully below, DPI increased $20.6 billion, or 0.2 percent, in May, following an increase of $101.3 billion, or 0.9 percent, in April.
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| @ Bureau of Economic Analysis | Posted: 06/29/09 at 0400 EDST
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| U.S. Michigan Consumer Sentiment Increased to 70.8
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| Confidence among U.S. consumers rose this month for a fourth straight time, reflecting signs that the worst of the recession has passed. The Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment gained to 70.8, the highest level since February 2008, from 68.7 in May. Today’s measure compares with a preliminary June reading of 69. During the expansion that began in late 2001 and ended in December 2007, the index averaged 89.2.
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| @ Bloomberg News | Posted: 06/29/09 at 0415 EDST
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| U.S. housing misery poised to enter new phase
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| Big risk factors that could spur more foreclosures include expectations of rising unemployment and the forecast resetting of interest rates on 2.8 million subprime and Alt-A mortgages in the next two years. Delinquency rates on mortgage payments typically rise in tandem with unemployment, which is expected to top 10 percent after hitting a 25-year high of 9.4 percent in May. And when mortgages interest rates reset, they are typically at higher rates that can cause monthly payments to balloon.
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| @ Reuters | Posted: 06/29/09 at 0419 EDST
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| European June Economic Confidence Increases More Than Forecast
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| An index of executive and consumer sentiment in the 16 nations that use the euro increased to 73.3, the highest since November, from a revised 70.2 in May, the European Commission in Brussels said today.
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| @ Bloomberg News | Posted: 06/29/09 at 0646 EDST
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| Property slump hits UK spending plans
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| Plans by Gordon Brown to raise £16bn from asset sales between 2011 and 2014 to help rescue public finances are looking increasingly unrealistic in the latest sign of the government’s tough fiscal situation. The prime minister’s belief that property sales can make up nearly 90 per cent of the target now seems precarious, given the savage collapse in the real estate market.
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| @ Financial Times - UK | Posted: 06/29/09 at 0652 EDST
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| Putting a Brave Face on the Aviation Crisis
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| The prospects for the aviation industry are bleak, but executives are trying to put a positive spin on the situation. At the Paris Air Show, champagne and fighter jets are intended to distract attention from the lack of orders
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| @ Der Spiegel | Posted: 06/29/09 at 0655 EDST
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