Countrywide Financial Corp, the nation’s largest home lender, is actively trying to unload 1,600 Real Estate Owned (REO) properties in Florida, including 559 in South Florida, at as much as a 40 percent discount, according to a bank source.
Countrywide needs to dump 252 properties in Miami-Dade County, 239 properties in Broward County, and 68 in Palm Beach County. The lender even has 15 REOs in the Florida Keys that need to be liquidated.
The sell off of bank-owned properties was already under way before Countrywide’s shareholders voted Wednesday to be acquired by Bank of America. The deal is expected to close on July 1, according to media reports.
Industry watchers expect Bank of America, which is acquiring Countrywide’s nationwide portfolio at a deep discount, to move aggressively and rapidly to sell off even more than the 1,600 troubled loans and assets in Florida in the upcoming months.
There is no word if Bank of America will act as aggressively with its own South Florida portfolio or simply continue to be unresponsive to short sale proposals.
Peter Zalewski is a principal with the consulting company Condo Vultures®LLC and a licensed real estate broker with Condo Vultures® Realty LLC. Peter can be reached at 305-865-5629 or by email at peter@condovultures.com. Be sure to check out Peter’s blog at CondoDump.com. Don't forget to sign up for our weekly Market Intelligence Report .
Copyright © 2008, Condo Vultures® LLC
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