Government programs have been created to assist distressed homeowners, but at little over month after the Florida Supreme Court ordered required mediation on all homesteaded foreclosures, it remains unclear how much help the latest move offers South Floridians.

The Dec. 28 court decision sounded like a measure of real relief, but for homeowners seeking short sales, it hasn’t made much of an impact, said Fort Lauderdale real estate attorney and foreclosure mediator Shari Olefson. Still, she thinks mediation could start to help distressed homeowners, including those who want a short sale.

In concert with some key federal programs, Olefson is optimistic that a once intractable quagmire of regional mortgage woes could improve. In the alphabet soup of a crisis, she points to a pair of federal programs, Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program and the Home Owner Affordable Modification Program, which could break up the logjam of missed payments and foreclosure proceedings that have jammed courts throughout the state. [more]

Buying a condominium in South Florida for $100,000 seems improbable, even impossible. But it’s not. Plenty now languish on the market, despite selling for a song.

The implosion of the overbuilt condo sector in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties has caused a price retreat to 2003 levels.

Indeed, the recently released September condo sales report from the Florida Association of Realtors showed median prices of $78,300 in Broward and $106,700 in Palm Beach counties, respectively. In Miami-Dade County, where prices fell 37 percent from the previous year, the median stood at $132,900.

As prospects wait and condo prices in South Florida keep falling, prices going below $100,000 — a return to pre-boom levels — could bring more buyers off the sidelines. [more]

From the South Florida Web site: It’s a Palm Beach mansion already linked to financial infamy, but Bernie Madoff’s 410 N. Lake Way five-bedroom house also gets the sharpest sort of dismissal — it lacks curb appeal. The vine-obscured, wood-frame house is on the market for $8.49 million, but veteran Palm Beach real estate agent Douglas Rill called it a very ordinary property. Jim McCann, senior sales associate for Corcoran Group, the Palm Beach real estate firm handling the listing for the U.S. Marshals Service, said the house is in good condition and could appeal to a buyer not interested in drawing attention to himself. He added that he has been showing the home almost every day, and has already received a number of offers, though none have been accepted.