👀 Trust This. HUD Funds Florida, Stealing Home, & Snakes + Grass

👋 Happy ☘️ St. Patrick’s Day ☘️! Savannah is the place to be this weekend when the river runs green, and everyone celebrates in style.

1 big thing: Bank runs and real estate

If you haven’t heard, two banks failed last week because of old-fashioned panicked bank runs, and the banks couldn’t cover the demanded withdrawals.

Why it matters: For the housing market, the collapse of two banks, one being the third-largest bank failure in US history, meant lower mortgage rates and optimism for even lower rates to come.

What's next: The Fed meets next week to determine what to do with its lending interest rate.

Bond traders seeking higher returns and yields turned away from their bearish outlook and bought 10-year bonds. This in turn pushed mortgage rates down.

The bottom line: The recent bank failures have positively affected the housing market. The upcoming Fed meeting will determine whether or not there will be a further decrease in lending interest rates. While mortgage rates don’t always track with the Fed’s rate, it’s a good indicator of things to come.

2. New bill to reduce property fraud

Florida Sen. Jennifer Bradley introduced Senate Bill 1436 on Tuesday to combat real property fraud.

Why it matters: The bill, if it becomes law, would require clerks of court to create, maintain, and operate an opt-in recording notification service.

The recording notification system requirements match the functionality of systems that are in place in many Florida counties. Still, the bill goes into much more detail about how the systems must function.

The bill requires Clerks to also provide a simplified form of complaint that victims can complete and file to strike a fraudulent instrument from the records to quiet the title in the victim.

Within five days of signing a listing agreement, REALTORs would be required to send a copy of a signed listing agreement to the address of the property owner shown on the tax records.

Title agents also would be required to physically mail statutory notices to the owners listed on the tax records within five days of opening a new title order for a sale or refinance of the owner’s property.

Finally, the bill prescribes a form to be used for quitclaim deeds and requires that all deeds include the mailing address of each witness under their signatures.

Our thought bubble: Professionals should adopt the listing and title order opening notifications, in addition to the witness addresses, even if this bill doesn’t pass.

Yes, but: Without funds appropriated to clerks for the electronic notification system and the summary quiet title actions, we don’t see this bill becoming law this year.

3. Catch up fast

4. Pic of the day

Tis the season for Orlando’s bougainvillea bushes to be in overdrive. They’re beautiful, but anyone who has ever had to trim one knows how painful they can be if one of their inch-long thorns finds its way through your skin.

The bottom line: As the old saying goes, every night has its dawn, and every rose has its thorn.

We hope you found this helpful — any feedback is appreciated and can be shared by hitting reply or using the feedback feature below.

Be on the lookout for our next issue! 👋