The Pulse of Central Florida Real Estate, With a Focus on Luxury

By Susan Jacobson-Orlando Sentinel

Law officers say Hudson Gabay bilked investors out of $15 million.

A man who investigators say led a lavish lifestyle on millions of dollars he bilked from investors in an Osceola real-estate scheme was arrested Wednesday night in Miami.

Acting on a tip, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found Hudson Gabay about 7 p.m., said Danny Banks chief of investigations for the FDLE's Orlando region.

Details of the capture were not immediately available.

Article by Alan Zibel-AP Real Estate Writer, Photograph by Nati Harnik-AP

WASHINGTON – Sales of new homes surged 27 percent last month, bouncing off the previous month's record low and blowing past expectations as government incentives and better weather boosted sales.

The Commerce Department said Friday that new home sales rose in March to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 411,000. It was the strongest month since last July and the biggest monthly increase in 47 years.

Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected a sales pace of 330,000. February's results were revised upward to 324,000, but remained an all-time low. Sales had been especially weak over the winter, partly due to bad weather in much of the country.

The median sales price was $214,000, up more than 4 percent from a year earlier but down more than 3 percent from February.

Article by Kevin Spear-Orlando Sentinel, Photograph by Joe Burbank-Orlando Sentinel

An electric car that David Norvell drives for errands at the University of Central FLorida has an enormous solar panel bolted to its roof and is meant to draw a lot of attention.

The university-owned car earns an A for getting students to look up from their laptops or one another to take in a rolling symbol of the profound environmental remake getting under way at the school.

As of today, the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, UCF and more than 600 other colleges and universities have pledged to become "climate-neutral," meaning that their institutions will eventually stop adding climate-warming gases such as carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

The goal is so complex and challenging that UCF expects to take 40 years to achieve it. Buildings will have to become much stingier with energy, students and professors will have to drive far less, carbon-free sources of electricity such as solar will have to come online, and carbon-absorbing forests will have to planted.

By Anna Prior-The Wall Street Journal

The federal government launched rules earlier this month to help facilitate short sales. But for some homeowners who are unable to complete a short sale or who don't qualify for one, there may be an alternative to foreclosure. (With a short sale, the bank agrees to let you sell the house for less than the value of your mortgage.)

The alternative is a "deed in lieu of foreclosure" agreement, which allows homeowners to voluntarily turn over the deed to their house to the lender.

This option often allows the homeowners to negotiate more favorable exit terms than a foreclosure allows, including staying in the home for several extra months or potentially lessening the negative impact on their credit, says , vice president at mortgage-education firm HSH Associates.

Lenders may be willing to go for the agreement, Mr. Gumbinger says, because they can potentially save tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and other costs associated with a foreclosure.