Burt Reynolds sees his Florida mansion go into foreclosure
Yes, even Hollywood movie stars are facing foreclosure.
Burt Reynolds has been hit with a foreclosure notice on his waterfront mansion in Hobe Sound, Fla. The star of "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Boogie Nights" (for which Reynolds was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor ) hasn't made payments for the past year, and owes $1.2 million on the mortgage, according to a lawsuit filed by Merrill Lynch Credit Corporation.
Reynolds first put the 5-bedroom, 7-bathroom waterfront home up for sale in 2005 for $15 million. He's cut the price several times, but it hasn't sold. If you're in the market, the three-acre estate includes a screening room, billiard room, gym. and a 2,000-square foot guest house, heated pool, dock, and helipad.
Reynolds has plenty of company in Florida. The state was one of the hottest real estate markets in the country until the 2008 financial crisis. Today, it's No. 6 among the Top 10 states with the highest foreclosure rates. There are 22,377 foreclosure fillings in July. One in every 396 households is in foreclosure.
Foreclosure rates in Florida and nationally are declining – down 35 percent from the same period a year ago, reports RealtyTrac's July 2011 Foreclosure Market Report. But most analysts don't see that as a sign of economic recovery. “Unfortunately, the falloff in foreclosures is not based on a robust recovery in the housing market but on short-term interventions and delays that will extend the current housing market woes into 2012 and beyond," said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac.
In a report released yesterday, foreclosure rates were cited as part of the rise in the US poverty rate, which was up in 38 states, The Christian Science Monitor reported.
With record high unemployment (12.1 percent) and home foreclosure rates, Nevada saw a 38 percent increase in child poverty over the past decade. Foreclosures have affected the lives of 13 percent of the children in Nevada (the highest such rate in the US), and about one-third of all Nevada children were in families where neither parent had full-time work in 2009.
But the foreclosure rate is as uneven as the American economic recovery. For a look at cities where the real estate market isn't hurting due to foreclosures, check out "Top 5 Cities with the Fewest Foreclosures."
