The housing market in South Florida took the downturn in housing hit flush on the chin. Today, it’s among the top regions in the nation for mortgage defaults and foreclosures.

As a result, home values came hurtling back to Earth — many as much as 50 percent or more from their pre-crash equity — like cosmic fireballs. That has enticed opportunistic, cash-laden investors to snatch up real estate at drastically reduced prices.

In fact, a recent report in the Miami Herald reveals that in May 2011 “home sales continued to rise, keeping South Florida on track to have its best year on record.” In addition, “in the first five months of the year, more than 23,000 homes and condos have traded hands in South Florida, one of the strongest five-month runs on record.”

While sales are clearly brisk, going in the opposite direction of national trends and actually setting records, home prices in South Florida continue to plummet. Typically, when demand increases, so does the cost of doing business.

Apparently that’s not the case in this market.

The large existing (and unknown) inventory of distressed real estate — cheap foreclosures and short sales — is likely to blame for the current situation. Ron Shuffield, president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realty, attempts to explain it:

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Our nation’s most recent — and now deceased — Public Enemy #1 was none other than Osama bin Laden.

The elusive mastermind and figurehead of the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization, al-Qaida, was recently shot and killed in a daring raid on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, ending a 10-year manhunt for the man who planned the deadly attacks on the United States back on Sept. 11, 2001.

Despite his seemingly humble rag-tag existence, bin Laden was a man of wealth, inheriting more than $300 million when his billionaire father, who was a construction magnate in Saudi Arabia, died in a plane crash in 1967.

He was also not an only child. Not even close — he has more than 50 siblings. And most of them, unlike their sinister brother, are well-to-do business men and women.

Khalil bin Laden actually owned a luxurious 1920s-era vacation home in Oakland, Fla., up until the 9/11 attacks. He quickly vacated the five-bedroom, Mediterranean-style mansion,”fearing they might be targeted because of the terrorist attacks,” according to an Associated Press report today, and sold it for $4 million in 2006.

That home, which overlooks 1,200 feet of private lake shoreline, as well as boasts a pool, horse stables and a four-car detached garage, is now the subject of foreclosure after the unnamed businessman who purchased it defaulted on the mortgage.

It is now on the market with a drastically reduced asking price of $1.99 million. Although is has been described as an “amazing property,” Forbes recently branded it as one of the “creepiest abandoned mansions” in the nation.

Ouch.

Not funny “ha-ha,” but more like funny “uh-oh.”

First, SunSentinel.com passes along news that Elizabeth Bolinger was served with a foreclosure notice on an Oakland Park, Fla., condominium that she sold more than 14 years ago.

Here’s the reason, apparently:

“Bolinger was notified because while she sold the property as an individual in 1996, it was owned in a trust, meaning the transfer didn’t legally occur…. The loan’s servicing recently was transferred from Chase to IBM Lender Business Process Services Inc.”

Meanwhile, right up I-95 in West Palm Beach, Fla., there were 110 foreclosure sales in which the banks made no bids on the homes. As a result, investors on-site were able to snatch some of them up for as little as $200.

Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it is, actually.

The Palm Beach Post explains:

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It’s not in the “Guinness Book of World Records” (yet), but Patsy Campbell of Okeechobee, Fla., may have the inside track on perhaps the longest-running foreclosure case, which has lasted a jaw-dropping 25 years.

The Wall Street Journal provides perspective:

“Ms. Campbell’s foreclosure case has outlasted two marriages, three recessions and four presidents. She has seen seven great-grandchildren born, plum real-estate markets come and go and the ownership of her mortgage change six times.”

That’s right, the 71-year-old retired insurance saleswoman has not paid her mortgage since 1985!

How’d she do it?

“Stalling tactics,” according to the poor soul who is now attempting to finally close the case, Robert Summers, who represents Commercial Services of Perry, which claims it currently owns Ms. Campbell’s mortgage.

It also appears that luck in the form of several bank collapses carried her through the late 1980s and the entire decade thereafter.

Here’s just a taste of the quarter-century paper chase:

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