Hi everyone who's kept this thread alive during my absence from the site.  I'm now back in Miami, staying in a small rented apartment near Miami Beach.  I have my wife and two babies with me, which is quite a handful.

If any of you've followed my posts from the last time I was in Miami, you'll recall I became obsessed with a water front property (facing the intercoastal waterway, but just a few blocks from Miami Beach).   It came on the market at the end of October 2010, and it was a hot REO, attracting so many bids that the bank closed the bidding after about a week.  Even though I put in a bid 25% higher than the asking price, I didn't get it.  Someone must have bid much higher than me. 

It turns out that the person who won the bidding pulled out of the purchase during the inspection period (that's a period the banks give you to decide whether to go ahead with the purchase: if you pull out during this phase you get your full deposit back).  I don't know why the buyer pulled out (either he couldn't come up with the amount he'd bid, or he just didn't like what he found out about the property during the full inspection).  So the property came back on the market earlier this month.  This time I bid nearly 50% above the asking price, and it seems like I have won the bidding.  I say "seems like" because this bank is notoriously slow: it took them 2 weeks after they closed the bidding to let me know I'd won, and now it's been a week since I signed the final contract (and paid the deposit directly to them) and I still haven't received the signed contract back from them.  The estate agent (who is the REO listing agent, as I made sure I tracked her down before putting in my bid) assures me they're always this sloppy, but I'm not getting my hopes up until I've bagged the property.