Rising foreclosures are seeing the emergence of a new kind of transaction: the short sale. Unheard of even until a few years ago, these sales involve homeowners selling their homes for less than the amount of their mortgage. The sale is carried out in agreement with the bank, to avoid a foreclosure.

In the Hamptons, foreclosures were not a major concern until quite recently. The area watched other parts of the country experience a spate of repossessions but seemed to remain untouched by it.

The story however is now slowly changing. The last year has seen a steady rise in “lis pendens” or the first legal foreclosure notices in the East End area. Foreclosure auctions too have started taking place.

The Hamptons has always been an upscale area where the truly affluent have their homes. Foreclosures of $ 1 million or $3 million homes are hardly a concern for those whose homes are valued at $20 million and $ 30 million. Author Steven Gaines, who is considered an authority on the Hamptons, sums it up thus, “This has always been a place for people who could afford to live here. If one can’t, that’s fine……And if that means that you don’t have to wait three days to get a plumber, that’s good, too.”

But experts anticipate that it is the plumbers and other service providers who are likely to face the foreclosures. And too many defaulters could easily affect the economy of the Hamptons as a whole. Real estate agents too feel that no neighbourhood is safe from foreclosures.

Ashley Clark of Brooklyn’s PropertyShark , publisher of real estate research and data, points out that legal default notices and announcements of foreclosure auctions in the Hamptons would rarely be seen in newspapers even two years ago. Today however such notices appear weekly, even though their numbers are limited to one or two. Clark says, “It’s small in actual numbers and in comparison to the rest of the country, but it’s a big change for that particular area.”

ProertyShark data reveals that 415 lis pendens were filed in the five towns on the East End from October 2007 to March 2008. This reflects a 30 percent increase from the previous six months. The data also shows that 42 foreclosure auctions were scheduled for this period, an increase of 40 percent.

Real estate agents put down the foreclosures to the effect of the national foreclosure crisis and say it is no unusual that a few foreclosures will take place in the Hamptons as well. They do not anticipate a crisis and expect long term residents to remain unaffected by the situation.

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As more and more foreclosures increase due to homeowners falling behind their mortgage deals, there leaves little to be written or left on account of mortgage payments. The number of filings is slow to be delivered, and the driving number of homes on foreclosure is rising by 65% more, compared to the same time last year. Home values continue their downward spiral on a larger scale than before.

RealtyTrac has not been able to provide the adequate statistics required to note the changes in the greater rate of foreclosures. Whereby home prices have fallen, the number of second-hand houses too has been sold to mainland buyers. The rates in places like Hawaii have been quite higher than Oahu currently, coming as a surprise. Over 243,353 homes have received a nationwide fill-up. During this time last year, there had been just 147,708 homes receiving notices of being foreclosed. So, looks like the rising rates last year did not help much to pack in a corrective measure seal. About 65% higher than last year, foreclosure rates still tend to reach for the skies.

States such as Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida are among the hardest struck under a full blown foreclosure crisis. The upper class metropolitan areas in California and Florida have had nine out of the ten major areas devastated with the highest foreclosure hits. Florida’s rate of foreclosure filings has been particularly alarming in April. The Tampa Bay area has been voted to be the worst among all the metros. A high number of filings (about 35,264) had been recorded with the state of Florida with a 17% rise since March and 146% rise compared to April last year.

Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater have already seen a 9% increase in their filings in April. Florida got edged out by Arizona for its strange and overwhelming rise in foreclosure filings. Nevada and California became the primary and secondary states to have experienced this distinction. The California based real estate statistics firm, RealtyTrac, has kept a count of all these foreclosure filings for statistical and economical analysis. There have also been notices of bank repossessions, auctions, etc. not accounted for here in these figures.

On a widespread nationwide scale, one out of all 519 households received a notice last month. These filings were reportedly on 243,353 properties with a 4% rise as compared to the previous month of March. There has been approximately 65% rise in foreclosure filings in April 2008 as compared to April 2007.

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The foreclosure rate has been soaring and has jumped up by 57 percent in January over last year as lenders are taking possession of more and more houses. The lenders take possession of houses when they have been able to sell off these properties at auctions.

Across the country in January, over 233,001 homes were served with lenders’ notices as they had heavy defaults. If compared to last year, the figure was 148,425 notices. California based foreclosure analysis firm observed that almost half of these notices were served as “first – time” notices, which means that there are many new defaulters on the brink of having to face the foreclosure process.

This situation has arisen despite many of the efforts taken by lenders to help borrowers manage their mortgage plans. Many of them have modified loan plans, have reworked long-term repayment schedules mortgage terms.

RealtyTrac’s Vice President (Marketing), Rick Sharga states that people are increasingly falling into the defaulter’s list and a greater percentage of such properties are staying with the banks. The nationwide ratio of foreclosures was standing at 1:534, which means that one out of every 534 homes is facing the foreclosure wrath.

With an increase of approximately 118 percent, Arizona ranked fourth in the foreclosure list. RealtyTrac reported that over 9,000 filings have been recorded in January alone. Ranked first among the metro areas is The Cape Coral – Fort Myers area and Stockton, California is a close second. The tallied figures show an increase of 8 percent when compared with December 2007 data records.

Efforts being made to help borrowers are not yielding much as Rick Sharga comments, “The loan workout modification programs aren’t having a significant material effect on keeping properties from going back to the banks”. Repossessions by the banks showed a whopping 90 percent increase over January 2007. Even purchases by investors are not coming by for the houses reclaimed by the banks. This proves that real estate prices are falling and affecting the housing market in many areas.

The states having the highest foreclosure rates are California, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Georgia, Connecticut, Ohio and Michigan. Nevada topped the charts with 6,087 properties receiving at least one filing. With more and more statistics pouring in, it only indicates that the housing market is further slipping down. Despite the many measures taken by the Bush’s administration and the lenders’ associations, many homeowners are yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

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An increasing number of home sales are attributed to foreclosures, more so in areas that are affected the most in this real estate crisis. According to data from the Associated Press, comparison of 2007 foreclosure data shows that there is more pressure for dipping house prices not only in areas of Colorado, Michigan, Nevada and Tennessee but also in Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Ohio. In fact, 50 percent of home sales are from foreclosures in some parts of California. In addition, rate of sales in Nevada at 17.5 percent is four times that of 2006.

According to real estate experts, this growing rate of foreclosures is worsening conditions in weaker markets and having many cascading effects. Even those owners who are not under deadline pressures are foreclosing their properties. In effect, banks are under increased pressure to off load their burgeoning inventory of foreclosed properties at low prices prolonging the housing crisis. According to RealtyTrac, average price has dropped by $1000 for a foreclosure sale nationwide. This means that properties are losing value and local tax collections are further reducing. These effects are enhanced more in neighborhoods of minorities, as lending standards are the weakest for the residents here.

Many investors and real estate brokers feel that the situation is much larger than it is made out to be. Bush’s administration and top lending banks of the country have devised some sort of a relief measure where heavily indebted defaulters are given a 30-day break, for in the meantime, lenders would devise a new plan to make more affordable mortgages.

A comparison of the third quarter results (2006 Vs 2007) made by Associate Press on the annual rate of home sales nation wide data showed an increase up to 4.7 per cent vs. 3.3 percent in 2006.

The data shows that areas where lending standards were the weakest are the hardest hit. Places like Kansas, Maine and New Mexico have very low shares of foreclosure contributing to home sales at just 2 percent of total sales. Lax lending standards in prime areas have added fuel to this crisis.

National Association of Realtors is conducting an informal survey to get more detailed information to gauge the depth of this issue.

Though many experts feel that data findings do not cover foreclosure sales through auctions, the fact remains that Foreclosures are on an increase and authorities will need to put in a lot of checks and measures to bring stability in the Real Estate Housing Market.

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Midland County has achieved a lower rate of foreclosures in the year 2007 as compared to year 2006!! And the credit goes to Mr. Richard Enszer, Treasurer for Midland County.

With a goal to reduce rate of foreclosure and help people retain their real estate investments, Mr. Enszer has visited the poorest of families in Midland County, primarily to understand their issues and creating awareness among them on ways to retain their “parcels” (homes).

Quoting on some statistics for the county, he stated the following points:

1. Due to bank foreclosures, 157 owners lost their properties in year 2007 as compared to 180 owners in year 2006.
2. 2007 also saw 9 more owners having to face foreclosure as they defaulted in payments for over two years. It was the same in 2006.
3. Year 2008 would see 181 property owners having to face risk of foreclosure as they have yet to pay their property taxes due in 2005. Failure on their part to make the necessary arrangements for payment would mean that these owners will have to forfeit their right to ownership!

According to Mr. Enszer, the figure 181 can be brought down considerably by calling and visiting these owners to remind and put pressure on them to pay their dues. This in a way would enable the owners to find ways and means to repay their outstandings.

“My record is seven and, if I can beat that, that would be an awesome thing to do,” he said. Mr. Enszer states that the late payers are primarily those who are poor and those who have mismanaged their credit cards and other debt. He also claims that some people are living in completely run-down properties as the owners have no funds for maintenance. Also, some properties which are auctioned by the bank are oddly shaped and new buyers cannot do much with them, in turn they are foreclosed again.

Mr. Enszer believes that convincing neighbours of such odd shaped properties to buy the same would help bring down the foreclosure rate. In his effort, he has started to send an increasing number of reminder letters to late payers, many of who eventually find ways to retain their properties, by way of borrowing from extended family, friends and non-profit organizations. He is also creating awareness among such property holders, informing them about “hardship forms”, which enable them to get an extension for up to One year. This would give them sufficient time to arrange funds.

In order to increase the success rate of his endeavour, Mr. Enszer hopes that law makers also join him in this effort.

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