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Posts Tagged ‘Foreclosed Properties’

Lenders End Up Repossessing Homes In Foreclosure Processings

Friday, June 6th, 2008

When it comes to foreclosure auctioning, often, as no third party bidders offered to buy the foreclosed properties the estates got auctioned off with the mortgage lenders repossessing their claims through the reclamation of these properties. Sean O’Toole of ForeclosureRadar.com has said that despite the situations of lenders often offering bigger discounts at courthouses and to auctioneers, 98% of the state’s foreclosed properties in April failed to draw much attention to seek buyers. The result was that the lenders took the bulk possession of these properties en masse. These properties come to be known as REOs due to their real estate ownership possessed by banks and other such financial institutions. The banks also try to sell off their homes through the real estate agents on the list of local listing services, in terms of property related issues.

The Santa Clara County averaged a discount of 15% off of the value being tracked as mortgage foreclosures. This means that the previous homeowner had held a mortgage rate balance of $400,000 while the lender had started the initial auction of bidding at $340,000. O’Toole has also suggested that the notifications of defaults are on the rise still with the foreclosure crisis still at a stage where it needs immense help and resurgence to get the overall economy coming back to stabilized normalization. The situation is deepening instead of balancing off on a level. In April, 44,101 notices of foreclosure had risen on a state-wide level. There has been a hike of 14% in April, as compared to January 2008. He has even commented that lenders failing to start approving their short sale periods rather quickly, would have to take the homeowners through the foreclosure process as soon as they can sense an end approaching.

A short sale occurs when a lender lets a homeowner sell part of the property for less than the balance acquired through mortgage so that long-term foreclosure gets avoided. But the approval process getting to be slow eats up a lot of time. Realtors tend to complain daily that to pay market for a particular house there has to be nodding and willing lenders who are simply not there at the most needed times. O’Toole has even said that the lenders’ best interests may be preserved in making a rapid short sale process and as the home prices keep dwindling down there comes the greater necessity to do so soon.

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Bay Area Reeling Under The Weight Of Foreclosures

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

Around 2% of the U.S. households went down with some heavy blow of foreclosure during the month of April. Foreclosed real estate properties continue piling up heavily with the addition of homes on the market and the dragging down of real estate prices. The impact has been felt mostly with foreclosure concentrations in areas like Southern California, Las Vegas, South Florida and areas of Arizona. The hardest hit in recent times seems to be the Bay area. Bay area and Florida foreclosures in fact seem to be on a continuous roll, moving upwards continuously with the passage of time.

The foreclosure filings that took place in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties from January 2007 to January 2008 have also been plentiful. The mortgage crisis resulting in the foreclosure call in these neighborhoods has not been new, while repossessions by banks and auctioning of properties have also been frequent. As ForeclosureRadar.com investigated, last month’s foreclosure count has gone up to 22,838 on a state-wide level in the entire South Bay area. That is in fact an average of 1,038 homes being auctioned off with daily business transactions. Business in the real estate market in April has been filled with these incidents, as reported by President and founder of ForeclosureRadar.com, Sean O’Toole.

The Santa Clara County has seen 500 properties foreclosed in April itself. This was a 47% rise since March of this year. As compared to April last year, there has been a 585% increase in overall properties getting foreclosed. The county of Santa Clara ranked 40th among other Californian counties in terms of foreclosures taking place per capita. The total amount of loans being foreclosed upon the county the previous month was $292.4 million at one go!

When a mortgage or money lender or loan servicing company files a notification process of default over any property, the foreclosure process starts to begin. However, a few months into the property ownership, when the mortgage payments cease, then the owner is also unable to sell off the property concerned. This generally takes place four months later, after the foreclosure process sets in, and the owner has stopped paying the monthly mortgage installments. If the owner fails to get up to date with his payment the property gets foreclosed. It then gets foreclosed with an auction sale as a concluding process, or it could even get ceased by the bank or get auctioned off at the court or any other such legal public venue.

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Foreclosures Create Havoc In Florida

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

As the real estate industry in Florida keep on hiking up with their giant rise in foreclosures, The Irvine, a California-based company, said that Florida had 35,264 properties involved in some kind of foreclosure related issues in April itself. This is also a rise of 16.6% since March and a height of 146% since a year back. The second highest rate of foreclosure rising is the current one, closely following California. The statistics represent that one out of every 242 homes gets foreclosed here. Though a mere 2% of households keep getting foreclosed nationwide, the present rate of foreclosure rising in any state, contribute a great deal to wreck havoc in the overall economy.

James Saccacio of RealtyTrac reports that in the course of this year, areas in California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, continue to be particularly susceptible to greater hits of the foreclosure crisis. This would in a way multiply the dangers of incurring higher property taxes, eroding the values of existing homes, and putting the entire municipal budgets into a serious pressure. The bloated inventories to the buying and selling of properties have been largely the result of full grown foreclosures in the above mentioned states.

Areas like Vallejo in California had to file for a severe case of bankruptcy with the report of the sixth highest foreclosure rate in the nation. Both Florida and California continue to be on an upswing with their massive rate of increase in their foreclosures, and 9 out of their top 10 metropolitan areas have experienced really high foreclosure rates. The Tampa-St. Petersburg area does not come in the national highest ranking of foreclosed properties. Nonetheless the main Florida metros, as listed are Cape Coral-Fort Myers at No.5, Port St. Lucie-Fort Pierce at No.9 and Fort Lauderdale at No.10.

Foreclosures.com, however, has offered slightly different statistics, reporting that 44,825 households claimed to be under foreclosure in April itself. This is a rise of about 2.4% since March. Also, this claim makes the foreclosure rates higher by 22% since the beginning of the first year. During the first four months of this year, Florida seems to have experienced a filing of 162,316 which is the highest in the nation so far this year. Hillsborough County’s foreclosure count revealed it to be pretty stable between March and April. But, they are again on the rise by 46% since the start of the year. Pinnelas County is again up by 12% since the last month but they are factually revealed to be down by 8.1% since the count at the beginning of the year.

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Foreclosure Reductions To Be Taken Seriously

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

It is high time with the nationwide rise in foreclosed properties that the government ought to do something constructive about resolving this crisis as well as helping those families who have already been led astray with the highly uncontrollable rise in mortgage rates. To help the economy get back on its feet, and start functioning in a healthy and balanced manner, a plan to reduce uprising foreclosure ought to be the top highlight of the day.

As defaulters and foreclosures rise, there is no way that any sort of economic growth and movement can be witnessed. Both the high number of defaults as well as the rapid foreclosures has given the rise to the subprime loan rate crisis. In this regard, Bear Sterns is possibly the most notorious of all housing investment dealers in letting the subprime crisis get out of hand, along with being on the lending side of many subprime loans as well as packaging loans, creating full fledged mayhem. It has been noted by experienced finance consultants that the Feds are doing more to help the Bear than the people suffering under deplorable conditions.

Addressing these financial conditions only need to be done one at a time while on a step by step process, otherwise nothing worthwhile will be accomplished. There also requires to be given a more focused attention in addressing the quality of those assets that need institutional holding. As NCRC’s Carr has reported, “There has to be a plan…” And this being nothing random but a detailed one that deals with the loans that are increasing in a lopsided way. Carr goes on to say that more and more people await their homes’ failure to hold against the rising mortgage as housing prices continue sliding down.

Last year home prices fell by 8.9% while the highest decline was recorded in the Case-Shiller home price index. This had actually taken place 20 years ago and according to a very recent survey of the index rate the same thing has got repeated! Foreclosure rates soared by 60% during February last year, but then went down by 40% since January this year. According to RealtyTrac, a large increase in foreclosure activities have been forecast during the latter half of this year.

Danilo Pelletiere of the National Low Income Housing Coalition has said that there has been purposely no attention given or action received for helping all those on low income and are owning homes too that are on loan. These people are the ones in real trouble and are likely to need to be bailed out into the light so that they can invest their precious money into something worthwhile and wealth giving.

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People Prefer Selling Out To Foreclosure

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

A steady and growing reluctance to get into the housing market has become part of the reason why worrying over housing prices become futile. Housing prices are going to fall anyways, and thus it becomes a good stance for buyers to consider selling out now.

The tremendously high number of falling property prices has resulted in the growth of one fall-out in every four properties and four out of ten have seen a fall in their price. This is a decrease in the rate, considering the situation about a couple of years back.

The expectations from rising properties in the South have been the greatest with the Westerners predicting that they are likely to drop. So, the buying period may be looking good but all is not as rosy for anybody trying to sell as Robert Jackson, a resident of Ferguson admits. Jackson lives in a two-bedroom flat with his wife and four young children. He assesses that he would love to purchase a larger and more affordable home, but there is a void in the number of buyers for his existing property. In selling it, he would also likely lose thousands of dollars as the situation is not all that good for the real estate market in his neighborhood, with a high rate of foreclosed properties all around his house. In fact, the huge number of foreclosures, having soared record-breaking levels, has resulted in the downfall of the entire housing economy. Properties bought two years back, like that of Ferguson, just don’t have that economic value anymore. Until the market looks promising for an improvement, there comes to be no real reason to make a property deal just yet.

Local housing prices have in fact gone down by 35% with the disputable public sentiments regarding this problem. It is quite understandable why the housing market looks so grim. Half the homes remain overpriced, especially in the north eastern region. Only one out of the ten houses has doubled in their pricing, while Midwesterners are likely to feel this rise than in any other neighborhood.

Some of the areas in the county have defied the age old trends with regards to property deals. Laurie Jensen, a single mother of three kids, is actually struggling to make her payments in time. Her home is in Whitehall, Mont., and she has come to work as a part-time flagger in the construction business and often remains unemployed. She wishes to move to the outskirts of the town to avoid an impending foreclosure but the areas she is considering, have bucked the trend, and the prices have gone up.

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Ranks Of Tenants Keep Swelling Due To Foreclosures

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

The massive number of foreclosures has indeed helped tenants to take their numbers higher and higher still. A study released on Wednesday, by the Harvard University’s Joint Center of Housing Studies, sets these facts to becoming the general order of the day. The study shows that U.S. renters have in fact increased by a massive one million during the past one year. This growth has taken place by four times the number from 2003 to 2006, taking the current figure to 35.1 million people! There has been a massive demand for rental properties as well recently.

As prices rise, the competition gets higher and cruder. The rent rates have skyrocketed to a record $775 per month on average. Only about a one-third of the rental properties are single-family households. While the rest of the buildings are apartments, it is hard for foreclosed homeowners to find an appropriate and affordable home in the right kind of price range. According to the center’s senior scholar, William Apgar, this tends to be a major problem.

Even though hundreds of thousands of rental properties have come up to the surface in the form of houses and condos, many have gone back to the hands of the bank that had lent money on them. Very few of these properties were being offered to tenants as the lenders would not want their properties to be under the hands of the bank, or in the property management business either. So, many of these properties lay vacant too! The owner of WestsideRentals.com, Mark Verge, has reported that they get over 7,000 to 8,000 inquiries a month from prospective buyers. The Santa Monica based company states that this is 15% higher compared to what was on last year. Mostly the enquiries are made by people undergoing foreclosures or having faced foreclosure of their property already, and seeking immediate rented places.

The problem is in fact expected to keep getting worse with the fillings being reported to be on 649,917 properties in the first quarter of 2008 itself. About 23% of this only seems to have been taken from the previous quarter, and 116% from a year earlier! All this data suggest that more and more filings are on the rise during the rest of the year. According to RealtyTrac, an online market place for foreclosed properties, this is the grim situation that is leading to greater crisis, and not helping families fresh out of foreclosures to get immediate rented homes.

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Bay Area Faces Mass Foreclosure Problems

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

A couple who returned a few months back to their mortgaged property in the Bay Area, after having spent a short vacation at Fort Bliss of Texas, have ceased unpacking even now as the situation is still very dicey in their area. Whenever they have tried to contact their lender for a modification in the loan amount the negotiation has been terminated. These hapless families with a frustratingly one-sided lender response have nothing better to do now than wait for the interest rates to come down, or face foreclosure.

Nicklaus Skaggs, an army official who is to be redeployed to Iraq, leaving his family behind, would have been at a worse situation sticking to his mortgaged property in the Bay Area. He retires from the army after he is able to return from Iraq and then he hopes to buy a new house in Louisville in Kentucky. That being his hometown he also feels secure with their property rates. He even wishes to pursue alternate courses in the form of a bachelor’s degree, followed up with an MBA.

However, he can leave behind his family at ease, with a residence that does not pay for house expenses much. After abandoning their loaned property due to the ever increasing mortgage, the family has been relatively pressure-free. After being released from the eight-month old foreclosure process, they are now finally free to make arrangements for a small-scale rented apartment. They even look forward to saving up for the down payment for a new home in Kentucky. As many people have got completely swept off with the foreclosure tide, they really look to this as a positive aspect in their lives for having tided over this foreclosure wave gracefully. Nevertheless, they hope that lenders extend some grace to people like them who have been almost readily submerged under the financial crisis.

Skaggs finds this to be the best financial situation with doing what is right for the family as being pragmatic enough in every possible way considering the current situation. He in fact doesn’t care about being judged in trying to save his family from this crisis. He does not want to lose any further money for paying some mortgage amount to save something that would eventually drown in the longer run.

Meanwhile, foreclosure rates near around Bay Area face tremendous variations. While cities like San Francisco have relatively lesser number of foreclosed properties, there are those in Contra Costa and Solano that have counties lying under heavy blows received from repeated foreclosures.

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Loan Modifications Leave Dent In Pockets Of Banks

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Many loan modifications have indeed worked for the benefit of the public, leaving a dent in the financial state of many banks and lending institutions. Up until now, there has been loan modifications that have helped in freezing the interest rates or repayment issues in arrears. However, there have also been benefits occurring too. Recently in a speech, Ben Bernanke, the chairman of Federal Reserve, has urged lenders to reduce their mortgage amounts. This way, many homeowners would have the chance to stick to their properties and avoid foreclosure. At least this way there are fair enough chances that more homeowners would pay their loans in time and there would not be such a crash in the local economy.

The principal reduction rates would come with restoring economic stability and vitality, particularly in those areas which are still under the shock and spell of receiving several blows of foreclosed properties. A much more effective means of avoiding properties lying delinquently would come with these steps. As expected by Berananke, this would be a seriously positive step in favor of an all rounded economic balance.

From their study, the Skaggs’s have looked into the other side of the real estate situation. They have checked online with bloggers who are also facing this problem, and have found that there is a massive vitriol for those who walk-away smoothly, instead of paying up in time. These non-payments are huge sites of irresponsibility and are not taken in a good way by those who are still struggling to maintain their properties by making both ends of their lives meet. Those who have always regarded paying bills in time find this a whole deal of foolishness and irrationality.

Though people have complained all-round on having received poor advice regarding the real estate and foreclosure situation before they made the property deal, they also find that with their current situation it is still not worthwhile to consider getting away at the last leg of the venture. These “fighters”, no wonder find resentment with what they see in some of the weaker neighbors getting away and that too without any penalty.

However, often even these fighters find themselves in a limbo like situation, having tried to make their payments till the very end, and yet not finding adequate measures that can help secure their current situation. They find themselves living in unpacked boxes with their mortgages soaring higher than before, and expect to be thrown out anytime or face foreclosure.

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Lee County Foreclosure Figures Peak, But Don’t Show Correct Picture

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Data released this Thursday for Lee County shows that the latest April foreclosure figures were at their peak, but there is a catch to the whole number game. Though they seem to be at their highest level of all time, these foreclosed properties are not being auctioned or sold to new buyers, causing an abnormal increase in the bank of foreclosed properties in the region.

Here is an example: When Michael Palladino and his folks decided that this is the house they wanted among many foreclosed homes they saw, they found that though they were ready to buy the home, they couldn’t buy it as it was not put up for sale yet.

Tommy Lee says “When I pulled it up, it was foreclosed on February 8th. And here we are May 2nd, and it’s still not on the market for sale,” Tommy is from AA Associates Realty, and he showed them the place.

Michael adds “Very frustrating because, there are properties all over, you want to put offers in and you can’t! What’s the deal with that?”

Thanks to a lengthy foreclosure process that takes many months to complete, there are now over 800 cape foreclosure cases filed for April alone that are simply gathering dust, and ready buyers cannot even buy them, compliments of the legal system. This is a situation that Cape real estate agents are quite familiar with, and many have lost ready buyers for some good real estate this way.

Tommy Lee adds “I have qualified buyers that want to purchase the home, but because the bank hasn’t gotten the paperwork back to the brokerage we can’t put an offer in yet.”

It is for this reason that the total figure of foreclosed homes in the county is not really very accurate, as homes that have ready buyers are still standing unsold due to the lengthy foreclosure process. The figure keeps going up, and gives a wrong impression to people that there is less demand.

There was also an additional working day in April as compared to the previous two months, so the figure is slightly more inflated than usual. Charlie Green, who is Lee County Clerk of Courts says “We would have had fewer in April if we would have had the same number of work days,” He also adds that it is February which was the worst month for foreclosures, if you look at the number of foreclosure filings on a daily basis. He adds “We used to say we were the last ones into a bad economic situation and the first ones out. I think that’s still true today.”

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Agents Face Sorry Sight During Clean Up Of Foreclosed Properties

Monday, May 5th, 2008

The grim side of any foreclosed property would leave the marks of a sweet little family which just couldn’t meet the requisite mortgage payment. Many of the clean up people in such properties, readdressing them for a fresh sale, report rather touching accounts of the remnants of a happy family. They have reported to have found toys and bicycles being left in the yards, and clothes lines with clothes hanging on them in a few cases. The president of WSR Preservation Services, John Plocher, has been said to have reported that these are the usual scenes in many a clean-up projects in suburban Los Angeles. It showed that they have been clearly abandoned in a tearful hurry.

Some of these families have been locked up by the sheriff, and scared neighbors under threat have chosen to move out quick. Property owners are often hard to find after a house is under foreclosure. As more and more owners leave their home, the authorities find an empty home or a property occupied by renters. This way the owners are rarely traceable.

One would find a real estate expert on a channel like ABC News say that the end of the property business is here, and that the very pit of the bottom would be at least a year away. The publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, Guy Cecala, has stated that it would take till the middle of next year to really experience a major bottoming out. Before that, there is still chance to revive this market. In relative terms, foreclosures have really reached a record high. But to consider the current situation in this falling market, there still seems to be time to revive it. As the shifts move forward, more constructive work can be supposedly done to help the real estate market.

With the advent of spring, the number of foreclosures has increased a great deal. So, the start of the new season hasn’t gone all that easy and well for property owners in the U.S. The ready percentage of foreclosures has in fact shot up by 57% in the last month compared to the statistics a year ago. RealtyTrac has reported that foreclosure filings have taken a swell nationwide. The rate of foreclosures has in fact shot up all over many states in a dramatic manner. This rise has been particularly significant in Nevada where one out of every 139 households has got a foreclosure filing.

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