King County has been found with a total foreclosure filing of 493 in the month of September. It is a 42 percent decrease from the figure of August. Apart from that, it also indicates a decrease of nearly 13 percent from the month of September, 2007. The homeowners are at loss as they are finding it really difficult to make their mortgage payments. The lenders are trying their best to bring modification in the mortgage lending standards in the real estate area. The Seattle area’s Snohomish and King Counties has been reported with one foreclosure filing out of every 1,426 homes.

Though there has been a reduction in the number of foreclosure filings in the King County, but according to the local counselors they have been facing a good number of distressed borrowers. Counselor Erin Rearden said that this phenomenon started off this summer season. The figure in the months of August and September simply went very high. Rearden says that the lenders are showing their interest to assist people. They are ready to wait until the 60 or 90 days period gets over. There are several states that have passed laws so that the lenders provide more time to the borrowers for making their payments. This is precisely the reason behind the 12 percent decrease in the number of foreclosure filings in the US from the month of August to September.

A law has been passed in California by which the lenders are supposed to provide a 30 days notice in advance to the borrower before he starts foreclosure proceeding on the property. There has been a 51 percent decline in California in the month of September from the figure in August. This had a great impact nationally as California made up for nearly one-third of the foreclosure activity in US. A decline has also been seen in Massachusetts after the month of May. This was noticed when a law giving the borrowers 90 days time period for making repayment was passed. However, the rate of foreclosure here went up by 465 percent between August and September.

Total number 1,952 filings have taken place in the Washington real estate area. This figure shows a drop of 38.5 percent from the month of August and 16.2 percent from the figure of previous year. Seattle area has been reported with an increase of 11 percent in its foreclosure activity in the third quarter. The highest rate of foreclosure has been seen in Nevada during the third quarter.

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The number of foreclosure in US has gone up by 70 percent in the third quarter of 2008 as compared to the figure last year during the same period. It has been found that about 766,000 households throughout US have got one foreclosure notice between the months of July and September. It is envisioned by the real estate experts that by the close of this year, about one million properties will be facing a foreclosure notice on them. It is expected to represent nearly one-third of the properties for sales activity in US. The greatest problem that foreclosure leads to is that it brings down the prices of the neighboring properties and also affects the economy of the surrounding areas badly.

It has been found that the states of Nevada, Florida, Michigan, Arizona, California, and Ohio made for over 60 percent of the foreclosure activity that took place in the third quarter. Among these states, the state of California alone accounted for over one-quarter of the filings. Detroit and Atlanta is counted among the 20 badly affected metropolitan areas outside Nevada, California, Arizona, and Florida. The decreasing value of home together with strict mortgage lending standards has put a large number of homeowners into serious problem. There are several who are unable to find buyers for their property and also refinance their loan. This is because the global credit crisis has led to lesser availability of loans.

In the previous month, the instances of resale activity in the real estate made up for over one-half of the prevailing home sales in the state of California. This was because of the reason that the sales activity went up by 65 percent as compared to what it was a year back, while the median home price throughout the state went down from 34 per cent to $283,000. The number of foreclosure filings was down by 12 per cent in September as compared to August. This was mainly due to the new state law. While the lenders have to give a 30 days prior notice to the borrower before a default notice is filed in California, it is 45 days in North Carolina.

However, this cannot really help the distressed homeowners as about 12 million Americans out of the 52 million are facing this problem. It is time to just wait and see that how steps from the side of the government can help in solving the problem.

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A lot of ways are there if you want to escape the predicament of foreclosure. The main ways are to contact the money lender, to take the problem seriously, responding to mails from the money lender and contacting the HUD counselors along with acting smart all through out.

The very first thing that you have to do is to take the problem seriously and do not blow it away as a joke. The money lender is a person who should never be ignored and hence all the phone calls that he makes and all the mails that he sends you should be answered. It is better that the lender is informed about your clear intentions of paying back the loan and keeping your home safe. If you make things clear and resolve the issues with your money lender, it is very much likely that they will try their level best to help you out with some way in which you can keep your home and also pay them off.

Another thing to be remembered is that you should never ignore the scams. A lot of scam artists are there in the market who may entice you with different lucrative schemes of saving your house. It is very essential that you keep your eyes open and make sure that you do not sign any of the documents without proper reading and evaluation of them. At times, these scam masters make you sign the documents and turn the home in their name making you a tenant of the house. So, it is important that you keep wary of them and take proper legal advice from a reputed solicitor.

Another thing in league is proper prioritizing of various issues to avoid foreclosure proceedings. The finances need to be revamped and thus the house has to be prioritized to save it from foreclosure. The monthly payments of the home should be made first and then any other need should be catered to. It is better that you organize your various payments strategically so that there is no trouble later on.

In fact, foreclosure should be avoided as it puts you in the league of defaulters and thereby makes you have a bad credit record. Owing to this bad credit, you may find it tough to avail any loans in future as well. So, you should do almost everything under the sun that you can to save your house from foreclosures.

It is very important that you always keep in touch with the money lender who has availed you of the loan so that your intentions are always clear with him regarding paying the loans. You should give heed to all the notices and warnings he sends you and should respond to them positively. There is no point that you ignore the mails and calls from the lender as it will only aggravate the matters. Act responsible and make a way out of the foreclosure predicament. So, it is essential that you plan your finances in advance and make timely and organized payments to the lender to avoid foreclosure.

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San Benito County has undergone some sort of foreclosure activity on its 249 homes in August. This shows an increase of nearly 207 percent from what it was during the same period last year. This is almost a 62 percent hike from the figure that appeared in the month of July. A total of 1,053 homeowners have received a default notice on their real estate property.

San Benito County ranks seventh among the 58 counties of California in its foreclosure filings. The rate of foreclosures in Lake County has increased by 2,340 percent and by 13 percent in Sacramento County. The rate of foreclosure activity has increased all of a sudden in a big way hitting hard the real estate industry. About half of the properties facing foreclosure in the San Benito County are bank owned.

People in the county who are facing the problem of home foreclosure have a ray of hope as the local and state politicians are trying hard to get them some relief funds. According to CJ Valenzuela, who happens to be the coordinator of the housing programs of San Benito County, “I work with local agencies, community groups, businesses, and I do a lot of research and I know that there has been a huge negative effect on this community. There are safety and health issues dealt with by the code enforcement office, financial issues the lenders are experiencing, abandoned swimming pools monitored with vector control … countless effects.”

Valenzuela strongly believes that the prevailing real estate crisis is due to the lack of people’s knowledge on finance and also the poor lending practices. He is making an application for grants from Community Development Block Grants for various housing developmental activities in San Benito County. Enrique Arreola, who is the deputy director of community services and work force development, said that they are trying to arrange for workshops to help the distressed homeowners.

The foreclosure has left the economy in a very bad condition. The number of unemployed people has increased. The price of energy has gone up leaving the people into serious trouble. Valenzuela has said that once they get the grants, they will immediately make their move to help out the distressed homeowners facing foreclosures. What is needed is a financial education to the homebuyers-both the distressed ones and the new ones. The agencies of Arreola and Valenzuela are tying up to provide such an education.

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Monterey County has recorded that about 63.1 percent of the properties sold in August were a foreclosed property. The county real estate had a huge rate of foreclosures last month. The properties sold in August last year comprised only 7 percent of foreclosed properties. The median sales price for homes in Monterey County in the month of August was $299,000. It shows a decline of nearly 48 percent from what it was last year during the same month. The median sales price in July was $307,000. The decline in price of homes has made a large number of first-time buyers to buy homes that would have been otherwise impossible for them to buy.

The sales activity in the month of August in Monterey County was 74.6 percent higher than the figure last year during the same period. This included a total of 398 sales which had both new and old condos and single-family homes. The total sales activity in the county last year August was 228. Today, the Monterey County has become a very affordable place to buy a property, which people could not think of a few years back. Foreclosures are increasing and price of homes are falling at the same time in the county.

Real estate expert Sandy Haney has said, “Historically, we are always one of the least-affordable areas. We’re not on that list anymore. We’ve moved someplace that I didn’t think we’d ever go.” A large number of investors are also coming up to take the advantage of this situation. They are buying the properties at much cheaper rates. There is a stiff competition among the buyers in this foreclosure market. They have started to bid on multiple properties at a time. The percentage of households which could have afforded to buy only an entry-level property in Monterey County has increased to 40 by the close of the second half. It was 17 in the second half last year.

Once it used to take about a month or even more than that to have a prospective tenant for a rental home. However, these rentals are having their filings much faster due to the fact that more number of applicants is contending for a single rental property. As Cryder puts it, “The rental business is huge these days. We can’t keep anything.” Though foreclosure is a big hit to the housing market, but it is proving highly beneficial for the first time buyers.

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A leading information portal, Foreclosures.com has recently claimed that the foreclosure tide may have finally started turning.

Specialising in foreclosure related information the company supports its claims with figures that show that the rate of foreclosures appears to be dropping over April and May of this year. The data shows that not only has the number of foreclosures declined by 11.98 % from April but the number of pre-foreclosures too has dropped by 8.89 % in May this year.

Over the past 20 years ForeclosureS.com has collected and analysed foreclosure information and amassed a huge database of more than 5.5 million property listings. The information on the foreclosures is sourced from formal notices filed against a property. These include notices of default, foreclosure auctions and REO foreclosure. The accuracy of the information provided has made ForeclosureS.com a reliable reference point for many professionals.

President of ForeclosureS.com, Alexis McGee emphasises that the numbers reflect her own estimation that the housing market is in a better situation than it would otherwise appear. She points out that buyers are resorting to purchasing foreclosed homes as the number of new houses being constructed has fallen. Thus supply is once again catching up with demand and the housing market is finally reaching rock bottom.

McGee also attributes the turnabout in part to efforts by the government and industry to help homeowners sort out their problems with mortgage and defaulting payments. Today, much is being done by all the concerned parties to ensure that defaulting homeowners avoid foreclosure by working out alternative options.

As an expert and educator in foreclosures, McGee herself has authored The ForeclosureS.com Guide to Advanced Investing Techniques You Won’t Learn Anywhere Else (Wiley) and The ForeclosureS.com Guide to Investing in Pre-foreclosures Without Selling Your Soul (Wiley).

While emphasizing that the monthly figures were cause for optimism, McGee is also careful to point out that the year to date (YTD) figures show that there is still a long way to go before the current foreclosure crisis can be termed over. The YTD data reflects increases in foreclosures since last year. According to ForeclosureS.com, the number of REOs rose by 68.36 % since last year and out of every 1000 households, 117 faced pre-foreclosure. However the monthly REO numbers have started falling recently, which is being seen as a positive sign.

More detailed data and statistics regarding foreclosure filings at various stages can be accessed on the ForeclosureS.com website.

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Usually, when distressed homeowners abandon a property when they are unable to keep up with mortgage payments, the lender takes over possession. The home is then rapidly disposed of through foreclosure auctions so that the losses are minimised and unpaid dues recovered.

Recently however, more and more abandoned houses are being shunned by the lenders too and foreclosure on them is being deliberately delayed. Experts are intrigued by this situation and are trying to find plausible explanations for it.

While city officials feel that lenders are avoiding taxes and upkeep, legal aid lawyers are of the view that this may be a way of hiding steep losses. The real estate industry puts it down to lenders being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of foreclosures.

Experts however are narrowing down the cause to complex mortgages taken out during the housing boom a few years ago. Many loans taken at that time were broken down and repackaged into securities. These were then sold to investors both within the country and internationally. Quite often the investors would have little knowledge about the house itself, preferring to treat it as just one more figure.

Several large banks too invested in these securities and took on the role of trustees with no legal title of ownership.

In Kansas City, the European Deutche Bank is recorded as the lender in over 360 properties that have undergone foreclosure. John Gallagher, spokesperson for the bank, points out that it is not the responsibility of the bank to foreclose and subsequently dispose of the properties. Instead, this duty lies with the initial lender or a service company which has been hired for the purpose.

The complexity of the situation has made it very difficult to determine which party is responsible for what as regards the foreclosed property. Experts estimate that sometimes it can take several months to figure out who the real lender is …and that name may not even feature in the official court or county records!

Kim Tucker, president of the Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors, illustrates this point saying, “Sometimes there are so many layers to go through, the house gets lost….I bought a house last summer. There was a foreclosure, and it took six months to find the owner.”

On a national level this trend of home ownership lying in limbo is not a cause for undue worry. But in regions where this is actually taking place, financial observers are concerned. They see the trend slowly spreading and fear that this will lead to official foreclosure figures not really reflecting the situation on the ground.

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The increased foreclosure activity in the country is giving rise to a unique situation where mortgage defaulters are vacating their homes but lenders are delaying foreclosing on it.

One of the fall outs of numerous foreclosures has been the decline in real estate prices. As a result sometimes homeowners find that their properties are worth less than the mortgage on them. In such a situation it is increasingly becoming common for the homeowner to abandon the property without completing all the mortgage payments on it.

The onus of maintaining the property then falls on the lender. But a trend is emerging where lenders are delaying foreclosure for some reason. With no one taking the responsibility of maintaining them the homes then fall into disrepair. This not only affects the resale value of the property but also the home values in the whole neighborhood. Becoming an eyesore, breeding disease and attracting crime are just some of the other consequences of this negligence.

The trend was first noticed in January this year and is a source of worry for observers as lenders are usually expected to dispose of distressed properties as soon as possible.

Various explanations are being given for this trend. On the one hand, city officials attribute it to lenders avoiding taxes and maintenance. On the other hand, legal aid lawyers feel that this maybe a ploy on the part of the lenders to hide heavy losses. Declaring such losses could attract regulators, they believe.

The real estate industry has its own explanation for this phenomenon. Industry officials put it down to the high number of foreclosures that lenders have to deal with. There is so much to handle that delays are inevitable, they believe. Says attorney Berry Laws III, who looks after the interests of lenders during foreclosure, “There’s just a glut. Lenders are overwhelmed with properties.”

In spite of all the explanations, real estate experts continue to be worried as the trend is gradually spreading all over the country. The situation suggests that the actual number of foreclosures may, in fact, be higher than declared by official statistics.

Founder Joe Schilling of National Vacant Properties Campaign believes that with foreclosure being delayed in this way, more and more properties are not being accounted for in foreclosure figures. He says, “What it means is that the crisis is a lot more complex than anybody knows. And the conclusion is that this is going to get much worse before it gets better.”

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The decline in home prices has been a much discussed topic in recent times. In metropolitan areas the effect of this fall is being felt acutely in neighbourhoods dominated by low income families or minorities. Areas in the outer suburbs have also been hard hit.

The situation is being attributed to the high number of loans given when the housing market peaked in these areas. Many of these loans were given without sound financial basis. As a result defaulters are aplenty and foreclosures have become the order of the day.

According to Rick Sharga, Vice President, Irvine California Realty Track, first time buyers investing in overvalued real estate on the basis of risky loans have contributed significantly to the situation.

Real estate specialist and researcher Stan Humpheries of Zillow.com opines that the housing boom was largely dependant on land on the fringes of urban areas and hence it is these areas that are now feeling the ill effects of foreclosure intensively. According to him, many people prefer living close to the core of an urban area as this implies shorter commuting time and greater access to amenities. Thus housing in the suburbs holds value better, ensuring that builders concentrate much of their efforts on the perimeters of urban areas when trying to increase housing supply.

A study conducted by Impresa of Portland, Oregon points out that the distance of a neighbourhood from a city’s downtown area and the decline in home prices is interlinked. Called “Driven to the Brink” and conducted for the CEOs of the Cities Group, the study has found that as the price of gas crossed the $2 per gallon mark, home price gains began slowing down. According to Joe Cortright, an economist with Impresa, the study found that the further away from downtown a locality was situated the greater was the decline. This was true of metro areas across the country , with cities as different as Portland, Chicago, Tampa, Florida and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania all showing a consistent pattern.

The study further underlines that some economically weaker areas have high foreclosure rates because mortgage brokers have shown a tendency to give greater loans in neighbourhoods that were previously ignored. This is a reflection of the current global trend of investment based on the income from mortgages.

Congress is planning to remedy the situation, says the study, by encouraging state and city governments to buy foreclosed real estate in economically backward areas. It hopes that this will bring down the number of vacant properties and more units will become available at affordable prices.

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Today Texas ranks 17^th in the nation on foreclosure rates. Compared to states like California, Florida and Ohio the rate of increase in foreclosures in this state is not disturbing. In fact experts consider it to be quite stable. Here for every 809 households, one may face foreclosure. Nationally, however, one in every 519 households faces foreclosure.

This does not mean that foreclosures are not happening in Texas. According to the Greater Texoma Association of Realtors the number of home sales due to foreclosures has been rising every year since 2000 with the exception of the period between 2004 and 2005. However, Ron Schildknecht, Association Executive of the Association feels that residents of Texas do not have much cause for worry yet and vouches for the stability of the housing market in the state.

Vanya Griffith, Sherman Branch Manager of WR Starkey Mortgage looks on the brighter side and feels that the foreclosures could actually be “putting a spark in the market.” She believes that the current situation is attracting investors who are interested in buying and remodelling homes. As a result additional rental properties are being created and mortgage loans are on the rise.

Griffith nevertheless points out that eventually foreclosures may have a negative effect on the market as homes are selling below their market price now. Thus, Griffith feels, the foreclosures may stalemate the value of the homes and in future they may not increase much.

Measures are being taken to ensure that foreclosures do not become a major problem in the state. The Homeowners Preservation Foundation is a non-profit organization that telecounsels homeowners who are facing problems with foreclosures. It helps owners deal with the difficulties appropriately and avert a crisis.

Quite often the solution lies in working out a plan with the lenders. Griffith points out that lenders are as anxious to avoid the foreclosure process as homeowners as they also lose money in this process. Thus most lenders are open to working out a solution that will help the owner retain the home.

Another initiative has been The Federal Housing Finance Regulatory Reform Act of 2008. This bill is waiting to be considered by the Senate, after having been passed by the House. The bill aims to bring relief to home owners by protecting them without giving lenders, investors or borrowers any particular advantage.

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Republican Ralph Hall (R-Texas) says “It’s better than nothing, but it’s kind of like fixing the gate when the horse is already gone.” He strongly believes that financing relief programs should be the responsibility of every state.

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