Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Real Estate May Struggle in 2011

Why American Real Estate is Struggling to Recover

Residential real estate is weak, in part, because the prices leading up to the peak in 2005 were wildly unrealistic and irrational. You can't explain it with inflation, building costs, or potential rental income. It was just a mania, fueled by ultra-low interest rates, super-EZ credit and the unshakeable belief that "real estate always goes up."

Look at every bubble of the recent past:

* The Tokyo stock exchange in 1989 - 75% lower today.

* The Nasdaq in March 2000 - 50% lower today.

Manias generally take decades to work out - and we're not even six years into this one.

Some analysts say housing is weak because of the tepid recovery and high unemployment. But that doesn't begin to tell the tale.

At the end of the third quarter, 10.8 million American mortgages were underwater (i.e. when borrowers owe more on their homes than what they're worth). This accounts for 22.5% of all U.S. homeowners with a mortgage.

Some housing experts say this is a positive development. After all, 11.3 million mortgages were underwater at the beginning of the year. However, this drop doesn't reflect a rebound in home prices. Rather, the number of underwater homes has declined, as banks have taken back the properties and wiped out their debt through foreclosure.

Unfortunately, foreclosure sales force market prices lower, which puts still more mortgage holders underwater. As time passes, more homeowners will realize that they're paying a mortgage that is far more than the value of the house and walk away - even if they can afford to keep paying.

This is a troubling development, but the stigma is already gone. It used to be a mark of dishonor to have the bank foreclose on your home. Today, it's increasingly viewed as a smart business move.

"Why should I keep paying my $400,000 mortgage when the house is worth less than $250,000?" a pharmaceutical rep asked me recently. "I'm not an idiot."

The Millstones Around the Housing Market's Neck

Homeowners are realizing that house prices aren't going to come roaring back anytime soon. And they're beginning to feel that paying on the mortgage is simply throwing good money after bad. In fact, financial advisors often encourage borrowers to walk away.

"A bad credit record hurts a lot less than a six-figure negative net worth," said one.

There are plenty of other pressures on the housing market, too...

~ Sales Trouble: Most potential buyers can't sell the house they're in. That makes it impossible for them to buy another.

~ Banks Get Tough: Duly chastened by all the no-money and low-money down-payments of the recent past, most banks now require a 10% downstroke or more. Plus a decent credit history. But many potential borrowers don't have both... or either. In turn, that dries up demand. Plus, mortgage rates are rising, making even attractively priced homes less affordable.

~ Sentiment: The psychology of the housing market is fragile. For years, people bought all the house they could afford (and then some) and didn't hesitate to invest in rental properties or vacation homes. Why? Because real estate always goes up, remember?

But now, a second home is more likely to be viewed as an albatross. Speculators rightly see the near-term appreciation potential as nil.

This doesn't mean there aren't bargains available. But buyers need to be extra careful. I know plenty of people who bought homes on the courthouse steps a couple of years ago and are now sitting on terrific losses.

If you can buy a home at a great price and find a renter to cover your costs, by all means, consider taking the plunge. But plan to hold on a few years. The chance of turning a home over for a quick profit - unless you're buying an absolutely distressed property - is remote.

The Real Estate Verdict is in: Another Rough Year Looming

To sum up, a weak economic recovery, high unemployment, rising interest rates, falling house prices, an inventory glut, increasing foreclosures, tight credit, poor psychology and mounting walk-aways will keep residential home prices under pressure in 2011.

And 2012 isn't likely to be any great shakes either. Please don't shoot the messenger.

Good investing,

Alexander Green
The Oxford Club

The good news is that regardless of what happens with housing in 2011 - or any other market for that matter - there's a simple way for you to profit next year.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Loan Mods, too. Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Monday, December 27, 2010

Bank of America Gets Low Marks for Delinquency Resolution

The time mortgage loan servicers take to resolve delinquent loans through modification or foreclosure varies widely. According to an analysis by Moody’s Investors Service, Bank of America has demonstrated

the weakest performance measured both by its speed in resolving the status of delinquent loans and by its proportion of delinquent loans that have yet to be resolved. The ratings agency found that GMAC Mortgage, on the other hand, has generally performed better than its peers.

Moody’s examined seven major servicers and their resolution of delinquent loans held in residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS). In addition to BofA and GMAC, the subjects of the analysis included Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, CitiMortgage, Ocwen, and Litton Loan Servicing.

The ratings agency looked at residential mortgage loans that were seriously delinquent or in default at any time between June 2009 and August 2010 and that belonged to 2005-2008 vintage RMBS loan pools. The analysis was book-ended with data as of the end of this August so that the results were not skewed by delays resulting from the recent foreclosure affidavit problems and moratoriums that began cropping up in September.

Servicer performance was measured across three main dimensions:

1. For delinquent loans that have neither been permanently modified nor liquidated, the average length of time they have been seriously delinquent;
2. For loans that have been liquidated or modified, the average time taken to liquidate or modify them since they first became seriously delinquent;
3. The relative proportions of a servicer’s loans that at some time in the study’s timeframe were 90 days delinquent and that now reside in each loan status (three or months past due, in foreclosure, or REO).

Overall, Moody’s concluded that Bank of America has performed the worst when it comes to resolving delinquent loans across all three asset classes examined – subprime,

Alt-A, and jumbo. The North Carolina-based bank holds the largest proportion of unresolved seriously delinquent loans, and its seriously delinquent loans have generally been delinquent longer than those of the other major servicers.

Moody’s says these observations are particularly true in the subprime sector, in which BofA inherited a large portfolio of poorly-performing loans when it acquired Countrywide.

The agency’s analysts explained that these loans have been unresolved for particularly long periods, primarily because Bank of America agreed in a multi-state settlement with attorneys general in October 2008 to evaluate each modification-eligible Countrywide loan on a case-by case basis and agreed not to initiate foreclosure proceedings until it had exhausted all modification efforts.

Moody’s described the variation in the approach adopted by different servicers in resolving delinquent loans as “large.” The agency highlights one such comparison that shows the migration of subprime loans serviced by BofA and GMAC Mortgage after becoming 90 or more days delinquent.

The analysis revealed that on average, Bank of America will resolve 50 percent of its loans within about 14 months of becoming 90 days delinquent, while GMAC will resolve 50 percent within only about 4 months.

Looking at the various loan groups, Moody’s says subprime loans have been 90-plus days delinquent longer than unresolved Alt-A and jumbo loans. This fact is due in part to the larger proportion of subprime borrowers that are eligible for the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) because they have have better loan documentation and owner occupancy levels than Alt-A borrowers and less income than jumbo borrowers, Moody’s explained.

A loan’s HAMP eligibility means that the servicer must spend more time exhausting all loss mitigation options before proceeding to foreclosure, and because of this fact, Moody’s says even subprime loans that are already in foreclosure are taking longer to be liquidated or modified than Alt-A or jumbo loans in foreclosure.

Not only does it takes longer to determine whether or not a subprime loan is eligible for HAMP, the ratings agency explained, but even in cases where servicers have exhausted all loss mitigation possibilities, properties backing subprime loans are typically in less desirable neighborhoods or lack proper maintenance when compared to properties backing Alt-A or jumbo loans and thus take longer time to market when they reach REO status. By: Carrie Bay from DSN News

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Loan Mods, too. Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
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Sunday, December 26, 2010

The Christmas Guest

It happened one day at the year's white end,
Two neighbors called on an old-time friend

And they found his shop so meager and mean,
Made gay with a thousand boughs of green,

And Conrad was sitting with face a-shine
When he suddenly stopped as he stitched a twine

And said, "Old friends, at dawn today,
When the cock was crowing the night away,

The Lord appeared in a dream to me
And said, 'I am coming your guest to be'.

So I've been busy with feet astir,
Strewing my shop with branches of fir,

The table is spread and the kettle is shined
And over the rafters the holly is twined,

And now I will wait for my Lord to appear
And listen closely so I will hear

His step as He nears my humble place,
And I open the door and look in His face. . ."

So his friends went home and left Conrad alone,
For this was the happiest day he had known,

For, long since, his family had passed away
And Conrad has spent a sad Christmas Day.

But he knew with the Lord as his Christmas guest
This Christmas would be the dearest and best,

And he listened with only joy in his heart.
And with every sound he would rise with a start

And look for the Lord to be standing there
In answer to his earnest prayer

So he ran to the window after hearing a sound,
But all that he saw on the snow-covered ground

Was a shabby beggar whose shoes were torn
And all of his clothes were ragged and worn.

So Conrad was touched and went to the door
And he said, "Your feet must be frozen and sore,

And I have some shoes in my shop for you
And a coat that will keep you warmer, too."

So with grateful heart the man went away,
But as Conrad noticed the time of day

He wondered what made the dear Lord so late
And how much longer he'd have to wait,

When he heard a knock and ran to the door,
But it was only a stranger once more,

A bent, old crone with a shawl of black,
A bundle of faggots piled on her back.

She asked for only a place to rest,
But that was reserved for Conrad's Great Guest.

But her voice seemed to plead, "Don't send me away
Let me rest awhile on Christmas day."

So Conrad brewed her a steaming cup
And told her to sit at the table and sip.

But after she left he was filled with dismay
For he saw that the hours were passing away

And the Lord had not come as He said He would,
And Conrad felt sure he had misunderstood.

When out of the stillness he heard a cry,
"Please help me and tell me where am I."

So again he opened his friendly door
And stood disappointed as twice before,

It was only a child who had wandered away
And was lost from her family on Christmas Day. .

Again Conrad's heart was heavy and sad,
But he knew he should make this little child glad,

So he called her in and wiped her tears
And quieted her childish fears.

Then he led her back to her home once more
But as he entered his own darkened door,

He knew that the Lord was not coming today
For the hours of Christmas had passed away.

So he went to his room and knelt down to pray
And he said, "Dear Lord, why did you delay,

What kept You from coming to call on me,
For I wanted so much Your face to see. . ."

When soft in the silence a voice he heard,
"Lift up your head for I kept My word--

Three times My shadow crossed your floor--
Three times I came to your lonely door--

For I was the beggar with bruised, cold feet,
I was the woman you gave to eat,
And I was the child on the homeless street."

Helen Steiner Rice

Merry Christmas

American Eagle Realty

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Jesus is Lord

It was Dr. James Allan Francis who penned the following words that aptly describe the influence of Jesus through the history of mankind:

"Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

"He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. . . .

"While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth—His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

"Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

"I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life."

The late Wilbur Smith, respected Bible scholar of the last generation, once wrote, “The latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica gives twenty thousand words to this person, Jesus, and does not even hint that He did not exist—more words, by the way, than are given to Aristotle, Alexander, Cicero, Julius Caesar, or Napoleon Bonaparte.”

George Buttrick, recognized as one of the ten greatest preachers of the twentieth century, wrote: “Jesus gave history a new beginning. In every land he is at home. . . . His birthday is kept across the world. His death-day set a gallows against every skyline.”

Even Napoleon himself admitted, "I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ was no mere man: between him and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison."

Amen

American Eagle Realty

Friday, December 24, 2010

The Christmas Story of the Birth of Jesus

This Christmas story gives a biblical account of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ.
The Christmas story is paraphrased from the New Testament Books of Matthew and Luke in the Bible.

References:
Matthew 1:18-25; Matthew 2:1-12; Luke 1:26-38; Luke 2:1-20.

The Conception of Jesus Foretold

Mary, a virgin, was living in Galilee of Nazareth and was engaged to be married to Joseph, a Jewish carpenter. An angel visited her and explained to her that she would conceive a son by the power of the Holy Spirit. She would carry and give birth to this child and she would name him Jesus.
At first Mary was afraid and troubled by the angel's words. Being a virgin, Mary questioned the angel, "How will this be?" The angel explained that the child would be God's own Son and, therefore, "nothing is impossible with God." Humbled and in awe, Mary believed the angel of the Lord and rejoiced in God her Savior.
Surely Mary reflected with wonder on the words found in Isaiah 7:14 foretelling this event, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." (NIV)

The Birth of Jesus:

While Mary was still engaged to Joseph, she miraculously became pregnant through the Holy Spirit, as foretold to her by the angel. When Mary told Joseph she was pregnant, he had every right to feel disgraced. He knew the child was not his own, and Mary's apparent unfaithfulness carried a grave social stigma. Joseph not only had the right to divorce Mary, under Jewish law she could be put to death by stoning.
Although Joseph's initial reaction was to break the engagement, the appropriate thing for a righteous man to do, he treated Mary with extreme kindness. He did not want to cause her further shame, so he decided to act quietly. But God sent an angel to Joseph in a dream to verify Mary's story and reassure him that his marriage to her was God's will. The angel explained that the child within Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit, that his name would be Jesus and that he was the Messiah, God with us.
When Joseph woke from his dream, he willingly obeyed God and took Mary home to be his wife, in spite of the public humiliation he would face. Perhaps this noble quality is one of the reasons God chose him to be the Messiah's earthly father.
Joseph too must have wondered in awe as he remembered the words found in Isaiah 7:14, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." (NIV)
At that time, Caesar Augustus decreed that a census be taken, and every person in the entire Roman world had to go to his own town to register. Joseph, being of the line of David, was required to go to Bethlehem to register with Mary. While in Bethlehem, Mary gave birth to Jesus. Probably due to the census, the inn was too crowded, and Mary gave birth in a crude stable. She wrapped the baby in cloths and placed him in a manger.

The Shepherd's Worship the Savior:

Out in the fields, an angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds who were tending their flocks of sheep by night. The angel announced that the Savior had been born in the town of David. Suddenly a great host of heavenly beings appeared with the angels and began singing praises to God. As the angelic beings departed, the shepherds decided to travel to Bethlehem and see the Christ-child.
There they found Mary, Joseph and the baby, in the stable. After their visit, they began to spread the word about this amazing child and everything the angel had said about him. They went on their way still praising and glorifying God. But Mary kept quiet, treasuring their words and pondering them in her heart. It must have been beyond her ability to grasp, that sleeping in her arms—the tender child she had just borne—was the Savior of the world.

The Magi Bring Gifts:

After Jesus' birth, Herod was king of Judea. At this time wise men (Magi) from the east saw a star, they came in search, knowing the star signified the birth of the king of the Jews. The wise men came to the Jewish rulers in Jerusalem and asked where the Christ was to be born. The rulers explained, "In Bethlehem in Judea," referring to Micah 5:2. Herod secretly met with the Magi and asked them to report back after they had found the child. Herod told the Magi that he too wanted to go and worship the babe. But secretly Herod was plotting to kill the child.
So the wise men continued to follow the star in search of the new born king and found Jesus with his mother in Bethlehem. (Most likely Jesus was already two years of age by this time.) They bowed and worshipped him, offering treasures of gold, incense and myrrh. When they left, they did not return to Herod. They had been warned in a dream of his plot to destroy the child.

The Christmas Story of the Birth of Jesus
By Mary Fairchild, About.com Guide

To our customers we have been able to help this year, We hope we have brought joy back into your life.
To the customers we are in the middle of helping you solve the crisis you will come out of this!
To our future customers we can help you walk through this crisis and restore your self respect!

No matter what phase you are in you are our most important asset.

May God Keep you in the hollow of his hand

Merry Christmas to all.

American Eagle Realty
www-American-Eagle-Realty.com
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Thursday, December 23, 2010

National Home Prices Down 5.8%, Major Metros See Double Dip: Report

The November home market report from Clear Capital shows that prices nationally fell another 5.8 percent over the previous three months. The company says although the pace of decline has slowed, home prices show no signs of bottoming out yet.

Compared to a year ago, Clear Capital’s national home price index is down 2.7 percent, but is 5.5 percent above the record lows of early 2009.

Thirteen of the 50 major metros included in Clear Capital’s study have already entered into double-dip territory, indicating that their current price levels are the lowest since the housing downturn began.

Among them are Las Vegas, Seattle, Tucson, Philadelphia, Portland, and Nashville. Charlotte, North Carolina also

made the list, as did Virginia Beach and Richmond in Virginia, and the four biggest Florida markets of Miami, Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville.

Dr. Alex Villacorta, Clear Capital’s senior statistician, notes that while a number of individual markets have distanced themselves from national price levels in a negative direction, there are a couple of bright spots in the company’s latest report.

Washington, D.C. maintained its positive price growth in November, with home values there now 15 percent above last year’s lows.

Home prices in Honolulu, Hawaii rose 2.4 percent during the September to November period, pushing them 6.9 percent above year-ago levels.

Although they experienced quarterly price declines of nearly 2 percent, the two California metropolitan statistical areas that include Los Angeles and Riverside are also on the positive end of the scale when looking at the year-over-year price change, up 5.4 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively.

Dr. Alex Villacorta, Clear Capital’s senior statistician, said, “It’s encouraging that the immediate and dramatic decline in prices that we observed since mid August appears to be softening. But any optimism should be tempered by the fact that November’s numbers show continued significant downward pressure for home prices.”

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Loan Mods, too. Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

If your looking for the right investment property we can help!

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

HAMP Program will Fall Short of Helping People

The Obama administration’s signature foreclosure prevention
program will help only 700,000 Americans save their homes,
according to a scathing report released Tuesday by the
Congressional Oversight Panel (COP).

The group’s assessment falls far short of the 3 to 4 million
homeowners that the president pledged would receive more
sustainable mortgage loans when the Home Affordable
Modification Program (HAMP) was launched in March of last
year, and is well below the 8 to 13 million foreclosures COP
says are expected by 2012.

Treasury initially committed $75 billion of Troubled Asset
Relief Program (TARP) funds to the HAMP initiative, which
pays incentives to servicers, investors, and homeowners for
each loan that is successfully modified. COP, which is
charged with overseeing the use of TARP money, says it now
appears Treasury will spend only $4 billion on HAMP
incentives.

“Absent a dramatic and unexpected increase in HAMP
enrollment, many billions of dollars set aside for
foreclosure mitigation may well be left unused. As a result,
an untold number of borrowers may go without help,” the
report said.

The members of the congressionally appointed panel went so
far as to call the government’s loan modification program
“ineffective,” and they said Treasury’s reluctance to
acknowledge HAMP’s shortcomings has had “real
consequences.”

Since COP’s last report on HAMP eight months ago, the panel
noted that Treasury has made “minor tweaks” to the program,
but COP says the changes have not resolved its core
concerns.

Treasury’s authority to restructure HAMP ended on October 3,
when TARP expired, and COP says because the deadline has
come and gone for any major overhaul, “the program’s
prospects are unlikely to improve substantially in the
future.”

“Many of the problems now plaguing HAMP are inherent in its
design and cannot be resolved at this late date,” the panel
said in its latest report. “Other problems, however, can
still be mitigated.”

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Loan Mods, too. Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Pressure Mounts for Fannie and Freddie to Write Down Mortgages

With property values still tumbling, it comes as no surprise that nearly a quarter of the nation’s mortgage borrowers owe more on their loan than the home is worth. Industry studies support the consensus that the farther a borrower sinks into negative equity, the more likely they are to throw in the towel.

The severity of this catch-22 is now top-of-mind for government officials. The administration is reportedly pressuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – who together own or guarantee half of the nation’s home mortgages – to make principal write-downs a key component of their foreclosure prevention efforts.

The two GSEs are currently in talks with the White House and federal housing officials who are advocating for Fannie and Freddie’s participation in the government’s newest initiatives to reduce loan balances for borrowers who are underwater, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing “people familiar with the situation.”

Right now, homeowners who have loans with the nation’s two largest mortgage financiers are not eligible for the principal reduction option under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), which was introduced by the Treasury back in March.

It calls for reducing the principal on loans that are more than 115 percent of the current value of the property and includes incentive payments for each dollar written down by servicers and investors. But this alternative modification approach is voluntary, and both Fannie and Freddie have opted against using it.

A second initiative that the GSEs have yet to sign on to is the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) refinance program for underwater borrowers, which was rolled out in early August. Under the program, which is also voluntary, the federal agency will offer new FHA-insured mortgages to borrowers whose lenders agree to write off at least 10 percent of the unpaid principal balance.

Federal officials have said FHA’s program could help 500,000 to 1.5 million homeowners. But the Journal says during its first three months, the program received only 61 applications and completed just three refinances for new loans.

Industry groups and regulators say without Fannie and Freddie’s participation, the impact of the government’s principal reduction programs will be minimal and other lenders won’t feel compelled to follow their lead.

But it would be another catch-22. Writing down principals would add to the GSEs’ losses. The two companies are already into taxpayers for nearly $150 billion.

There are two very distinct schools of thought when it comes to principal write-downs and the effects – some positive, some negative – that widespread use could have on the market.

On one side, proponents argue that negative equity has become one of the primary triggers of default, and of re-default even after the original mortgage is modified using the typical waterfall of rate reductions and term extensions.

When plagued with negative equity, borrowers essentially have little at stake in keeping their homes. Supporters of an industry-wide initiative to slash outstanding principal when it towers above the property’s value say it’s a strong incentive for homeowners to stay current and could deter delinquencies in a market already saturated with defaults.

On the other side of the fence, critics question the fairness of the principal write-down practice when most homeowners are continuing to pay their mortgages every month, some of them cutting corners and tightening their belts to do so.

Other opponents are asking just where do you draw the line – is a mortgage no longer a contract that carries with it a pledge by the borrower to repay the amount of money agreed upon? They say mandates to retroactively rewrite the loan amount could have serious implications for the future of lending and the risks associated with extending credit.

Lenders and even several top administration officials have stressed that dealing with the nation’s still-growing population of delinquent mortgage borrowers has become a delicate balancing act of understanding the necessity to help responsible homeowners struggling with hardships and recognizing that they “cannot and should not help everyone,” as FHA Commissioner David Stevens put it when he testified at a congressional hearing on principal write-downs earlier this year.
By Carrie Bay DSN News

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Loan Mods, too! Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Monday, December 20, 2010

Wells Fargo Ranked Top Mortgage Originator, BofA Largest Servicer

Mortgage lenders are ranked based both on how many new loans they originate and how many loans they service. By those measures, industry data released Monday shows that the biggest originator of home loans is based on the West Coast, while the biggest mortgage servicer is based on the East Coast.

Wells Fargo & Co. held onto the top spot among mortgage originators during the third quarter of this year. Bank of America took the lead spot in the mortgage servicer rankings.

Mortgage originations represent transactions where the purchase of a home is financed or an existing mortgage is refinanced. According to industry data compiled by the online industry resource MortgageDaily.com, during the third quarter, total U.S. mortgage originations were up one-third from the second quarter. Business was down 37 percent, however, from the third quarter of 2009.

Based on origination volume, San Francisco-based Wells Fargo — with more than $100 billion in residential originations — was the biggest mortgage lender during the third quarter. The company’s mortgage subsidiary, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, operates from Des Moines, Iowa.

Bank of America was ranked as the second largest mortgage originator, followed by Chase, GMAC Mortgage, and CitiMortgage.

Rounding out the top ten in Mortgage Daily’s rankings were US Bank, PHH Mortgage, Quicken Loans, SunTrust, and Flagstar. Quicken Loans managed to move up two spots from the previous quarter’s report to claim the No. 8 slot on the top-10 list.

The second measure of mortgage lender size is the amount of mortgages they service, including loans originated in prior periods. Servicers collect payments each month and pass on interest earned to investors or to their own bottom lines.

Based on mortgage servicing portfolio size, Bank of America is the biggest U.S. servicer, according to Mortgage Daily’s rankings, with just over $2 trillion in residential home loans in its servicing portfolio as of September 30th. While BofA is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, its mortgage subsidiary, Bank of America Home Loans, is based in Calabasas, California.

Wells Fargo took the No. 2 spot on the servicing list, with $1.8 trillion in residential mortgages serviced. Chase came in third, followed by Citi and then GMAC.

Making up the bottom half of the top-10 servicer list is US Bank, PNC Bank, SunTrust, PHH, and OneWest Bank. OneWest was formed out of the old IndyMac Bank.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Loan Mods, too. Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Friday, December 17, 2010

Industry completes 1.5 Million Loan Modifications the first 10 Months of 2010

New data from HOPE NOW shows that the industry completed more than 1.5 million loan modifications for at-risk homeowners from January through October of this

year. That translates to an average of 154,000 homeowners per month who have been able to remain in their homes with an affordable loan modification solution.

It’s a notable accomplishment, but the report makes it clear that there’s far more work to be done. HOPE NOW says there are currently 3.4 million homeowners 60 or more days behind on their mortgage payments.

The reported data for October shows mortgage servicers completed approximately 101,000 proprietary loan modifications for homeowners and 24,000 Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) modifications during the month, for an estimated total of 125,000.

Of particular note in October’s data is the effect foreclosure delays and the temporary freezes initiated by some servicers due to the robo-signing scandal had on the delinquency and foreclosure numbers for the month.

Specifically foreclosure starts and sales dropped to 205,000 and 69,000, respectively. That’s down from 245,000 foreclosure starts and 118,000 foreclosure sales the month prior.

“There were anomalies in the October data that affected 60 day plus delinquency, as well as foreclosure, metrics which we believe may be largely attributed to widespread foreclosure delays across the country,” said Faith Schwartz, senior adviser for HOPE NOW.

“Despite these irregularities the mortgage industry’s efforts to keep homeowners in their homes and offer viable mortgage solutions continues to show strong results each month. Far more homeowners are receiving workout solutions — including loan modifications — than are going to foreclosure sale each month,” Schwartz said. By Carrie Bay of DSN News

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Loan Mods, too. Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

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Thursday, December 16, 2010

Citi-Group to Refile 14,000 Foreclosure Cases

A Citigroup official told lawmakers at a congressional hearing last week that the company’s review of foreclosure cases has uncovered some 14,000 affidavits that will likely need to be re-filed with the courts.

Since the paperwork controversy surfaced and triggered foreclosure suspensions by several major mortgage servicers, Citi has been unwavering in its claims that the foreclosure processes it has in place are “sound.”

Compared to the problems uncovered by its big-bank counterparts, it would appear that Citi’s processes are at least sound-er. In mid-October, Bank of America said it had begun re-submitting 102,000 affidavits in which foreclosure judgment was pending. Although it never implemented a foreclosure freeze, Wells Fargo acknowledged in late October that it had found errors in about 55,000 foreclosure affidavits.

Harold Lewis, managing director of CitiMortgage and head of Citi’s homeowner assistance program, explained to a House subcommittee last week that for the most part, his

company has been able to steer clear of the robo-signing controversy because of a restructuring that began more than a year ago.

Lewis said Citi centralized its foreclosure operations into one unit, added staff, and improved its internal training program to ensure foreclosures were being processed correctly. According to Lewis, Citi currently has 21 employees in its foreclosure affidavit group, and each employee reviews and executes about 35 affidavits a day.

Lewis explained that Citi is currently reviewing approximately 10,000 affidavits that were executed in pending judicial foreclosures initiated before the process improvements he outlined were fully implemented at the company’s St. Louis processing center in February of 2010. Citi expects that affidavits executed prior to the fall of 2009 will need to be re-filed, Lewis told lawmakers.

Separately, he said, Citi is also reviewing approximately 4,000 pending foreclosure affidavits in judicial states that were executed at the company’s Dallas processing center and may not have been signed in the presence of a notary. Citi expects that it will re-file these affidavits, Lewis said.

In addition, Citi stopped referring new matters to the Florida law offices of David J. Stern, P.A. in September of 2010 and has since withdrawn all pending matters from the so-called foreclosure mill, which is under investigation for forging foreclosure documents and has been blacklisted by both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As an added precaution, Citi is transferring approximately 8,500 pending foreclosure files from the Stern law firm to new counsel. New affidavits for these cases will be prepared and re-filed by new counsel under Citi’s current procedures, Lewis said.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Loan Mods, too! Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

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Thursday, December 9, 2010

Is the Foreclosure Peak Still Ahead?

Whalen: Foreclosure Peak Still Ahead for US

By Greg Brown and Kathleen Walter

The foreclosure crisis will peak sometime next year, causing the economy to struggle to stay in positive territory, pressuring California and other states into default, and likely triggering the restructuring of an “insolvent” Bank of America, predicts banking analyst Christopher Whalen.

Whalen says that the data and discussions regarding earnings on bank conference calls lead him to believe that the housing problem is still very much ahead of us. One of the founders of Institutional Risk Analytics, Whalen just published a new book, “Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream.”

“It’s going to peak next year. We’re not nearly a third of the way through the backlog of foreclosures, in part because the banks, operationally, just couldn’t deal with it,” Whalen said.

Chris Whalen editor of The Institutional Risk Analyst a weekly commentary on the institutions and financial markets that comprise the global political economy

It takes a year for a foreclosed home to work its way through the entire legal process. That means much of the foreclosures making headlines now will not be completed until well into 2011 and perhaps 2012, Whalen said.

Major banks are just now talking about how to add operational capacity to handle the work to come, he said.

“My big concern is that by next year most of the home sales in the United States are going to be involuntary, they’re going to be the result of foreclosures,” Whalen said. “This is going to pull down all the comparable prices for homes that are still performing.”

If that happens, expect the impact on property-tax collection to exacerbate the risk of default among major states, including California, New York, and Illinois.

State spending on pensions and other mandates is going up while revenues are going down or are flat, Whalen said. Sales taxes and property taxes are the two major sources of revenue for a state like California.

“What if we have a down economy next year and we have down real-estate prices? I think you’re going to see a situation where the accumulation of foreclosures is going to start hurting property-tax revenues for cities and counties, and that is going to just snowball,” Whalen said.

As a result of slowing growth and problems like delayed property-tax payments, coupled with a lack of political will to cut spending, Whalen expects a series of sovereign defaults or near defaults in Europe and in the United States.

Whalen said that the United States is living through both inflation and deflation, where real growth isn't happening but prices are rising at the grocery store just the same.

“While we had nominal growth for the last 20 years, for example, we’re not keeping up in real terms,” Whalen said, that is, adjusted for inflation.

As long as foreclosures are a problem, it will be hard for the United States to post positive growth, Whalen said.

Meanwhile, thanks to the foreclosure problem on top of other liabilities, Bank of America is likely to be restructured, wiping out its bondholders, Whalen said.

“I think Bank of America is going to have to be restructured. I think the bondholders at Bank of America, specifically, are going to have to be compelled to convert into equity,” Whalen said.

Bank of America has told the United States that is has completed repayment of its $45 billion bailout under the much-maligned TARP program, reports the Financial Times.

The bank said it was able to raise $3 billion in capital through asset sales, the newspaper reported.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

14 Million Borrowers are underwater!

According to a Pew Research Center survey, 36% of Americans said it is acceptable to stop making mortgage payments, even if it is affordable.

Pew surveyed more than 2,900 adults on the subject of strategic default. More than one-in-five, 21%, said they owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth. These underwater borrowers are at the highest risk of strategically defaulting, because they lack the incentive to make the payments.

According to Deutche Bank, 14 million borrowers were underwater as of the first quarter of 2010, but with another 10.8% decline in house prices expected, another 6 million could slip into negative equity as well.

The problem has grown so dire Fannie Mae is suing some homeowners it believes strategically default on the mortgage.

Some programs such as the Federal Housing Administration's Short Refinancing program launched last week, and the RH program are attempts to help borrowers in this situation.

Nearly half of homeowners said the value of their home declined during the recession, but these borrowers are not more tolerant of strategic default than those in positive equity. According to Pew, 18% of underwater homeowners said it's acceptable to walk away, while 17% of respondents still with equity in their home approved of the practice.

Those who aligned themselves with the Democratic party were twice as likely to accept strategic default, at 23% compared to 11% of Republicans.

"Caught between big mortgages, sinking home values and the financial strains associated with periods of high unemployment, many homeowners have stopped making mortgage payments and opted to 'walk away' from their loans and their homes," according to Pew.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Foreclosure Inventories up for Banks

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – November 23, 2010 – The October Mortgage Monitor report released by Lender Processing Services, Inc. (NYSE: LPS) shows that accelerated foreclosure referral activity over the last several months has pushed the foreclosure inventory rate to all-time highs. As of the end of October 2010, foreclosure inventories are 7.4 times historical averages and rising.

The report also shows that foreclosure sales decreased dramatically over the last month as a result of the widespread moratoria. Overall, the percentage of loans moving from the foreclosure process to bank-owned status (or other involuntary liquidation) dropped by 35% in October. The moratoria contributed to further timeline extensions, as the average number of days past delinquent for loans in the foreclosure process approaches 500.

As foreclosure activity increases, more 6- and 12-month delinquent loans are moving to foreclosure, but the extremely delinquent category (more than 12 months) continues to grow and age. A payment has not been made in more than year on almost one-third of all loans that are 90 or more days delinquent. And, of loans that have not made a payment in two years, more than 18% are still not in foreclosure.

In the month of October, 263,000 loans entered the foreclosure process, which represents a 4.4% month-over-month decline. Total inventory of foreclosures is nearly 2.1 million loans with another 2.2 million loans in the “greater than 90-days delinquent, but not yet in foreclosure” status. While delinquencies remain elevated – currently registering at 2.7 times historical averages – an ever-growing number of new 60-day delinquencies are re-defaults of loans that had previously been 60-days or more delinquent, and had become current. The number of “first-time” troubled loans, however, remained relatively stable during the last several months.

As reported in LPS’ First Look release, other key results from LPS’ latest Mortgage Monitor report include:
Total U.S. loan delinquency rate: 9.29 percent
Total U.S. foreclosure inventory rate: 3.92 percent
Total U.S. non-current* loan rate: 13.20 percent
States with most non-current* loans: Florida, Nevada, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana
States with fewest non-current* loans: North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming, Montana

*Non-current totals combine foreclosures and delinquencies as a percent of active loans in that state.
Note: Totals based on LPS Applied Analytics’ loan-level database of mortgage assets and are extrapolated to represent the industry.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

American Eagle Realty
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502-969-1801

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Foreclosures Freeze Hurts Home Prices

Integrated Asset Services (IAS) has shown that there has been a reduction of 0.2% in the price of residential property during the third quarter of the present year. In context of a general slowdown of U.S. economy, the figures indicate difficult times for home sales in coming months.

According to IAS 360 HPI (house price index) statistics home prices have shown a positive growth of 1.6% in the North Eastern regions of US due to independent gains in Washington D.C. and New York. As compared to this positive trend the prices in other regions witnessed a fall. In South HPI fell by 0.4%, in West it went down by 0.5% while in Midwest it plunged by 1.4%. However the hardest hit region was Las Vegas which experienced a decline of 27.6%. IAS has described this as the poorest performing region of US in quarter 03.

There are counties where home prices have fallen by as high as 50% over the last three years, according to IAS reports. Monterey County in California is the worst affected with home prices sliding down 41% over last year’s prices coupled with an additional fall of 3.8% in 3rd quarter of this year. Florida Lee County closely follows with a decline of 39% in the corresponding period with an added decline of 4.3% in Q3 of this year.

Ryan Tomazin, IAS president has reported that the housing crisis is yet from over as is reflected by data collected over the last year. According to him though the worst phase is over, it would take some more time for home prices to recover in view of the overall slow economic growth in United States. The president of this Denver based company was speaking on the revival of housing market. The trouble was compounded by robo-signing controversy investigations initiated by state attorneys general and federal officials.

Apprehensions arise because these investigations could result in slowing down of housing market caused by holding back of foreclosures by banks. As per statement issued by IAS, lesser foreclosures lead to fewer numbers of homes available for sale in the market thereby attracting few investors. Tomazin has rightly commented that the housing market is very fragile at this moment.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

American Eagle Realty
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Friday, November 19, 2010

Foreclosures to increase another 4.25 Million by 2012

The Federal Reserve expects about 4.25 million more foreclosure filings through 2012, and problems with the home-seizure process may threaten the U.S. housing and economic recovery, Fed Governor Elizabeth Duke said in prepared testimony.

“In the end, an overhang of homes awaiting foreclosure is unhealthy for the housing market and can delay its recovery, as well as that of the broader economy,” she said in remarks that will be presented to a congressional subcommittee tomorrow. A copy of Duke’s testimony was posted on the U.S. House of Representatives website.

A report released yesterday by a Congressional Oversight Panel found that irregularities in the foreclosure process may undermine financial stability. Attorneys general in all 50 states opened an investigation last month into whether banks and loan servicers used faulty documents or improper practices to seize homes.

U.S. regulators, including the Fed, expect to complete the on-site stage of their review into foreclosure practices this year and plan to publish their findings in early 2011, Duke said. The Fed estimates that the U.S. will have about 2.25 million residential foreclosure filings this year, and again next year, followed by 2 million more in 2012, she added in the statement to the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity.

“Financial institutions face a number of risks if inadequate controls result in faulty foreclosure documents or failure to follow legal procedures,” Duke said. “We are gathering information to ensure that the institutions we supervise have adequately assessed these risks and have accounted for them properly.”

The Fed’s “forceful” response to the financial crisis over the past two years, including its purchase of mortgage- backed securities, has reduced mortgage rates and made home loans more affordable, she said.

But one of the major problems the Fed faces is they continue to manipulate the currency and borrowing policies while the White House has done nothing to stimulate real business growth in the last two years, as a matter of fact things have gotten worse.
The Fed needs to change it's focus and protect the value of the US Dollar. The Obama administration needs to become more business friendly and PDQ! Pretty Damn Quick! Otherwise these numbers are low.

And what about the paperwork debacle from Bank of America, Can anybody say clear title? We have not heard the last of that. As a matter of fact we will soon hear that Banks cannot legally sale the properties it currently owns, because guess what? It does not legally own them! The people foreclosed on still are the legal owners! Just wait, It will come out!

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help, We have helped others we can help you...

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Foreclosure Crisis Is Spreading

Foreclosure Crisis Is Spreading, New Data Show
October 28, 2010 ShareShare

The foreclosure crisis took an ominous turn Thursday as a new report indicated that foreclosure activity is spreading from states that have been at the heart of the problem into places like Chicago and Seattle.

And a backlog of foreclosed properties may chill the housing market for years to come. Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac, which released the data, said he expects home prices to remain fairly stagnant until 2014.

Eleven out of the nation's 20 largest metropolitan areas saw increased foreclosure activity in the third quarter compared with the same period last year, according to the foreclosure listing firm.

The top eight metro areas for foreclosures were in Nevada, California and Arizona, said Sharga, a senior vice president.

"[Those] … areas were overbuilt, the homes became significantly undervalued [and] underqualified borrowers were put into those homes with toxic loans that ended up being ticking time bombs," he said. "When market prices finally stopped going up, the whole house of cards crumbled in all of those areas."

Those three states and Florida accounted for 19 of the top 20 metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates between July and September, the report showed. Even though they remain the nation's foreclosure hotbeds, many of their metro areas saw declines in the number of households that received foreclosure-related filings.

But many cities in other states saw a spike in foreclosure activity.

"The epidemic is spreading from the states at the ground zero of the foreclosure problems out into areas that hadn't been previously affected," Sharga said.

The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro area registered the sharpest annual increase: 71 percent. One in every 129 households received a foreclosure filing.

The Chicago-Naperville-Joliet metropolitan area posted the second-highest annual jump, a 35 percent increase. One in every 84 households received a foreclosure notice.

Among the other metro areas where foreclosure activity jumped by a large margin this summer were Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, up 26 percent; Detroit-Warren-Livonia, at nearly 23 percent; and, Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, up 20 percent.

Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody's Analytics, agreed that the foreclosure crisis was moving into a new phase.

House flippers, subprime borrowers and those who lost their jobs early in the recession have largely worked through the system, Zandi said.

"Now what you're seeing is more strategic defaulting -- more recently unemployed people who have exhausted their savings, sold assets and even borrowed money from relatives to keep paying the mortgage," he said. "There's nothing left for them to do.

"Everyone is being touched by this now," Zandi told NPR.

RealtyTrac's data also show that foreclosures, once largely correlated with bad loans and overpricing, are now following expanding unemployment problems. That means markets like Chicago and Seattle are seeing more foreclosures than ever before.

The U.S. unemployment rate hit 9.6 percent last month. In the Seattle/Bellevue/Everette metro area, the rate was slightly lower, at 8.6 percent.

Still, many troubled homeowners there have been unable to hang on. As a result, there's been no letup in the inventory of foreclosed homes on the market this year, said John Bauer, an agent with ZipRealty in Seattle who represents lenders selling foreclosed properties.

"It has been on an upward trend curve ever since 2008," Bauer said. "And not just the third quarter of this year, but the last 12 months, it's been on a steady ascension."

Chicago also had the third-highest number of homes repossessed by lenders during the quarter -- 12,568 -- behind the Phoenix metro area's 14,317 and the Miami metro area's 12,963, RealtyTrac said.

In all, 133 out of 206 metropolitan areas with at least 200,000 residents posted an annual increase in foreclosure activity in the three months ended Sept. 30, RealtyTrac said.

The Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev., metropolitan area topped the list of metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates in the quarter, with one in every 25 homes receiving a foreclosure warning -- more than five times the national average. But foreclosure filings declined 20 percent from the same quarter last year.

"It's not out of the woods yet, it's just less bad than it was a year ago," Sharga said.

Rounding out the rest of the top 10 metros with the highest foreclosure rate were Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.; Modesto, Calif.; Stockton, Calif.; Merced, Calif.; Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif.; Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, Fla.; Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz.; Bakersfield, Calif.; and Vallejo-Fairfield, Calif.

Banks seized more than 816,000 homes in the first nine months of the year and are on pace to seize more than a million.

Wells Fargo, one of the nation's largest lenders, conceded Wednesday that tens of thousands of its foreclosure documents did not meet the legal standard, throwing those proceedings into question. That revelation comes on the heels of similar concerns at Bank of America and Ally Financial's GMAC Mortgage, which briefly suspended foreclosures.

Wells Fargo said the foreclosure affidavits did not strictly adhere to the required procedures, but said it believes all the foreclosures in question to be legitimate.

Sharga said the controversy over sloppy paperwork was not a factor during the third quarter. He added that preliminary data from this month show almost no change in foreclosure activity since September.

"We're not seeing what we might have anticipated in terms of a falloff," Sharga said.

NPR's Paul Brown contributed to this report, which also contains material from The Associated Press Copyright 2010 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
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Monday, October 18, 2010

Bank of America to Resume Foreclosures

Curtailing a moratorium sooner than expected, Bank of America announced Monday that it would resume foreclosures by next week in 23 states where court approval is needed to go ahead.

The decision covers 102,000 mortgages. While the bank said it had found no evidence that foreclosures had been made in error, it said the foreclosure moratorium would remain in effect in the 27 states where a judicial proceeding is not required, as the review proceeds state by state.

While JPMorgan Chase, GMAC and other institutions have imposed similar freezes, Bank of America is the only one to put it into effect in all 50 states, and as the country’s biggest bank, it is closely watched by the rest of the industry.

In recent weeks, reports of improper procedures at mortgage servicers, like having officials sign thousands of documents a month — so-called robo-signers — have set off a political furor. Last Wednesday, all 50 state attorneys general announced an investigation of the mortgage service industry practices.

“As was the case for our judicial state review, our initial assessment findings show the basis for our foreclosure decisions is accurate,” the bank said in a statement. “Our decision to review our process and later, to extend our review to all 50 states, has been an important step to give customers confidence they are being treated fairly.” By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Attorney Generals from all 50 States are getting Involved in Foreclosure Investigation

Officials in 50 states and the District of Columbia have launched a joint investigation into allegations that mortgage co.’s mishandled documents and broke laws in foreclosing on hundreds of thousands of homeowners. Attorneys general are calling into question the accuracy and legitimacy of documents that lenders relied on to evict people from the homes. – Reuters

A bipartisan group of state attorneys general from 49 states and financial regulators from 39 states will work together to comb through foreclosure filings and documents from mortgage servicers to see if any state laws have been broken in the rush by services to kick borrowers out of their homes without following various state and local laws.

Homeowners, homeowner advocates and various state officials have complained that mortgage servicers have failed to follow basic procedures, like reviewing documents, properly signing them and other tasks long followed prior to the mortgage securitization boom that took off this decade.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....


American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
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Friday, October 8, 2010

Bank of America Freezes Foreclosures in All States as Documents Reviewed

Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, will halt foreclosures in all 50 U.S. states to determine whether documents used to seize homes from people had the correct data.

“We will stop foreclosure sales until our assessment has been satisfactorily completed,” the Charlotte, North Carolina- based company said today in a statement. “Our ongoing assessment shows the basis for foreclosure decisions is accurate.”

Bank of America already froze foreclosures this month in the 23 states where courts supervise home seizures. The new policy extends the moratorium to the entire nation. Banks are being pressed by state officials to halt foreclosures amid allegations that employees used unverified or false data to speed the process. Attorneys general in Ohio and Connecticut have said the practices may amount to fraud.

Lenders took possession of a record 95,364 homes in August and issued foreclosure filings to 338,836 homeowners, or one of every 381 U.S. households, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based data vendor.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              502-969-1801      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              502-969-1801      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              502-969-1801      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Thursday, September 30, 2010

JPMorgan Suspends Certain Foreclosures As Doubts Grow Over Legality

Even as August saw more Americans lose their homes to foreclosure than in any other month on record, there are growing concerns over the legality of many of those proceedings.

JPMorgan Chase has suspended legal proceedings on 50,000 foreclosures, due to concerns about the validity of the foreclosure documents, a spokesman for the bank told CNBC Wednesday (hat tip to Zero Hedge).

JPMorgan spokesman Tom Kelly confirmed to the AP Wednesday that "employees signed some affidavits about loan documents without personally verifying the files."

The decision is the latest signal of a potentially massive stall in the nation's foreclosure process. Last week, after GMAC Mortgage halted its foreclosures in 23 states, the Washington Post reported that one of GMAC's employees hadn't read the roughly 10,000 foreclosure documents he approved each month (and now Colorado wants to be added to that list of states). It then turned out that the "robo signer" might not have been alone.

This week, the controversy extended to JPMorgan Chase, as lawyers for a Florida homeowner challenged the person's JPMorgan foreclosure, citing a May statement from an executive for the bank who said she didn't properly review foreclosure documents before approving them.

Zero Hedge, for what it's worth, sees this as the beginning of a larger unraveling in the country's foreclosure process. Indeed, regardless of what JPMorgan determines during its review, the freeze will throw countless foreclosures into doubt.

As Bloomberg noted this week, delays in foreclosure proceedings would cripple the already wounded housing market.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Government Forcing Lenders to Approve all Short Sales in 45 Days?

Distressed homeowners looking for a way out of their
mortgage that doesn’t involve foreclosure, may find relief
is on the way from a new bill introduced in the U.S. House.

The legislation would impose a deadline on lenders to
respond to short sale requests, requiring them to return an
answer to the borrower within 45 days.

The bipartisan bill, Prompt Decision for Qualification of
Short Sale Act of 2010 (H.R. 6133), is sponsored by Reps.
Robert Andrews (D-New Jersey) and Tom Rooney (R-Florida).

Lenders have taken a lot of heat for the elongated timelines
it takes to get an approval on a short sale proposal.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....


American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Thursday, September 16, 2010

U.S. Homes Lost to Foreclosure Up 25 Percent

LOS ANGELES -- Lenders took back more homes in August than in any month since the start of the U.S. mortgage crisis.

The increase in home repossessions came even as the number of properties entering the foreclosure process slowed for the seventh month in a row, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

In all, banks repossessed 95,364 properties last month, up 3 percent from July and an increase of 25 percent from August 2009, RealtyTrac said.

August makes the ninth month in a row that the pace of homes lost to foreclosure has increased on an annual basis. The previous high was in May.

Banks have been stepping up repossessions to clear out their backlog of bad loans with an eye on eventually placing the foreclosed properties on the market, but they can't afford to simply dump the properties on the market.

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FedEx Forecast, Data Pressures Futures

Concerns are growing that the housing market recovery could stumble amid stubbornly high unemployment, a sluggish economy and faltering consumer confidence. U.S. home sales have collapsed since federal homebuyer tax credits expired in April.

That's one reason fewer than one-third of homes repossessed by lenders are on the market, said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac.

"These (properties) are going to come to market, but very slowly because nobody wants to overwhelm a soft buyer's market with too much distressed inventory for fear of what it would do for house prices," he said.

As a result, lenders are putting off initiating the foreclosure process on homeowners who have missed payments, letting borrowers stay in their homes longer.

The number of properties receiving an initial default notice -- the first step in the foreclosure process -- slipped 1 percent last month from July, but was down 30 percent versus August last year, RealtyTrac said.

Initial defaults have fallen on an annual basis the past seven months. They peaked in April 2009.

Still, the number of homes scheduled to be sold at auction for the first time increased 9 percent from July and rose 2 percent from August last year. If they don't sell at auction, these homes typically end up going back to the lender.

More than 2.3 million homes have been repossessed by lenders since the recession began in December 2007, according to RealtyTrac. The firm estimates more than 1 million American households are likely to lose their homes to foreclosure this year.

In all, 338,836 properties received a foreclosure-related warning in August, up 4 percent from July, but down 5 percent from the same month last year, RealtyTrac said. That translates to one in 381 U.S. homes.

The firm tracks notices for defaults, scheduled home auctions and home repossessions -- warnings that can lead up to a home eventually being lost to foreclosure.

Among states, Nevada posted the highest foreclosure rate last month, with one in every 84 households receiving a foreclosure notice. That's 4.5 times the national average.

Rounding out the top 10 states with the highest foreclosure rate in August were: Florida, Arizona, California, Idaho, Utah, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois and Hawaii.

Economic woes, such as unemployment or reduced income, are now the main catalysts for foreclosures.

Lenders are offering a variety of programs to help homeowners modify their loans, but their success rates vary. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners can't qualify or fall back into default.

The Obama administration has rolled out numerous attempts to tackle the foreclosure crisis but has made only a small dent in the problem. Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration's flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.

The program, known as Making Home Affordable, has provided permanent help to about 422,000 homeowners since March 2009.

Regardless, many troubled borrowers have seen their efforts to get a loan modification stymied.

Larry Book of Winter Garden, Fla., was one packet away from a permanent loan modification from Chase under the Obama administration's foreclosure prevention plan after more than a year of back and forth and one failed attempt.

But his modification never went through. Instead, his loan was transferred from Chase to IBM Lender Business Process Servicers in July and he was told he owed $9,562.62 and must bring his mortgage current by Sept. 15 or foreclosure proceedings will begin.

"It just becomes too exhausting," Book said about the modification process. "That's why some people walk away. But I've invested too much and given up too much to just let it go.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....


American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Friday, August 20, 2010

Commercial Real Estate Falling Behind

There are five states with commercial mortgage
delinquencies over 10%:

Nevada, Montana, Michigan, Arizona and Florida.

All of the other states are close to these delinquency
rates. There is no shortage of distressed commercial real
estate opportunities right now and it’s much easier to get in this
game than it used to be. Commercial loans that were
originated in 2006-2007 have doubled this quarter and are
defaulting at 3.95% and 4.28%. Loans originated in 2008 are
defaulting at 7.82%. Pretty eye opening, huh? That makes it
easy for you to find which properties to go after.

If you think that’s bad, check this out. These are the
delinquency rates for the different types of commercial
properties as of October 2009:

Office 2.29%
Hotel 6.81%
Retail 3.55%
Multifamily 6.00%
Industrial 3.09%

We are seeing the same signs of what the lenders did during
the 1981-82 and 1990-1991 recessions. There were more
millionaires made during then in commercial real estate
than any other time.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Homes lost to foreclosure up 6 pct from last year

Home repossessions surged in July, but pace of new home loan defaults continued to slow

The number of U.S. homes lost to foreclosure surged in July, another sign lenders are moving quicker to take back properties from homeowners behind in payments.

Lenders repossessed 92,858 properties last month, up 9 percent from June and an increase of 6 percent from July 2009, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

Banks have stepped up repossessions this year to clear out the backlog of bad loans. July makes the eighth month in a row that the pace of homes lost to foreclosure has increased on an annual basis.

Meanwhile, homeowners who are falling behind on their payments are being allowed to stay in their homes longer because lenders are reluctant to add to the glut of foreclosed homes on the market.
Story continues below...

The number of properties receiving an initial default notice — the first step in the foreclosure process — rose 1 percent last month from June, but tumbled 28 percent versus July last year, RealtyTrac said.

Initial defaults have fallen on an annual basis the past six months.

The latest data reflect a foreclosure crisis that continues to drag on as many homeowners struggle to make their monthly payments amid high unemployment, slow job growth and an uneven rebound in home prices.

Economic woes, such as unemployment or reduced income, are now the main catalysts for foreclosures. Initially, lax lending standards were the culprit, but homeowners with good credit who took out conventional, fixed-rate loans are now the fastest growing group of foreclosures.

Lenders are offering a variety of programs to help homeowners modify their loans, but their success rates vary. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners can't qualify or fall back into default.

The Obama administration has rolled out numerous attempts to tackle the foreclosure crisis but has made only a small dent in the problem. More than 40 percent, or about 530,000 homeowners, have fallen out of the administration's main effort to assist those facing foreclosure.

That program, known as Making Home Affordable, has provided permanent help to about 390,000 homeowners, or 30 percent of the 1.3 million who have enrolled since March 2009.

Still, RealtyTrac estimates more than 1 million American households are likely to lose their homes to foreclosure this year.

In all, 325,229 properties received a foreclosure-related warning in July, up 4 percent from June, but down 10 percent from the same month last year, RealtyTrac said. That translates to one in 397 U.S. homes.

The firm tracks notices for defaults, scheduled home auctions and home repossessions — warnings that can lead up to a home eventually being lost to foreclosure.

Among states, Nevada posted the highest foreclosure rate in July, with one in every 82 households receiving a foreclosure notice. The number of properties in Nevada receiving a foreclosure warning last month rose nearly 7 percent from June, but fell nearly 30 percent from the same month last year.

Rounding out the top 10 states with the highest foreclosure rate last month were: Arizona, Florida, California, Idaho, Michigan, Utah, Illinois, Georgia and Maryland.

Las Vegas continued to be the city with the highest foreclosure rate in the U.S., with one in every 71 homes receiving a foreclosure notice in July — more than five times the national average.

Source: AP News

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Thursday, July 22, 2010

U.S. Home Seizures Rise 38% to Record as Banks Process Backlog

A record 269,962 U.S. homes were seized from delinquent owners in the second quarter as lenders set a pace to claim more than 1 million properties by the end of 2010, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

Home seizures climbed 38 percent from a year earlier and 5 percent from the first quarter, the Irvine, California-based data company said today in a statement. More than 1.65 million properties received a foreclosure filing, including notices of default, auction and bank repossession, in the first half. That was up 8 percent from the first six months of 2009.

“Foreclosures haven’t peaked yet,” Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in a telephone interview. Unemployment suggests that bank repossessions may climb for another six to nine months, he said.

Waning consumer confidence and the jobless rate, which was 9.5 percent in June, are holding back a housing recovery. The expiration of a federal tax credit for homebuyers also cut demand, even as average borrowing costs for a 30-year fixed-rate loan set record lows. The rate was 4.57 percent last week, according to McLean, Virginia-based mortgage finance company Freddie Mac.

“It’s not interest rates that will get us out of this, but jobs,” Retsinas said. “New defaults seem to have stabilized, but there’s still a lot of volatility overall.”

One in 78 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in the first half, and filings surpassed 300,000 for the 16th consecutive month in June, RealtyTrac said. A total of 529,633 homes were seized by lenders -- the last stage of the foreclosure process -- in the first half, said Daren Blomquist, the data firm’s marketing manager.

Clearing Backlog

Banks are trying to avert foreclosure in some cases by modifying loans or attempting short sales, where a property is sold for less than the amount owed. That’s pushing down the number of new default notices even as lenders “cleared out a backlog” and seized more homes, James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s chief executive officer, said in the statement.

The number of properties that got a filing from April through June totaled 895,521, a 4 percent drop from the previous quarter and little changed from a year earlier. Total filings for the year are forecast to exceed 3 million, according to the data company.

“While the foreclosure problem is being managed on the surface, a massive number of distressed properties and underwater loans continues to sit just below the surface, threatening the fragile stability of the housing market,” Saccachio said.

Nevada, Arizona

Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate, as one in 17 households received a filing in the first half. The number of properties that got a notice totaled 64,429, down 13 percent from the previous six months and 6 percent from a year earlier.

Arizona ranked second at one in 30 households and Florida was third at one in 32. Rounding out the 10 highest rates were California, Utah, Georgia, Michigan, Idaho, Illinois and Colorado.

California led in total filings as 340,740 properties got a notice, down 15 percent from the previous six months and almost 13 percent from a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac.

Florida was second with 277,073 properties, down 9 percent from the previous six months and up 3 percent from the first half of 2009. Arizona was third at 91,484, down almost 2 percent from the previous period and up by a similar proportion from a year earlier.

Other states among the 10 highest totals were Illinois at 85,223; Michigan at 78,509; Georgia at 71,949; Texas at 64,883; Nevada at 64,429; Ohio at 59,927; and New Jersey at 36,542.
By Dan Levy - Jul 15, 2010
RealtyTrac sells default data from more than 2,200 counties representing 90 percent of the U.S. population.

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Mortgage modifications jump 15% but more than 40% leave program

The total number of homeowners getting permanent mortgage modifications under the Obama Administration's program increased nearly 15% in June, but a large number of borrowers are being ousted from the program.

Growth in permanent modifications have averaged more than 50,000 per month over the last six months, according to a report Tuesday by the Treasury Department. A total of 530,000 homeowners, which amounts to about 40% of borrowers, have had their permanent modifications canceled.

REPORT:Mortgage modification program through June 2010
SCORECARD: Efforts to help American homeowners

Borrowers may be removed from the program for not providing proper documentation such as proof of income.

A total of 389,198 homeowners have gotten permanent modifications.

"It's good. The housing market and economy are starting to resolve the issues, though it's going to take years," says Joel Naroff, with Naroff economic Advisors. "It's helping. It's working to some extent."

For the first time, the government also included information on how many borrowers with modifications are re-defaulting. For permanent modifications that have been in place for six months, fewer than 6% are 60 or more days delinquent. Fewer than 3% of homeowners in permanent modifications at nine months have defaulted on their modification.

The low re-default rate may be because borrowers who were going to be unable to make payments defaulted earlier in the program, economists say. It could also be that the job market is stronger today so fewer homeowners are losing their jobs and sources of income.

"Now a lot of people getting modifications are keeping their jobs," Naroff says, adding that more stable home prices also provide an incentive to remain current on payments. "And they're not losing equity. Indeed, it may be going up."

Homeowners in permanent modifications are guaranteed lower payments for five years, then fixed terms at today's low rates for the life of the loan. Those in the permanent modifications experience a median payment reduction of 36%, more than $500 per month.

Homeowners get a temporary modification for three months. If they remain current on those payments during that time, they are then moved into a permanent modification.

All borrowers get interest rate reductions, but about 56% also get a term extension on their loan. Another 29.1% have gotten reduction in principal. The predominant reason homeowners seek a modification is loss of income.

Changes in the program, such as expanding it to allow for more principal reduction and incentives for short sales, may make it more widely used in coming months.

"(The program) is not helping a lot of people, but for those that have gotten it, it seems to be working reasonably well," says Mark Zandi, with Moody's Analytics. "The problem is not a lot of people are getting it."
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Friday, July 16, 2010

Foreclosures in U.S. Reach a Record High! ------What Recovery?

Foreclosures in U.S. reach a record high
By ALEJANDRO LAZO - Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES -- The number of U.S. homes taken back by banks through foreclosure hit a record high in the second quarter, even as lenders delayed more homes from entering the process through short sales and loan modification efforts, according to data to be released Thursday.

This growing supply of lender-owned properties could set back the nation's housing recovery but probably won't sink it completely if the nation's employment situation doesn't deteriorate further and the economy begins to pick up steam, experts said. Sales of homes have faltered nationally in recent months with the expiration of government tax incentives for buyers.

U.S. bank repossessions increased 38 percent in the second quarter from the same period a year earlier for a record total of 269,952, according to Irvine, Calif., research firm RealtyTrac. That was also a jump of 5 percent from the previous quarter. If that pace continues through the year, the number of homes taken by banks is likely to top 1 million by the end of 2010, said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac senior vice president.

More than 1 million American households are likely to lose their homes to foreclosure this year, as lenders work their way through a huge backlog of borrowers who have fallen behind on their loans.

Nearly 528,000 homes were taken over by lenders in the first six months of the year, a rate that is on track to eclipse the more than 900,000 homes repossessed in 2009, according to data released Thursday by RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure listing service.

"That would be unprecedented," said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac.

Millions of Americans are still likely to lose their homes in the coming years, but the foreclosure crisis is finally showing signs of subsiding.

The number of households facing foreclosure in April fell 2 percent from a year ago, the first annual decline in five years, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

But the data aren't all sunny. While the number of new delinquencies is dropping, the number of borrowers losing their homes is still rising. Banks seized a record 92,000 homes last month.

The number of U.S. households facing foreclosure in January increased 15 percent from the same month last year, and a surge in cash-strapped homeowners who've fallen behind on mortgages could be on the way.

More than 315,000 households received a foreclosure-related notice in January, RealtyTrac Inc. reported Thursday. That number is down nearly 10 percent from 349,000 in December.

In January, one in 409 homes was sent a filing, which includes default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions. Banks repossessed more than 87,000 homes last month, down 5 percent from December but still up 31 percent from January 2009.

Foreclosures are likely to be a part of the real estate market for several years, but opinions about distressed properties are shifting, according to a study released this week.

Realty Trac, a company that tracks foreclosures nationwide, teamed with Trulia Inc., a real estate website, to study foreclosure opinions in the United States.

The study, conducted for the companies by Harris Interactive, found that fewer potential home buyers would consider buying a foreclosure than last year and fewer survey takers had negative opinions about foreclosures.

Foreclosures increased in Horry and Georgetown counties in March, and officials say they don't expect to see a decline any time soon.

In March, foreclosures in Horry County were up 8percent from the same month last year and up 50 percent in Georgetown County, according to data released this week by Realty Trac, a company that tracks foreclosures across the United States.

There was a 129 percent jump in foreclosures in the first three months of the year in Georgetown when compared with the previous three months, and a 50 percent increase from the same months last year.

"It is almost a certainty that we will see over a million over the course of the year, and that would definitely be a record," he said. "It's serious, but it doesn't appear to be that these levels will crater the housing market if the economy at least stabilizes and we do start to see some job creation."

A total of 895,521 foreclosure notices were filed on U.S. properties during the second quarter, an increase of less than 1 percent from the same quarter a year earlier and a 4 percent decrease from the first quarter, according to RealtyTrac. Notices of default - the first stage of the foreclosure process - were down 19 percent from the same quarter a year earlier and 11 percent from the first quarter.

"What is happening is that the number of loans that are going into delinquency is abating, but the number of loans that are moving through the foreclosure process is rising," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com. "This is because many loans got piled up in the foreclosure process as mortgage servicers tried to figure out all the various loan modification plans and policy efforts to mitigate foreclosure activity. Now, at this point, servicers are figuring out these programs and are starting to push loans through the process."

Because housing has stabilized and banks have improved their financial positions since the start of the financial crisis, regulators are pressing them to get rid of their troubled loans.

"There is growing pressure on the banks to get problem residential loans worked out one way or another," said Bert Ely, an independent banking consultant. "And the sense is that, in most markets, we are through the worst of it to the extent the economy improves at all."

In California, foreclosure filings totaled 192,422 in the second quarter, a 24 percent decrease from the same quarter a year earlier and an 11 percent drop from the first three months of the year. Notices of default were down 43 percent from a year earlier and 15 percent from the first three months of the year.

California also appears to be bucking the trend in bank seizures, with that number up only 1 percent at the end of the second quarter from the year-earlier quarter and down 1.5 percent from the first quarter. That relatively moderate increase is probably because banks are purposely postponing the auctions of homes to keep a flood of properties off the market, Sharga said, and will not last forever.

"California might be too saturated, in terms of what the banks are willing to put on their books right now," he said. "You will definitely see it coming later.

"Because of how out of control the prices and lending practices got during the boom, and now because of high levels of unemployment, California is probably going to be at the center of the foreclosure crisis until it's over," Sharga said.

Read more: http://www.thesunnews.com/2010/07/15/1586960/foreclosures-in-us-reach-a-record.html#ixzz0tl5ofcKL

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Home Sellers Slashing Prices, While Banks Mow the Lawn

That heady buzz from the home buyer tax credit is now turning into a grinding headache, as home sellers realize their very temporary, government-induced catbird seat has now fallen back to earth.
As of July 1st, 24 percent of sellers on the market had cut their asking prices at least once, according to Trulia.com.
That's up 9 percent from the previous month and represents about $27 billion worth of vanished national home equity (or home equity hopes).
"The market is going to maintain a relatively flat trajectory, if not more like a saw tooth trajectory, for the near future, and meaningful recovery may not happen until some time in 2011, 2012," says Trulia's Heather Fernandez.
Shocking? Not so much.
We knew the price stabilization was largely due to increased buying activity on the low end from the home buyer tax credit. The issue now, front and center, is foreclosures. We've already seen a few reports, and I expect we'll see more, that show new foreclosures "stabilizing," while bank repossessions are increasing.
First of all, the stabilization is at such a high rate that it's clearly an unsustainable stabilization for the economic recovery. New foreclosure notices need to drop, not just bump around at their near-record highs. And frankly the bank repossession number is a much bigger deal, because that is going to translate into immediate inventory on the market.
Do banks hold on to foreclosure inventory?
Of course they do, but in Los Angeles at least, they're getting a big incentive to dump it fast. L.A. last week passed a new city ordinance that fines banks, servicers, whoever owns the foreclosed property, up to $100,000 for letting the property fall into disrepair. We've heard and seen plenty of stories about run-down, stripped homes littering the landscape, with their overgrown lawns and broken front fences standing as glaring examples of what is not recovering in the housing market.
I wouldn't be surprised if more big cities do the same, and I'd encourage them to do so.
Let's face it, banks don't want to be homeowners, and they certainly don't want to shell out even more of their dwindling cash on lawn services and handymen. Whatever incentives there are out there to turn these properties over to homeowners who can actually afford them are certainly welcome.
The trouble is that there appears to be a dangerous disconnect in the housing market right now: Housing starts are at an all-time low and yet the home vacancy rate is rising. The only way that can happen is if the number of households is shrinking more than we know. Add bank repossessed homes to that mix, and I'm guessing home prices will dip more than some are expecting.
CNBC On Wednesday July 14, 2010, 12:38 pm EDT

If your worried about foreclosure American Eagle Realty can help you with solid answers about your rights and options before your house is foreclosed on! We are experts in the Short Sale Process and have the experience needed to work with your bank! Contact us we can help.....

American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801