Home values slide again in 2010, with few exceptions. by Stephane Fitch
The final figures for the U.S. housing market's performance thus far in 2010 won't be officially released for several weeks. But a review of the best preliminary data available indicates that the recovery in home values that began in early 2009 has stalled. A second dip is clearly under way in some places, if not across the entire U.S.
Zillow.com, a Seattle-based real estate data provider, is preparing to release figures for May and expects them to show a 1.7% decline in home values nationally through the first five months. The pain is spread unevenly across the landscape, with home values in cities like San Diego, Los Angeles and Boston rising 2% to 4% while prices in Las Vegas, Miami and elsewhere tumbled 6% to 7%.
New York-based data firm Radar Logic, which tracks values by sifting through housing transactions in the 25 largest U.S. cities, reports that through April 30 values were up 1.9%. It warns, however, that values may have merely received a boost from the spring season (home values typically have their best stretch as the weather warms) and the extension of the first-time-buyer tax credit that expired last month. Its index will likely hit new lows in the second half of the year, Radar Logic says.
In a report released last month analysts at investment bank Goldman Sachs ( GS - news - people ) said their own review of housing data available at the time showed 2009's recovery in values had stalled. U.S. housing values will fall 3% in the coming year, with the heaviest blows dealt to Las Vegas, Portland, Ore. and Seattle, Goldman predicts. With an eye toward high home-vacancy rates or rising mortgage delinquencies in these cities, the bankers projected values there would drop 4% to 12% in the coming 12 months.
Even if the darkest forecasts don't come true, the slippage so far this year is discouraging. Many homeowners had been hoping that home values would rise again this spring like they did in the spring of 2009 (they rose 8% between March 30 and mid-August, by Radar Logic's measure). That clearly hasn't happened during the most recent house-hunting season.
The banks are very reluctant to foreclose on many delinquencies because they would end up owning too much real estate without being able to sell it down the road. I believe that the vast majority
"Some metro areas did pretty well," says Zillow.com economist Stan Humphries, noting that Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego were up 3% or more through the end of May and that Boston and Denver also were both up year to date. "It's an otherwise dreary backdrop," Humphries adds.
In the housing downswing that plagued the U.S. in the early 1990s, home values fell in real terms, but inflation rates ran between 3% and 5%, which helped camouflage the modest retreat. No such luck now. With inflation running at just 2%, any slip in value greater than that is painfully apparent to homeowners.
"In nominal terms, we haven't had a price drop like this nationally since the Great Depression," says Humphries.
"I'm not sure you can even call this a double-dip, because I'm not sure we ever got out of the first dip," says Radar Logic Chief Executive Michael Feder. "Last year I think buyers moved in because prices were so low, but we've seen such a massive inflow of supply because of foreclosures and the big inventory of foreclosures to come. It's really affecting the comfort that buyers have in the prices they're paying."
Barclays Capital has estimated the number of homes in the hands of lenders, whether Fannie Mae ( FNM - news - people ), Freddie Mac ( FRE - news - people ) or any of the large private banks, is approaching 500,000. More than 200,000 of those homes are in the hands of the government lenders.
"They're the fastest-growing seller of foreclosed homes in the country right now," notes Feder.
Alarmed by the 11 million or so mortgages that are reportedly delinquent, Feder and others have been lobbying government officials to consider alternative plans to rescue housing. Feder favors a plan that would allow Fannie, Freddie and other banks to convert their underwater mortgages to shared-appreciation mortgages that would carry lower monthly payments and give banks and homeowners shared equity stakes in the homes' future appreciation.
One way or another the market must clear, and as it has so often in the past, California appears to be leading the way. Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco have all had respectable years thus far. Part of the reason is that state law enables the parties involved to work through foreclosures in as little as 90 days.
"Contrast that with Florida, where getting possession can take several more months," says Humphries.
Prices in Miami are down 6.9% this year, according to Zillow.com
Kentucky down -3.9% to $101600
Indiana up 1.0 % to $ 134,900
Ohio down-3.6 % to $ 130,000
Missouri down-.01 % to $ 149,900
Tennessee down-0.6 % to $ 168,900
West Va. down 0.0 % to $ 149,900
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, July 14, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Wealthy have become Biggest Defaulters on Mortgages
LOS ALTOS, Calif. — No need for tears, but the well-off are losing their master suites and saying goodbye to their wine cellars.
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Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
The housing bust that began among the working class in remote subdivisions and quickly progressed to the suburban middle class is striking the upper class in privileged enclaves like this one in Silicon Valley.
Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.
More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.
By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.
Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.
“The rich are different: they are more ruthless,” said Sam Khater, CoreLogic’s senior economist.
Five properties here in Los Altos were scheduled for foreclosure auctions in a recent issue of The Los Altos Town Crier, the weekly newspaper where local legal notices are posted. Four have unpaid mortgage debt of more than $1 million, with the highest amount $2.8 million.
Not so long ago, said Chris Redden, the paper’s advertising services director, “it was a surprise if we had one foreclosure a month.”
The sheriff in Cook County, Ill., is increasingly in demand to evict foreclosed owners in the upscale suburbs to the north and west of Chicago — like Wilmette, La Grange and Glencoe. The occupants are always gone by the time a deputy gets there, a spokesman said, but just barely.
In Las Vegas, Ken Lowman, a longtime agent for luxury properties, said four of the 11 sales he brokered in June were distressed properties.
“I’ve never seen the wealthy hit like this before,” Mr. Lowman said. “They made their plans based on the best of all possible scenarios — that their incomes would continue to grow, that real estate would never drop. Not many had a plan B.”
The defaulting owners, he said, often remain as long as they can. “They’re in denial,” he said.
Here in Los Altos, where the median home price of $1.5 million makes it one of the most exclusive towns in the country, several houses scheduled for auction were still occupied this week. The people who answered the door were reluctant to explain their circumstances in any detail.
At one house, where the lender was owed $1.3 million, there was a couch out front wrapped in plastic. A woman said she and her husband had lost their jobs and were moving in with relatives. At another house, the family said they were renters. A third family, whose mortgage is $1.6 million, said they would be moving this weekend.
At a vacant house with a pool, where the lender was seeking $1.27 million, a raft and a water gun lay abandoned on the entryway floor.
Lenders are fearful that many of the 11 million or so homeowners who owe more than their house is worth will walk away from them, especially if the real estate market begins to weaken again. The so-called strategic defaults have become a matter of intense debate in recent months.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two quasi-governmental mortgage finance companies that own most of the mortgages in America with a value of less than $500,000, are alternately pleading with distressed homeowners not to be bad citizens and brandishing a stick at them.
In a recent column on Freddie Mac’s Web site, the company’s executive vice president, Don Bisenius, acknowledged that walking away “might well be a good decision for certain borrowers” but argues that those who do it are trashing their communities.
The CoreLogic data suggest that the rich do not seem to have concerns about the civic good uppermost in their mind, especially when it comes to investment and second homes. Nor do they appear to be particularly worried about being sued by their lender or frozen out of future loans by Fannie Mae, possible consequences of default.
The delinquency rate on investment homes where the original mortgage was more than $1 million is now 23 percent. For cheaper investment homes, it is about 10 percent.
With second homes, the delinquency rate for both types of owners was rising in concert until the stock market crashed in September 2008. That sent the percentage of troubled million-dollar loans spiraling up much faster than the smaller loans.
“Those with high net worth have other resources to lean on if they get in trouble,” said Mr. Khater, the analyst. “If they’re going delinquent faster than anyone else, that tells me they are doing so willingly.”
Willingly, but not necessarily publicly. The rapper Chamillionaire is a plain-talking exception. He recently walked away from a $2 million house he bought in Houston in 2006.
“I just decided to let it go, give it back to the bank,” he told the celebrity gossip TV show “TMZ.” “I just didn’t feel like it was a good investment.”
The rich and successful often come naturally to this sort of attitude, said Brent T. White, a law professor at the University of Arizona who has studied strategic defaults.
“They may be less susceptible to the shame and fear-mongering used by the government and the mortgage banking industry to keep underwater homeowners from acting in their financial best interest,” Mr. White said.
The CoreLogic data measures serious delinquencies, which means the borrower has missed at least three payments in a row. At that point, lenders traditionally file a notice of default and the house enters the official foreclosure process.
In the current environment, however, notices of default are down for all types of loans as lenders work with owners in various modification programs. Even so, owners in some of the more expensive neighborhoods in and around San Francisco are beginning to head for the exit, according to data compiled by MDA DataQuick.
In Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and the most expensive neighborhood in adjoining Mountain View, defaults in the first five months of this year edged up to 16, from 15 in the same period in 2009 and four in 2008.
The East Bay suburb of Orinda had eight notices of default for million-dollar properties, up from five in the same period last year. On Nob Hill in San Francisco, there were four, up from one. The Marina neighborhood had four, up from two.
The vast majority of owners in these upscale communities are still paying the mortgage, of course. But they appear to be cutting back in other ways. The once-thriving Los Altos downtown is pocked with more than a dozen empty storefronts in a six-block stretch.
But this is still Silicon Valley, where failure can always be considered a prelude to success.
In the middle of a workday, one troubled homeowner here leaned over his laptop at the kitchen table, trying to maneuver his way out from under his debt and figure out the next big thing.
His five-bedroom house, drained of hundreds of thousands of dollars of equity over the last 13 years, is scheduled for auction July 20. Nine months ago, after his latest business (he has had several) failed in what he called “the global meltdown,” the man, a technology entrepreneur, said he quit making his $9,000 monthly payments.
“I’m going to be downsizing,” he said.
The man spoke on the condition of anonymity because, he said, he did not want his current problems to interfere with his coming reinvention. “I’m a businessman,” he explained. “I have to be upbeat.”
Carol Pogash contributed reporting.
BIG LOAN SMALL LOAN IT DOES NOT MATTER.........WE CAN HELP.........
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
Enlarge This Image
Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
The housing bust that began among the working class in remote subdivisions and quickly progressed to the suburban middle class is striking the upper class in privileged enclaves like this one in Silicon Valley.
Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.
More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.
By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.
Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.
“The rich are different: they are more ruthless,” said Sam Khater, CoreLogic’s senior economist.
Five properties here in Los Altos were scheduled for foreclosure auctions in a recent issue of The Los Altos Town Crier, the weekly newspaper where local legal notices are posted. Four have unpaid mortgage debt of more than $1 million, with the highest amount $2.8 million.
Not so long ago, said Chris Redden, the paper’s advertising services director, “it was a surprise if we had one foreclosure a month.”
The sheriff in Cook County, Ill., is increasingly in demand to evict foreclosed owners in the upscale suburbs to the north and west of Chicago — like Wilmette, La Grange and Glencoe. The occupants are always gone by the time a deputy gets there, a spokesman said, but just barely.
In Las Vegas, Ken Lowman, a longtime agent for luxury properties, said four of the 11 sales he brokered in June were distressed properties.
“I’ve never seen the wealthy hit like this before,” Mr. Lowman said. “They made their plans based on the best of all possible scenarios — that their incomes would continue to grow, that real estate would never drop. Not many had a plan B.”
The defaulting owners, he said, often remain as long as they can. “They’re in denial,” he said.
Here in Los Altos, where the median home price of $1.5 million makes it one of the most exclusive towns in the country, several houses scheduled for auction were still occupied this week. The people who answered the door were reluctant to explain their circumstances in any detail.
At one house, where the lender was owed $1.3 million, there was a couch out front wrapped in plastic. A woman said she and her husband had lost their jobs and were moving in with relatives. At another house, the family said they were renters. A third family, whose mortgage is $1.6 million, said they would be moving this weekend.
At a vacant house with a pool, where the lender was seeking $1.27 million, a raft and a water gun lay abandoned on the entryway floor.
Lenders are fearful that many of the 11 million or so homeowners who owe more than their house is worth will walk away from them, especially if the real estate market begins to weaken again. The so-called strategic defaults have become a matter of intense debate in recent months.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two quasi-governmental mortgage finance companies that own most of the mortgages in America with a value of less than $500,000, are alternately pleading with distressed homeowners not to be bad citizens and brandishing a stick at them.
In a recent column on Freddie Mac’s Web site, the company’s executive vice president, Don Bisenius, acknowledged that walking away “might well be a good decision for certain borrowers” but argues that those who do it are trashing their communities.
The CoreLogic data suggest that the rich do not seem to have concerns about the civic good uppermost in their mind, especially when it comes to investment and second homes. Nor do they appear to be particularly worried about being sued by their lender or frozen out of future loans by Fannie Mae, possible consequences of default.
The delinquency rate on investment homes where the original mortgage was more than $1 million is now 23 percent. For cheaper investment homes, it is about 10 percent.
With second homes, the delinquency rate for both types of owners was rising in concert until the stock market crashed in September 2008. That sent the percentage of troubled million-dollar loans spiraling up much faster than the smaller loans.
“Those with high net worth have other resources to lean on if they get in trouble,” said Mr. Khater, the analyst. “If they’re going delinquent faster than anyone else, that tells me they are doing so willingly.”
Willingly, but not necessarily publicly. The rapper Chamillionaire is a plain-talking exception. He recently walked away from a $2 million house he bought in Houston in 2006.
“I just decided to let it go, give it back to the bank,” he told the celebrity gossip TV show “TMZ.” “I just didn’t feel like it was a good investment.”
The rich and successful often come naturally to this sort of attitude, said Brent T. White, a law professor at the University of Arizona who has studied strategic defaults.
“They may be less susceptible to the shame and fear-mongering used by the government and the mortgage banking industry to keep underwater homeowners from acting in their financial best interest,” Mr. White said.
The CoreLogic data measures serious delinquencies, which means the borrower has missed at least three payments in a row. At that point, lenders traditionally file a notice of default and the house enters the official foreclosure process.
In the current environment, however, notices of default are down for all types of loans as lenders work with owners in various modification programs. Even so, owners in some of the more expensive neighborhoods in and around San Francisco are beginning to head for the exit, according to data compiled by MDA DataQuick.
In Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and the most expensive neighborhood in adjoining Mountain View, defaults in the first five months of this year edged up to 16, from 15 in the same period in 2009 and four in 2008.
The East Bay suburb of Orinda had eight notices of default for million-dollar properties, up from five in the same period last year. On Nob Hill in San Francisco, there were four, up from one. The Marina neighborhood had four, up from two.
The vast majority of owners in these upscale communities are still paying the mortgage, of course. But they appear to be cutting back in other ways. The once-thriving Los Altos downtown is pocked with more than a dozen empty storefronts in a six-block stretch.
But this is still Silicon Valley, where failure can always be considered a prelude to success.
In the middle of a workday, one troubled homeowner here leaned over his laptop at the kitchen table, trying to maneuver his way out from under his debt and figure out the next big thing.
His five-bedroom house, drained of hundreds of thousands of dollars of equity over the last 13 years, is scheduled for auction July 20. Nine months ago, after his latest business (he has had several) failed in what he called “the global meltdown,” the man, a technology entrepreneur, said he quit making his $9,000 monthly payments.
“I’m going to be downsizing,” he said.
The man spoke on the condition of anonymity because, he said, he did not want his current problems to interfere with his coming reinvention. “I’m a businessman,” he explained. “I have to be upbeat.”
Carol Pogash contributed reporting.
BIG LOAN SMALL LOAN IT DOES NOT MATTER.........WE CAN HELP.........
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 8, 2010
The Real Estate Nightmare
Facts About the Real Estate Nightmare
Business Insider boiled it down to a “simple” list… why the US real estate market is in such trouble. I don’t think any of the items on the list are a great shock to anyone, but together they spell big trouble. It points to the fact that we shouldn’t expect the housing market to recover anytime soon. That’s bad news for sellers, but good news for buyers.
1. Record low new home sales in May (32.7% drop).
2. Home prices are falling (median price down 9.6% over 2009).
3. Tax credit sales were revised sharply down (previous estimates were too
optimistic!).
4. May home sales show an irrefutable double dip.
5. May housing starts fell 10% over 2009.
6. Internet searches on real estate down 20% (see previous story).
7. Freddie & Fannie are a fiscal disaster.
8. The tax credit that was supposed to stabilize the market has expired.
9. Foreclosures are rising – up 18.6% in the first quarter of 2010.
10. Second wave of adjustable ARMs reset next year.
11. Home lending is getting harder due to tighter standards.
12. Mortgage delinquencies at record levels.
13. The overall economy reset will sink the housing bubble.
14. The oil spill will hurt the housing market.
Business Insider boiled it down to a “simple” list… why the US real estate market is in such trouble. I don’t think any of the items on the list are a great shock to anyone, but together they spell big trouble. It points to the fact that we shouldn’t expect the housing market to recover anytime soon. That’s bad news for sellers, but good news for buyers.
1. Record low new home sales in May (32.7% drop).
2. Home prices are falling (median price down 9.6% over 2009).
3. Tax credit sales were revised sharply down (previous estimates were too
optimistic!).
4. May home sales show an irrefutable double dip.
5. May housing starts fell 10% over 2009.
6. Internet searches on real estate down 20% (see previous story).
7. Freddie & Fannie are a fiscal disaster.
8. The tax credit that was supposed to stabilize the market has expired.
9. Foreclosures are rising – up 18.6% in the first quarter of 2010.
10. Second wave of adjustable ARMs reset next year.
11. Home lending is getting harder due to tighter standards.
12. Mortgage delinquencies at record levels.
13. The overall economy reset will sink the housing bubble.
14. The oil spill will hurt the housing market.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
33% of Home Sales are a Foreclosure!
Nearly 1 in 3 first-quarter home sales a foreclosure: report
By Julie Haviv | 30 June 2010 @ 10:37 am EDT
Nearly one out of every three U.S. home sales in the first quarter was a foreclosure property as steep price discounts boosted demand for distressed real estate, RealtyTrac said in a new report on Wednesday.
Foreclosure homes accounted for 31 percent of all residential sales in the first quarter of 2010, with the average sales price of properties that sold while in some stage of foreclosure nearly 27 percent below homes that were not in the process, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac said.
"In a normal market, only 1 to 2 percent of home sales are foreclosures, so this is certainly a significant level," Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac, said in an interview.
Total U.S. foreclosure sales in 2009 were up more than 1,100 percent from 2006 and more than 2,500 percent from 2005. Foreclosure sales accounted for 29 percent of all sales in 2009, up from 23 percent in 2008 and a mere 6 percent in 2007, the real estate data company said.
Foreclosure activity in the first quarter, however, ebbed from the previous quarter as well as year-over-year.
A total of 232,959 U.S. properties in some stage of foreclosure -- including mortgage default notices, scheduled for auction or bank-owned (REO) -- were sold to third parties in the first quarter, a decrease of 14 percent from the previous quarter and down 33 percent from the peak during the first quarter of 2009, when sales of foreclosure homes accounted for 37 percent of all residential sales.
"The drop from the previous quarter can probably be attribute to seasonality, and while the year-over-year drop is significant, it should be noted that it was down from the peak," Sharga said.
"A combination of an enormous inventory of distressed properties and an unprecedented interest by homebuyers to buy these properties boosted sales," he said.
The average sales prices on properties in some stage of foreclosure decreased 23 percent from 2006-09, while the average discounts on foreclosure purchases increased from 21 percent in 2006 to 27 percent in the first quarter of 2010.
The discounts on REOs are larger than those on pre-foreclosures, although discounts on pre-foreclosures appear to be trending higher as short sales become more common, the company said.
"First time homebuyers and investors continue to buy foreclosure properties in large numbers, and at substantial discounts," James Saccacio, Chief Executive Officer of RealtyTrac, said in a statement.
"As lenders have begun repossessing homes at record levels over the first half of 2010, it will be interesting to watch how they will manage the inventory levels of distressed properties on the market in order to prevent more dramatic price deterioration," he said.
Meanwhile, the Sun Belt continued to lead foreclosures nationally, with Nevada, California and Arizona posting the highest percentage of foreclosure sales in the first quarter.
Foreclosure sales accounted for 64 percent of all sales in Nevada in the first quarter -- the highest percentage of any state. The state's percentage was down from 65 percent of all sales in the previous quarter and 75 percent of overall sales in the first quarter of 2009.
California posted the second highest percentage for U.S. states, with foreclosure sales accounting for 51 percent of all sales there in the first quarter -- up from 50 percent in the previous quarter, but down from 70 percent of all sales in the first quarter of 2009.
Other states where foreclosure sales accounted for at least one-third of total sales were Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Florida, Michigan, Georgia, Illinois, Idaho and Oregon.
Foreclosures are by far one of the biggest threats to the U.S. housing market. Improvement in the housing market bodes well for the national economy, as it points to better demand in the sector where the first signs of the latest recession took root.
By Julie Haviv | 30 June 2010 @ 10:37 am EDT
Nearly one out of every three U.S. home sales in the first quarter was a foreclosure property as steep price discounts boosted demand for distressed real estate, RealtyTrac said in a new report on Wednesday.
Foreclosure homes accounted for 31 percent of all residential sales in the first quarter of 2010, with the average sales price of properties that sold while in some stage of foreclosure nearly 27 percent below homes that were not in the process, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac said.
"In a normal market, only 1 to 2 percent of home sales are foreclosures, so this is certainly a significant level," Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac, said in an interview.
Total U.S. foreclosure sales in 2009 were up more than 1,100 percent from 2006 and more than 2,500 percent from 2005. Foreclosure sales accounted for 29 percent of all sales in 2009, up from 23 percent in 2008 and a mere 6 percent in 2007, the real estate data company said.
Foreclosure activity in the first quarter, however, ebbed from the previous quarter as well as year-over-year.
A total of 232,959 U.S. properties in some stage of foreclosure -- including mortgage default notices, scheduled for auction or bank-owned (REO) -- were sold to third parties in the first quarter, a decrease of 14 percent from the previous quarter and down 33 percent from the peak during the first quarter of 2009, when sales of foreclosure homes accounted for 37 percent of all residential sales.
"The drop from the previous quarter can probably be attribute to seasonality, and while the year-over-year drop is significant, it should be noted that it was down from the peak," Sharga said.
"A combination of an enormous inventory of distressed properties and an unprecedented interest by homebuyers to buy these properties boosted sales," he said.
The average sales prices on properties in some stage of foreclosure decreased 23 percent from 2006-09, while the average discounts on foreclosure purchases increased from 21 percent in 2006 to 27 percent in the first quarter of 2010.
The discounts on REOs are larger than those on pre-foreclosures, although discounts on pre-foreclosures appear to be trending higher as short sales become more common, the company said.
"First time homebuyers and investors continue to buy foreclosure properties in large numbers, and at substantial discounts," James Saccacio, Chief Executive Officer of RealtyTrac, said in a statement.
"As lenders have begun repossessing homes at record levels over the first half of 2010, it will be interesting to watch how they will manage the inventory levels of distressed properties on the market in order to prevent more dramatic price deterioration," he said.
Meanwhile, the Sun Belt continued to lead foreclosures nationally, with Nevada, California and Arizona posting the highest percentage of foreclosure sales in the first quarter.
Foreclosure sales accounted for 64 percent of all sales in Nevada in the first quarter -- the highest percentage of any state. The state's percentage was down from 65 percent of all sales in the previous quarter and 75 percent of overall sales in the first quarter of 2009.
California posted the second highest percentage for U.S. states, with foreclosure sales accounting for 51 percent of all sales there in the first quarter -- up from 50 percent in the previous quarter, but down from 70 percent of all sales in the first quarter of 2009.
Other states where foreclosure sales accounted for at least one-third of total sales were Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Florida, Michigan, Georgia, Illinois, Idaho and Oregon.
Foreclosures are by far one of the biggest threats to the U.S. housing market. Improvement in the housing market bodes well for the national economy, as it points to better demand in the sector where the first signs of the latest recession took root.
Monday, June 28, 2010
More distressed homeowners drop out of HAMP
06.23.10
By Credit.com Staff
Foreclosures are expected to increase as more Americans drop out of HAMP
The Obama administration's Home Affordable Modification Program aimed at providing relief to distressed homeowners does not seem to be having its intended effects, according to the Associated Press. As more Americans are forced to drop out of the program, the number of foreclosures in the U.S. is expected to climb.
To date, the $75 billion program has seen nearly one-third of its 1.24 million initial applicants drop out or face disqualification, making the number of people that have left the program higher than the number of Americans that received permanent mortgage modification loans under HAMP, the AP reports. After 155,000 participants left the program in May, the total number of Americans that have dropped out as of March 2009 stands at 436,000. A total of 340,000 homeowners have received permanent modifications and seen their monthly mortgage loan payments drop, the AP said.
Initially, most banks did not require borrowers to provide the thorough documentation needed to prove their income. However, when banks began seeking the information, many homeowners found they were not eligible for the modification or dropped out, the AP reports. While some banks attribute the high number of disqualified individuals to the homeowners not sending in the correct paperwork, some distressed borrowers argue that they sent in the necessary documents many times over and received no response from the banks, according to the AP.
The program has now tightened its standards, requiring borrowers to provide proof of income, two recent pay stubs, and their most recent tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service, the AP said.
Experts expect to see foreclosure rates increase as job growth remains stagnant and many Americans are unable to qualify for modifications. A recent report shows that nearly 75 percent of homeowners that have received a permanent modification will re-default within one 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! Contact us we can help.....
American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801
By Credit.com Staff
Foreclosures are expected to increase as more Americans drop out of HAMP
The Obama administration's Home Affordable Modification Program aimed at providing relief to distressed homeowners does not seem to be having its intended effects, according to the Associated Press. As more Americans are forced to drop out of the program, the number of foreclosures in the U.S. is expected to climb.
To date, the $75 billion program has seen nearly one-third of its 1.24 million initial applicants drop out or face disqualification, making the number of people that have left the program higher than the number of Americans that received permanent mortgage modification loans under HAMP, the AP reports. After 155,000 participants left the program in May, the total number of Americans that have dropped out as of March 2009 stands at 436,000. A total of 340,000 homeowners have received permanent modifications and seen their monthly mortgage loan payments drop, the AP said.
Initially, most banks did not require borrowers to provide the thorough documentation needed to prove their income. However, when banks began seeking the information, many homeowners found they were not eligible for the modification or dropped out, the AP reports. While some banks attribute the high number of disqualified individuals to the homeowners not sending in the correct paperwork, some distressed borrowers argue that they sent in the necessary documents many times over and received no response from the banks, according to the AP.
The program has now tightened its standards, requiring borrowers to provide proof of income, two recent pay stubs, and their most recent tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service, the AP said.
Experts expect to see foreclosure rates increase as job growth remains stagnant and many Americans are unable to qualify for modifications. A recent report shows that nearly 75 percent of homeowners that have received a permanent modification will re-default within one 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! Contact us we can help.....
American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801
Monday, June 14, 2010
U.S. Home Foreclosures Climb 44% to Record in May
June 10 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. home foreclosures reached a record for the second consecutive month in May, with increases in every state, as lenders stepped up property seizures, according to RealtyTrac Inc.
Bank repossessions climbed 44 percent from May 2009 to 93,777, the Irvine, California-based data company said today in a statement. Foreclosure filings, including default and auction notices, rose about 1 percent to 322,920. One out of every 400 U.S. households received a filing.
“We’re nowhere near out of the woods,” Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice president for marketing, said in a telephone interview. “We’re likely to set a quarterly record for home seizures if June is anything like May.”
Lenders are completing the “inevitable progression” of taking properties from homeowners who stopped paying, Sharga said. He predicted last month that another 5 million delinquent mortgages will end in foreclosure in addition to properties that had already been repossessed.
Almost 3.1 million properties have been seized by banks since April 2005, Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac’s marketing communications manager, said in an interview today.
“The second quarter won’t be the peak,” Sharga said. “I’m not even sure 2010 will be.”
The previous record for seizures was 92,432 in April. Last month was the first in which every state had an increase in repossessions from a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac.
Unemployment Rate
U.S. private payrolls rose by 41,000 in May, Labor Department data showed last week. The hiring of temporary census workers boosted overall payroll growth to 431,000. The jobless rate fell to 9.7 percent, from 9.9 percent in April.
Almost a quarter of the nation’s mortgage holders owed more than their homes were worth in the first quarter, Zillow.com said last month. Bank sales of foreclosed properties accounted for more than a fifth of all U.S. home transactions in March, the Seattle-based real estate data provider said.
Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp., the two largest U.S. home lenders, are cutting principal on some mortgages in an effort to keepwners in properties and get them to pay at least part of what they owe. Bank of America said in March it was reducing principal for some borrowers who owe more than 120 percent of what their homes are worth.
“Marginal people, those types that were working as laborers, are most affected by foreclosures,” said Albert Kyle, a finance professor at the University of Maryland’s R.M. Smith School of Business in College Park. “A lot of foreclosures are occurring in modest houses.”
Default Notices
The number of homes that received default notices last month was 96,462, down 7 percent from April and 22 percent from a year earlier, RealtyTrac said. A default notice is the first stage in the foreclosure process. They peaked at 142,064 in April 2009.
A foreclosure auction, the second stage in the process, was scheduled on 132,681 properties, down 4 percent from April and about 1 percent from May 2009. The record was 158,105, reached in March.
Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate for the 41st straight month. One in every 79 households got a notice, more than five times the national average. Filings fell almost 12 percent from the previous month and 16 percent from May 2009.
Arizona had the second-highest rate, at one in 169 households, or more than twice the U.S. average. Filings fell 5 percent from a year earlier. Florida ranked third at one in 174 households, and California was fourth at one in 186.
Rise in Michigan
Michigan ranked fifth at one in 223 households, with filings up 6 percent from April and 46 percent from a year earlier, RealtyTrac said. Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Utah and Maryland also ranked among the 10 highest rates.
Ten states accounted for more than 70 percent of all U.S. filings, led by California’s 72,030. Filings in the most populous state rose 3 percent from April and declined 22 percent from a year earlier.
Florida ranked second with 50,685 filings, up 5 percent from April and down 14 percent from a year earlier. Michigan was third at 20,322, followed by Arizona at 16,097.
Illinois had 15,061 filings, up 38 percent from a year earlier, and Nevada had 14,346.
Georgia, Texas, Ohio and New Jersey rounded out the top 10, said RealtyTrac, which 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
-
Bank repossessions climbed 44 percent from May 2009 to 93,777, the Irvine, California-based data company said today in a statement. Foreclosure filings, including default and auction notices, rose about 1 percent to 322,920. One out of every 400 U.S. households received a filing.
“We’re nowhere near out of the woods,” Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice president for marketing, said in a telephone interview. “We’re likely to set a quarterly record for home seizures if June is anything like May.”
Lenders are completing the “inevitable progression” of taking properties from homeowners who stopped paying, Sharga said. He predicted last month that another 5 million delinquent mortgages will end in foreclosure in addition to properties that had already been repossessed.
Almost 3.1 million properties have been seized by banks since April 2005, Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac’s marketing communications manager, said in an interview today.
“The second quarter won’t be the peak,” Sharga said. “I’m not even sure 2010 will be.”
The previous record for seizures was 92,432 in April. Last month was the first in which every state had an increase in repossessions from a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac.
Unemployment Rate
U.S. private payrolls rose by 41,000 in May, Labor Department data showed last week. The hiring of temporary census workers boosted overall payroll growth to 431,000. The jobless rate fell to 9.7 percent, from 9.9 percent in April.
Almost a quarter of the nation’s mortgage holders owed more than their homes were worth in the first quarter, Zillow.com said last month. Bank sales of foreclosed properties accounted for more than a fifth of all U.S. home transactions in March, the Seattle-based real estate data provider said.
Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp., the two largest U.S. home lenders, are cutting principal on some mortgages in an effort to keepwners in properties and get them to pay at least part of what they owe. Bank of America said in March it was reducing principal for some borrowers who owe more than 120 percent of what their homes are worth.
“Marginal people, those types that were working as laborers, are most affected by foreclosures,” said Albert Kyle, a finance professor at the University of Maryland’s R.M. Smith School of Business in College Park. “A lot of foreclosures are occurring in modest houses.”
Default Notices
The number of homes that received default notices last month was 96,462, down 7 percent from April and 22 percent from a year earlier, RealtyTrac said. A default notice is the first stage in the foreclosure process. They peaked at 142,064 in April 2009.
A foreclosure auction, the second stage in the process, was scheduled on 132,681 properties, down 4 percent from April and about 1 percent from May 2009. The record was 158,105, reached in March.
Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate for the 41st straight month. One in every 79 households got a notice, more than five times the national average. Filings fell almost 12 percent from the previous month and 16 percent from May 2009.
Arizona had the second-highest rate, at one in 169 households, or more than twice the U.S. average. Filings fell 5 percent from a year earlier. Florida ranked third at one in 174 households, and California was fourth at one in 186.
Rise in Michigan
Michigan ranked fifth at one in 223 households, with filings up 6 percent from April and 46 percent from a year earlier, RealtyTrac said. Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Utah and Maryland also ranked among the 10 highest rates.
Ten states accounted for more than 70 percent of all U.S. filings, led by California’s 72,030. Filings in the most populous state rose 3 percent from April and declined 22 percent from a year earlier.
Florida ranked second with 50,685 filings, up 5 percent from April and down 14 percent from a year earlier. Michigan was third at 20,322, followed by Arizona at 16,097.
Illinois had 15,061 filings, up 38 percent from a year earlier, and Nevada had 14,346.
Georgia, Texas, Ohio and New Jersey rounded out the top 10, said RealtyTrac, which 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, June 8, 2010
May Home-Buying Activity Looks Worse Than Expected
By James R. Hagerty and Nick Timiraos
How will housing sales fare without the benefit of big tax breaks for home buyers? The early indications are that sales are down very sharply in recent weeks, worse than most brokers and analysts expected.
Of course, economists and real estate analysts expected home sales to slow after the tax credit, of as much as $8,000, expired at the end of April. But early data from real estate brokers indicate that the sales declined as much as 25% to 30 from the year-earlier levels in some markets.
Without the tax bait, “consumers just don’t have that same sense they have to move quickly,” said Patrick Lashinsky, CEO of ZipRealty Inc., a big brokerage firm.
The May slump is ominous, but it’s too early to tell whether it portends another serious downward lurch in a market that has generally been leveling off over the past year.
Despite the recent drop in mortgage rates to less than 5%, applications for home-purchase mortgages have fallen in each of the last four weeks. In late May they were down nearly 40% from a month before, reaching their lowest level in 13 years, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Even the Realtors are acknowledging that things look dicey. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, estimated that contracts signed for home resales in May were down 20% to 30% from a year earlier. He expects June and July to remain fairly weak and will be watching nervously for signs of a rebound in August or September. “Housing cannot just depend on [government] stimulus forever,” Mr. Yun said.
Home-purchase contracts signed in New Jersey last month were down 25% from a year earlier, estimates Otteau Valuation Group, an appraisal firm in East Brunswick, N.J. New Jersey’s state legislature is considering its own tax credit for home buyers.
In the Minneapolis area, the number of newly signed home-purchase contracts in the week ended May 22 was down 30% from a year earlier, according to the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors. “Our buyers, if they haven’t purchased, have just decided to wait,” said Brad Fisher, president of the local Realtor group.
In the Phoenix area, contracts signed in May plunged 26% from a year earlier, local Realtor data show. In Denver, the drop was 27%. Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which covers 21 counties in Washington state, including the Seattle area, reported Friday that contracts signed in May also were down 27% in its region.
In another sign of weak sales, the number of homes on the market is growing again. ZipRealty said the number of homes listed for sale in 26 major metro areas across the U.S. in May was up 1.7% from April. In a typical May, the inventory doesn’t increase from April, according to Ivy Zelman, chief executive of Zelman & Associates, a research firm.
Adding to some of the static over where housing is headed: buyers that signed contracts by April 30 have until the end of June to close on those properties and receive the $8,000 tax credit. That means actual sales volumes in May and June could continue to show strength, even though new sales activity has already fallen. The drop-off in activity might not show up in closed sales figures until July.
Some markets haven’t suffered much from the loss of tax credits. An $8,000 credit doesn’t go far in most of Manhattan, where home prices start near $1 million, and so the Big Apple could see less of a lull. “Now people seem to feel it’s okay to spend some money,” said Pamela Liebman, CEO of Corcoran Group, a big broker in Manhattan.
California’s state tax credit of as much as $10,000, which ends Dec. 31, has helped sustain sales there. Contracts signed in May in the Los Angeles region were up 16% from a year earlier (but down 9% from April), while San Diego was down 3% from year-ago levels. San Francisco’s East Bay was up 2%, while the Napa Valley region posted a 15% gain from one year ago (but a 14% month-over-month decline).
In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, home-sale contracts signed in May were up nearly 5% from a year earlier, according to EWM Realtors. Many buyers in Miami are foreigners attracted by huge price cuts there over the past couple of years, said Patrick O’Connell, a senior vice president at EWM.
If you are seriously looking for that "great deal" in a buyers market we can meet all of your needs!
American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801
How will housing sales fare without the benefit of big tax breaks for home buyers? The early indications are that sales are down very sharply in recent weeks, worse than most brokers and analysts expected.
Of course, economists and real estate analysts expected home sales to slow after the tax credit, of as much as $8,000, expired at the end of April. But early data from real estate brokers indicate that the sales declined as much as 25% to 30 from the year-earlier levels in some markets.
Without the tax bait, “consumers just don’t have that same sense they have to move quickly,” said Patrick Lashinsky, CEO of ZipRealty Inc., a big brokerage firm.
The May slump is ominous, but it’s too early to tell whether it portends another serious downward lurch in a market that has generally been leveling off over the past year.
Despite the recent drop in mortgage rates to less than 5%, applications for home-purchase mortgages have fallen in each of the last four weeks. In late May they were down nearly 40% from a month before, reaching their lowest level in 13 years, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Even the Realtors are acknowledging that things look dicey. Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, estimated that contracts signed for home resales in May were down 20% to 30% from a year earlier. He expects June and July to remain fairly weak and will be watching nervously for signs of a rebound in August or September. “Housing cannot just depend on [government] stimulus forever,” Mr. Yun said.
Home-purchase contracts signed in New Jersey last month were down 25% from a year earlier, estimates Otteau Valuation Group, an appraisal firm in East Brunswick, N.J. New Jersey’s state legislature is considering its own tax credit for home buyers.
In the Minneapolis area, the number of newly signed home-purchase contracts in the week ended May 22 was down 30% from a year earlier, according to the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors. “Our buyers, if they haven’t purchased, have just decided to wait,” said Brad Fisher, president of the local Realtor group.
In the Phoenix area, contracts signed in May plunged 26% from a year earlier, local Realtor data show. In Denver, the drop was 27%. Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which covers 21 counties in Washington state, including the Seattle area, reported Friday that contracts signed in May also were down 27% in its region.
In another sign of weak sales, the number of homes on the market is growing again. ZipRealty said the number of homes listed for sale in 26 major metro areas across the U.S. in May was up 1.7% from April. In a typical May, the inventory doesn’t increase from April, according to Ivy Zelman, chief executive of Zelman & Associates, a research firm.
Adding to some of the static over where housing is headed: buyers that signed contracts by April 30 have until the end of June to close on those properties and receive the $8,000 tax credit. That means actual sales volumes in May and June could continue to show strength, even though new sales activity has already fallen. The drop-off in activity might not show up in closed sales figures until July.
Some markets haven’t suffered much from the loss of tax credits. An $8,000 credit doesn’t go far in most of Manhattan, where home prices start near $1 million, and so the Big Apple could see less of a lull. “Now people seem to feel it’s okay to spend some money,” said Pamela Liebman, CEO of Corcoran Group, a big broker in Manhattan.
California’s state tax credit of as much as $10,000, which ends Dec. 31, has helped sustain sales there. Contracts signed in May in the Los Angeles region were up 16% from a year earlier (but down 9% from April), while San Diego was down 3% from year-ago levels. San Francisco’s East Bay was up 2%, while the Napa Valley region posted a 15% gain from one year ago (but a 14% month-over-month decline).
In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, home-sale contracts signed in May were up nearly 5% from a year earlier, according to EWM Realtors. Many buyers in Miami are foreigners attracted by huge price cuts there over the past couple of years, said Patrick O’Connell, a senior vice president at EWM.
If you are seriously looking for that "great deal" in a buyers market we can meet all of your needs!
American Eagle Realty
www.american-eagle-realty.com
502-969-1801
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