Foreclosed Properties Data Articles

Repo homes for sale soared in number last year in the Hampton Roads area, a metro area that includes the cities of Newport News, Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Hampton. The area is known for its harbor, shipyards, waterfront properties, beaches and U.S. military facilities.

According to data from a California-based foreclosure research firm, foreclosures in the area soared by almost 50 percent year-over-year to 9,794 filings in 2009 and shot up by more than 360 percent compared to 2007 filings. Filings in 2009 represented 1.44 percent of all households in the metro area.

The Peninsula area, a part of the bigger Hampton Roads metro area, also experienced a staggering increase in foreclosures in 2009, posting 2,735 foreclosures, a significant jump from the 86 households notified of foreclosure in 2006.

Among counties in the Peninsula area, James City County posted the highest foreclosure rate at 1.5 percent in 2009 and ranked 27th among 134 counties and cities surveyed in Virginia. Newport News was 34th, followed by Hampton, which ranked 36th.

According to the Virginia Peninsula Association of Realtors and the Real Estate Information Network, almost 25 percent of existing homes resold in Hampton Roads in December were repo homes for sale and distresses properties, the highest percentage reached since the start of the housing crisis.

Jill Simmons, a HUD-certified counselor with Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia, said that a record number of distressed homeowners have been seeking housing counselors in 2009, but the number has been declining in the early part of 2010.

Simmons said that distressed homeowners may have been contacting their lenders directly or may have given up on their loans. She said that the services offered by Catholic Charities are free and advised troubled borrowers to work with a HUD-approved counselor who is familiar with the federal loan modification policies and who already knows what banks require.

Luanne Gallagher, director for the housing and financial counseling department of Catholic Charities, said that the percentage of troubled homeowners in danger of losing their homes because of unemployment or reduced income has surpassed the percentage of those who are distressed because of exotic mortgages or large loan amounts taken.

According to Tom Sullivan, head of the realtor association, more repo homes for sale are expected in the Hampton Roads area this year largely because of the record number of adjustable-rate mortgage loans that will reset this year.

Foreclosed houses caused huge losses in the home building industry across the country, but ironically in Lee County, Florida, these same houses have been helping home builders survive the downturn.

In Lehigh Acres, where foreclosures pulled down the median home sales price to only $55,500 in 2009 from the $237,965 median peak in 2006, home builders have been fixing foreclosures and reselling them to continue giving work to their employees while waiting for the time when they can build new homes again.

Advantage Builders and American Dream Builders have been fixing foreclosure properties for owners or have been selling bargain properties in the area. Once in a while, they get calls for the new homes they constructed before the housing meltdown. They have not been staffing their model homes because fulltime work for selling the new homes has been a losing proposition.

Executives from ten firms which have built houses in Lehigh Acres hope that in the next few years, the number of foreclosure properties drop and resale home prices increase so that they can begin building again.

Fort Myers builder Ray Scalero said that his firm was selling about 40 new houses per year in Lehigh from 2004 to 2006. Now, all home builders in the area cannot compete with bargain-priced foreclosed houses. He said that the cost of permit fees, impact fees and builder insurance already equal about 25 percent of the price of a pre-owned house, excluding the cost of the land and construction.

According to real estate executive Bob Oxnard, of the more than 4,600 single-family houses sold in 2009 in Lehigh Acres, almost 76 percent were foreclosures, the price median of which was $54,000.

During the boom in 2006, the median price for single-family houses in Lehigh was $237,965. It dropped in 2007 to $200,000 and plunged steeply in 2008 to $94,000. Last year, the median was only $55,500, just $1,500 above the foreclosure median sales price.

KenMark Construction, meanwhile, has been doing remodeling, extensions and steel buildings while waiting for better times. Cypress Homes, which sold about 75 new houses in 2006, has accepted nonresidential projects such as constructing the $7.5-million church building of the New Life Assembly of God over 15 months.

According to Jim Boggs, owner of Cypress Homes, it is not practical to build homes at a cost of about $130,000 per unit when existing homes and foreclosed houses can be purchased at half the price.

Buy foreclosure properties in California where there are still thousands of foreclosed units in active listings.

According to a California real estate broker, the state is currently fifth in number of distressed and foreclosed units available for sale. More than 87,000 residential units are currently in lists of properties for scheduled county auctions.

In Riverside County, there are nearly 17,000 foreclosed houses for sale while in neighboring San Bernardino County, there are almost 15,000 foreclosures ready for sale.

San Diego County, meanwhile, has more than 12,000 foreclosed units for sale and Orange County has 10,573 units in foreclosure listings.

Last year, California again topped all other states in total number of foreclosure postings, with nearly 633,000 of its housing units getting hit with delinquency or foreclosure sale notices.

Foreclosure filings declined on a month-over-month basis in California from August to November, but filings resumed their upward direction in December, with an increase of almost nine percent from November.

While foreclosures in the state are concentrated in four battered counties of Southern California, with about 55,000 foreclosed units ready for sale, investors and occupant buyers can also buy foreclosure properties in Northern and Central California counties, where there are currently around 20,000 foreclosed houses for sale.

Total house sales in California slowed down in December compared to the previous month, but showed an increase of almost 2 percent compared to sales in December 2008, based on sales figures from the California Association of Realtors.

The median home sales price in December across the state was $306,820 and the median in Los Angeles County was $338,000, marking a 5.6-percent jump from the median in December 2008.

CAR officials said that the overall sales figures were positive, showing a continued interest in home buying and in taking advantage of the federal tax credit and lower mortgage rates.

However, not all analysts are optimistic. Jack Kyser, economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, said that housing market recovery is still far away. He said that major lenders are still regulating the release of their foreclosures into the market. He also has doubts about the continued demand for homes and whether Congress is called upon again to extend the federal tax credit for the second time.

Nevertheless, investors can still buy foreclosure properties from the thousands of units available for sale at price levels that are profitable. CAR analysts expect the median home price to hover around $300,000 this year.

If you are new to foreclosed home auction proceedings, do not get into a bidding war especially against long-time bidders who have long been using inside information and their familiarity with proceedings and personalities in the auction sector to achieve their goals.

A foreclosure home for sale has been a means of recovery from financial difficulty for Bay Area real estate flippers Michael LaOrange and Steven Burris and broker Christopher Stafford.

The continued rise in foreclosure properties has been hurting condo associations throughout Florida, according to Fort Lauderdale-based Becker and Poliakoff, a law firm helping homeowner associations.

Orlando foreclosed properties and other foreclosures in Florida account for 29 percent of the $3.2 billion bad loans and assets of Ohio-based Fifth Third Bank as of September 30 despite the fact that total loans provided by Fifth Bank in Florida account for only 10 percent of the bank’s loan portfolio.

Los Angeles foreclosed properties contributed to the $60.8 billion in home values lost by property owners in the metro area during the 11-month period ended November this year, according to a real estate company.
The property loss in Los Angeles was higher than losses in any other metro area in the country during the period, [...]

Foreclosure houses on sale and distressed properties for sale currently account for more than 50 percent of all residential units for sale in the Alabama Gulf Coast counties of Baldwin and Mobile, according to members of the Baldwin County Association of Realtors.

Negotiating foreclosed property sales in the Treasure Coast has been a mixture of exhilaration and discouragement for buyers and real estate agents over the past months as various factors come into play in the Treasure Coast housing market.