Foreclosed Properties Data Articles

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) will provide Georgia with $153 million funds to purchase foreclosed homes, repair and then sell or rent them. The amount is part of the U.S. government’s $700 billion financial bailout for the banking industry.

By buying and repairing these foreclosed homes, the U.S. government hopes to address declining real property values, create affordable housing and restore neighborhoods affected by the market crisis.

Under the HUD guidelines, the housing aid covers only properties that have been foreclosed by banks. The program sets a limit to local governments to pay not over 85 percent of the property’s appraisal value.

People who are eligible to buy homes under the program are those who earn less than the 120 percent median income in areas where said properties are located. A four-member family with 85,000 annual income is eligible for the housing program.

Also, some properties covered by the program must be offered to families with an annual income of $35,000.

Local governments have the authority to choose properties that they would buy and repairs that would be undertaken, including hiring contractors. They are also allowed to rent out properties to eligible applicants and to evict those who failed to pay their rents.

However, local governments are prohibited from using the program to earn profits from the houses that they would repair and sell.

The funds are expected to be released by mid-February 2009. The HUD has given local governments, which have 45 days to develop their programs, until December 1, 2008 to apply for the housing aid program.

Local governments will be given 18 months to choose foreclosed properties that they would spend their allocated funds for four years. The remaining amount that has not been reserved or spent within the four-year period will be returned to the HUD.

In July 2008, the U.S. Congress passed a housing bill that would provide $3.92 billion to help rehabilitate foreclosed and vacant properties. Included in the bill are $22 million grants for Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. and counties of Prince George’s and Prince William.

Local governments must draft and submit their plans on how to use the grants to eradicate vacant properties to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

Local governments have the options to buy foreclosed properties and rent or sell these homes to eligible low-income residents. They could also help people who want to buy the properties or they could purchase blocks of vacant properties, demolish the houses and keep the land until the housing markets improve.

The HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization program includes local grants provision for aid plans for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and also a package to help about 400,000 homeowners who are facing refinancing for their mortgages.

These grants will also help communities where home market values have declined due to abandoned, foreclosed and vacant houses.

Meanwhile, housing department officials in Prince George County have proposed to use the county’s $10.88 million grant to buy 40 homes that have been foreclosed, rehabilitate them and sell them to eligible low and middle income residents.

The Association of Realtors in Prince George has proposed offering loans to be used as down payments by residents who are interested to buy homes.

A total of $4.1 million has been awarded to Prince William County which plans to use the grants to help potential homebuyers who need down payments, closing and rehabilitation funds. Nonprofit organizations can also avail of the funds to create rental or homeownership plans.

Local governments have until December 1, 2008 to submit their foreclosure aid plans to the HUD and then commit their funds on projects 18 months after they have been approved.

Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel has proposed to demolish about 2,350 derelict and abandoned homes in blighted neighborhoods using about half of the $47 million provided by the U.S. federal government to tackle its foreclosure problems. An estimated $8 million will be spent to repair certain vacant houses and about $4 million will be used to build new homes.

According to federal government regulations, the $47 million must be spent for the restoration of neighborhoods with the highest number of foreclosed homes and neighborhoods where individual resident income does not exceed by more than 120 percent the community’s median income. The $47 million allocation is part of the $3.9 billion released by the federal Dept. of Housing & Urban Development to help neighborhoods devastated by the foreclosure disaster.

Five of the nine recommended neighborhoods are Osborn, Brightmoor, North End, Grand River/Greenfield and East/Far East English Village. They are part of a neighborhood initiative established during the administration of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

The four other recommended neighborhoods are North Central and Kettering, Herman Gardens, the north section of southwest Detroit, and an area between East Outer Drive and McNichols and Woodward and Ryan.

According to the plan, which was prepared by Detroit’s Department of Planning and Development headed by Douglass Diggs, the funds will be coursed through neighborhood initiatives or foundations which have long been working in city redevelopment. The plan also needs to be approved by the Detroit City Council before it is implemented.

Diggs said that two-thirds of about 67,000 foreclosed homes in the neighborhoods since 2005 are still unoccupied despite previous neighborhood improvement programs. The 2008-launched plan is expected to put back value into the foreclosed properties and bring back stability into Detroit’s housing market.

Deborah Younger, who heads Detroit’s Local Initiatives Support Corporation and who has been assisting seven of the recommended neighborhoods, has expressed support for the plan.

Search for Foreclosed Properties by Michigan Top Cities:

• Detroit Foreclosed Properties
• Flint Foreclosed Properties
• Grand Rapids Foreclosed Properties
• Lansing Foreclosed Properties

In the last couple of years, the housing industry has been in very bad shape — thanks primarily to the growing number of foreclosed properties including condo units. For this reason, many condo associations are having problems involving fee collection.

Although the media have been doing their job in letting the consumers know about the current condition of the housing industry, there are still some individuals who are still quite unsure how the nation ended up in the middle of a foreclosure crisis.

In Los Angeles, the number of apartment units entering some stage of foreclosure has been increasing dramatically in the last 18 months. Although the owners and landlords will suffer much loss, the tenants can also be considered to be victims of the enduring foreclosure crisis.
Based on the data obtained from Los Angeles’ Housing Department, there [...]

Officials and health experts in Nassau County are considering a possible relationship between the increase in West Nile virus infections and the foreclosure crisis.
The probable link between these two has been based on the fact that mosquitoes carry the virus and it would seem that these mosquitoes have been living in the stagnant water found [...]

Deciding to buy foreclosed properties is indeed a smart choice considering that these homes offer so much more return potential than other properties. But making the decision to buy is the easy part. The actual purchase will involve some hard work and patience.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the volume of mortgage applications for the week that ended May 16 fell by 7.8 percent to 621.6. The week before, volume was pegged at 674.4.
Breaking down the report; the refinance volume dropped by 8.7 percent for the week. Meanwhile, mortgage application for new purchases declined by 6.9 percent. [...]

During the first quarter of 2008, home prices suffered a decline averaging 7.7 percent compared to that of 2007. This is probably the greatest decline since 1982 when the National Realtors Association began gathering data. Average median sale price nationwide also dropped by 4.8 percent to $196,300 for the same period.
According to NAR, the steep [...]