Foreclosed Properties Data Articles

The growth of Los Angeles foreclosed properties may be averted in the coming months if banks make good on their promise of preventing more homes from getting foreclosed by stepping up their loan modification efforts.

Bank of America said it has been exhausting all options to keep troubled homeowners in their homes. It also denied reports that it is holding foreclosures off the market. It reiterated that it is obliged to prepare and release foreclosure properties to the market efficiently.

According to Kenneth Rosen, economist of the University of California in Berkeley, there will be no deluge of foreclosures just like before because Obama administration officials will do everything to ensure that foreclosures are posted gradually.

Housing analysts also contend that lenders themselves do not want the market to be overloaded with foreclosures because these will boomerang on them in the form of sharply reduced prices.

One proof that banks are holding off on foreclosures is the finding that the number of Los Angeles foreclosed properties has not been rising as fast as defaults. In the July to September quarter, nearly 7,800 households were hit with default notices, but only 2,149 units went into foreclosure and repossessed by the banks for eventual resale, based on data from a firm tracking foreclosures in California.

Statewide, more than 111,600 households statewide were hit with default notices in the July to September, but only around 50,000 homes went into foreclosure during the same period.

Compared to the second quarter, loan default notices decreased by more than 10 percent in the July to September quarter. Economists said that the drop is one sign that lenders have been delaying their foreclosure actions and have been responding to pressures from federal officials and housing advocates.

According to the foreclosure tracking firm, most foreclosures are still concentrated in inland communities with moderately-priced homes, but foreclosure actions have been rising in high-end neighborhoods. The number of default notices has been climbing up in affluent areas such as San Francisco, with an increase rate of 72 percent from last year’s third quarter; San Mateo, with an increase rate of nearly 59 percent; and Marin, with an increase rate of nearly 66 percent.

Additionally, according to Perry Wong, senior economist for Milken Institute in California, despite the encouraging drop in default notices, there are still concerns about the resetting of pay-option adjustable rate mortgage loans in the next months and years.

A court-administered foreclosed house auction of around 9,500 units across the state of Georgia in November was one of the reasons for the appearance of Georgia advocates before the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

At the congressional field hearing held in Atlanta, a group of professors, activists, builders and banking lobbyists testified before the subcommittee about the failure of the Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention programs in Georgia.

The advocates also cited the difficult conditions of commercial real estate properties in the state and the overall impact of the failure of a lot of Georgia banks on the economy.

Georgia now leads the country in the number of bank failures – 25 failed banks – equivalent to seven percent of all banks in the state. Georgia is also in the top seven in a ranking of states based on foreclosure rates in the July to September quarter.

The pace of foreclosure throughout the state increased by nearly 7 percent compared to the second quarter and increased by more than 25 percent from the same three-month period in 2008.

With one in 119 residential units in foreclosure during the quarter, over 33,000 units were hit with default or foreclosure actions and over 11,000 were already repossessed by banks. According to the advocates who spoke before the congressional subcommittee, around 9,500 homes are to be sold off in a foreclosed house action across Georgia this month.

The advocates complained that the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program failed to allocate funds to save community banks, such as those that collapsed in Georgia, while providing billions in funds to the big banks who were able to return the funds without using them.

Joe Brannen, head of the Georgia Bankers Association, also complained that many of the banks were closed due to aggressive interpretation of accounting rules and banking regulations. He also explained that banks were forced to pressure developers to pay their commercial property loans earlier than scheduled and to deny a lot of construction loan applications because of instructions from federal regulators to cut down their exposure to real estate loans.

Additionally, Frank Alexander, a professor at Emory University, said that many banks had little motivation to modify troubled home loans because they have TARP money to balance their books.

All in all, the advocates expressed their hope that the congressional field hearing will lead to concrete results, including the reduction of commercial and residential properties going into foreclosed house auction proceedings.

Sales of repossession homes in Grand Rapids, Michigan slowed slightly in October, but foreclosure sales and short sales are expected to rise again over the next weeks and months because of the increase in foreclosure filings in the metro area.

As reported by a foreclosure tracking firm, the number of foreclosure filings in Grand Rapids in the July to September quarter rose by nearly 9 percent from the previous quarter and by more than 25 percent compared to filings during the same period last year.

A total of 2,415 residential units in Grand Rapids received default or foreclosure notices, representing one out of every 132 households in default or foreclosure.

Meanwhile, total house sales in the metro area in October soared by 35 percent compared to total sales in October last year, with the average sales price increasing by more than three percent from the same month last year to $109,826.

According to officers of the Grand Rapids Association of Realtors, the growth in home sales occurred despite more than 9 percent of decrease in filings from October last year. They also contended that the increase in the average sales price happened because of the drop in short sales and in sales of lower-priced repossession homes in September.

In September, the average sales price dropped by more than 15 percent to $104,327, compared to the average sales price in the first three quarters of 2008.

According to Julie Rietberg, chief executive of the realtor association, the most active area of the market continues to be in single-family houses in the price range of $100,000 to $140,000. She added that whereas before home sales typically drop in the fall, home sales this September continued to rise because of the large number of first time buyers who took advantage of the federal tax credit.

There are a lot of advocates calling for the extension of the $8,000 federal tax credit because of the significant role it played in home sales increases and in home ownership programs for lower-income families throughout the country.

But there are also real estate professionals who have mixed feelings about the extension of the tax credit program. Grand Rapids lender Tom Vanderwell said he personally supports the extension of the program to help cut down the number of repossession homes, but he added that the policy is not good for the overall economy if it is extended indefinitely.

Buying government foreclosed homes in Georgia from HUD now is well timed because currently, there are over 4,000 HUD houses throughout Georgia, according to marketing management firm PEMCO Limited.

Tampa foreclosed properties did not increase in number as fast as in other metro areas in Florida in the July to September quarter, based on a report released this week by a foreclosure tracking firm.

Charlotte foreclosed properties dropped in number in September, but may rise again if unemployment in the area situation does not significantly improve, based on data from the realtor association of Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda and North Port.

Dallas foreclosed properties in the commercial sector are soaring, based on data from a foreclosure listing service in Collin County, Texas.

Churches with properties for sale signs are becoming a common sight across the country. Industry experts said that more and more parsonages, church schools, church buildings and other properties have become victims of the same monster that has devastated both the housing and commercial real estate markets across the country. And experts are not sure how long foreclosures would continue to devastate the secular real estate.

A portion of the Woodstock Station housing development project in Illinois is facing public foreclosure home auctions. The undeveloped portion of the project has been foreclosed by the Barrington Bank.

DeKalb County, Georgia wants police officers to find foreclosed houses to buy. According to market data, about 7,000 properties in the county are in foreclosure, with many of them becoming eyesores in neighborhoods and haven to some criminals.