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Foreclosures in July are 4th highest on record; delinquencies continue to decline

Dennis Norman

A report published by Lender Processing Services (LPS) analyzing homeowner’s performance on their mortgages as of July 2010 shows that mortgage delinquencies continue to decline however are still at very high levels versus historical norms.   At the same time however, foreclosure starts have increased to the fourth highest level on record.

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Help for unemployed homeowners facing foreclosure

Dennis Norman

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has announced yet another new plan to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. This plan targets homeowners that are struggling with unemployment and offers two foreclosure-prevention programs to help them.

The first program will be through the existing Housing Finance Agency (HFA) Innovation Fund for the Hardest [...]

Foreclosure Activity Increases In July; Down from a year ago

Dennis Norman

I remember, not that long ago, when 300,000 foreclosures in a month would have seemed unreal.  However, July now marks the 17th consecutive month that there have been foreclosure filings exceeding 300,000 for the month.

U.S. Home Values Fall In 2nd Quarter; Negative Equity Declines Though

Dennis Norman

A report just issued by Zillow shows that home values in the United States continued to decline in the second quarter of 2010, with the Zillow Home Value Index falling 3.2 percent year-over-year and 0.6 percent from the first quarter to $182,500. The national rate of decline decelerated from the [...]

One in 78 Housing Units In U.S. In Foreclosure In First Half of 2010

Dennis Norman

According to a report released this morning by RealtyTrac there were 1,961,894 foreclosure filings in the first six months of 2010 on 1,654,634 housing units in the U.S. This reflects a 5 percent decrease from foreclosure activity for the prior 6 month period but is an 8 percent increase from the same [...]

‘Shadow’ Foreclosure Inventory is the 800 lb Gorilla

Dennis Norman

For way too long I’ve been writing about record, or near- record, levels of foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies. My ongoing concern about this, in terms of the housing market, is that I just don’t see how we are going to have a sustainable recovery of the housing market while we have [...]

Mortgage Delinquencies Increase In May; 1 in 8 Borrowers At Risk of Losing Home

Dennis Norman

Homeowners’ mortgage delinquency rates increased in May 2.3 percent from April rising to 9.2 percent of all mortgages being delinquent. This information comes from a report issued by LPS Applied Analytics, one of the largest mortgage servicers in the U.S.

According to the report there are, as of May 31, 2010, 7.3 million home [...]

Nearly 233,000 Foreclosure and Bank-Owned Homes Sold in First Quarter

Dennis Norman

Average discount on Foreclosure and Bank-Owned Homes is 27 Percent

This morning RealtyTrac released a report stating that 31 percent of all residential sales in the first quarter of 2010 were foreclosure homes or bank-owned homes.  They are reporting 233,000 foreclosure and bank-owned homes sold during first quarter 2010 at an average price discount [...]

Federal Government Is Largest Owner of Foreclosed Properties; Over 200,000 and Growing

Dennis Norman

According to a report issued by Radar Logic Incorporated government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) and Federal agencies involved in housing finance currently have an inventory of over 200,000 repossessed homes. Being the largest owner of foreclosed homes in the U.S. gives the government a lot of power and influence over the [...]

Two and a half Million Foreclosures; Just the beginning

Dennis Norman

I spent this morning reading a sobering and, quite frankly depressing, report issued by the Center for Responsible Lending that focused on the demographics of people losing their homes as a result of foreclosure. The report is done well and looks at the impact of foreclosures on different races and ethnicity’s and [...]

Foreclosure Activity Drops 3 Percent in May; 15th Consecutive Month of Over 300,000 Foreclosure Actions

 

Dennis Norman

The good news is, foreclosure activity for the U.S. in May decreased by 3 percent according to a report released by RealtyTrac.  The bad news is, May marked the 15 th consecutive month where the overall foreclosure activity has surpassed 300,000 actions; that’s about 4 million foreclosures in the past 15 months.

For May [...]

Fannie Mae Issues Guidelines For HAFA Short-Sales and Deed-in-Lieu

UPDATE- June 2, 2010: The National Association of REALTORS obtained answers from the Treasury Department on 3 common questions about HAFA:

agents are not permitted to rebate a portion of their commission to the buyer,
sellers who are real estate agents must list their home for sale with another broker, [...]

Foreclosure Activity Decreases 9 Percent in April

RealtyTrac® released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ for April 2010, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 333,837 U.S. properties during the month of April, a decrease of 9 percent from the month before and a 2 percent decrease from April, 2009. This is [...]

Foreclosures Still On The Rise – Some Improvement in Hardest Hit Areas Though

RealtyTrac® released its  U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ for the first quarter of 2010, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 932,234 U.S. properties during the first quarter of 2010, an increase of 16 percent from the first quarter of 2009 (which, I should remind you, was [...]

Record Foreclosure Rate Could Hurt Demand For Homes and Slow Recovery

Dennis Norman

In a report just issued by Radarlogic there is some good news for the housing industry as in the report Michael Feder, President and CEO of Radar Logic, states “the evidence continues to support the view that housing has stabilized and is in the early stages of recovery.”  However, the report also reminds us [...]

Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) Update

 

Dennis Norman

As readers know, I have been somewhat critical of the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) which is part of the Obama administrations’ Making Home Affordable Program for a few reasons, one is I believe it is just a temporary “band-aid” and not a cure for the problem and two, it does not appear [...]

Fed Reserve: Housing Sales and Starts Have Flattened Out at Depressed Levels; Foreclosures Likely To Remain High

Dennis Norman

At the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on March 16th it was suggested that “economic activity expanded at a moderate pace in early 2010″. Unfortunately, when it came to the housing market, the news was not as good and it was noted that “housing activity remained flat and the nonresidential construction section weakened [...]

Foreclosures Decrease Slightly in February

For the 12th Straight Month over 300,000 properties received a foreclosure filing in February;

RealtyTrac® released its February 2010 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 308,524 U.S. properties during the month of February, a decrease of 2 percent from the previous month [...]

US Foreclosure Rate and Mortgage Delinquency Rate Continues to Rise

Dennis Norman

A report released by First American CoreLogic shows the foreclosure rate in the US increased in January to 3.19 percent, an increase of 60.3 percent from a year ago when the national foreclosure rate was 1.99 percent.

The national rate for seriously delinquent mortgage’s (mortgages that are 90+ days delinquent) increased in January as well to a rate [...]

U.S. Foreclosure Activity Decreases 10 Percent in January

Overall Activity Up 15 Percent From January 2009, REOs Up 31 Percent From January 2009; More Than 300,000 Properties Receive Foreclosure Filings for 11th Straight Month

RealtyTrac® today released its January 2010 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 315,716 U.S. properties during [...]

Las Vegas, Cape Coral, Merced Foreclosure Rates Highest Among Major Metro Areas in 2009

Dennis Norman

Top 20 Cities Are From California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona; Utah, Illinois, Oregon, Idaho Cities Indicate Foreclosure Problem Is Spreading.

Today RealtyTrac® released its year-end 2009 Metropolitan Foreclosure Market Report which shows that cities in four Sun Belt states accounted for all top 20 foreclosure rates in 2009 among metro areas with a population of [...]

November Foreclosure Rate in U.S. Up 77 Percent from a year ago

Dennis Norman

The foreclosure rate in the U.S. for the month of November, 2009 was 3.09 percent, a 77.6 percent increase from November, 2008 when the rate was 1.74 percent according to a report by First American CoreLogic.

In addition, the report showed that the number of borrowers that are seriously delinquent on their

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Record number of foreclosures in 2009

Dennis Norman

December’s foreclosure actions mark tenth straight month of over 300,000 notices and drive the 2009 total to over 3.9 Million notices on over 2.8 Million properties.

This morning RealtyTrac® released its year-end U.S. Foreclosure Market Reporttm for the year 2009.

 The report shows a total of 3,957,643 foreclosure filings (default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and [...]

Five Indicted in Foreclosure Rescue and Mortgage Fraud Scheme

 

Scam Involved Lawyers, Mortgage Brokers, and More Than $14.6 Million in Loans 

PHILADELPHIA—A 15-count indictment was filed today against five defendants charged in a $14.6 million mortgage fraud scheme that resulted in at least 35 fraudulent mortgage loans, announced United States Attorney Michael L. Levy, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI Janice K. Fedarcyk, and Pennsylvania Secretary [...]

Foreclosures in third quarter 2009 increase 23 percent from a year ago

Dennis Norman

Unfortunately the bad news on the US housing market just keeps coming.

This morning RealtyTrac® released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Reporttmfor the third quarter of 2009, which shows that foreclosure filings (default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions) were reported on 937,840 properties in the third quarter which represents a 5 percent increase from [...]

Foreclosure rate in U.S. increases 73 percent in August from a year prior

Dennis Norman

The foreclosure rate in the U.S. for the month of August, 2009 was 2.86 percent, a 73.3 percent increase from August, 2008 when the rate was 1.65 percent according to a report released yesterday by First American CoreLogic.

In addition, the report showed that the number of borrowers that are seriously delinquent on their [...]

Mortgage Programs Fall Short in Keeping Homeowners out of Foreclosure

To alleviate some suffering by homeowners, the Obama Administration introduced the “Making Homes Affordable” plan last March. Unfortunately, the plan has not yet had the intended effect.

Article by the Grand Law Firm

Economists debate whether or not the country is actually currently in a recession. Some say that there are positive signs that we have reached [...]

FDIC Launches Foreclosure Prevention Initiative

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is launching an initiative to help consumers and the banking industry avoid unnecessary foreclosures and stop foreclosure “rescue” scams that promise false hope to consumers at risk of losing their homes. 

This initiative includes outreach, referral services, and an information tool kit.  Arming consumers with information will heighten consumers’ awareness of foreclosure [...]

Foreclosures remain at near record levels in August

While there have been positive reports recently about the housing market, specifically existing home sales and, to some extent, a stabilization of prices, unfortunately there is plenty of bad news on the housing market as well.  For one, the number of foreclosures in the U.S. remains at near record highs.

RealtyTrac(R) released their August 2009 U.S. Foreclosure [...]

National Collaboration Turns Foreclosures Into Opportunities

In an unprecedented move, leaders from the nonprofit sector, philanthropic community, financial industry and government have joined forces in creating a highly innovative and effective approach to reclaim neighborhoods devastated by high concentrations of foreclosed and abandoned property.

The National Community Stabilization Trust, a new nonprofit organization, will help re-knit the fabric of neighborhoods torn apart [...]