The Foreclosure Machine Cranks Up Again

Hi Folks,
   Welcome to 11/11/11. Crazy date! But it's Friday!

   You know, there are countless folks out there who have been breathing a little easier for quite some time, due to the halt in Foreclosures (if you recall, the "robo-signing" crisis a while back), however, it appears that the Foreclosure starts are on the rise once again.

   “Rising foreclosure start rates are likely a sign that servicers are playing catch-up on actions that have been delayed over the past year,” states Diane Pendley, managing director of Fitch Ratings, in a recent article on DSNews.com ("Foreclosure Starts Rise as Servicers Process Backlog of Delinquent Loans"), written by Krista Franks.

   Fitch reported that the Foreclosure start rates for severely delinquent private-label residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) loans have "stayed above 10 percent since September — a rate they have not reached since November 2009", with an even larger amount since then. Additionally, the article mentioned that the foreclosure starts for loans delinquent for six months or more "have almost doubled in the past five months". What will happen with the increase of distressed properties? You guessed it - pressure on the Housing Market.

   Further along in the Foreclosure process, the actual Foreclosure completions in judicial states "hover near their historic lows", the article says, to which Fitch says is due to "servicers’ continued loss mitigation efforts, a backlog in court foreclosure filings, and weak demand in the housing market.” Diane Pendley, managing director of Fitch Ratings, says that about a year after "deficiencies in the foreclosure process were brought to light", that Mortgage servicers now generally feel they have "implemented the corrective actions that they determined were needed".

   With the backlog, Fitch says that the effects of rising foreclosure starts may take more than a year to be evident, however, any way you look at it, there will certainly be more distressed inventory going on the books and will certainly impact the Housing Market.

   What are your thoughts?

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Have a Great Weekend, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog: http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Websites: http://www.lease2buy.com and http://www.homerunhomes.com

TAGS: #foreclosurestarts #distressedproperties #housingmarket #inventory #robosigning #mortgagebacked #RMBS

Foreclosures Flooding The Market And Diluting Prices

Good Morning,

   Hope you are making most of this short week (short for the lucky ones).

   The woes of the housing market surface and resurface in many different ways. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices were just released, and the numbers indicate that home prices in the Nation hit a new low in Q1 of this year. The figures showed a 4.2% drop, along with a, "new recession low" with the latest data. Additionally, home prices posted an annual decline of 5.1% when compared to Q1 of 2010. The release of these figures from Standard and Poors indicate that, "Nationally, home prices are back to their mid-2002 levels."

   "There's a three-year inventory of homes in foreclosure for sale, and that's devastating home prices.", says Les Christie, in a story titled, "Foreclosures for sale: Big supply, low prices", in a story on Yahoo Real Estate/CNN Money. The story points to data from RealtyTrac, and says that more than half of homes sold in Nevada are, "in some stage of foreclosure". California and Arizona are not far behind, with foreclosures representing 45% of sales.

   Rich Sharga of RealtyTrac was quoted very accurately as saying that this, "is very bad for the economy.".

   Homes, such as REOs (bank-owned homes), are selling dramatically lower than comparable properties, at an average of 35% less, per RealtyTrac. On the high end of this data is New York State, with a 53% discount for REOs in Q1. It is also worth mentioning short sales, which average at a 9% discount.

   Sharga says that it will take 3 years to sell the nearly 2 Million distressed properties, and about 2 years to clear out the REOs, to which he says, is, "without any new foreclosures at all coming into the system."

   This goes along with the S&P/Case-Shiller figures, where Minneapolis, for example, posted a double-digit 10.0% annual decline ("the first market to be back in this territory since March 2010 when Las Vegas was down 12.0% on an annual basis."). Always eager to end on a bright note, Washington DC was the, "only city where home prices increased on both a monthly and annual basis."

   Where do you think we'll go from here in terms of home prices and inventory?

Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com

TAGS: #foreclosure #realestate #REO #shortsales