MortgageOrb.com is reporting that new funding from the U.S. Treasury Department will likely bring a pilot version for mortgage payment assistance for unemployed borrowers to Lee County first. Primarily due to the large economic problems in the Fort Myers area, it is expected that the Florida Housing Finance Corp. will first allocate a portion of the $656 million of federal money to Lee County homeowners to make mortgage payments for a period of up to 18 months.
Archive for the ‘News and Statistics’ Category
Mortgage Payment Assistance Likely Coming To Lee County Soon
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010NAR Reports Distressed Sales Account For 32% of 2nd Qtr Sales
Friday, August 13th, 2010HousingWire reports that distressed sales (meaning foreclosure) accounted for a third of the sales market. Read more here.
Pace of Foreclosures Accelerates
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
I am hearing all kinds of rumors that banks are going to soon complete foreclosures, or release for sale, significant chunks of what many have called for the last year the “shadow inventory” of foreclosed properties. If these rumors are true there is two ways to look at the change. One..if you have a home to sell in an area that has a higher than average rate of default, thisfall and winter may not be the best time to do so. If foreclosure activity picks up, it will likely put pressure on values for non-foreclosed homes as buyers compare traditional non-distressed housing to the values offered on a foreclosed property. The second affect, and something I have advocated for two years now, is an acceleration of the recovery of the housing market will occur. My reason for stating this is that a lot of uncertainty today in housing is stemming from concerns regarding values. When appraisers hear about shadow inventories of foreclosures, combined with ongoing government efforts to prop up the housing market by trying to keep people in their homes who can’t pay to maintain them, values are pushed down. This uncertainty creates problems on the finance side of the equation as mortgage lenders hesitate to loan funds to anybody who does not have a healthy down payment.
So, my ongoing theory is if we let the market take care of the default situation, ultimately housing will recover faster. Unfortunately, this theory sounds pretty cold to the family who is in a mortgage over their head, so it has to be counter-weighed with the social implications. Over the last two years, the social implications have won out.
It might be safe to say the social implications havc started to lose out. Last week Lender Processing Services (LPS) released their Current Mortgage Performance Observations based on data as of June 30, 2010. The interesting news from this report is that the government owned and sponsored enterprises (GSE’s) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have accelerated their pace of foreclosures. Considering these are two of the three largest lenders in the country, this is fairly significant news as it relates to the housing market.
Here are a few main points from the report:
Foreclosure starts by Fannie and Freddie have been accelerating and are currently at all-time highs. From May to June 2010 foreclosures initiated by Fannie and Freddie increased 21%.
GSE foreclosure starts are accelerating along with Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) cancellations. Most of the increase is concentrated in the 6+ month delinquent category.
And on the uncertainty factor affecting financing…”originations remain very low, with stricter underwriting driving relatively low first payment defaults.”
It is a painful process. The sooner we let the market clean up what the market created, the sooner it will be easier to sell your home.
Indianapolis Foreclosure Rate Worsens
Thursday, July 29th, 2010From the Indy Star
The rate of foreclosures among outstanding mortgage loans in the metro area jumped to 3.21 percent in June, compared with a revised rate of 3.16 percent in May and 2.78 percent in June 2009, said CoreLogic, a Santa Ana, Calif.ornia company that tracks foreclosures. Nationally, the foreclosure rate was 3.06 percent in June.
The delinquency rate — loans 90 days or more behind in payments — fell to 7.1 percent in the metro area in June from 7.28 percent in May. But that’s up from 6.42 percent a year ago. (Star report)
Cape Coral/Ft. Myers and Orlando Top Foreclosure List
Thursday, July 29th, 2010RealtyTrac released a little more than just their monthly tracking yesterday. Also included were year to date statistics. If you read my posts you know I do not spend a lot of time on the monthly data results as I find them to be for too narrow of a window. When provided with six months of data, I think some conclusions can be reached.
According to RealtyTrac, year to date, Cape Coral-Ft. Myers is the number two foreclosure market in the country. Making its debut in the top ten, Orlando has now in at number 8. The Miami area has actually dropped a few notches to come in at #10.
Foreclosure activity in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., metro area decreased nearly 22 percent from the previous six months and was down nearly 30 percent from the first half of 2009, but the metro area still documented the nation’s second highest metro foreclosure rate — 4.98 percent of its housing units (one in 20) received a foreclosure filing during the six-month period.
Other Florida cities in the top 10 foreclosure rates were Orlando-Kissimmee at No. 8 (4.15 percent of housing units) and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach at No. 10 (3.89 percent).
It is also interesting to distinguish these foreclosure rates (% of total housing stock) versus actual foreclosure totals. When foreclosure totals are considered large metropolitan areas take over the rankings. For instance, the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Pompano Beach metropolitan area is 10th year to date in foreclosure rates, but actually leads the nation in total foreclosures with 94,466 properties receiving a notice during the first six months of 2010. This total rate beats out the Los Angeles metropolitan area in second place with 93,263 filings.
The big picture from this news is foreclosure filings are back on the upswing with 154 of the 206 metropoliatan markets in the USA, with populations in excess of 200,000, posting year over year increases in activity. These widespread increases occurred while activity actually decreased in nine of the 10 areas with the highest rates.
“While we’re seeing early signs that foreclosure activity may have peaked in some of the hardest-hit markets, foreclosures continued to rise in three-quarters of the nation’s metropolitan areas in the first half of the year,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “The fragile stability achieved in many local housing markets hinges on improvements in the underlying economy, specifically job growth. If unemployment remains persistently high and foreclosure prevention efforts only delay the inevitable, then we could continue to see increased foreclosure activity and a corresponding weakness in home prices in many metro areas.”
Foreclosure News
Thursday, May 13th, 2010
Here are a few bits of news that came across my desk yesterday and my interpretation.
Foreclosure Filings Drop Nationally In April- If you know me you are aware I do not get to hung up on these month to month comparisons. One month does not a trend make. What is interesting is the statement by RealtyTrac’s CEO that there are two significant milestones in the April numbers that indicate foreclosure activity may have plateaued.
The first, April 2010 is the only month in the history of RealtyTrac’s report with an annual decrease in U.S. foreclosure activity. Secondly, bank repossessions, or REOs, hit a record monthly high for the report even while default notices dropped substantially on both a monthly and annual basis.
I looked it up. RealtyTrac started keeping these statistics in 2005. So, we just experienced the first annual decline in foreclosures in the last five years. Interesting..but significant?
In this report, Florida dropped to third in filings, with a impressive 25% decline in filings over the same period of 2009. Indiana remains back in the pack at 18. Remember when Indiana led the nation in foreclosures?
Still over 330,000 properties received foreclosure filings in April…so a 2% drop in a year to year comparison is relative to very high numbers of ongoing defaults. Speaking of defaults…
Shadow Inventory To Peak In Summer Of 2010- In another sign that the foreclosure inventory is starting to slowly get sopped up, Barclays released this report earlier in the week. Barclays defines shadow inventory as loans in 90 day plus delinquency or already in foreclosure. The reason the term “shadow” is used is that traditional foreclosure statistics do not take these defaulting loans into account because they have not actually been foreclosed. Government programs have held back foreclosure actions making certain information, like Realty Tracs, left to further interpretation.
So, what can be concluded is this. Foreclosures are still at record highs and there are still approximately 4.5 million loans in default that have not been foreclosed. RealtyTrac’s headlines of a decline are great…but like everything today, we return to the old “is it real or is it Memorex?” Time will tell as we see if foreclosures can level off at the same time the shadow inventory declines due to successful modification and short sale programs, or the return to finanancial health that allows a borrrower to recover.
My point is you can’t read these foreclosure headlines and jump to any conclusions. You have to assess the whole complex picture in the current environment.
Banks Are Even Starting To Walk Away From Some Properties
Saturday, April 18th, 2009The issue in the following NY Times article could be addressed with improved judicial timelines or problems like the Fannie Mae tenant retention offers. As I say all the time, our company is actually helping save communities from the devaluation and issues surrounding vacant homes. The lengthy timelines of almost a year from a foreclosure notice to actual sale cause problems that can wipe out value on lower dollar homes.
Maybe the banks should look to owners who are giving up their homes or properties and offer an incentive for a deed in lieu of foreclosure. If there was an orderly transition, so many more positive results could be obtained in this process. JWW
