Home Seizures May Jump 25% This Year as U.S. Foreclosures Resume

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Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Banks may seize more than 1 million U.S. homes this year after legal scrutiny of their foreclosure practices slowed actions against delinquent property owners in 2011, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

About 1.89 million properties received notices of default, auction or repossession last year, down 34 percent from 2010 and the lowest number since 2007, the Irvine, California-based data seller said today in a statement. One in 69 U.S. households received a filing.

While the seizure process has been “highly dysfunctional,” there were “strong signs in the second half of 2011 that lenders are finally beginning to push through some of the delayed foreclosures in select local markets,” RealtyTrac Chief Executive Officer Brandon Moore said in the statement.

The number of home repossessions is likely to rise about 25 percent from the more than 804,000 properties seized last year as lenders resume foreclosure actions, Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac, said in a telephone interview. Settlement talks are continuing with state attorneys general over documentation flaws, known as “robo-signing,” that surfaced in October 2010.

About 400,000 additional homes would have been repossessed without the slowdown, Blomquist said. The ramp-up in foreclosure proceedings that began in 2011’s second half is likely to continue this year, Moore said in the statement.

Foreclosure filings totaled almost 2.7 million last year as some properties got multiple notices, RealtyTrac said.

Highest in Nevada

Nevada had the nation’s highest rate of foreclosure filings per household for the fifth straight year, at one in 16, while total filings were down 31 percent from 2010. A new state law that took effect in October requires lenders to file an additional affidavit before starting the foreclosure process.

Arizona had the second highest foreclosure rate, with one in 24 households receiving a notice, and California ranked third at one in 31. Georgia was fourth, with one in 37, and Utah fifth at one in 43, according to RealtyTrac.

Michigan, Florida, Illinois, Colorado and Idaho also ranked among the states with the 10 highest rates in 2011.

read more Home Seizures May Jump 25% This Year as U.S. Foreclosures Resume - Businessweek
 
Housing market still swamped with foreclosures...
:eusa_eh:
Foreclosures made up one in four home sales
March 1, 2012: Short sales are rising as banks start to shun foreclosures.
Homes in some stage of foreclosure accounted for nearly one in four homes sales during the fourth quarter, according to RealtyTrac. During the three months that ended December 31, homes that were either bank-owned or going through the foreclosure process accounted for 24% of all home sales, up from 20% in the previous quarter and down only slightly from a year earlier when foreclosures accounted for 26% of sales, RealtyTrac said. In total, 204,080 distressed properties were purchased during the fourth quarter, down 2% from the year-ago quarter. For all of 2011, foreclosure-related sales were down 2% year-over year to 907,138, accounting for 23% of all home sales.

"Sales of foreclosures in the fourth quarter continued to be slowed by questions surrounding proper foreclosure paperwork and procedures," said Brandon Moore, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, referring to the delays cause by the robo-signing scandal that broke in late 2010. "Even so, foreclosures accounted for nearly one in every four sales during the quarter and for the entire year." "We expect to see foreclosure-related sales increase in 2012, particularly pre-foreclosure sales, as lenders start to more aggressively dispose of distressed assets held up by the mortgage servicing gridlock over the past 18 months," said Brandon Moore, CEO of RealtyTrac.

Short sales on the rise

Short sales are starting to become the preferred method for banks to dispose of properties in default. In short sales, borrowers who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth agree with their bank to sell their homes at the lower market value. In return, the bank agrees to absorb the loss. During the last quarter of 2011, there were more than 88,000 short sales, up 15% compared with a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac. Short sales comprised 10% of all homes sold during the quarter. Meanwhile, sales of bank-owned homes fell 12% year-over-year to 116,000, comprising 13% of all sales during the quarter. "That trend will likely show up in more local markets in 2012 as lenders recognize short sales as a better option for many of their non-performing loans," said Moore.

MORE

See also:

Bernanke: Economic recovery 'uneven'
March 1, 2012: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gives his semi-annual report on the economy before Congress this week.
In day two of Ben Bernanke's semi-annual testimony before Congress, the Federal Reserve Chairman warned lawmakers that their short-term policies could put the recovery at risk. "I think it is important that we keep in mind that the recovery is not yet complete, unemployment remains high, the rate of growth is modest," he told the Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

As he did a day earlier before the House, Bernanke stressed that January 2013 brings not only the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits, but also the implementation of massive spending cuts to the federal budget. All of these issues hitting at the same time pose a significant risk to economic growth that Bernanke on Wednesday called a "fiscal cliff."

In the same testimony he gave to members of the House, Bernanke called the job market "far from normal" and referred to the recovery as "uneven and modest by historical standards." Yet he made no comments implying the Fed would be considering a third round of asset purchases as a way to stimulate the economy. Since the financial crisis, the Fed has slashed interest rates to zero and initiated two rounds of large-scale asset purchases, known as quantitative easing.

The Fed recently forecast that it plans to keep interest rates near zero until late 2014, and Bernanke repeated that point this week. "I believe monetary policy is set appropriately to help the economy recover," he told the House on Wednesday. The Federal Reserve predicts the economy will grow only 2.2% to 2.7% this year, not much faster than it grew in the second half of 2011.

Bernanke to Senate: Economic recovery 'uneven' - Mar. 1, 2012
 
Obama gonna fix it...
:cool:
Obama to announce new housing plans
Mar 06, 2012 - President Obama plans to kick off today's news conference with a pair of housing proposals designed to benefit veterans and homeowners seeking to refinance.
"This is part of the president's overall strategy to support responsible homeowners and the housing recovery," said a White House statement. In one announcement, Obama plans to say he will enforce a recent agreement between the federal government and 49 state attorneys general to compensate military members and veterans who were unfairly foreclosed upon or denied lower interest rates on mortgages.

Obama is also set to announce rules that allow borrowers with mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration to refinance at lower rates. The administration says that will help homeowners save more than $1,000 a year. Obama's news conference at the White House is scheduled to start at 1:15 p.m. ET.

The Republican National Committee noted that the housing market continues to struggle, despite a raft of previous administration proposals. Said the headline of an RNC e-mail: "Obama To Announce Another Housing Program After Three Years In Office And Numerous Past Failed Housing Announcements."

Source
 
Another round of foreclosures comin'...
:mad:
Americans brace for next foreclosure wave
4 Apr.`12 - Half a decade into the deepest U.S. housing crisis since the 1930s, many Americans are hoping the crisis is finally nearing its end. House sales are picking up across most of the country, the plunge in prices is slowing and attempts by lenders to claim back properties from struggling borrowers dropped by more than a third in 2011, hitting a four-year low.
But a painful part two of the slump looks set to unfold: Many more U.S. homeowners face the prospect of losing their homes this year as banks pick up the pace of foreclosures. "We are right back where we were two years ago. I would put money on 2012 being a bigger year for foreclosures than 2010," said Mark Seifert, executive director of Empowering & Strengthening Ohio's People (ESOP), a counseling group with 10 offices in Ohio. "Last year was an anomaly, and not in a good way," he said. In 2011, the "robo-signing" scandal, in which foreclosure documents were signed without properly reviewing individual cases, prompted banks to hold back on new foreclosures pending a settlement.

Five major banks eventually struck that settlement with 49 U.S. states in February. Signs are growing the pace of foreclosures is picking up again, something housing experts predict will again weigh on home prices before any sustained recovery can occur. Mortgage servicing provider Lender Processing Services reported in early March that U.S. foreclosure starts jumped 28 percent in January. More conclusive national data is not yet available. But watchdog group, 4closurefraud.org which helped uncover the "robo-signing" scandal, says it has turned up evidence of a large rise in new foreclosures between March 1 and 24 by three big banks in Palm Beach County in Florida, one of the states hit hardest by the housing crash

Although foreclosure starts were 50 percent or more lower than for the same period in 2010, those begun by Deutsche Bank were up 47 percent from 2011. Those of Wells Fargo's rose 68 percent and Bank of America's, including BAC Home Loans Servicing, jumped nearly seven-fold -- 251 starts versus 37 in the same period in 2011. Bank of America said it does not comment on data provided by other sources. Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank did not comment. Housing experts say localized warning signs of a new wave of foreclosure are likely to be replicated across much of the United States. Online foreclosure marketplace RealtyTrac estimated that while foreclosures dropped slightly nationwide in February from January and from February 2011, they rose in 21 states and jumped sharply in cities like Tampa (64 percent), Chicago (43 percent) and Miami (53 percent).

RealtyTrac CEO Brandon Moore said the "numbers point to a gradually rising foreclosure tide as some of the barriers that have been holding back foreclosures are removed." One big difference to the early years of the housing crisis, which was dominated by Americans saddled with the most toxic subprime products -- with high interest rates where banks asked for no money down or no proof of income -- is that today it's mostly Americans with ordinary mortgages whose ability to meet payment have been hit by the hard economic times. "The subprime stuff is long gone," said Michael Redman, founder of 4closurefraud.org. "Now the folks being affected are hardworking, everyday Americans struggling because of the economy."

"HARD TO CATCH UP"
 
Housing market goin' into a double-dip?...
:confused:
US New Home Sales Fell in March
April 24, 2012 - Sales of new homes in the U.S. fell last month, but still are edging higher than in the last months of 2011.
The government's Commerce Department said Tuesday that buyers in March bought new houses at an annual pace of 328,000, off more than 7 percent from a spurt in sales in February. The sales pace is slightly higher than in the last quarter of last year, but less than half the 700,000 figure that analysts consider the sign of a healthy market.

The U.S. housing market is perhaps the weakest part of the American economy, the world's largest. Millions of homeowners, many of them laid off from jobs in the recession, lost their houses to bank foreclosures when they were unable to make loan payments. As a result, there is a glut of homes for sale in the country and even record-low interest rates on loans have not boosted sales much.

A separate survey showed home prices in 20 U.S. cities in February (the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index) dropped at a slower pace than in recent months. But the index indicated property values still declined 3.5 percent from a year earlier.

US New Home Sales Fell in March | USA | English
 

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