U.S. Foreclosures to Reach 3.9 Million in Second Record Year - Bloomberg.com

• U.S. Foreclosures to Reach 3.9 Million in Second Record Year - Bloomberg.com

  tags: foreclosures

  • Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Foreclosure filings in the U.S. will reach a record for the second consecutive year with 3.9 million notices sent to homeowners in default, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

    This year’s filings will surpass 2008’s total of 3.2 million

  • “We are a long way from a recovery,” John Quigley, economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an interview. “You can’t start to see improvement in the housing market until after unemployment peaks.”

US Foreclosures won't peak until after Unemployment does. This is pretty scary because the economic data seems to be indicating that the peak of Unemployment isn't any time soon.

The areas most affected by foreclosures continue to be those that had the most boom. Nevada, California, Florida, and Arizona, but areas like Michigan, and Utah are starting to see substantially higher foreclosure rates as well.

Government Steps in With new Short Sale Guidelines

• Government Steps in With new Short Sale Guidelines « Logan Utah Real Estate Blog

  "There is a huge problem in our country with short sales. In Utah, as well as nationally. Because of the housing boom, prices were over inflated. Now, many homeowners owe more on their house than they are worth. These people are generally not good savers anyways, and so have no way to sell their homes unless someone pays the difference. Government is once again, stepping in with some assistance, finding ways to reward the irresponsible: The U.S. Treasury Department announced new guidelines this week designed to make short sales go more smoothly. To qualify under these new guidelines: * The property must be the home owner’s principal residence. * The home owner must be delinquent on the mortgage or close to defaulting. * The loan must have been made before Jan. 1, 2009, and be for less than $729,750. * The borrowers’ total monthly mortgage payment must exceed 31 percent of their before-tax income. Under the plan, borrowers will receive $1,500 from the government for selling homes for less than the amount of their mortgages. Mortgage-servicing companies will get $1,000 for each completed short sale. Second-mortgage holders can receive up to $3,000 of the sales proceeds in exchange for releasing their liens. Investors who hold the first mortgage can collect up to $1,000 from the government for allowing the payments. Borrowers who complete a short sale under the program must be “fully released” from future liability for the debt, according to the guidelines."

  tags: short sale guidelines, short sales

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One in 7 U.S. mortgages foreclosing or delinquent | Reuters

• One in 7 U.S. mortgages foreclosing or delinquent | Reuters

  Nationwide Foreclosures are at their highest rate EVER, and this isn't expected to peak until the middle of next year. The bulk of new homes in default is of conservative conventional loans, and is primarily a result of the high rates of unemployment.

  tags: foreclosures, mortgage, delinquincies

  • A record one in seven U.S. mortgages were in foreclosure or at least one payment past due in the third quarter
  • U.S. mortgage delinquency rates and the percentage of loans that entered the foreclosure process also jumped to records from July to September, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Thursday.
  • Rising job losses were behind the increasingly bleak portrait of the housing market in a trend that will continue into next year, the group said in data that adds to recent evidence of a still-struggling housing market.
  • record foreclosures will add to the growing supply of unsold homes, sapping the housing market as it attempts to recover from the worst slump since the Great Depression.
  • The MBA said the percentage of loans in foreclosure rose to 1.42 percent
  • "Foreclosures remain the biggest hurdle to the housing recovery," said Michelle Meyer, economist at Barclays Capital in New York.
  • "Foreclosures will be worse in the first part of 2010 and we do not see a peak in foreclosures until the middle of next year."
  • conservative, prime fixed-rate loans often sold to homebuyers with the highest credit ratings continued to represent the largest share of foreclosures started and were the biggest driver of the increase in foreclosures
  • In fact, 33 percent of foreclosures started in the third quarter were on prime fixed-rate loans and those loans were 44 percent of the quarterly increase in foreclosures, Brinkmann said.

Gloomy outlook, just when the housing market and recession appeared to have peaked for the worst...

The Associated Press: MBA: Foreclosures, unemployment to peak next year

• The Associated Press: MBA: Foreclosures, unemployment to peak next year

  Foreclosures will likely continue to rise up through next year as unemployment continues.

  tags: foreclosures

  • Foreclosures will peak by the end of next year and unemployment will climb above 10 percent as the housing market and U.S. economy grapple with the aftermath of the recession, the Mortgage Bankers Association's chief economist said Tuesday.
  • fixed mortgage interest rates remaining below 6 percent.
  • Many lenders have issued a moratorium on foreclosures, causing a drop in the number of discounted, bank-owned properties hitting the market this year. But some economists expect that a wave of foreclosed properties could hit the market in 2010, dampening home prices again.
  • rising unemployment will lead to a growing number of foreclosures at least through the end of next year, Brinkmann said.

  • "We're forecasting about another 10 percent, roughly, price decline between now and the first quarter next year," he said.

    Mortgage rates, meanwhile, will average about 5 percent through the end of this year, then rise to 5.6 percent by the end of 2010. That should help fuel a 12 percent increase in home mortgages next year, but home refinancing will decline as mortgage rates edge higher, he said.

    "We're assuming, in a sense, weak or little inflation here," Brinkmann said.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Foreclosures rise 5 percent from summer to fall

• Foreclosures rise 5 percent from summer to fall

  Unemployment is the main reason US foreclosures continue to rise. The recession might technically be over, but it really won't be over until people can be confident they will have enough money to survive.
  

  tags: foreclosures

  • The number of households caught up in the foreclosure crisis rose more than 5 percent from summer to fall
  • The foreclosure crisis affected nearly 938,000 properties in the July-September quarter
  • Unemployment is the main reason homeowners are falling into trouble. While the economy is likely out of recession, the unemployment rate — now at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent — isn't expected to peak until the middle of next year.

No relief from foreclosure heat in August

• No relief from foreclosure heat in August

  Bank Repossessions were down, but defaults keep increasing. With foreclosures doing what they're doing it will still be a long time before the housing recovery happens.
  

  tags: foreclosures, reos

  • month-over-month and year-over-year decrease in bank repossessions (REOs)
  • total foreclosure activity in August remained close to the record high set in July
  • increasing defaults and scheduled foreclosure auctions
  • 358,471 U.S. properties received foreclosure filings
  • an increase of nearly 18 percent from August 2008.
  • The August report demonstrates that there is still an ample supply of properties filling the foreclosure pipeline even
  • we also saw a record high number of properties either entering default or being scheduled for a public foreclosure auction
  • Nevada, Florida and California posted the three highest state foreclosure rates in August. These three states, along with Michigan, Arizona and Illinois, accounted for more than 60 percent of the nation's total foreclosure activity

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Signs of Foreclosure Prevention Scam

• How to Spot Foreclosure-Prevention Scammers

  If foreclosure prevention companies ask for money upfront, guarantee success, and ask you to send money too them, they are a foreclosure prevention scam.

  tags: foreclosures, prevention

  • Here are some red flags that should make a home owner run in the opposite direction:
    
    • If the company guarantees success. Nobody can guarantee a lender won’t foreclose or will modify a loan.
    • If the company wants money upfront. "We can't say all advance fees are illegal," Kirtz says, “But in most cases they're probably bogus."
    • If the company wants the home owner to send mortgage checks directly to the modification firm. The only certainty there is that the company will cash the checks.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.