By MarketWatch

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Sales of foreclosures accounted for 20% of all U.S home sales in the third quarter of last year, according to a report from RealtyTrac, released this week.

That’s down from 22% in the second quarter and 30% of sales in the third quarter of 2010.

In the third quarter, 221,536 homes in some stage of foreclosure were purchased. The average sales price: $165,322, 34% lower than the average sales price of homes not in foreclosure.

The shrinking number of foreclosure sales is “not too surprising given the continued ambiguity surrounding proper foreclosure procedures — and the ripple effect that has on sales of foreclosed properties that might have been improperly foreclosed,” said Brandon Moore, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, in a news release.

“The sooner the market gets more clarity about accepted foreclosure procedures, primarily through the long-promised settlement between multiple states attorneys general and major lenders, the sooner the market can more efficiently dispose of these distressed properties,” he added.

Read more real-estate news in this week’s pages, including why investors are awaiting the Obama administration’s plan to turn foreclosures into rental properties, as well as a slide show highlighting the top five and bottom five housing markets for the next three years.

Although the share of foreclosure sales may be shrinking, they’re still elevated, compared with previous years, Moore said.

“Even with the hurdles to selling foreclosures, foreclosure sales continue to represent a historically high percentage of all sales,” he said. “In 2005 and 2006, foreclosure sales consistently accounted for less than 5% of all sales nationwide.”

—
Amy Hoak
, Real Estate writer

5 best and 5 worst U.S. housing markets, long term

Home buyers these days want to feel comfortable that the value of the house they buy isn’t going to tank. Take a look at the five best and five worst U.S. housing markets, based on regional forecasts for the next three years.

Read more: 5 best and 5 worst housing markets, long term.

Article source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/foreclosures-smaller-share-of-home-sales-2012-01-27?reflink=MW_news_stmp

Struggling homeowners are set to get more help from the federal government as the Obama Administration extends its key foreclosure prevention plan for a year.

The administration will also add the number of people eligible for the program to include investors and will increase incentives for large banks to modify more troubled mortgages.

Originally set to expire in December 2012, the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program will be extended for another year, government officials said Friday. The expansion is part of a renewed push by the Obama Administration to right the housing market as it enters its fifth year of malaise.

“We are still coming back from the worst financial recession since the Great Depression, in which the abuses in the housing sector were the most prominent and have left the deepest legacy,” National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling told reporters in a conference call. “It requires an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy.”

Officials would not say how many new borrowers the administration hoped to reach through the program expansion. The initiative was unveiled in 2009, with the goal of helping as many as 4 million borrowers receive modifications; it has helped only about 900,000 receive new mortgages to date.

The administration said it would expand the program by including a secondary evaluation for borrowers who might have hefty second mortgages or medical bills weighing down finances. It would also expand the program to include so-called income properties, where the people living in the homes are paying rent.

The plan would also triple the incentives for mortgage servicers participating in the program to do principal write-downs. It will also extend those incentives to loans owned or insured by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have been reticent to reduce mortgage principal given that they have received enormous bailouts from the American taxpayer.

RELATED: 

Eric Schneiderman promises aggressive financial fraud probe

California describes $25-billion mortgage settlement as ‘inadequate’

States are said to be considering a $25-billion settlement with big banks

Article source: http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-foreclosure-relief-expanded-20120127,0,566984.story

FAIRFIELD COUNTY, Conn. – Real estate markets are expected to be stronger this year in most lower Fairfield County towns, brokers say. In fact, some brokers are saying 2012 could be a great year.

“I’ve been in the industry for 25 years,” Brenda Maher, manager of the Norwalk office of Prudential Connecticut Realty, told The Daily Norwalk. ”I’ve never seen a January as strong as this year. It could be the weather – I mean think about last year at this time, we had about three feet of snow. Last year, basically we lost about three months of typical sales because of the weather – we almost lost a full quarter. But right now, the activity at our open houses is tremendous.”

RE/MAX Heritage broker Judy Szablak is equally bullish about all markets except Norwalk and Stamford. “I do think 2012 is going to be a great year, but the cities are going to suffer a little bit,” said Szablak, a real estate researcher who also writes for The CT Realty Blog. She said in the urban communities she is seeing an increase in “shadow inventory,” property that is bank-owned or foreclosed, and that could be bad for the markets. 

Fairfield seems to be the only town in the county that hasn’t had a good start to the year, Szablak said, adding that the first quarter will be important in determining the rest of the year for the town.

Overall, Szablak sees reason to be optimistic. “Historically, presidential elections have brought about increased real estate activity,” she wrote to The Daily Fairfield. “And coupled with low interest rates and increasing consumer confidence, I expect that 2012 will surpass last year’s sales in volume and pricing gains, and fully expect that we have a very good probability to gain more ground in value by the end of this year.”

Peg Koellmer, owner of Realty Seven in Wilton, is also upbeat. “I’m feeling like it’s going to be a little better this year than it was last year, and that’s the kind of growth that you need,” Koellmer told The Daily Wilton. She said that before the “hard years in 2009 and 2010,” housing prices were increasing 12 percent to 15 percent every year, which she said was unsustainable.

“I think prices will stay down, which is great for buyers,” Westport broker Bunny Mostad of Coldwell Banker said.  The market will be especially attractive for first-time buyers, who have become the National Association of Realtors’ biggest market, Mostad told The Daily Westport.

Reporters Greg Canuel, Nancy Guenther Chapman and Vanessa Inzitari contributed to this story.

Article source: http://www.thedailystamford.com/news/real-estate-looking-fairfield-county

Foreclosures continued to dominate Inland Southern California home sales in the third quarter of 2011, with 51.87 percent of homes sold either in the foreclosure process or already foreclosed on and bank owned, according to data released this week by RealtyTrac, an Irvine-based foreclosure monitoring firm.

Because of the strong influence of foreclosures on the rest of the Inland Southern California housing market, the price discount home buyers got for buying foreclosures in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area was less than for other parts of the nation, said RealtyTrac spokesman Daren Blomquist. He said the 18.88 percent average foreclosure discount in Inland Southern California was the 34{+t}{+h} lowest foreclosure discount found in 176 metropolitan areas that RealtyTrac compared in its third quarter report.

According to RealtyTrac 11,950 homes in the foreclosure process or bank-owned were sold in the Inland metropolitan area in the third quarter at an average price of $173,461. That was 2.6 percent fewer homes sold in this distress category than a year earlier.

By contrast, nationally homes in foreclosure or bank owned constituted 20 percent of all sales, which was sharp drop from 30 percent in the third quarter of 2010. The average price was $165,322 and the average foreclosure price discount was about 34 percent. Blomquist attributed the national drop in foreclosure sales to delays stemming from regulatory concerns, particularly in states that, unlike California, initiate foreclosures in the courts.

Because foreclosures need to work through the system before the housing market can heal, “In the long term it will be better that the Inland Empire is disposing of these properties more quickly,” Blomquist said.

Article source: http://www.pe.com/business/business-insider-headlines/20120126-real-estate-foreclosures-continue-to-dominate-inland-home-sales.ece