foreclosures

Pending home sales fell substantially in April with unusual weather and continued economic softness hindering a recovery in the housing market, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The trade association, which has more than 1.2 million members, said its pending home sales index, which is based on contracts signed, decreased 11.6% to 81.9 for April from a downwardly revised 92.6 for March. NAR said the index is 26.5% lower than 111.5 for the year-earlier April, when homebuyers where rushing to qualify for the expiring federal tax credit.

Meanwhile, Foreclosure starts and delinquencies dropped significantly from a year ago, according to Lender Processing Services’ (LPS: 26.03 0.00%) Mortgage Monitor report.

Servicers started 187,423 foreclosures in April, down 14.7% from a year ago and down 31% from March.

Total delinquencies, at 7.97%, are down 16.3% from a year ago but up 2.4% from March, according to the report.

Still, more mortgages are seriously delinquent when compared to prior years. In January 2009, just 10% of delinquent mortgages were in the 12 months or more delinquent bucket.

NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said, “Even with very favorable affordability conditions, job growth and a pent-up demand from abnormally low household formation during the past three years, the recovery will continue to be uneven and sluggish given the ongoing credit constraints.”

Home and Commercial Inspections in the Columbia SC area is our specialty! Every year we help hundreds of clients save tens of thousands of dollars, by responsibly finding and exposing conditions that threaten property, value and safety. To learn how we may be able to serve you, please click and read, or call 803-261-5810.

In depressed markets, finding foreclosures is fairly easy; just drive around in neighborhoods and look for the signs hanging from the doors. The recent housing market has made it extremely easy lately to find foreclosed houses to invest in. Advertised in the paper, on street signs and even word of mouth, houses have been popping up on everyone’s investing radar. But what happens when the market turns around? Where do you look to find foreclosures then? Let’s take a look at how to find investment foreclosures in any type of market.

Weak Markets

By far, weak markets have more foreclosures than strong markets. Many homes once offered as short sales, may end up on the foreclosure listings and eventually deeded to the banks. There are numerous reasons to wait to buy a home until it has hit the foreclosure status, namely investment capital.

Yes, there is quite a difference in the amount of money you will spend on a home that is still being short sold versus one that has already been repossessed by the bank and is now up for sale. Finding foreclosures is as easy as looking through the classifieds. Most of the time, real estate agents specialize in one type of housing. Find a couple of foreclosure listings and chances are if you look at all of the agent’s listings, you will find many more foreclosures.

Driving around is another way to find foreclosures in a weak market. Many agents or banks will openly advertise that a home is in foreclosure. The bright signs and droves of cars are a good indicator that a house is in foreclosure.

Strong Markets

Strong markets are a different beast. When there are few foreclosures, it can be a little more difficult to seek them out, but it can be done. The trick with strong markets is to get an upper hand on other foreclosure investors. This can be done by calling a listed foreclosure agent and asking about other foreclosures that are not listed yet in the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) database.

Many real estate agents will wait a couple of weeks before officially listing a foreclosure. This is so they can verify with the bank, the exact listing price they want on the property. By asking ahead of time, your agent can point out other foreclosed homes in your price range.

Bank websites are another place to look in a strong market. Many of the national banks, such as Countrywide, Bank of America, and Chase list all of their current foreclosures on their website. While these are hit or miss, because they are on a national scale, it is a good place to start.

No matter what market you are in at the present, finding foreclosures is not as difficult as you might think. With a little deductive reasoning and a bit of super sleuth work, you will be able to find the perfect house or project for your budget. Get out there and keep your eyes open for a foreclosure near you.

Of course, to protect you in the negotiation stages of foreclosures, we highly recommend you contract a real estate broker who is trained to assist in these types of specialized sales.

Home and Commercial Inspections in the Columbia SC area is our specialty! Every year we help hundreds of clients save tens of thousands of dollars, by responsibly finding and exposing conditions that threaten property, value and safety. To learn how we may be able to serve you, please click and read, or call 803-261-5810.

Real estate investors have been renovating properties for years in order to sell them more quickly and at a higher price point. Banks, on the other hand, have tended to let their REO properties remain largely “as-is” when they market them whenever possible. Now, however, with so much competition for buyers, many lenders are “sprucing up” their REO properties and foreclosures in an attempt to attract qualified buyers who currently have their pick of a vast inventory of homes.

However, not just any house will qualify for a lender fix-up. “There is no sense in putting in a furnace…if it’s just going to walk away the next day,” explains one real estate agent. Neighborhoods that have a high risk factor for vandalism are not likely to see many bank rehabs since the lenders tend to see this as “throwing good money after bad” and fear that a restored home will still not appeal to buyers because of the area.

It seems like this new policy certainly can’t hurt REO sales, but it also seems to leave a lot of already blighted areas of the country “out in the cold.”

We’d like to hear from you. What do you think about lenders fixing up properties before selling, and do you think this practice has had any impact on real estate overall?

Just click the comment link below and tell us what you think.

Home and Commercial Inspections in the Columbia SC area is our specialty! Every year we help hundreds of clients save tens of thousands of dollars, by responsibly finding and exposing conditions that threaten property, value and safety. To learn how we may be able to serve you, please click and read, or call 803-261-5810.

Builders broke ground on more new homes last month, giving the weak U.S. housing market a slight boost at the start of the spring buying season.

Home construction rose 7.2 percent in March from February to a seasonally adjusted 549,000 units. Building permits, an indicator of future construction, rose 11.2 percent after hitting a five-decade low in February.

Still, the building pace is far below the 1.2 million units a year that economists consider healthy. And March’s improvement came after construction fell in February to its second-lowest level on records dating back more than a half-century.

Millions of foreclosures have forced home prices down. In some cities, prices are half of what they were before the housing market collapsed in 2006 and 2007. And more foreclosures are expected this year. Tight credit has made mortgage loans tough to get. Many would-be buyers who could qualify for loans are reluctant to shop, fearing that prices will fall even further.

The increase in home construction activity was felt in most regions of the country. It rose 32.3 percent in the Midwest, 27.6 percent in the West and 5.4 percent in the Northeast. Construction fell 3.3 percent in the South.

New homes can spur job growth. Each new home built creates the equivalent of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Home and Commercial Inspections in the Columbia SC area is our specialty! Every year we help hundreds of clients save tens of thousands of dollars, by responsibly finding and exposing conditions that threaten property, value and safety. To learn how we may be able to serve you, please click and read, or call 803-261-5810.

Fewer Americans are having trouble paying their mortgages now compared to a year ago, according to a new Harris Interactive poll.

About 22% of those surveyed last month said they had difficulty making their mortgage payments, down from 29% a year earlier. Additionally, 21% of respondents believed they were “under water” on their mortgage, meaning the outstanding balance is higher than the home is worth, according to the report. That’s down three percentage points from last year.

The findings seem to reflect an improving job market, with more jobs and lower unemployment. March’s unemployment rate fell to 8.8% from 8.9% in February while the U.S. economy added 216,000 jobs, the U.S. Labor Department said recently. In March 2010, the unemployment rate was 9.7%.

But the news isn’t all good. Another reason for the decline in struggling homeowners is that some of those who had been having trouble keeping up their payments last year have since sold or lost their homes through foreclosure. Of those polled, 66% said they had a mortgage, down from 69% in Harris’s year-ago survey.

After all, the U.S. housing market is still in flux. The median home price is February was $156,100, down 5.2% from a year earlier, while so-called distressed homes — houses sold at a discount — accounted for 39% of February sales, according to the National Association of Realtors.

“These findings are consistent with other Harris Poll data on the economy that show a very modest, but, still painfully slow, recovery from the recession,” Harris Interactive said in a statement. “Many millions of people are still hurting badly even if the numbers are slightly better than they were last year.”

Home and Commercial Inspections in the Columbia SC area is our specialty! Every year we help hundreds of clients save tens of thousands of dollars, by responsibly finding and exposing conditions that threaten property, value and safety. To learn how we may be able to serve you, please click and read, or call 803-261-5810.