Each spring brings the beginning of the real estate sales season and the end of college basketball, culminating with March Mania and the much awaited NCAA Sweet 16 playoff. This weekend, as the best college basketball players square off, RealtyTrac will tip off its Sweet 16 foreclosure list.

EAST REGION SEMIFINAL
The dollar goes a long way in Pittsburgh. Got an extra $1,650? That will buy you a two-story home with three bedrooms and one bath. Now that’s a sweet deal!

1) Pennsylvania — 2001 Middle St., Pittsburgh, PA — Opening Bid: $1,650
2) North Carolina — 2813 Bedfordshire Ct, Raleigh, NC — Opening Bid: $3,582
3) Massachusetts — 95-97 Dartmouth, Medford, MA — Opening Bid: $5,000
4) New Jersey — 115 Columbus Ave., Trenton, NJ — Opening Bid: $83,700

MIDWEST REGION SEMIFINAL
With bank-owned houses cheaper than a used car in Detroit, Michigan and Columbus, Ohio, why not buy the whole block?

1) Ohio — 705 E Columbus St., Columbus, OH — Opening Bid: $18,000
2) Detroit — 11840 Longview St., Detroit, MI — Opening Bid: $55,333
3) Indiana — 719 Hiatt St., Indianapolis, IN — Opening Bid: $32,400
4) Illinois — 1475 W 71st Pl., Chicago, IL — Opening Bid: $85,000

WEST REGION SEMIFINAL
Savvy buyers west of the Rockies don’t have to read any John Wooden books to spot these easy free throw investment opportunities.

1) Arizona — 1613 W Chipman Rd., Phoenix, AZ — Opening Bid: $28,155
2) Nevada — 1685 Alamo St., Reno, NV — Opening Bid: $49,073
3) Colorado — 2506 W 8th St., Greeley, CO — Opening Bid: $124,199
4) New Mexico — 1822 Tierra de la Luna Dr. SW, Albuquerque, NM — Opening Bid: $83,892

SOUTH REGION SEMIFINAL
With many homeowners singing the post-Katrina blues in Louisiana and Mississippi, buying a foreclosure property is a slam dunk for seasoned real estate investors.

1) Louisiana — 916 Palfrey St., Gretna, LA — Opening Bid: $25,000
2) Florida — 2224 Widener Ter, West Palm Beach, FL — Opening Bid: $10,000
3) Georgia — 3478 Thompson Dr NW, Atlanta, GA — Opening Bid: $76,500
4) North Carolina — 5032 Buckingham Dr., Charlotte, NC — Opening Bid: $10,700

Scoring points in the foreclosure market is easier than reaching the NCAA’s Final Four. For the best foreclosure opportunities during the subprime meltdown, join RealtyTrac for the most comprehensive foreclosure data nationwide.

Don’t miss next weeks tip off, when RealtyTrac announces America’s “Elite Eight” — a fast break list of the most expensive foreclosures in the nation.

It’s the first day of spring and the weather is unusually gloomy outside in Orange County, CA, as is the business climate for subprime mortgage lenders. The casualties of overaggressive mortgage lending are stacking up on a daily basis here.

Here in Irvine, you can look across the street from the corporate offices of RealtyTrac and see the offices of subprime lender People’s Choice Financial Corp. In what may have been an omen, the building was framed by a dark sky and clouds looming overhead, with a stiff breeze blowing. “The Flexible Lender,” as they advertise themselves, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Monday, according to a story in the Orange County Business Journal. It’s kind of an eerie feeling actually.

This latest episode comes less than one week after the lender decided to withdraw its scheduled plans for a $193 million initial public offering. However, People’s Choice is just the latest victim of the subprime fiasco that has been drawing the attention of every major media outlet nationwide for the past week now.

The OCBJ is also reporting that New Century Financial Corp., also based in Irvine, has been notified by Fannie Mae that it will no longer sell the lender’s mortgages on the secondary mortgage market. New Century has not filed for bankruptcy protection yet, although industry analysts deem such a filing inevitable.

Another Orange County-based subprime lender, Fremont Investment & Loan of Brea has notified its employees currently on leave from the company that they will be officially unemployed as of May 18. Many of Fremont’s workers who were sent home on leave will receive pay and benefits for two more months, says Tuesday’s edition of the Orange County Register.

Even major players in the industry who are not based in Orange County, but had divisions working the subprime business — such as Countrywide Financial Corp, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo — have laid off employees working in those divisions recently, reports the Los Angeles Times.

As the total collapse of this segment of the mortgage industry continues, look to RealtyTrac and ForeclosurePulse for the up to date information you need to help you invest in bargain properties around the country.

Cracks are appearing in the foundation of the housing market as shock waves — triggered by concern over a surge in bad subprime mortgages — jolted the stock market this week, sending the Dow Jones industrial average downward by more than 243 points, amid fears that a mortgage meltdown in the subprime lending sector could have broader economic implications.

Warning signs already had begun to manifest themselves last year as the recent housing boom was starting to reverse. Although the trend started late in 2005, it accelerated to 1.2 million foreclosure filings in 2006, up 42 percent from the previous year, according to RealtyTrac. That's one home mortgage foreclosure filing for every 92 households. And this may only be the beginning, as the last three months have indicated a speedup in such a destabilizing process.

As the market for risky mortgages collapses, dragging home values and stock prices down with it, many real estate investors and home buyers are seeing opportunities emerging on the horizon.

One of the biggest reasons for increases in foreclosures comes from borrowers buying more house than they can afford. During the height of the housing boom, homeowners avoided foreclosure by refinancing to more risky adjustable-rate mortgages with lower monthly payments.

Now, however, those homeowners — and the many investors who used the same mortgages to buy multiple houses — are struggling to hold on as their payments begin to increase. With fewer loans, fewer sales and fewer options available to struggling subprime borrowers, the future looks bleak for subprime lenders and their battered customers.

As more and more mortgage lenders get stuck with owning over-priced distressed properties, RealtyTrac customers and real estate investors nationwide could be the solution to the broader economic housing woes.

Things could get very interesting in the months to come. Stay tuned to RealtyTrac for all the latest foreclosure news.

The Internet is rapidly and radically transforming the way people buy and sell homes. An avalanche of information now available on the World Wide Web is shifting the balance of power in the real estate industry and giving homebuyers and sellers more control over the deal than ever before — and changing the nature of  real estate forever.

Ten years ago, only a fraction of homebuyers and sellers used the Internet. Today, in the new digital democracy, more than 80 percent of house-hunters use the Internet to help them find a home, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sellers, likewise, are increasingly willing to make the leap of faith into cyberspace.

The rising dominance of the Internet is fueling the rapid change. The Internet — and a new wave of technologically savvy Web-based real estate firms like RealtyTrac — is leveling the playing field for consumers, giving them access to vital information once controlled exclusively by real estate brokerages and a small circle of real estate professionals.

Gone are the days when real estate agents guarded the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) information. Now, buyers and seller can see all the MLS homes online — for free! They can easily access foreclosure properties, for sale by owner (FSBO) properties and other homes from the comfort of their homes. With the click of a mouse, real estate entrepreneurs can now view aerial photographs of homes and neighborhoods. They can get appraisals or arrange financing online. They can even bid online for bank-owned auctions at RealtyTrac. Almost every aspect of a real estate transaction can now be done on-line 24/7.

At RealtyTrac, we are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to help our customers thrive in the new information age. We are seeking exciting and creative ways to improve the user experience for our house hunting real estate customers.

Clearly, the real estate landscape is changing and is in a constant state of flux. Internet technology is making a significant and a long-lasting impact on the real estate industry. Real estate investors cannot afford to close their eyes to the power of online foreclosure shopping because it is one of the most important advances in the information age since the Internet itself. Given the changes barreling down upon us, online real estate shopping is not an elective. It’s a prerequisite.

The latest developments in the subprime lending market should have the entire real estate industry up in arms (figuratively and literally). The problem has gone far beyond the $1 trillion worth of so-called “exotic” adjustable rate loans resetting in each of the next two years. Borrowers began feeling the effects of those resets during the second half of 2006.

Now the problem has dug down to the very roots of the lending industry and is shaking loose some of the largest subprime lenders, who are now falling into the abyss. The latest victim of its own success is New Century Financial Inc. which just last month was boasting an increase in loan production for January 2007 over numbers reported for the same month a year earlier.

Well, last Friday the Irvine, Calif.-based lender announced that it was the subject of a federal investigation into charges of accounting errors and stock trading, according to a Reuters report published Monday. As a result, the lender’s stock on the New York Stock Exchange (Symbol = NEW) plummeted almost 70 percent.

The Orange County Business Journal reported Monday that Wall Street analysts are now predicting possible liquidation or bankruptcy for the once high flying subprime lender.

And bankrupt mortgage lender ResMae Mortgage Corp. of Brea, Calif., which was being courted for a buyout by Credit Suisse Group, is now being sold to Citadel Investment Group LLC, which won the right to purchase the lending institution for $180 million in a last minute auction, according to Bloomberg News.

This latest news comes right on the heels of a joint request by federal regulators Friday for comments on proposed tightening regulations for the subprime mortgage lending industry. The Mortgage Bankers Association released a response Friday calling for federal regulators to “avoid an overreaction to an evolving marketplace or current economic conditions.”

More shakeout is likely yet to come from this story as subprime lenders fall into an abyss of their own making, leaving legitimate lenders behind who themselves are hurting right now due to the downturn in the real estate cycle.

As this story continues to unfold, real estate investors, homebuyers and industry professionals are some of the legitimate sources of salvation for homeowners who may now be facing not only higher mortgage payments, but the sale of their loan servicing contract to a totally different lender who acquires it in bankruptcy. And RealtyTrac will continue to provide updated online information that will assist in identifying and locating these homeowners in distress.