Foreclosure Filings Hit 1.5 Million Homes in First Half of ‘09
Foreclosure Filings Hit 1.5 Million Homes in First Half of ‘09
Wall Street Journal
The foreclosure train wreck continues, as a weak job market and falling home prices pushed foreclosures to a record high in the first half of the year. So far this year, more than 1.5 million properties have received a foreclosure filing or were seized by banks through June, according to RealtyTrac, a data firm that tracks foreclosure filings nationally. One in 84 U.S. homes has now received a foreclosure filing, which can range from a notice of default to a bank repossession. Foreclosure filings increased by 4.6% in June from the previous month, though default notices, which mark the first step in the foreclosure process, decreased by 6%. Still, default notices were up 17% from one year ago, according to RealtyTrac and Zelman & Associates, a housing research firm
Mortgage Firms Struggle to Redo Hard-Hit Loans
Wall Street Journal
Morgan Stanley's mortgage-loan servicing firm, Saxon Mortgage Services Inc., has a long road to go. An April Credit Suisse Group analysis of how quickly companies have renegotiated loans ranked Saxon last among 18 mortgage-servicing firms. Saxon has modified just 6% of the loans it oversees that originated between 2005 and 2007. By contrast, Litton Loan Servicing, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. unit, modified 28% of its loans Such firms are at the center of a grand government experiment aimed at halting foreclosures and the collateral damage they cause neighboring homes. New foreclosure notices will total 2.4 million this year, which could trigger price drops in 69.5 million nearby homes, estimates the Center for Responsible Lending, a financial-services research and policy firm. At an average decline of $7,200 a house, that translates to a potential drop of $502 billion in total U.S. property values.
Realtors Rehabbing Trashed Foreclosures
KLAS-TV
As more foreclosures come on the market, realtors representing the banks are doing more work to get them ready. More often that not, families being forced out destroy the inside and rip out everything they can. The median price of a house in the Las Vegas valley remains at $140,000. Those foreclosures are bringing down the cost of all homes because of the condition when the banks take them over. Realtor Justin Fairbanks specializes in cleaning up bank owned homes so they can be sold.