Nearly Half of Home Purchases Are Distressed Properties: Survey

Nearly Half of Home Purchases Are Distressed Properties: Survey
March 22, 2010 — DSNews

The share of home purchase transactions involving distressed properties surged to almost half in February, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance Monthly Survey of Real Estate Market Conditions.

Sales of previously owned homes fall 0.6% in February
March 23, 2010 — Los Angeles Times

Sales of previously owned homes slipped 0.6% in February from the month prior, according to the National Assn. of Realtors in Washington.

Home sales have struggled since December, when they plunged 16.7% from the prior month, the result of lackluster activity following a surge last fall as buyers scrambled to take advantage of a federal tax credit for first-time purchases.

FHA mortgage delinquencies dropped in February
March 23, 2010 — Washington Post

The share of recent loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration that are seriously delinquent fell in February to the lowest point since last summer, reversing an alarming increase in the agency's default rate.

Tax Credits Make It Difficult to Interpret Housing Data
March 22, 2010 — Wall Street Journal

The home buyer tax credit continues to complicate the task of figuring out what’s going on with underlying demand for homes.

At 10 a.m. Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors is due to release its monthly report on resales of homes. Tom Lawler, an independent economist in Leesburg, Va., who follows local home sales across the country, expects that the trade group will report that the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate in February fell 2.2% from January to 4.94 million units. Analysts at Credit Suisse think the decline will be just 0.5%.

New Web site aims to track fraud in loan modifications
March 22, 2010 — HeraldTribune.com

It is already enough of a struggle for homeowners these days who are having trouble paying their mortgages and are seeking loan modifications from their lenders.

Banks have been notoriously difficult to deal with when it comes to modifications, and despite an alphabet soup of government programs created since the housing bust to encourage them to make more modifications, most people still run into a brick wall and an almost impenetrable maze of bureaucratic red tape.