Crisis Makes RealtyTrac 'Go-To' Company
May 22, 2010, Salt Lake Tribune

In a partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune, RealtyTrac provided more than 44,000 address-level records on foreclosures in Utah from July 2008 through March 2010 on the condition that no personal information in the records be published.  The biggest real-estate downturn in recent U.S. history has catapulted the Irvine, Calif.-based company to national prominence as a data source on foreclosures.


New FL Rule Says Banks Must Prove Ownership Before Foreclosing
May 24, 2010, Wall Street Journal

Foreclosure filings have backed off this year compared to 2009, but it may not be a brightening economy causing the decline. A new Florida Supreme Court rule requires lenders to verify they are the actual owners of a home before making the initial case for foreclosure. Show me the ``note,'' in other words.


NYC Foreclosures Climb in First Quarter
May 21, 2010, Wall Street Journal

The foreclosure problem hit New York City homeowners later than most other cities, but the problems are growing. In the first quarter of this year, there were 4,226 foreclosures across the city, up 16.3% from 3,635 foreclosures in the same period a year ago, according to data compiled by the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University.


New Brokerage Offers Ad Tracking, Charges Greater Commission
May 26, 2010, The Real Deal

New residential online brokerage hopes to unlock a new palette of analytics from which sellers can track how their advertisements perform among buyers, adding a new transparency to the home selling experience. RealDirect.com, which is being unveiled today, provides traditional brokerage services, plus it gives sellers a personal account through which they can check how often listing clicks result in appointments, a Google Analytics-type tool for real estate.


Recession Leaves Behind Ghost Towns, What Now?
May 24, 2010, Agent Genius Magazine

Curating site, Oobject.com, outlined a variety of ghost towns that have been left behind in the wake of the economic recession. These locations were built but never home to any residents but have left behind the equivalent of real estate gravestones of abandoned projects that have become ghost towns.

Home Prices Edge Down as Tax Credit Fails to Lift Market
May 25, 2010, CNBC

Single-family home prices were unchanged in March from February, but fell in the first quarter under renewed pressure before federal aid for buyers faded away, Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller home price indexes showed Tuesday. Prices have rebounded from lows hit during the crisis, yet the end of tax incentives for home buyers, combined with mounting foreclosures, suggests more weakness, S&P said.

What’s Next for Fannie and Freddie?
May 24, 2010, Wall Street Journal

It turns out that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, already becoming the most expensive legacy for taxpayers from the financial crisis, aren’t just too big too fail. As my column in Monday’s WSJ explains, they’re also proving too tough to reform.

Think Housing is Recovering? Think Again.
May 25, 2010, CNNMoney.com

Americans purchased homes at a surprising clip in April, but don't let that fool you into thinking the housing market is back. Although economists were expecting a month-over-month increase of 5.5 percent, the National Association of Realtors reported yesterday that sales of previously owned homes rose an unexpected 7.6 percent. That continued a yearlong rise in housing activity and marked the highest number of sales recorded since November of last year.

Strategic Default: Walking Away from Mortgages
May 9, 2010 — 60 Minutes

(CBS)  Despite some indications that the economy is recovering, the housing market remains a disaster area. Currently, about seven million homeowners are behind on their mortgages and that number is only getting worse.

Most underwater owners would not walk away
May 21, 2010 — Inman News

More than half of homeowners with a mortgage say they would not walk away from their home if it were underwater -- i.e., they owed more than the home was worth -- according to the results of a periodic survey by foreclosure data company RealtyTrac and property search site Trulia.com.

Mean Street: The White House’s Own Little “Abacus” Deal
May 19, 2010 — Wall Street Journal

If Goldman Sachs ends up paying a billion dollars as punishment for misleading investors in the Abacus deal, what should Washington pay for misleading the American people?

9 Southern California men charged with operating foreclosure-relief scam
May 21, 2010 — Los Angeles Times

Nine Southern California men have been charged with operating a foreclosure-relief scam that allegedly stole at least $2.3 million from about 1,500 homeowners across the U.S., the state attorney general's office announced Thursday.

LA City Council considers ordinance on maintaining foreclosed homes
May 21, 2010 — KPCC

Under the proposed ordinance, the city would create a registry of foreclosed properties, whose owners would be told about requirements for keeping the property "clean and free from accumulation of debris, rubbish, garbage, trash, overgrown vegetation and other similar material."

Senate Passes Finance Bill
May 21, 2010 — Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—The Senate on Thursday approved the most extensive overhaul of financial-sector regulation since the 1930s, hoping to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis that hit the U.S. economy starting in 2007.

A new survey from RealtyTrac and Trulia shows a host of interesting data points regarding consumers' attitudes toward foreclosures: from buying foreclosures to exit strategy for foreclosure purchases to considering a so-called "strategic" foreclosure. What stuck out to me was that 36 percent of those surveyed said they would expect to receive a discount of at least 50 percent when buying a foreclosed home. The press release announcing the survey editorialized that this is probably an unrealistic expectation, while the 18 percent of those surveyed who said they would expect a discount of 25 percent or less on an REO purchase were more realistic. I agree that 50 percent may be a little unrealistic, but an internal RealtyTrac analysis of foreclosure sales shows the average sales price of REOs in the first quarter of 2010 was 34 percent below the average sales price of properties not in foreclosure. And there were a couple states where the average discount was above 50 percent (New York and Connecticut).

Somewhat counter intuitively, Nevada had one of the lower average REO discounts (17 percent) even though the state has consistently posted the nation's highest state foreclosure rate over the past couple years. But that could be because the Nevada market is so saturated with foreclosure sales (65 percent of total Nevada sales in the first quarter were of properties in some stage of foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac) that properties not in foreclosure are being priced down closer to what foreclosures are selling for. That would mean many of those non-foreclosure sales are likely short sales as well.

RealtyTrac plans to issue a full-fledged foreclosure sales report sometime in the next month that covers average discounts of both REOs and pre-foreclosures as well as percentage of total sales that foreclosures represent in each market.

Do buyers have unrealistic expectations of the foreclosure discount in your market?

Here's a graphic showing some of the findings of the survey.

American Attitudes Toward Foreclosure Infographic May 2010.pdf

Moody's Home Price Outlook: Distressed Sales Key to Speed of Recovery
May 18, 2010 — DSNews

The future of U.S. home prices is acutely tied to the speed and the manner in which distressed sales work through the system, Moody’s Economy.com stressed in a report issued this week.

HUD foreclosure aid may yield windfall for major Md. localities
May 19, 2010 — Washington Post

Montgomery, Prince George's and Baltimore counties may receive an additional $3 million to $6 million total this fall through a federal program that helps communities buy and redevelop foreclosed properties, according to estimates released Tuesday by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

HUD Lobbies for More Federal Funding to Stabilize Housing Markets
May 18, 2010 — DSNews

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan is asking Congress to release additional funds to help communities combat the ongoing effects of the housing crisis and home foreclosures. He says the Obama administration is committed to working with lawmakers to secure a third round of funding for HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP).

Bankers cheer state consumer rules vote
May 19, 2010 — Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted to roll back efforts to give states more consumer powers yesterday, in a partial victory for federally chartered banks that don’t want state regulators meddling in their business.

GSEs Expect Home Sales to Temporarily Decline in the Third Quarter
May 17, 2010 — DSNews

Although home sales surged in the months leading up to the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit, this activity is expected to decline in the summer months, according to two separate economic outlooks recently released by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.