Category Archives: Other

Mortgage servicers are putting more failed Home Affordable Modification Program trials through foreclosure than they were one year ago. According to Treasury Department data released last week, 10.6% of the more that 615,000 canceled HAMP trials completed the foreclosure process as of Nov. 1. That’s more than double the 4.4% of failed HAMP trials foreclosed on as of November 2010. While foreclosures are increasing, alternative modifications on these loans are dropping. Of the canceled HAMP trials, 39.7% went through the bank’s own private programs, down from 45.4% over the same […]

Amanda Wilson, a real estate agent for Esslinger Wooten Maxwell in Fort Lauderdale, offers five predictions for the housing market in 2012: • Buyers will be busy. South Florida sales were strong in 2011, despite sluggish national numbers. Economic conditions and consumer sentiment will continue to improve during this election year. • Foreclosures will increase. Analysts are concerned about the “shadow inventory” — homes that ultimately will go on the market for sale because the owners are in default or foreclosure. • Prices will soften. More foreclosures will drag down […]

Although 2011 was among the slowest years ever for single-family construction starts, observers say builders across the country are preparing to commence work on new developments. The National Association of Home Builders’ Chief Economist David Crowe says 2011 starts came in around 425,000, down from the previous low of 442,000 in 2009, with declines in consumer confidence helping to pinch the number of groundbreakings. According to Census data, single-family homes account for just 2.3 percent of the 9 percent increase in starts in November. Meritage Homes CEO Steve Hilton does […]

For over five years now, people have been saying that home builders’ fortunes were about to turn a corner. And for over five years, that has been wrong. A. L. Vineyard commercial construction contractors in Orange County offer wood framing, wood truss or beam repairs, emergency shoring and earthquake strengthening services. But it is beginning to look as if this will be the year when some housing bulls are actually right—with the caveat that, as always with real estate, location matters. In 2011, only about 300,000 newly built homes were […]

The Obama administration, in conjunction with federal regulators and led by the overseer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are very close to announcing a pilot program to sell government-owned foreclosures in bulk to investors as rentals, according to administration officials. There are currently about a quarter of a million foreclosed properties on the books of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and millions more are coming. The foreclosure processing delays of last year created a mammoth backlog of properties yet to be processed, which are […]

More Americans interviewed by Fannie Mae for its national housing survey are optimistic about their financial prospects and the housing market in the coming year. Most respondents believe home prices will edge up at least 0.8% over the next 12 months. That is up from predictions of a 0.2% increase in November. About 40% of those surveyed expect their financial situations to improve in 2012 and another 39% said their situation will remain the same. More than one-fifth of respondents said their income is now significantly higher than it was […]

Several real estate professionals say cash-back incentives that some lenders are using to tempt delinquent borrowers to do a short sale over a foreclosure are not very effective because it’s not clear on who qualifies for the program. Some banks are trying out such short-sale incentive programs because “it’s costing banks a fortune to do the foreclosure, and they want to cut their losses,” says Sherry Lee, broker/owner of Lee Property Sales in West Palm Beach, Fla. Florida, which has a high number of foreclosures, was selected by Bank of […]

A boom in farm prices has caused many Midwest cities to emerge as leaders for some of the strongest predictions for housing appreciation in 2012. Kansas City, Kan., came in the top spot in HousingPredictor’s annual survey, forecasting an appreciation of 5.8 percent for this year. “The recovery is starting in housing with these cities and will eventually spread to other communities throughout the nation as the U.S. recovers from the worst collapse in real estate since the Great Depression,” according to HousingPredictor. Here are the top cities expected to have housing […]

Flippers, the real estate investors who buy homes on the cheap and quickly resell them at a profit, just got a reprieve from the Federal Housing Administration. In an effort to help stabilize housing prices and unload some of the foreclosures that are flooding low-income communities, the mortgage insurer extended a waiver of its anti-flipping regulations through 2012. The waiver, which was initially issued in 2010 and set to expire this month, suspends regulations that prohibit the agency from insuring mortgages used to purchase homes that are bought and resold […]

Lenders are increasingly becoming more accepting over short sales as they seek more solutions to help struggling home owners avoid foreclosure, according to a recent article at MSNBC.com. “Foreclosure sales are pretty devastating,” Faith Schwartz, executive director of Hope Now, a resource for cash-strapped home owners, told MSNBC.com. “We’d much prefer a [loan] modification, but if [home owners] don’t quality, then the next best alternative is deed-in-lieu or short sales.” Short sales and foreclosures increased in 2010, but in 2011, short sales continued to climb even more (increasing 26,000 nationwide) […]