Despite a decrease in overall foreclosure activity, bank repossessions in April increased 4 percent from the previous month, although they were still down 14 percent from a year ago. There were a total of 30,056 bank repossessions nationwide in April. Bank repossessions increased from the previous month in 26 states and were up from a year ago in 16 states, … Read More »

  By Octavio Nuiry                                                                                                 Home prices continue to rise in many major … Read More »

Is L.A. the Next Detroit? By Octavio Nuiry   According to the latest UCLA Anderson School of Management study, Los Angeles, Detroit and Cleveland share the dubious distinction of cities with the weakest job growth since 1990. The researchers at UCLA say Los Angeles has lost 3.1 percent of its employment base since 1990, more than Detroit (-2.8 percent) and … Read More »

Even though it takes an average of 19 months to complete a foreclosure today, at least half of the bank-owned REOs in a recent RealtyTrac survey were still occupied by the former homeowner or a tenant.  Many of the owners who stayed in their homes did so rent-free for as much as two years or more since they made their … Read More »

The numbers of foreclosures and potential foreclosures have fallen dramatically over the past 12 months as the foreclosure picture rapidly returns to pre-2006 levels.  The decline in foreclosures in the pipeline has important ramifications for real estate investors and local markets that are returning to health as they recover from the foreclosure flood that produced 4.9 million foreclosures since 2008. … Read More »

Foreclosure filings fell 10 percent from January to February and sank to the lowest monthly total since December 2006 — a more than seven-year low, RealtyTrac reported. Yet more and more vacant foreclosures poison neighboring home values. As of the first quarter of 2014, a total of 152,033 U.S. properties in the foreclosure process (excluding bank-owned properties) had been vacated … Read More »

by David Hicks, co-president, HomeVestors                                                                                                   As the Foreclosure Era ends and … Read More »

  With the significant declines over past two years, the demise of distress sales as a matter pf concern has seemed a matter of a few months, until now.  Like a zombie rising from a grave, distress sales of various sorts have returned this winter and still account for one in four home sales, according to Clear Capital. February national … Read More »

  The combination of tough new rules denying qualified mortgages to applicants without the ability to repay and soaring study loan debt may be doing more than anything else to shut an entire generation out of homeownership. First-time buyer market share has fallen to 27 percent in recent months.  Rising prices, thin inventories of starter homes, rising down payment requirements … Read More »

Higher prices and fewer foreclosures have not put a dent in the flipping business.  In fact, last year saw 156,862 single family home flips — where a home is purchased and subsequently sold again within six months — in 2013, up 16 percent from 2012 and up 114 percent from 2011, according to RealtyTrac’s Year-End and Q4 2013 Home Flipping … Read More »