Just to prove that they are not quite ready for the history books, sales of foreclosures and short sales increased slightly last year.  Institutions bought 7.9 percent of all homes. RealtyTrac reported that short sales and foreclosure-related sales — including both sales to third party buyers at the public foreclosure auction and sales of bank-owned properties — accounted for … Read More »

Only 46,000 completed foreclosures were reported for the entire month of November 2013, half the rate of foreclosure completions between 2000 and 2006 before the decline in the housing market in 2007 when they averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 4.7 million completed foreclosures nationwide. Read More »

Approximately 791,000 more homeowners returned to a state of positive equity during the third quarter of 2013 leaving only 6.4 million homes still underwater, according to the latest analysis by CoreLogic. The total has fallen from 7.2 million homes, or 14.7 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage, at the end of the second quarter of 2013*. The total … Read More »

Nearly half of the nation’s outstanding second lien home equity lines of credit (HELOC) will amortize over the next several years, raising monthly payments and increasing the risk of a rash of new delinquencies that could result in new defaults and foreclosures. Read More »

Texas tempers heated up last month when Trulia, a California-based web site, added all three of its major cities to its “Bubblewatch” list of major markets it considers to be overvalued. The designation was not appreciated in the Lone Star State. Read More »

October foreclosure filings rose 2 percent increase from September but were down 28 percent decrease from a year ago, according to RealtyTrac. The report also shows one in every 978 U.S. housing units with a foreclosure filing during the month. Read More »

Housing largely dodged a bullet on the government shut down that went into effect October 1, the pending default, however, is an entirely different matter. As the October 17 default deadline nears, knuckle in the housing industry are turning white. Read More »

Rising home values helped some 2.5 million homeowners return to a state of positive equity, but under-equitied mortgages-those with less than 20 percent equity– still account for one out of five, or 21.1 percent, of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide in the second quarter of 2013, according to the latest CoreLogic report. Read More »

While 10.7 million residential homeowners nationwide owe at least 25 percent or more on their mortgages than their properties are worth, another 8.3 million homeowners are either slightly underwater or slightly above water, putting them on track to have enough equity to sell sometime in the next 15 months — without resorting to a short sale. Read More »

Distress sales as a whole are falling but short sales are declining twice as fast as fewer homeowners are losing their homes over the past year. Read More »