Foreclosures

  • Legislators call for new foreclosure measures, Boston.com
    “‘This is a crisis in Massachusetts, a crisis created by the proliferation of subprime loans,’ said state Senator Jarrett Barrios, a Democrat who represents districts from Cambridge to Revere. Subprime loans are high-interest mortgages offered to borrowers with credit problems.

    Barrios is the sponsor of one of several bills in the Legislature to grapple with the state’s rising foreclosure filings, which hit a record of nearly 20,000 in 2006. His bill would provide counseling to homebuyers and foreclosure relief to those already having difficulty paying their loans, and would crack down on regulation of subprime lenders. To prevent some foreclosures, he also proposed giving borrowers 30 days to catch up on loan payments when they fall behind, a time period one community activist said was too short. ”

  • The Forecast for Foreclosures, Builder Online
    “RealtyTrac measured a total of 130,786 filings nationwide in February, down 4% from January’s level.

    February’s decline, however, may prove fleeting. “A 4% decrease, for all intents and purposes, is flat,” says Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s vice-president of marketing. Foreclosures were still up 12% year-over-year, and February’s total marked the first time there have ever been two back-to-back months with U.S. foreclosure numbers over 130,000, Sharga notes. January’s total foreclosure figure — 136,113 — was the highest monthly number ever recorded by RealtyTrac.

    February’s drop in filings could have something to do with the 3.9% rise in existing-home sales for the month reported Mar. 23 by the National Association of Realtors.”

  • Foreclosure filings up in region, state (Florida), TCPalm
    “St. Lucie County ranked 15th in the state and tops the Treasure Coast for having the most foreclosures in February, a new report from RealtyTrac Inc. showed Monday. The county’s statistic of one foreclosure filing for every 400 homes also helped push Florida’s rate to more than 63 percent from the previous month. Florida had the nation’s third highest foreclosure rate in February with one foreclosure filing for every 382 households.

    RealtyTrac spokeswoman Jennifer Olson said the actual number of foreclosure filings per capita in Florida is the highest compared with any other state, but when the number of households in the state is factored in the equation — it’s actually the third highest ranking nationwide. The state reported 19,144 foreclosure filings during February.”

  • Home Foreclosure Rate in Ohio Skyrockets, FOX Cleveland
    “Ohio’s already high rate of home foreclosures climbed even higher last year. A new report shows last year there were 79-thousand foreclosure filings in Ohio. That’s 24 percent more than in 2005 and nearly five times the number seen in 1995. ”

Home Prices

  • Home prices fall in January, InvestmentNews
    “U.S. home prices dropped in January, disrupting a six-year streak of increases in housing costs, according to a report released today.

    Home price data released by Standard & Poor’s for the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index showed negative returns for both the 10-city and 20-city composite indexes, the first decrease since the group started keeping year-over-year records in January 2001.”

  • Home Prices Down for First Time in Decade, SmartMoney
    ” “The annual declines in the composites are a good indicator of the dire state of the U.S. residential real estate market,” says Robert J. Shiller, chief economist at MacroMarkets.

    Eleven of the 20 cities had negative price appreciation in the past year, led by Detroit (down 6.9%) and Boston (down 5.6%). The biggest increases were in Seattle (up 11.1%) and Portland, Ore. (up 8.7%).”

Real Estate Gossip

  • LeBron James builds a castle of a home, Beacon Journal
    “According to the blueprints, LeBron’s new home will encompass 35,440 square feet. Let’s put it this way: LeBron’s home will be closer in size to the Montrose Best Buy, which is 45,000 square feet.

    The basketball star’s pad won’t be finished until the summer of 2008 — and no wonder. It will include a recording studio, a two-lane bowling alley, a casino, a 26- by 63-foot theater, a sports bar, an aquarium and a barbershop.”

SubPrime Lender Fallout

  • Subprime losses lead to drop in home ownership, CNNMoney
    “About 2.4 million holders of subprime mortgage loans made between 1998 and 2006 will lose their properties to foreclosure, according to a report from the Center for Responsible Lending, a non-profit policy and advocacy organization for home owners.

    Worse, that will result in a net home ownership loss of one million households. CRL’s analysis rebutted the mortgage industry’s claims that the increase in subprime loans has opened up home ownership for millions of low income buyers. Instead, CRL contends, relatively little subprime lending is used for first-time home buying.”

  • Why Now is the Time to Hunt for Housing Bargains, Schaeffer’sResearch
    “It seems you can’t talk about the housing sector these days without mentioning the “S” word. Subprime, yes I said it, has even wormed its way into the vernacular of many Fed watchers and Fed members - not to mention the warning shots fired from the sidelines by former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan every other week or so. This morning, the Fed sounded yet another gloom and doom note for the housing sector, as Sandra Braunstein, the director of the Fed’s division of consumer and community affairs, stated that borrowers could see “more difficulty” in the next one to two years. In particular, those borrowers with recently originated adjustable-rate mortgages are likely to experience more delinquencies and foreclosures, Braunstein said.
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    Looking at the latest figures from new home sales, which unexpectedly fell during February to a seven-year low, and the recent fallout at New Century Financial, it is no wonder that potential investors in housing stocks are scared witless.”