Tag Archives: RealtyTrac

Looking for a beach home? Perhaps not, but according to a report released by RealtyTrac, certain beach towns offer sizeable discounts that make vacation dream homes seem a little bit more accessible. Using home sales prices for distressed properties in the first quarter of 2012, the real estate database company ranked the top 10 beach towns to buy foreclosures in its June 2012 Foreclosure News Report. The top four beach towns had discounts averaging at least 20 percent compared to prices for non-distressed properties, and the top two had prices averaging less than $100,000.

Pre-foreclosure homes that sold in 2012's first quarter took an average of 306 days to sell after starting the foreclosure process, a decrease from 308 days in the previous quarter but up from 256 days in the first quarter of 2011. The FHFA issued guidelines in April that will require servicers to make a decision within 30-60 days of receiving an offer on a property under a short sale program. The new deadline requirements, which go into effect June 15, comes as a welcome change to buyers and sellers who felt that servicers were taking too long to complete sales.

In its May foreclosure newsletter, RealtyTrac named the top 10 places to buy foreclosures in 2012. The selected locations were out of the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas based on population. The list was further narrowed down according markets with at least 200 foreclosure-related sales transactions in January 2012. Then, it was whittled down again to only include metros with foreclosure sales prices at least 30 percent below the average price of a non-foreclosure property.

Foreclosure filings - default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions - totaled 188,780 in April 2012, which is the lowest monthly total since July 2007, according to RealtyTrac's Foreclosure Market Report. April foreclosure activity also fell 5 percent from the previous month and was down 14 percent from a year ago in April. When analyzing foreclosure activity according to judicial processes, non-judicial states declined both yearly and monthly, while judicial states decreased monthly but not yearly.

The Arizona capital of Phoenix was one of the hardest hit markets by the housing crisis, with home values plunging nearly 60 percent from 2006 through mid-2011 and foreclosure filings soaring. One analyst says it wasn't too long ago that Phoenix was considered ground zero of the housing market's collapse, but now, it's on a path to recovery that's considerably outpaced other distressed markets. So what's going on in the Valley of the Sun that's strong enough to lift the nation's sixth most populous city from the depths of the downturn?

While 114 out of 212 metropolitan areas with a population of 200,000 or more saw increases in foreclosure activity during the 2012 first quarter, activity was still down compared to the same quarter a year ago, according to RealtyTrac's 2012 first quarter Metropolitan Foreclosure Market Report. Last year, 135 out of 212 metros areas saw increases in foreclosure activity in the first quarter.

Pursuing a short sale is often thought of as a painstaking process, and it's not uncommon to hear of complaints about slow responses from banks and last minute rejections on offers. Fortunately, not all lenders/servicers are the same when it comes to dealing with short sales, and RealtyTrac compiled a list of data revealing which institutions seem to move through the process quicker and for less. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA had the shortest timelines at 193 days in January 2012, a decrease compared to a year ago in January 2011, when short sales averaged 248 days. The short sale timeline includes the time a property starts the foreclosure process to the time it's sold as a pre-foreclosure property.

With the number of short sales increasing and even outnumbering REO sales in certain states, experts are speculating short sales might become key to preventing an even greater swelling of foreclosed properties on the market. Compared to a year ago in January 2012, pre-foreclosure sales, which are typically short sales, increased 33 percent, according to a RealtyTrac report released Thursday. Short sales even outpaced bank-owned REO sales in 12 states, including Utah, California, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Colorado, New York and New Jersey.

Depending on whether the data was based on a judicial or non-judicial state, foreclosure activity told differing stories in RealtyTrac's Foreclosure Market Report released today for February 2012. When clumping states together based on foreclosure processes, February foreclosure activity in the 26 judicial states increased 24 percent from February 2011 and 2 percent from the previous month of January. For the 24 non-judicial states, the numbers moved in near opposite directions, with foreclosure activity decreased to 23 percent from February 2011 and down 5 percent from January, according to a RealtyTrac release.

Pre-foreclosure short sales and sales of foreclosed REOs totaled 907,138 in 2011, RealtyTrac reported Thursday. These foreclosure-related transactions made up 23 percent of all residential sales in the U.S. last year, with short sales accounting for 9 percent and REOs accounting for 14 percent. Short sales increased more than 40 percent on a year-over-year basis in several states, including Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. RealtyTrac expects short sales to continue to gain momentum in 2012 as lenders become more aggressive disposing of distressed assets.