REO

Wells Fargo announced the launch of a new program, Neighborhood LIFT, which aims to bring reluctant buyers off the sidelines to help absorb excess inventory in two major cities. The bank established a goal of lending $10.5 billion to Los Angeles homebuyers and $1.3 billion to Atlanta buyers. In addition, Wells designated $15 million to assisting homeowners with down payments in Los Angeles and $8 million in Atlanta. The company chose to launch Neighborhood LIFT in Los Angeles and Atlanta because the two have high inventories of bank-owned homes.

Field Asset Services (FAS), a provider of pre-foreclosure, REO, and renovation field services, has released its top 10 property preservation predictions for 2012, which focus on providing superior customer service, the need to take initiative to pre-empt future problems, and a demand for knowledge that will open communication and deliver results. Among the company's forecasts, institutional investors will begin to emerge as their interest in purchasing single-family residence REO properties increases, and innovation in the area of mobile technology will be necessary for vendors and contractors to work more efficiently from the field.

Seventy-two percent of homeowners say they are satisfied with homeownership, according to a recent HomeGain survey of more than 1,400 homeowners. Among the 28 percent who said they were dissatisfied, nearly two-thirds cited price depreciation as the main reason for their dissatisfaction. HomeGain also assessed satisfaction levels by sales type and found that homeowners who purchased a home through a short sale were the most likely to be pleased with their choice, followed by those who purchased a foreclosed home.

Foreclosure homes sold for 34 percent less than the average price of a non-distressed home during the third quarter of 2011, according to new data released by RealtyTrac Thursday. The average sales price of homes in the process of foreclosure or bank-owned was $165,322 over the July-to-September period last year. RealtyTrac says third parties purchased a total of 221,536 residential properties classified as foreclosures or REO during the third quarter of 2011, representing just 20 percent of all residential sales during that timeframe.

After reaching a 19-month high in November, pending home sales declined 3.5 percent in December, according to data released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) Wednesday. November's pending home sales stood at 100.1 for the nation, just above the ""historically healthy"" average of 100, designated by NAR. The rate ticked down to 96.6 in December. Despite the decline, December's pending home sales are 5.6 percent higher than the rate recorded in December 2010.

The ratings agency DBRS says mortgage servicers are going to continue to see ""much needed reform"" in 2012 as the industry moves to standardize the servicing business. The first go at such standardization will center around implementing the directives of regulators' consent orders, according to DBRS. The agency does expect the U.S. government to institute some of the REO programs currently being vetted, but doesn't foresee any tangible benefits in terms of loss recoveries until 2013.

At the national level, the inventory of for-sale single-family homes dropped by 22.29 percent over the last year, according to new statistics released by Realtor.com. The site concludes that at the close of 2011, there were 1.89 million single-family homes on the market, down 6 percent from just one month prior. Realtor.com views the development as a positive sign the market is holding its own at the national level, but notes that the weight of foreclosures is keeping the market in a fragile state.

One of the keys to the housing market's recovery is managing and ultimately clearing out the inventory of distressed properties, according to DataQuick, a real estate data provider headquartered in San Diego, California. The company released its new RiskFinder Distress at the American Securitization Forum on Monday.

Homebuyers with enough cash in hand to cover their offer price in full are able to bid significantly lower on properties and according to a new industry report released Monday, because they offer a shorter and more reliable closing timeline without the impediments of a mortgage, they often win out with that lower bid. The study found that this low-bid-winning dynamic is particularly true for distressed properties because mortgage servicers selling foreclosed or REO homes generally prefer transactions that can settle within 30 days.

As robo-signing reviews reach completion, servicers are beginning to work through some of their foreclosure backlogs, according to a third-quarter report from Moody's Investors Service. At the same time, the ratings agency found that loan modifications are on the decline. Servicers are now turning to loss mitigation alternatives such as short sales and deeds in lieu, Moody's says. The agency is also forecasting longer timelines this year to move properties from foreclosure sale to REO liquidation.