Foreclosure

ForeclosureRadar, a Web site company that tracks every California foreclosure and provides daily auction updates, has issued its monthly California Foreclosure Report for April 2009. In a reversal from the prior month, the company said, the Golden State’s foreclosure notices dropped while foreclosure sales and distressed property purchases by investors rose.

Massachusetts foreclosures dropped dramatically in April from a year ago and were also lower than March, according to a report released Thursday by the Boston-based real estate research firm The Warren Group.

President Barack Obama signed two housing bills into law on Wednesday afternoon – one that provides additional foreclosure relief and a second that targets mortgage fraud and other criminal activity related to federal assistance programs.

The Treasury announced new initiatives under the administration’s Making Home Affordable program late last week to provide additional options for homeowners facing foreclosure. The first of the two new program components is intended to help borrowers obtain modifications in those markets experiencing severe home price declines.

One in every 374 housing units in the United States received a foreclosure filing in April, according to RealtyTrac’s Foreclosure Market Report released last week. April’s national foreclosure rate was the highest posted since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.

Huntington Bank and Columbus Housing Partnership have joined forces to stabilize homeownership in Central Ohio. The two have formed the Huntington Homeownership Alliance, a three-year, $10 million project that will provide the area’s residents with homeownership counseling, foreclosure avoidance services, and more affordable mortgages.

More than 4,000 foreclosures were prevented in Minnesota last year as a result of the state’s nonprofit foreclosure counseling network, according to a study released by the Minnesota Home Ownership Center.

The National Fair Housing Alliance , headquartered in Washington, D.C., has issued a report claiming that housing discrimination in the United States has spiked for two reasons: the worsening foreclosure crisis and Internet advertising that violates fair housing laws.

The Ford Foundation has committed $50 million to a new nonprofit venture to help municipalities purchase banks’ foreclosed homes. According to the Wall Street Journal, the investment is one of the largest made by a foundation to help alleviate the effects of the housing crisis.

Jacksonville, Florida’s Lender Processing Services (LPS), Inc. released its latest LPS Mortgage Monitor this week, which provides mortgage industry performance indicators as of March month-end. Among the findings, LPS reported that the number of newly delinquent loans declined in March to 7.