REO

With bank-owned inventories expanding rapidly, even government agencies are looking for new ways to quickly get foreclosed properties back into the hands of responsible homeowners. For the first time in recent years, HUD is planning to sell over 150 foreclosed homes through auction. The auction will take place March 26th at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge in Phoenix, and will be conducted by the real estate auction firm Hudson & Marshall.

Foreclosure activity last month slowed down along the West Coast, according to the tracking firm ForeclosureRadar. The company monitors filings and auctions in Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, and said the numbers were down across the board. Foreclosure sales saw a similar decline in the firm's coverage area, and bank-owned inventories were mostly flat, suggesting fewer REOs were sold. ForeclosureRadar's CEO says activity should continue to be sluggish for a while.

Collateral Analytics, a provider of automated valuation models (AVMs) and real estate analytic tools for the mortgage lending industry, and Valuation Partners, a national real estate valuations provider, recently announced a partnership venture. The move will improve Valuation Partners' current hybrid valuation solutions, according to a statement from the companies.

When Woodward Asset Capital, a Michigan-based company focusing on real estate acquisition and sales, found it difficult to buy distressed homes in bulk, the company's founders came up with a new plan. Ronald Jasgur, Rodney Carey, and Gerald Kazakov decided to buy the worst houses in the best neighborhoods and get them back on track. The company buys what it describes as the most dated and ugliest homes and rehabilitates them. One official in White Lake says Woodward's efforts saved his community.

Home prices in January were down 5.7 percent from a year earlier after factoring the month's REO sales and short sales into the mix, according to CoreLogic. January marked the sixth month in a row that the company has recorded a year-over-year decline in U.S. home prices. CoreLogic says the industry's ominous shadow inventory of distressed properties and rising negative equity, combined will still high levels of unemployment, all contributed to the continuing slide in home prices.

According to Auction.com, investors and buyers spent $112.9 million on assets at five of its auction events for primarily non-performing commercial real estate and notes last month. The auction offerings included 155 assets within 34 states and drew 990 registered bidders. The company says its February results are a strong indication of investors' appetite for real estate.

New data from Clear Capital indicates that the slow-down in foreclosure activity may be having a positive effect on property values in some parts of the country. However the company's report states that despite a national trend toward flattening of home prices, the western United States is dragging down encouraging developments in other regions, with the West expected to set new double dip price lows as early as next month should the trend continue.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation to end the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) Short Refi Program aimed at helping homeowners who owe more on the mortgage than their home is worth obtain a new FHA-insured loan with a reduced principal. In a 256 to 171 vote Thursday evening, the House approved the FHA Refinance Program Termination Act, the first of four bills targeting federal foreclosure mitigation programs.

While nationwide figures are trending lower, foreclosure rates in Phoenix, Arizona, are climbing again, according to a new report from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. The university study found that although foreclosures decreased to 30 percent of transactions in the single-family home resale market in the Phoenix area at the end of 2010, that rate shot up to 43 percent in January with little to no change in February.

Lynn Effinger, a veteran of more than three decades within the housing and mortgage default servicing industries, has joined the team at St. Louis-based Corcoran Consulting & Coaching, an international consulting firm that specializes in performance coaching for agents and brokers and the implementation of business systems into real estate professionals' existing practice.