REO

Technology provider Pruvan unveiled a new photo management solution Monday that the company says will revolutionize the field services industry. The technology is designed to make the work order management process faster and more seamless for property preservation specialists and asset managers by allowing field crews to upload photos from the job site and document the work they've done, virtually in real time. Field Asset Services is the first user of the technology and the company says the results have proven to be a ""game-changer.""

According to QualityFirst Real Estate, a San Diego-based firm that specializes in REO, local market conditions are primed for a buying spree of bank owned and short sale properties. QualityFirst says property values there are headed back up and foreclosure numbers are dropping, with many real estate professionals now operating under the premise that the economy is finally beginning to turn around - the firm says all this makes now the time for homebuyers to pursue short sale and REO deals.

Real Estate Disposition, LLC (REDC) announced Thursday that it will auction more than 370 Northern and Southern California bank-owned foreclosures, including 76 occupied properties, over the next two weeks. The Northern California homes will be auctioned online from June 8 through June 12, and the Southern California homes will be auctioned both live and online on June 19 and June 20.

Frances Martinez Myers, a real estate and relocation industry veteran, was recently appointed as president of Employee Transfer Corporation, a Philadelphia-based company that facilitates the moves of corporate employees throughout the world and provides foreclosure asset management services, doing business as (dba) ETCREO.

Foreclosed property held by U.S. banks increased 12.5 percent to $41.5 billion during the first quarter of this year, according to a recent analysis by SNL Financial, a financial market research firm out of Charlottesville, Virginia. The company says banks' aggregate foreclosed inventory is up from $36.9 billion at year-end 2009, and $11.7 billion in the first quarter of 2008. While still elevated, single-family homes as a percentage of total real estate being repossessed by lenders has dropped significantly over the last few months.

National home prices in May came in 6.8 percent higher than a year earlier, according to a Clear Capital study released Thursday. It's the largest annual increase recorded by the real estate valuation firm since July 2006. May's gains followed the back-to-back 5.1 percent yearly gains achieved in March and April, and demonstrate a sustained housing recovery off of last year's lows, Clear Capital says. In addition, REO supplies have declined significantly. The present REO saturation rate of 27.8 percent compares to last year's 41.7 percent.

The economic downturn has choked off demand for commercial space, with vacancy rates rising and new occupancy limited by the duress in today's job market. At the same time, commercial real estate (CRE) values have dropped more than 40 percent in some markets. Plagued with the same trip wires that have set off a barrage of residential mortgage delinquencies - unemployment and negative equity - the CRE market, too, is seeing default volumes soar to new heights, both on loans held by banks and those owned by securities investors.

With the deterioration of the U.S. mortgage market, the credit rating agency DBRS has noticed a deep divergence in delinquency, foreclosure, and REO timelines from historical norms. As servicers have stepped up loss mitigation strategies to deal with the increase in delinquent borrowers, some loans have spent a longer-than-usual time in each delinquency bucket. The analysts at DBRS found that non-performing loans now remain in the 90 or more days delinquency column for an average of three to four months before moving to foreclosure.

The number of unpaid mortgages in the United States declined again in April, but delinquency roll rates remain high, according to an industry report released Monday by Lender Processing Services (LPS). The Florida-based analytics firm says that while signs of stabilization in the nation's mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates may be emerging, the progress is largely neutralized by the more than 7 million loans still in distress.

Professionally rehabbed REOs result in minimized sales cycles and maximized returns.