REO

Investors who sought low prices on distressed inventory with a high return on investment took advantage of opportunities in Q1. With an absence of traditional homebuyers, investors reduced high distressed saturation rates by creating more demand, thus driving up home prices in key recovering metros, according to Clear Capital.

Distressed sales (short sales and REO property transactions) accounted for just 12.7 percent of residential real estate transactions nationwide in 2014, the lowest share since 2007, according to Black Knight's February 2015 Mortgage Monitor released today.

The practice of purchasing bank-owned properties in bulk quantities has become popular among investors in recent years, particularly at the height of the foreclosure wave in 2010 and 2011, because the properties can be bought at a fraction of the market value and then flipped for a profit.

While REO sales still had the largest share of all-cash home sales in December 2014, both the share of cash sales that are REO sales and the share of REO sales that are cash sales were down month-over-month, according to data released by CoreLogic on Monday.

Sales of distressed homes (REO and short sales) fell to their lowest level in seven years and foreclosure inventory dropped by 34 percent year-over-year in December 2014, according to CoreLogic's February 2015 The MarketPulse report released on Tuesday.

Property-related technology solutions provider Aspen Grove Solutions has announced the hiring of Ron Briggs as the company's business solutions architect.

As the size of Bank of America's delinquent loans portfolio is shrinking, so is the megabank's workforce – late last week, the bank announced that it was laying off 250 employees from its delinquent mortgage loan division in its headquarters city of Charlotte, North Carolina.

REO sales posted the largest residential cash home sales share in November 2014 with more than 60 percent, according to CoreLogic's new cash sales data released on Wednesday.

Counsel's Corner is an ongoing series in which DS News talks with default servicing attorneys around the country about the most pressing issues facing the default servicing industry. This installment features Neil Sherman, Vice President and Managing Attorney of Detroit-based law firm Schneiderman & Sherman.

REO liquidations have amassed a higher share of gross unpaid balance (UPB) recovery than short sales since the fourth quarter of 2012, reversing a crisis-years trend, according to Black Knight Financial Services' December 2014 Mortgage Monitor released Monday. As of the end of October 2014, REO sales prices accounted for 71 percent of the corresponding loans' defaulted UPBs, compared to 65 percent for short sales prices, largely due to home price appreciation, according to Black Knight.