Tag Archives: Auction

National real estate auction firm Hudson & Marshall donated $65,000 to the Military Warriors Support Foundation on Monday. The foundation provides assistance to combat-wounded veterans during their transition to civilian life through a variety of programs, offering a gateway to education, life skills, employment, and homeownership.

Auction.com announced this week that it achieved $453 million in sales - with over $600 million in unpaid principal balances sold - in its recent online auction of nonperforming notes and commercial REO properties located throughout the Southeastern United States. On behalf of its 10 institutional clients participating, Auction.com sold 187 assets, and garnered a purchase price-to-reserve rate of 111 percent.

Having fallen to its lowest level in three years, California's rate of foreclosure filings rose up to come back in line with recent rates, according to the latest information from DataQuick. Filings increased by nearly 26 percent between the second and third quarters. At the same time, the share of properties purchased at foreclosure auctions by investors or other non-lender, non-government entities is growing. Homes that foreclosed in the third quarter took about 9.9 months from the notice of default to the final foreclosure.

Continental REO (CREO) recently named Chrystal Streicher to fill its newly-created lead auction specialist position. Streicher has nine years of industry experience, including more than four years with CREO. Streicher began her career at Netco as a title examiner, working her way up to title supervisor in just three years. She then served as a closing assistant for Southern Title Services in Nashville, Tennessee.

Two real estate investors are pleading guilty to mail fraud and bid rigging at public foreclosure auctions in Northern California, according to the Department of Justice. The investors conspired with others to quash competition for properties at foreclosure auctions in Alameda and Contra Costa counties in 2009 and 2010. The duo also admitted to committing mail fraud by using mail to organize their own private auctions open only to co-conspirators.

Real estate auctioneer and loan sales advisor Auction.com announced Monday that the company has named Elizabeth O'Brien managing director and SVP. O'Brien was hand-picked by CEO Jeff Frieden to expand Auction.com's residential mortgage notes platform and lead the firm's residential capital markets business. She previously served as a director in mortgage finance within Citi's fixed income division.

Eighty-four percent of the country's largest metro areas experienced declines in foreclosure activity in the first half of the year, according to RealtyTrac's midyear metropolitan foreclosure report released Thursday. However, RealtyTrac attributes these declines not to an improving market, but to delays in local foreclosure processes. Even the top 10 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates in the first half of the year showed a year-over-year decrease in foreclosure activity.

Auction.com is in the midst of a three-day online auction of Texas commercial real estate properties and nonperforming notes. The company says in total, the assets up for sale are valued at more than $300 million, making it the largest conglomerate of commercial real estate assets to be auctioned online in Texas history. Barclays Capital matched the list of assets to be sold to its database of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS). The firm pegs CMBS exposure to the Texas auction at about $262.5 million.

Median prices for REO and short sale transactions continue to decline. A new report from CoreLogic shows distressed home prices at the national level have fallen 10 percent since 2009. The company notes, however, that new foreclosure auction filings have dropped significantly since last October, and the industry's shadow inventory has been trimmed. With these two distressed sale drivers narrowing, CoreLogic says such transactions will likely begin to decline late in 2011 and into 2012.

Eight California real estate investors have agreed to plead guilty for conspiring to rig bids at foreclosure auctions in Northern California. The U.S. Department of Justice says the investors face felony charges for a scheme that involved fixing bids by agreeing to refrain from bidding against one another, and paying other potential competitors not to bid in the public auctions. The bid-rigging occurred between May 2008 and January 2011 in Contra Costa County and Alameda County in the San Francisco Bay area.