Banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Allied Financial are offering incentives of as much as $35,000 in cash to homeowners who opt for short sales, as part of an effort to get troubled mortgages off their books, Bloomberg News reported.

The move towards accepting less from a buyer than a seller’s outstanding loan makes sense for the moment, especially given the current foreclosure backlog, since it’s a faster process than a foreclosure, said Bill Fricke, senior credit officer for Moody’s Investors Service. [more]

A U.S. housing regulator has invited investors to submit initial bids on pools of foreclosed properties owned by government mortgage giant Fannie Mae, the Wall Street Journal reported, with an aim of turning the properties into rental buildings to stabilize the housing market.

The program, which effects about $250 million worth of real estate in six states, is limited to properties that Fannie Mae has already leased through a separate program, the Journal noted. Fannie was chosen to operate the program because it has a more significant foreclosure inventory compared with Freddie Mac. [more]

Apartment buildings in foreclosure aren’t the only one’s that eventually suffer from building violations — their neighbors get hit hard, too.

According to a report to be released today by the Citizens Housing & Planning Council and Enterprise cited by the Wall Street Journal, buildings within 250 feet of a foreclosed property averaged a 14 percent increase in Class C violations, determined by the city’s Housing Preservation and Development Department. [more]

Source: RealtyTrac (click to enlarge)

Properties in some stage of foreclosure accounted for one-fifth of all residential home sales in the U.S. during last year’s third quarter, according to a report released today by RealtyTrac. That’s down from 22 percent of all sales during the second quarter, and 30 percent of all sales during the prior-year quarter. RealtyTrac attributes the declining number to the robo-signing scandal, but notes it’s still at a historically high level compared to the pre-recession norm of less than 5 percent.

“That trend is not too surprising given the continued ambiguity surrounding proper foreclosure procedures — and the ripple effect that has on sales of foreclosed properties that might have been improperly foreclosed,” said RealtyTrac CEO Brandon Moore. [more]

From left: Mousa Khalil's delinquent properties at 352 94th Street, 321 Bay Ridge Parkway and 123 93rd Street in Bay Ridge

Bay Ridge residents hoping to oust a prolific developer who has amassed about 30 buildings in the neighborhood are getting some help from the foreclosure crisis. According to the New York Daily News seven of Mousa Khalil’s properties have already undergone foreclosure auction and 12 more are mired in early stages of the process. [more]

A map of the top 100 foreclosure rates by zip code (source: RealtyTrac via CNN)

Think the foreclosure crisis is taking its toll on New York City housing? Imagine what it’s doing out west.

According to an analysis of the 100 U.S. zip codes hit hardest by foreclosures prepared for CNN by RealtyTrac, 82 of the worst hit neighborhoods are in Western states, with Nevada and California together comprising 66 of them. Meanwhile not a single zip code in the entire Northeast claims a spot on the list. [more]

December 2011 foreclosure filings. See interactive map after the jumpNational foreclosure filings plummeted in 2011 to their lowest level since 2007, according to a report released today by RealtyTrac. However, the correlation between the data and the aftermath of the robo-signing controversy are clear, as the average U.S. foreclosure now takes 348 days to process, according to the report, and 1,019 days in New York.

About 1.9 million U.S. properties received foreclosure filings for the year, down 34 percent from 2010. One out of 69 housing units, or 1.45 percent had at least one foreclosure filing for the year, down from 2.23 percent in 2010. Each figure marks the lowest recorded since 2007. [more]

While multi-family rental apartments have been the darling of real estate investors for several months, some private equity firms are beginning to bet on single-family rentals, the Wall Street Journal reported.

California-based GI Partners, the firm that made big profits buying empty data centers after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, is investing $250 million in Waypoint Real Estate Group, a company that buys foreclosed homes and rents them out. Flush with funds, Waypoint may now expand beyond California to purchase foreclosed properties in South Florida, Chicago, Las Vegas and Phoenix. [more]

Thanks to the moratorium on foreclosures that resulted from the robo-signing controversy, New York City foreclosures declined 61 percent in 2011 to their lowest levels in seven years, according to a report released today by PropertyShark.com. But Manhattan proved an exception to the rule, recording 193 new foreclosure filings in 2011, 28 percent more than it did in in 2010. [more]

Lenders are increasingly turning to short sales for foreclosed properties, providing relief for both the distressed homeowner and the U.S. residential real estate market, MSNBC reported.

Short sales, where lenders agree to allow the owner to sell the home for less than its worth, rose by 26,000 this year even as foreclosures fell by 255,000, according to Hope Now, a resource for homeowners facing foreclosure.

Short sales benefit homeowners as they shorten the relief process, and allow them to begin rebuilding credit scores sooner. [more]