Declining real estate owned sales and stable home prices boded well for the national housing market in March, despite deeper economic concerns, according to CoreLogic’s most recent MarketPulse Report, released today. Short sales, modifications and other foreclosure alternatives are playing a larger role, the report says, and the rate of new foreclosures is declining. [more]

Click to enlargeShadow inventory nationwide remained at 1.6 million units through October 2011, approximately the same level as in January 2009, according to a report from CoreLogic. Florida, California and Illinois accounted for more than a third of the shadow inventory across the United States, with the top six states accounting for about half of all shadow inventory. Overall, for every two homes for sale in the country, there’s one home lurking in the shadow. — Alexander Britell [more]

Click image to enlargeThanks to a slowdown in the pace of new delinquencies, nationwide shadow inventory declined, according to a report released today by CoreLogic. Shadow inventory dipped to 1.6 million units in July, down from 1.7 million units last measured in April and 1.9 million units a year ago. The current supply represents five months-worth of homes.

Shadow supply, which includes homes that are seriously delinquent, in some stage of foreclosure or are real estate owned, comprises 29 percent of the total July inventory of 5.4 million. Last year at this time the total visible and shadow supply was 6.1 million units. – Adam Fusfeld [more]

(Source: CoreLogic)

Home prices nationwide began to stabilize in the second half of 2011, a positive indicator for consumer spending, according to a report by CoreLogic released today. In May 2011, excluding distressed sales, the Housing Price Index only dropped 0.4 percent, compared to a decline of 7.4 percent for the Housing Price Index for all transactions. Another positive sign, the report says, is that the Housing Price Index, which even including distressed sales, increased between March and April, for the first time in more than six months, and continued up between April and May.
– Miranda Neubauer [more]

Report reveals biggest discounts are in Brooklyn and Staten Island

Distressed property investors, take note: New York City homes in foreclosure are selling at as much as 43 percent off the average sale price, according to a new second-quarter foreclosure sales report by RealtyTrac, released today. But with inventory levels low, foreclosure sales activity in the city is nonetheless defying the upward nationwide tre [more]

From the April issue: Christopher Burdzy had walked his clients through almost all of a bank-owned single-family home in Staten Island when they decided to peek inside the basement garage. “This is a bad house! Do not buy it!” read black spray paint on the walls. “That was kind of spooky,” recalled Burdzy, a broker with Staten Island-based Leader Properties, though he wasn’t shocked. Borrowers facing foreclosure will often go to great lengths to prevent new buyers from snatching up their homes, in the hopes that they can buy them back once they hit the market at a discounted price, he said, and he suspects that’s what happened there. [more]

From the February issue: Major residential brokerages may still snub their noses at the listings, but a growing number of firms, particularly in the outer boroughs, are fighting for a share of the foreclosed homes market. Lenders took back thousands of homes in New York State last year and thousands more face foreclosure this year. Take Staten Island-based Wonica Realtors and Appraisers. Last year, according to founder and president George Wonica, the firm’s REO division, which specializes in marketing and selling foreclosed residential properties in Staten Island and Brooklyn, accounted for almost 80 percent of his firm’s revenue. “It carried the office,” Wonica told The Real Deal. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” The marketplace for REOs — or “Real Estate Owned” by the bank because they did not successfully sell at a foreclosure auction — is thriving in places hit hard by the housing downturn. In New York City that usually means in the outer boroughs, although Manhattan is not impervious.  [more] [more]

126-32 144th Street

From the January issue: Queens has been called the “Ground Zero” of the New York foreclosure crisis, with the most filings citywide for the past three years.
But while areas like Jamaica and Queens Village have garnered the most attention because of the devastation they’ve endured due to the sheer number of foreclosures there, the community districts that have seen the greatest increase in foreclosure filings are some of the borough’s more well-off areas.
The two solidly middle-class community districts that include Fresh Meadows, Hillcrest, Sunnyside and Woodside saw the greatest spike in the average number of foreclosure filings per quarter, at 64 percent during the first three quarters of last year. In contrast, Jamaica and Queens Village saw increases of 17 percent and 32 percent, respectively. 

[more]

1861 Bronxdale Avenue

From the January issue: Last month’s big foreclosure legislation was signed in Morris Park, a
middle-class enclave of leafy streets and tidy brick homes in the Bronx
where the bill’s co-sponsor, Senator Jeffrey Klein, grew up.
During the first three quarters of 2009, the Furman Center counted
190 foreclosure filings in the community district — the fourth highest
in the Bronx, where the overall quarterly foreclosure filing rate shot
up by 42 percent last year. In fact, four of the five community
districts in the Bronx that have the highest median incomes also saw
the most foreclosure filings (Riverdale-Soundview is the one
exception). Klein said he’s watched empty homes in his neighborhood become
havens for rats, vandals, druggies and squatters; and has heard stories
of marshals evicting unknowing tenants whose landlords were foreclosed
on.

Buyers hoping to take advantage of Freddie Mac’s HomeSteps SmartBuy program will need to act quickly: It is expiring at the end of the month. The program, which was initiated in July, covers up to 3.5 percent of closing costs for buyers able to close on REOs, or real estate owned by lenders and investors. To qualify, buyers must make their initial offers by the Oct. 30 deadline and close by Dec. 31. Freddie Mac also runs a program for renters of foreclosed properties, which allows the owners of foreclosed houses to continue occupancy while Freddie Mac seeks new buyers.