The New York metropolitan area ranked 15th in the nation for residential foreclosure sales last quarter with 4,300 distressed properties changing hands at an average price of nearly 39 percent less than that of non-distre [more]

The New York metropolitan area ranked 15th in the nation for residential foreclosure sales last quarter with 4,300 distressed properties changing hands at an average price of nearly 39 percent less than that of non-distre [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]

Sam Heskel, founder of HMS Associates, who predicts a rise in foreclosures on high-end apartments

From the December issue: While green shoots may have sprouted in some sectors of the New York City residential market, there are plenty of other areas where that is far from the case. Foreclosures continue to ravage neighborhoods throughout the outer boroughs — most notably southern Queens and parts of Brooklyn — and more distress is quietly creeping into the Manhattan residential market. In this month’s Q & A, appraisers, analysts and brokers who follow foreclosures told The Real Deal that while certain areas of the city are starting to level off when it comes to foreclosures, in others it’s difficult to even find a “regular” nondistressed sale. One expert from New York University’s Furman Center said that the third quarter of 2009 saw 6,000 foreclosure filings in the city — the largest number since the research center started tracking quarterly data in the early 1990s. And worrisome trends are on the horizon.

More than 1.5 million properties throughout the U.S. received a default
or auction notice or were seized by banks in the six months through
June, with fixed-rate loans comprising 29 percent of all new
foreclosures, according to data service RealtyTrac. Rick Sharga,
executive vice president of RealtyTrac, said mortgage companies that
are offering the option of adjustable rate mortgages, or ARMs, will
only contribute to higher defaults because they allow borrowers to pay
less than the interest they owe each month, tacking on the difference
to their total debt and creating the potential for bigger bills in the
future. He predicted 3.2 million more Americans will be in foreclosure
by the end of the year. One in eight Americans is currently late on a
payment or already in foreclosure, according to the Mortgage Bankers
Association. [more]

Rick Sharga, vice president of marketing at Realtytrac, spoke to Bloomberg News earlier this week about the news that foreclosures in the U.S. have now exceeded 300,000. Foreclosures could be close to 6.5 million by mid-2011, according to recent figures from JPMorgan Chase. Sharga said that unemployment-related foreclosures are starting to increase, and that the upcoming resetting of many adjustable-rate mortgages will also send more homeowners into foreclosure. [more]