Archive for the 'States' Category

Industry analysts projected the rise in the number of home loans that are two months delayed in payments or are in some stage of foreclosure process before the end of 2009. They expected mortgage delinquency rate in the state to jump to over 14 percent.

And as projections for unemployment and mortgage delinquency rates are going up in the coming months, so is bank foreclosures for sale.

Industry analysts said that many homeowners who have lost their jobs are struggling to pay their monthly mortgages and are nearing the end of their coffer. And if help would not come along their way soon, they would end up losing their properties to foreclosures.

But analysts are open to the possibility that the trend would be reversed by the middle of 2010. However, before recovery could happen, lenders need to wipe out the pile of troubled loans that are clogging their systems.

As of June, the rate of residential mortgage loans that were delinquent for two months reached 9.7 percent. These figures are projected to rise to over 14 percent by the end of 2009.

Some counties in the region that are projected to experience a rise in mortgage delinquency rate from 10.7 percent to 14 percent include Orange, Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside.

Industry analyst said that the overall economic situation in California is worse than the national economic condition. The state’s unemployment rate rose by 11.9 percent last month compared with the national average rate of 9.4 percent. Furthermore, home prices and values in California dropped so low that many homeowners own more on their mortgages than the market value of their properties.

In San Bernardino County, 14.9 percent of home loans were delinquent for two months while Riverside County’s mortgage delinquency rate was 16.5 percent in June.

In the first three months of this year, mortgage delinquency rate in Riverside County was 2.6 percent and 2.3 percent in San Bernardino County.

According to industry analysts, the normal mortgage delinquency rate for any given state is 1.6 percent to 2 percent. They added that at the rate it is going, California will struggle in the remaining months of this year.

The continuing increase in the number of bank foreclosure homes has been haunting the Rockland towns of Clarkstown, Haverstraw and Orangetown for some time now.

The foreclosure crisis has also brought the biggest challenge facing the Rockland local governments — maintaining these abandoned and vacant foreclosure properties to prevent them from becoming blights to neighborhoods.

Majority of the foreclosed houses in these towns are owned by banks which usually care for their properties. However, as more foreclosed houses remained unsold and unoccupied, the three municipalities are having difficulty tracking the real owners of these properties and issue them with violations such as for overgrown yards.

In some cases, the owners of foreclosure homes are out-of-town banks or the ownership of the property could not be established because the mortgage was passed on from one lender to another.

In cases that towns could not contact the owners, they took over the responsibility and cost of cleaning these vacant, foreclosed homes and hope that their expenses would be reimbursed once the properties are sold.

So far, Haverstraw and Clarkstown are cleaning and maintaining three abandoned, bank foreclosed houses each while Orangetown is monitoring about 10 houses for noncompliance of property maintenance codes. If property owners would not comply, Orangetown will be forced to maintain them.

The number of foreclosure properties in the three municipalities increased from previous years. But the combined numbers represent only a fraction of the total bank foreclosed houses in the county.

In the first seven months of 2009, there were 206 foreclosed houses in the county. In 2008, the county posted a total of 354 foreclosures.

The maintenance work provided by the three towns is limited to cleaning the yards such as cutting the grass. Industry experts said that so far, the three towns do not have to clean and maintain the abandoned foreclosure houses for long because they are sold immediately, adding that the areas are still attractive places to live.

They said that many bank foreclosed homes in the towns were purchased, rehabilitated and sold.

Usually, municipalities in Rockland County charged the cost of cleaning and maintenance on tax liens against the foreclosed houses.

Greenvest LC, the largest private land developer in Loudoun County, Virginia has defaulted on its almost $130 million loan. This put majority of the company’s real estate holdings into bank foreclosures which will be auctioned off at the county courthouse.

The developer, which has been embroiled in a series of development disputes, has an option to stop outright the foreclosure and auction of its 4,123-acre property which accounted for almost 75 percent of its holdings in Loudoun.

The company could file a Chapter 11 bankruptcy before the foreclosure auction to enable it to have control over the liquidation and disposition of its assets. The bankruptcy will also allow the privately held company to retain some of its real estate holdings that are now in default.

Industry experts said that if the scheduled foreclosure auction would push through, it is unlikely that a bidder could afford the minimum price that will be set by the lender, iStar Financial. In this case, the property would be in full control of iStar Financial.

Experts said that there is a possibility that iStar would negotiate with developers, or with Loudoun County which has expressed interest to purchase a portion of the foreclosed land for schools.

Meanwhile, County Supervisor Jim Burton said that what is happening to Greenvest mirrored the trend in the real estate development business in Loudoun. He said that there are investment groups who have expressed interest to bid for the foreclosed property.

Industry experts said that the county is interested to know what will be the outcome of the scheduled foreclosure auction of the Greenvest holdings. Its interest lies on the possible devaluation of values of county land if the foreclosed Greenvest property will be sold below its market value of about $165 million.

Foreclosure rate in Loudoun County remained steady in 2008, posting about 190 foreclosures monthly for an annual total of 2,310.

The financial collapse of Greenvest was due to its failed efforts to rezone its 4,123-acre land to allow it to construct nearly 15,000 houses in four separate neighborhoods. In 2008, the Board of Supervisors opposed the proposal of the Loudoun County School to purchase about 100 acres of land holdings of Greenvest for $20 million.

The school site, along with an adjacent 375-acred property, was acquired by Greenvest for $25 million.

Loan delinquency and bank foreclosed home rates in the state of Connecticut rose to their highest levels in 30 years.

The rate of foreclosure in Vermont remains a threat to the state and its economy. Last month, filings for bank foreclosure homes jumped by 14 percent to 1,135 from 996 posted in the same period last year.

Bank foreclosed house sales accounted for majority of all home sales last month in Michigan. In July, 6,452 properties were sold in Detroit, an increase of 18.7 percent from last year’s total sales of 5,436.

Few distressed homeowners have participated in Connecticut’s bank foreclosure mediation program despite the high success rate of the initiative.

Oklahoma has not been clobbered by foreclosures as sharply as other states because real estate prices in the state did not soar to outrageously high levels during the housing boom.

A growing number of homeowners in St. Louis, Missouri owe more mortgages on their houses than their total market value. This trend has been bothering industry analysts who noted that despite the affordable housing cost in the area, many borrowers are seeing their properties losing equity.

Lane County in Oregon saw its foreclosure activity jumped last month. Filings for bank foreclosed home were given to 221 homeowners in July, a jump of 64 percent compared with last year.