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San Francisco foreclosures for sale accounted for almost 32 percent of all house sales in October, based on data from a market research provider.

Although the foreclosure percentage marked a decrease from the 32.3-percent share in September and from the 44-percent share in October last year and marked the lowest level reached since June 2008 when foreclosure sales accounted for 29.9 percent of overall home sales, the October foreclosure percentage this year was still high, compared to other markets.

According to the research company, the total of newly-built and pre-owned homes and condo units sold in October increased to 7,933 units, a jump from the 7,879 units sold off in September and from the 7,613 units sold in October last year.

Home sales prices also increased, with the price median rising by almost seven percent to $390,000 from the $365,000 median in September and by four percent from the October 2008 median of $375,000.

The rise in the median price in October marked the first time that the median increased over a 12-month period. The last time there was an increase over a one-year period was in November of 2007, when the median rose by 1.5 percent over the November 2006 median.

Bay Area analysts said that the median price rose because of the drop in the share of San Francisco foreclosures for sale in overall home sales. The October 2009 median was the highest since July when the median reached $395,000, the highest level so far this year, but it was however lower by more than 41 percent from the peak median of $665,000 reached in the middle of 2007.

Another reason for the rise in the median was the increase in sales of houses in the price range of $500,000. Total sales of homes worth more than $500,000 comprised 36 percent of all sales in October, marking an increase from the 34.9-percent share in October last year and a significant rise from the 22.7-percent share in January.

Overall home sales in higher-cost neighborhoods also increased, with sales in Santa Clara, San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo comprising 42.2 percent of all house sales in October, a jump of more than 35 percent from October last year.

Original Post: San Francisco Foreclosures for Sale Accounted for 32 Percent on BankForeclosuresSale.com.    

Foreclosure houses for sale in Minneapolis, including more than 140 residential units seized by state officials in the northern part of the city last year from a fraudulent mortgage scheme, will be fixed and resold under the expanded Minneapolis Advantage program.

Under the original program, the city encouraged homebuyers to purchase foreclosure properties in distressed communities by helping them with their down payments and closing costs. The program has been successful, but because of funding problems, city officials decided to reduce funding for the program by 50 percent.

In response, housing officials found a way to continue carrying out the program and even to expand it by teaming up with the city of Brooklyn Park in Hennepin County to apply for additional funding from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Housing officials said that the program has been very successful in managing vacant properties and mitigating foreclosures, so they are committed to continue pursuing the program.

The Minneapolis-Brooklyn partnership applied for almost $40 million from the NSP to finance the foreclosure mitigation programs of the two cities, with Minneapolis city officials planning to put $2 million into the Minneapolis Advantage program.

As of October, the Advantage program has already bought and repaired several hundred foreclosure houses for sale and has demolished dilapidated properties.

Tom Streitz, housing director for Minneapolis, said that the hundreds being rehabilitated under the program may not be substantial compared to the estimated 3,000 residential units entering foreclosure listings every year over the past 3 years, in addition to properties seized from mortgage frauds.

But Streitz insisted that the ripple effect of one foreclosed but rehabilitated house can benefit the whole community.

In a nationwide report on foreclosures, foreclosure filings in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area soared by nearly 99 percent in the July to September period to 9,767 filings, representing one foreclosure filing for every 136 households in the area.

Bill Buelow, construction director for the Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation, said that in some streets where vacant homes almost equal the number of occupied houses, the rehabilitation of one unit means one step up the ladder of recovery.

GMHC is among major nonprofits helping Minneapolis acquire, fix and resell foreclosed houses, including the more than 140 homes that were abandoned when the $35-million TJ Waconia mortgage scam perpetrators were caught and put into federal prison.

The abandoned homes put downward pressure on home values, prompting city officials to launch the Advantage program to put responsible families into vacant homes and foreclosure houses for sale.

Original Post: Foreclosure Houses for Sale under Minneapolis Advantage Plan on BankForeclosuresSale.com.

Detroit foreclosed homes are still soaring, based on the number of homeowners seeking help from housing advocates, nonprofits, counselors and homeless shelters.

According to Congressman John Conyers, about 197 homes are being foreclosed every day in Detroit because the unemployment rate in the area has surpassed 50 percent. He has even stated that the city is suffering from depression and has called on President Barack Obama to take time to help the city.

Conyers joined civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, founder of Rainbow Push Coalition, in holding a meeting in Detroit last week to address the foreclosure and unemployment situation in the city.

The economic situation in Detroit has gotten so bad that there are now a lot of people asking for help from homeless shelters for the first time in their entire lives.

According to Amanda Sternberg of the Homeless Action Network of Detroit, around 9,000 homeless persons in Detroit have asked for help and 28 percent of these reported that they are experiencing homelessness for the first time.

Jason Weller, head of the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness, contended that the estimated number of homeless persons in 2009 could increase by more than 10 percent due to rising unemployment and foreclosures.

In the third quarter, the Detroit metro area had nearly 22,000 of its households put into the foreclosure process, many of which had already been put into lists of Detroit foreclosed homes. With the pace of foreclosure activity rising by 7.4 percent from the second quarter to one foreclosure out of every 86 households, the Detroit-Livonia-Warren metro area ranked 40th in a list of large metro areas with record numbers of foreclosures.

According to Joseph Tardella, head of the Homeless Action Network, about 20 to 40 percent of people asking for help from homeless shelters in Detroit are experiencing homelessness for the first time. With around 10,000 homeless persons needing help, shelters are overloaded, forcing homeless workers to convert waiting rooms into bedrooms.

Last week, the Hope Now alliance held an event at the Cobo Center to provide assistance to troubled homeowners, but the number of homeowners who sought help had been modest compared to other cities where Hope Now held its counseling sessions.

According to Hope Now spokesperson Bradley Dwin and Diane McCloskey, community director at the Detroit Office of Foreclosure Prevention and Response, the modest response indicated that homeowners believed that loan modifications are useless since they have no jobs.

Original Post:     Detroit Foreclosed Homes Soaring, Advocates Working Overtime on ForeclosureDeals.com.

Foreclosure properties for sale in Northwest Illinois are pressuring affordable housing officials in the counties of Whiteside, Carroll, Bureau, LaSalle, Marshall, Lee, Ogle, Stark and Putnam to prepare for the expected rise in number of families needing housing help from local officials.

Among recent foreclosures affecting a lot of families are eight apartment buildings previously owned and managed by Lonnie Chattic, one of the board members of the Sauk Valley Landlord Association.

Four of these rental buildings have been taken back by banks and all renters of two of these buildings have been ordered to move out of their units, according to records filed at the Whiteside County Courthouse.

One of the eight troubled apartment buildings has been scheduled for auction in a December sheriff’s sale and three have been targeted for foreclosure by banks, based on Whiteside court filings.

As more renters are expected to move out from the foreclosed apartment buildings, affordable housing officials have been thinking of ways to help the affected renters.

What worsened the situation was the decision of the state of Illinois to cut its funding for homeless programs in Tri-County. After reducing funding from $100,000 last year to only $20,000 this year, the state has also delayed delivering the money.

With the rising number of renters forced out from foreclosure properties for sale and the sharp drop in public funding, Whiteside County was forced to close its waiting list for rental vouchers. There are only 285 rental vouchers available for residents of Whiteside.

According to Housing Authority director Lynn Deter, families have to wait for six months on the average to be able to move into the 265 available public rental houses in Whiteside County.

Sandra Julifs, chief executive of the Tri-Counties Opportunities Council, said that affordable housing is the now the top problem in the area. It is only Tri-County which provides emergency housing, either through its Homeless Prevention Rehousing Program or through its transitional shelter program. The rehousing scheme is a federally-funded rental program that subsidizes the rent of qualified households for up to one year and six months. Qualified families are those that have been forced out of their rentals or have been made homeless.

According to Sterling city officials, Chattic owned around 20 rental buildings in the Sterling area before most of them became foreclosure properties for sale. Because the buildings were mostly occupied by low-income families, the affordable housing problem worsened when the rental buildings went into foreclosure.

Original Post: Foreclosure Properties for Sale in Illinois Rental Sector on ForeclosureDeals.com.

Prospective homebuyers can find foreclosure homes in neighborhoods in Fresno, California where historic homes were not affordable to many buyers in the past but are now available at bargain prices, according to the Fresno Association of Realtors.

In the Tower area of Fresno, the architecture of homes ranges from large Victorians to smaller-sized Craftsman bungalow-styles.

Many of these properties were built in the 1920s and in the 1940s, but they have character and charm. According to realtors in the area, many of the historic and desirable homes were out of range for many home buyers in the past, but now they are being offered at affordable prices.

Foreclosures in the Fresno metro area slowed in the July-September quarter from the previous quarter, but they still comprised a big portion of total home sales, pulling the median home sales price to $152,840 in October, a drop of more than 12 percent compared to the median in October last year. The lowest sales price median occurred in February this year at around $128,000.

Despite the decrease in sales prices, total house sales in October in Fresno still dropped by more than two percent. According to Jared Martin, head of the Fresno Association of Realtors, sales declined because they cannot find foreclosure homes in neighborhoods and in the price ranges that they prefer.

Martin said that banks were controlling the release of their repossessed properties to the market to prevent sharp drops in prices and significant increases in completed foreclosures in their books and in the reports of foreclosure research firms.

In the July-September quarter, almost 5,900 residential units in the Fresno area received default or foreclosure notices, representing almost two percent of all households in the area. The number marked an increase of nearly 17 percent from the same quarter last year, but a drop of nearly 8 percent from the previous quarter.

In a ranking of 203 of the largest metro areas in the U.S., the Fresno area was 15th according to rates of foreclosures. One in every 52 homes with mortgages in Fresno was notified of default or foreclosure during the quarter.

According to Antonio Avalos, economics department head at California State University-Fresno, the 15.8-percent unemployment rate of Fresno has been largely causing foreclosure activity in the metro area, just like in other cities still struggling from foreclosures.

Thus, investors or homebuyers planning to find foreclosure homes in historic Fresno neighborhoods will likely find units that suit their tastes and investment plans.

Original Post: Find Foreclosure Homes in Historic Neighborhoods in Fresno     on ForeclosureDeals.com.

Denver foreclosed homes dropped in number in the nine-month period from January to September compared to the first 9 months last year, but statewide foreclosure filings soared, according to a report from the Colorado Division of Housing.

Completed foreclosure actions in the first 9 months in Denver County dropped by 34 percent, but the county foreclosure rate was still high at 113 housing units for every completed foreclosure.

The other Colorado counties with decreases in actual foreclosures were Adams and Arapahoe, where completed foreclosures dropped by 20 percent.

In contrast, foreclosure activity outside the metro Denver area stepped up. For the nine-month period ended September, Mesa County posted a staggering increase in completed foreclosures by 173 percent while El Paso County posted an 18-percent jump.

Weld County, which was clobbered by foreclosures at the start of the housing meltdown, slowed down in foreclosure activity, posting a jump in completed foreclosures by just two percent.

Meanwhile, in another report released by a California-based research firm, foreclosure postings in the Denver-Aurora metro area rose by more than five percent compared to the previous quarter, but dropped by nearly two percent compared to the same quarter in 2008.

More than 9,200 residential units were notified of default or foreclosure during the quarter, many of which were already taken back by banks and posted as Denver foreclosed homes. This overall total of distressed units represented 0.89 percent of all housing units in the Denver-Aurora metro area.

With a foreclosure rate of one in every 113 residential units, the Denver-Aurora metro area was ranked 47 among 203 large metro
areas studied by the real estate research company.

In the report released by the Colorado Housing Division, foreclosure actions in Colorado stepped up and exceeded the 12,000 threshold in the quarter ended September largely because of the phase-out of moratorium programs that postponed foreclosure proceedings by lenders.

During the nine-month January-September period, the total of foreclosure postings reached 35,112 and the total of completed foreclosures reached 14,971. During the third quarter, the total of completed foreclosures reached 5,618.

If the January-September foreclosure filings this year are compared to filings during the same 9-month period last year, foreclosure activity slowed down. Last year, more than 39,000 residential units received foreclosure filings and more than 21,000 units went into foreclosure and were repossessed by the banks.

Original Post: Denver Foreclosed Homes Declined, but Statewide Filings Rose on ForeclosureDeals.com.

San Diego foreclosures for sale climbed up by more than 9 percent in October from September, according to a report from a research firm. The analysts said that the increase showed that lenders pursued foreclosures on mortgages that were not saved by loan modifications or short sales.

Indicating that the foreclosure crisis may be easing, the pace of home loan defaults in the county of San Diego slowed down by 7 percent in October, compared to defaults in September.

A total of 2,536 default notices were filed in October, marking a decrease from 2,726 notices posted in September and a drop to the lowest level since November last year when the state of California required mortgage lenders to give borrowers some leeway before filing default notices.

However, the total number of loan defaults filed for the period from January to October this year has reached 31,215, a sharp increase from the 26,668 notices filed during the same ten-month period in 2008.

Some housing analysts believe that the number of default notices could have been higher if lenders did not delay sending notices to delinquent homeowners. They contend that many homeowners were in default by at least four months, but lenders suspended their foreclosure proceedings because they were trying to comply with pressure from state and federal regulators to reduce the number of San Diego foreclosures for sale.

Additionally, lenders do not want to repossess a lot of properties and overload the market with low-priced foreclosures, according to economists that include Alan Gin, who works with the University of San Diego.

Gin contended that foreclosures will increase in the coming months and then slow down. But he also said that the unemployment factor will reverse any positive forecast about foreclosure in 2010.

In San Diego, significant increases in default activity occurred in downtown San Diego and in the zip code areas of Golden Hill and Mission Valley. In contrast, defaults in the College area, Carmel Valley and Mira Mesa slowed down by 32 to 42 percent.

In zip code areas like La Mesa-Mount Helix, University City and western Rancho Bernardo, sales of foreclosure homes increased sharply by 100 percent to 220 percent from September sales while foreclosure sales in southern Escondido, College and Oceanside dropped by 23 to 33 percent.

According to Gin, foreclosures are now spreading from the lowest-cost areas to the higher-cost neighborhoods.

Original Post: San Diego Foreclosures for Sale Rose While Defaults Dropped on BankForeclosuresSale.com.