The relentless wave of foreclosures that has steadily swelled and battered the housing industry for a good three years seems to have retreated in January, but it's not enough to mean the storm has passed. New data released by RealtyTrac Thursday shows that foreclosure filings were reported on 315,716 U.S. properties during the month, a decrease of nearly 10 percent from December. It's a pattern we've already seen this time last year, and RealtyTrac says if history repeats itself, there will be another flood over the next few months.
Freddie Mac said Wednesday that it will purchase "substantially all" mortgages that are 120 days or more delinquent from the company's fixed-rate and adjustable-rate mortgage Participation Certificate (PC) securities. With new accounting rules that took effect January 1, the company said it is cheaper to buy and hold these nonperforming loans on its books than to pay guarantee fees to security investors. As of December 31, 2009, the aggregate balance of such loans was just over $71 billion.
Despite what seemed to be a flattening - and in some cases even a reversal - of home price declines last year, there are signs that the dreaded "double dip" is developing in as many as one in five markets, Zillow says. While residential values in some markets appear to have found their bottom, the company has observed prices in such large metros as Boston, Atlanta, and San Diego to have leveled or begun to decrease again after consecutive monthly increases - early signs of what could become a second period of prolonged declines.
National home prices fell 0.7 percent in December, according to the latest numbers from Denver-based Integrated Asset Services, LLC (IAS). Save for a brief rally throughout last summer, the company's benchmark for U.S. housing values was down nearly all of 2009. Now more than 22 percent below its high-water mark set in July 2007, the index has dropped to a level last seen in mid-2004, IAS said.
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Rob Alley, Realtor
Keller Williams Realty
540-250-3275
roballeyrealtor@gmail.comhttp://www.charlottesvillevarealestate.blogspot.com http://www.robsellscharlottesville.comOh, by the way, I am never too busy to work any of your referrals.
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