For a foreclosure, the house at 15461 Kentfield St. in Detroit needed surprisingly little work. The new owner, an investor from the Chicago area named Kevin Holmes, slapped on a coat of paint, pulled up the dirty carpets, and replaced the stolen water heater. The car stashed out back, he learned soon enough, belonged to a neighbor, not a thief using the three-bedroom as a makeshift chop shop.

The number of signed sales contracts to buy homes rose in September for the eighth straight month, according to a real estate industry report released Monday.

Confused about whether lawmakers will extend the $8,000 first-time homebuyer credit and what it would look like?

While foreclosure rates are easing in some of the hardest-hit cities, the crisis is beginning to expand into new metro areas.

Over the past three years, 23 states recorded home price gains in the majority of their metro areas, according to analytics firm Fiserv. And where were most of those gainers? In much of the so-called heartland: the South, the Plains and most of the non-coastal West.

Sales of existing homes bounce back to their highest level since July 2007, boosted by first-time homebuyers. Prices continue to fall.

The U.S. Treasury is poised to announce a finalized plan to expand mortgage relief efforts to include short sales. A short sale occurs when the bank allows the sale of a home for less than the existing mortgage balance. 

There are few things more basic to a homeowners association than the fees it takes to keep the place running. When one or more owners default in the payment of fees, the impact is felt by all. And the longer the delinquency, the deeper the cut. It is a situation that many boards dread because of having to deal with neighbors.

It is best to be Green and Home and Energy Star can help! Some of the best builders use Energy Star products such as Cole Christopher Builders in Louisville, KY. 

Borrowers that got help have fallen behind in payments 1 year later. total of 50% of the homeowners with loans modified in the first half of last year had missed at least two payments a year later reported by Office of the Comptrooler of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision. O.K. that looks real bad!

A Short Sale is a real estate transaction in which the revenues from the sale fall short of the balance owed on a loan secured by the property sold. It is a better solution than foreclosure because all parties involved usually end up in a better position at the end of the process. Getting a short sale approved can be difficult and time consuming for a novice and this is why it is better to hire a Real Estate Agent that is an expert at getting short sales approved. 

Newcomers entering the real estate industry accounted for three-fourths of a large increase in membership of the National Association of Realtors? during last year, according to a survey released at NAR?s annual Realtor Conference & Expo.

With HUD properties, title seasoning, FHA loans, and short sales, investors have had some confusion regarding the rules.  This article will clarify all of these issues for you.

According to the National Association of Home Builders’/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI),  a home is affordable if 28% or less of median family income is needed to buy it– that means an  HOI of 72 or better makes the homes in your market affordable.

Mortgage rates fell this week, with the average rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages retreating deeper below 5% and several others reaching lows, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey.

A Short Sale is a type of real estate transaction wherein a homeowner sells their property for less than what they owe the lender.In order to begin the process of negotiating and then approving the short sale, you will need to submit a set of documents required by most lenders. 

Like any professional, we all speak a language other's in our industry well understand. As a first time home buyer, you may not understand the language your Realtor is speaking. Here are a few terms to help you better understand:

For a number of reasons, banks have not been aggressively taking title to homes and selling them, which has resulted in very few distressed sales in comparison to the actual level of distress in the market. This delay in bank-owned home (REO) sales, along with historically low mortgage rates and an $8,000 tax credit, has helped to stabilize the housing market -- temporarily.

Everyday, many homeowners on all different levels of the economic spectrum fall victim to the foreclosure crisis. Some have bad loans, while others are unemployed or have fallen underwater due to decreasing property values. While these stories are familiar, perhaps it is worth a look now at some of the other places in society where foreclosure is hitting.

According to a statement by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, Congress may funnel the $2 billion repaid by lenders to programs that would assist unemployed Americans in danger of foreclosure. Also, TARP is expected to continue beyond its original December expiration, partially in response to disappointingly high unemployment figures from last month.

Looking for good news to start the month and the weekend? Hope Now released a report on Wednesday showing that foreclosure starts fell 21% from July to August for a total 224,000. The drop was attributed to foreclosure intervention as opposed to natural market forces. While loan modifications increased only 7%, repayments and workouts increased 38% and 28% respectively.

After 90,696 foreclosures were completed in the first quarter of 2009, federal and state officials certainly hoped to see a downward trend as the year continued and programs like the Making Homes Affordable plan were implemented. Nevertheless, it came as no great shock that the second quarter was worse than the first, as the foreclosure rate jumped nearly 17% to 106,007, this according to the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

For a moment, it was time to put aside fears regarding pending foreclosures, shadow inventory, unemployment and a disappearing federal tax credit. On Tuesday, the S&P/Case-Shiller index was released to pleasantly surprised analysts, showing 1.6% growth from June to July of 2009.

The news has been increasingly unanimous lately on foreclosure triggers. Loan modification programs are struggling to keep people in their homes. Unemployment is causing other, once-solvent homeowners to fall behind with their payments. Even auxiliary components, like ACORN, are imploding into themselves with disorder.

The National REIA Marketing and Technology Conference is under way, and the first day was a jam-packed flurry of activity. The kick-off at the CBN Studios got things rolling, and the Uvestor folks took a gander at the digital editing division. Then it was off to learn about Regent University and its use of online marketing to increase the ranks of its student body. Next, a web panel discussed social networking strategies. Scott Whaley wrapped up the proceedings with a speech about implementing systems to achieve business results.

The National REIA Marketing & Technology Conference begins today at the Founders Inn & Spa in Virginia Beach, VA. Uvestor.com will be in attendance in a partnership role, there to shoot video of the event for a later documentary, keep attendees abreast of event happenings via blog and twitter, report news back to those who could not make it to the conference, and conduct interviews with conference attendees and presenters.

The National Association of Realtors recently released survey results indicating that U.S. home sales to international buyers have declined 9.4% in the past year. Though affordability is at an all-time high in some cases, foreign purchasers have struggled to fight through the world recession and the perception that the U.S. market has not stabilized.

Don’t worry. We’re still monitoring foreclosures and the housing market, in general. The fact that the U.S. set a record high of 7.58 percent for the mortgage delinquency rate last month did not go unnoticed.

Yesterday’s piece noted builder confidence and how they have steadily improved over the summer. With the expiration of the $8,000 federal tax credit looming, though, it remains to be seen if that sentiment will continue to build. In fact, single-family home starts dropped for the first time since January last month, off 3% from the previous month.

Builder confidence rose to a score of 19, the highest number in more than a year, this according to yesterday’s NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index press release. August’s report had been 18, and it should be noted that a “good” rating remains far off in the distance at 50 or more.

You hear both words tossed around quite a bit. Sometimes the real estate market is stabilizing; sometimes the real estate market is recovering. I plead guilty as charged myself.

Numbers are funny. Their meaning all depends on how they are interpreted. Take California, for example. More than a quarter of all August foreclosures took place in California—a number RealtyTrac pins at 92,326. Though a stunning load for one state to carry on its own, it represented more than a 14% decline over July and nearly a 10% decline from the previous year.

On this date, certainly one of our nation’s most startling, it feels appropriate to pause for a moment. Of course, images of the World Trade Center naturally follow. Given what the country went through eight years ago and what the country has been through since that day, a certain parallel seems to have appeared.

Okay, first the unpleasant news. According to the latest data from RealtyTrac, over 358,000 foreclosure filings took place in August, which is an 18% increase as compared with August of 2008.

Real estate investing can be serious business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make time for a little fun every once in a while. With all the fuss about 09/09/09 today, we thought we’d roll with the theme and try to offer a little advice at the same time.

Sometimes a buyer finds the right house but cannot qualify immediately for a mortgage loan. On the other side, the same is true. Sometimes a seller really needs a buyer, and the only one that steps forward has less than ideal buying power.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac figured prominently in yesterday’s Daily Wire. In an interview with Reuters, Department of the Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Michael Barr made it clear that the administration would not immediately alter the way its GSEs are run, including Fannie and Freddie.

Some rumblings have been going on for quite some time, and now the U.S. Mortgage Bankers Association is on record with a proposal to alter Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The MBA would like to see them transformed into three units called Mortgage Credit-Guarantor Entities (MCGEs), which subsequently would be privately run.

For half a year now (six months straight) the pending sales on existing home sales report has shows growth. July numbers nearly matched June’s as the index increased 3.2% as compared with the previous month’s 3.6%.

Generally speaking, what August revealed had more to do with previous months than with August itself. This is always the case, of course, as compiling the data takes time.

July showed improvement for builders and new developers, as sales were up nearly 10% over June’s numbers. Most analysts are keen on watching this figure as a gauge for overall economic recovery.

They are all over the news. Everything you watch and read makes some mention of them: foreclosures. After a while, the thought occurs, “Could I get in on this and make a buck or two?”

Today’s Daily Wire picks up on a point touched on in yesterday’s edition. Housing inventory increased 7.3% in July, and supply swelled to nearly 4.1 million homes. Estimated by time, this is 9.4 months, which is far above the usual six months of inventory.

Friday’s report issued by the National Association of Realtors showed positive numbers in July, as existing home sales rose more than 7%--the largest monthly gain in the ten years that the NAR has been tracking data.

According to data recently released by Neighbor Works, the number of homeowners identifying unemployment as the main cause for losing their homes has risen from 40% to 65% in the course of the past year. The battleground has shifted somewhat from the lenders to the employers and (therefore) the overall economy.

A reduction in overall home prices has brought some buyers into the market, as those who could not afford boom prices are having an easier time affording the post-boom prices, despite the recent rise in unemployment rates. Those who are first-time homebuyers are especially eager to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit before it expires in November.

Make no mistake. Just as it was when the sub-prime fiasco hit, California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida still account for more than half of the total foreclosures each month. A resulting sharp drop in property values has dunked enough of those states’ homeowners underwater that the foreclosure cycle has continued, even through the summer months of 2009.

Yesterday’s NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index press release showed another increase, as the builder confidence rose to a score of 18, the highest number in more than a year.

In some ways, debate has been fierce this summer regarding what to make of the housing numbers. Are the slowing negative numbers just a positive seasonal blip in a worsening crisis or has the recovery started its slow crawl back from the brink?

There are no two ways about it. RealtyTrac's July report demonstrates the challenges inherent in this housing recovery. Once again, U.S. foreclosure numbers escalated into record territory—up nearly 7% over June and 32% by year-over-year comparison. The usual suspects (Nevada, California, Arizona and Florida) accounted for over 200,000 of the 360,149 total notices in July.

With everyone looking toward a housing recovery that is both real and sustainable, one of the largest obstacles concerning experts at present is the market’s shadow inventory. Even if all other factors stabilize, having too many houses in competition with one another will prevent prices from bumping back up like they otherwise could.

In a report released by Zillow today, U.S. home values dipped 12.1% to $186,500 in the second quarter of 2009 as compared with a year earlier. Consecutive quarterly declines have now reached double digits; however, the rate of decline shrank for the first time since prices began their tumble. Also, 37 of the 161 metro markets surveyed either posted an increase, stayed flat or showed a third consecutive quarter of a lessening decline.

Deutsche Bank issued an ugly projection this week that 48% of American homeowners will be underwater by the first quarter of 2011. Of course, this figure did not come out of thin air. Deutsche already estimated that 27% of Americans were in that position during the first quarter of this year. Combine that with higher unemployment figures, tight credit, and less-than-booming house prices and it is easy to see why there is concern that numbers have not bottomed out yet.

With two million home foreclosures already in 2009 (and possibly millions more to come in the next couple of years) it is clear that for those in a position to purchase, there eventually will be plenty of money to be made.

In the last week of July, the 30-year mortgage rate dropped to a three-week low from 5.36 to 5.17. The Mortgage Bankers Association credits that drop in rates for increasing refinancing applications. July was a powerhouse month as the MBA’s Refinance Index shot up 35% over end of June numbers, and refinances accounted for 54.2% of the total loan applications. It must be noted, however, that these totals still do not match the rates and activity experienced in the spring, particularly in the month of March. Still, analysts are optimistic that the market is beginning to stabilize and find its bottom.

This morning’s National Association of Realtors report indicates that pending home sales rose in June, the fifth straight month of increase for the U.S. market. This confirms what most analysts had been predicting and marks the first time since 2003 that five monthly increases have backed up to one another. The gain of 3.6% was even higher than the top end of Bloomberg’s prediction survey.

As the rest of the country has been watching California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona housing prices plummet in the past couple of years, there has been some detached solace in being on the outside of that crisis. Now, though, with unemployment numbers rising in other states across the country, the foreclosure crisis is threatening to become a less selective predator, invading one community after another.

Las Vegas (7.5%) and Cape Coral-Fort Myers (7.2%) led the way in foreclosures during the first two quarters this year, according to this week’s RealtyTrac report. CEO James Saccachio noted that new cities like Provo and Boise have seen large increases as some of last year’s hardest hit saw some bottomed out a bit.

The Independent Mortgage Servicers Coalition, which is involved in $700 billion of the riskiest loans in America, is warning federal officials that the foreclosure prevention effort is essentially an unfounded government mandate that requires them to pay out far more to bond investors than the government subsidies will cover. The result is that financing costs are increasing, according to the group.

• Banks Seek To Avoid Some Mods
• Foreclosure Prevention Hitting Snags
• Federal Housing Leaders Meet Bank Heads
• Bank-Owned Properties Are Selling
• Foreclosures Affect Property Values

• Mortgage Bankers Headed To White House
• New Home Sales Rise
• Cash Talks In Buyer’s Market
• Balloons Could Pop Real Estate Market
• CPI & Others Report on Appraisers

• Homebuilders May Be Giving Up On 2009
• Rates On The Rise
• More Talk of Mortgage Cram-Downs
• NE Now Strongest Home Price Region
• Settlement Talk for BOA’s Countrywide Borrowers

• Home Resales Rise in June
• Home Price Decline Shrinking
• Mortgage Mods Face Challenges
• Foreclosures Becoming Ho-Hum
• Minnesota Market Data Improves, Shows Distinctions

• Home Prices Falling But Rising
• Foreclosures Up 11% in Second Quarter 2009
• Wells Fargo Sees Increase in Bad Loans
• Fed Keeping Tabs On Commercial Real Estate
• Three-Week-Old Louisville Foreclosure Prevention Program

• Summers Doubts Growth
• Foreclosures Not Necessarily Producing Renters
• Next Round of Foreclosures
• Freddie Mac Adds Incentives
• Short Sales Training in Kentucky

• Economy’s Real Estate Component Still Shaky
• Unemployment Fuels Foreclosures
• Commercial Loans Suffering As Well
• Can Foreclosure Be Mediated?
• Forecasters Expect Positive Existing Home Sales Report for June

• Broker Wants Chips To Fall Where They May
• Home Prices Expected To Be Lower In 2011
• Criticism of Toxic Asset Program
• Blight Fight
• Short Sale Q&A
  

• More Foreclosures, More Economic Stress
• Could This Be A Future Foreclosure Map?
• Another Bank-Owned Boom
• No Real Estate Boom? No Real Estate Bomb
• SF Views Real Estate Market Optimistically

• Foreclosures Make For Rocket Docket in Fort Myers Area
• Bracing For Next Round Of Foreclosures
• Mostly Negative Numbers In Property Market Report
• Navigating Foreclosures In Miami
• S&P Case-Shiller Index May Overweight Foreclosures

• Barclays Capital Predicts More Foreclosures In Near Term
• Entry Level Market Strong in NYC
• Mortgage Rates Dip to 5.32%
• Lifeline for Underwater Borrowers
• The Echo Boomer Factor

• Loan Mods Battling Foreclosures
• A Less Than Stimulated Residential Property Market
• Brief Q&A on REOs
• Freddie Mac Jacks Up LTV Ratio
• Forgiving Mortgages

• Home Remodeling & Its Impact on Real Estate Investors
• Fannie Reports on Delinquencies
• Cheap Chic
• Commercial Coming Back
• DIY: The Affordable Home Renovation Method

• Florida Moves Tax Credit Up Front
• Appraisers Still Unhappy
• Foreclosures & Bank-Owned Properties Still Surging
• Foreclosures To Continue For Now
• Some Market Perspective from the Houston Chronicle

• Another Reason Foreclosures Will Rise
• Short Sales To The Rescue
• Grass Getting Greener In Uvestor’s Backyard