PHILADELPHIA — Foreclosure filings fell 8 percent in
November from October, the fourth straight month of declines, RealtyTrac of
Irvine, Calif., reported Thursday.
With one filing for every 417 houses nationally, November
saw the lowest amount of foreclosure activity since February.
The numbers, while 18 percent higher than the same month
last year, were a result of “loan modifications and other foreclosure
prevention efforts,” said RealtyTrac chief executive James J. Saccacio.
He said the recently extended and expanded homebuyer tax
credit was keeping a lid on home value depreciation.
Saccacio warned, however, that a full recovery will come
only “when unemployment recedes to normal, healthy levels and when
availability of credit reaches a more rational balance between the extremes of
the past few years.”
Data from Integrated Asset Services of Denver showed values
continuing to decline despite the buying boom fostered by the tax credit.
Home values actually declined 0.05 percent nationally in
October from September, with the Northeast, especially metropolitan Boston,
dragging the numbers down. The Northeast region fell 1.6 percent; the Middle
Atlantic, 0.06 percent.
“I have no doubt that the tax credit persuaded some
buyers to make their purchase sooner than they otherwise would have,” said
Dave McCarthy, president and CEO of Integrated Asset Services. “It’s
reasonable to think the broader market will reflect that reality at some point
down the road.”
Although Saccacio credited loan modification efforts as
helping slow the rate of foreclosures, a Treasury report Thursday on the Obama
administration’s Making Home Affordable program showed the effort coming up
woefully short in getting lenders to alter mortgage terms permanently.
Programs to mitigate foreclosures are not having the desired
impact, said Michael Feder, president of Radar Logic in New York, which tracks
the housing market.
The Treasury Department reported Thursday that just 31,382
loans of the four million mortgages targeted had been modified permanently since
the program began in February. There are 728,000 loans in “trial”
modification.
By some estimates there is as much as $1 trillion in
potential foreclosures already delinquent, Feder said.
Lawmakers have been critical of the program, which they say
is still focusing on the subprime-loan crisis of last year rather than mortgage
foreclosures related to rising unemployment.
They also have taken lenders to task, especially those who
have taken government bailout money, known as TARP funds. Those lenders,
however, have been reporting great success in modifying loans independent of
the government program.
Resets of thousands of so-called exotic mortgages such as
option adjustable-rate loans in 2010 “will undoubtedly lead to another
wave of foreclosures as payments begin to double and triple,” said Sylvia
Alayon, vice president of the Consumer Mortgage Audit Center in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla.
“When principal balances go up and house values
continue to plummet, refinancing will no longer be an option for homeowners in
negative amortization,” she said.
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
