Foreclosure activity declines, hurting investors

Readers,

This from ForeclosureRadar, a service that tracks foreclosure trends. First is a discussion of what happened nationally in April. I’ve put the April statistics for Kitsap County below that. You can see that the foreclosure pipeline is slowly narrowing both nationally and locally, hurting investors. If you’d like more local detail, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Rachel Pritchett, reporter
rpritchett@kitsapsun.com
360-475-3783

The discussion from ForeclosureRadar:
Foreclosure Starts declined across our coverage area wiping out the small gains in new foreclosure filings last month. In California, notice of default filings are down 69.8 percent from the peak in March 2009, and 15.8 percent from April 2011. Notice of trustee dale filings, the start of Arizona’s foreclosure process, are down 59.4 percent from the peak in March 2009, and down 8 percent year-over-year.



Foreclosure sales also declined, however, foreclosure investors purchased a record percentage of the limited inventory that was actually sold. Nevada investors purchased more than 50 percent of foreclosure sales for the first time at 50.7 percent. Arizona followed with 44.6 percent and California at 41.3 percent. The low number of sales, combined with record percent purchased on the courthouse steps left very little to become Bank Owned (REO). This further depletes the inventory of Bank Owned homes as REO sales continue to outpace the addition of new inventory.



Despite investors purchasing a higher percentage of foreclosure sales, margins have rapidly declined in recent months. In both Arizona and Nevada winning bids on the courthouse steps on average equal the current estimated value of those properties. In California the discount between market value and winning bid have on average declined to 12.3 percent. This leaves investors who intend to resell their purchases with record low profits after eviction, repairs, and closing costs.

Now the local discussion:
There were 37 new foreclosure filings in Kitsap County in April.

That was a 68 percent decrease over a year ago. and a 52 percent decrease over March. This is the first step in the foreclosure process.

As for foreclosure outcomes in Kitsap County in April, the last step in the foreclosure process, 17 were canceled prior to being auctioned off on the courthouse steps. That means that the parties successfully negotiated a loan modification or the property became a short sale.

Fifteen went back to the bank, and one was sold to a third party.

Foreclosure outcomes of all sorts in Kitsap County were drastically down in April over a year ago.