Team Thayer Property Servicing

A monthly report that covers bankruptcy, foreclosure, consumer confidence, and other data was released Thursday revealing that foreclosures are increasing—and bankruptcies could be close behind. LegalShield , a provider of legal safeguards and identity theft solutions, released its LegalShield Law Index that uses five indices: the LegalShield Consumer Financial Stress Index, Bankruptcy Index, Housing Activity Index, Foreclosure Index, and Real Estate Index. The indices rely on LegalShield’s unique and proprietary database of member demand for and usage of legal services as well as a close tracking of the Consumer Confidence Index by The Conference Board, Housing Starts report by the Census Bureau, and Foreclosure Starts by the MBA. In its Foreclosure Index, foreclosures worsened, which is reflected in a 5.1 point rise to 63.8 in August, even though foreclosures remain down nearly 5 percent year-over-year. LegalShield said if debts such as student loan, credit card, and auto incre...

The Federation of Certified REO Experts (FORCE) met Tuesday at the annual FORCE Rally within the 2017  Five Star Conference and Expo . Ed Delgado, Five Star President and CEO, spoke to the state of the industry, which he says is headed toward a microbubble. “The market is about to change and we need to be ready,” said Delgado. “REO is going to increase in 2018 as we see more fractures in the market—how much is determined by location and how big the fall off in price points will be.” According to Delgado, the real estate market is white hot while demand is still strong. These factors are driving price points, appreciation, and values way up. However, 5 to 10 percent spikes in appreciation along with price points that are overvalued by 15 to 20 percent aren’t a new observation—it’s something he witnessed in 2007 and 2008. “This is what we think will happen in the next year: Regional or microbubbles will start to burst—pay attention to Denver, Dallas, San Antonio, Las Vegas,...

News On Underwater Homes In 2017 Negative equity dropped over the first quarter, with the total value of underwater mortgages declining by more than $283 billion since the start of the year, according to the  CoreLogic  Q1 2017 Equity Insights Report released on Thursday. The national aggregate value fell 0.9 percent over the quarter and 7.1 percent since Q1 2016. In total, the number of underwater residential mortgages dropped 3 percent since Q4 2016 and 24 percent over the year. Still, about 3.1 million residential mortgages—or 6.1 percent of all U.S. mortgages—remain underwater as of Q1, according to the report. At their peak in 2009, underwater mortgages accounted for a 26 percent share of all mortgages. Subsequently, positive equity is on the rise across the country. According to the report, about 9 million borrowers have regained equity since 2017, and 91,000 regained equity in 2017 alone. About 63 percent of all homeowners have seen an increase in equity since...

Bankruptcy Filings Dip Lower Nationwide bankruptcy filings were 5 percent lower in October 2016 compared with a year earlier, falling even lower than last month’s reported decrease, according to October 2016 AACER bankruptcy data reported by Epiq Systems. Bankruptcy filings totaled 63,042 in October, which was an increase from September’s total of 64,614, and was approximately 2.4 percent higher than October 2015’s total of 63,042 (an increase of 1,572).  Year-to-date, there have been 656,125 bankruptcy filings nationwide for the past nine months of 2016 (about 65,613 per month), down from 2015’s year-to-date total through the end of October of 700,014 (about 70,001 per month). The average number of filings per day in October 2016 was 3,152 over 20 days, which is an increase from September’s daily average of 3,077 over 21 days. The extra filing day in September compared to October accounts for the slight increase in the number of filings in September; had October feature...

Housing Demand Is Going Up!  Demand for single-family housing reached its highest level since June 2013, having picked up momentum after Labor Day, according to Redfin’s Housing Demand Index for September 2016 . According to Redfin, buyer demand rose by 13.3 percent over-the-month in September up to a level of 105, its highest level in three-plus years, after nearly 32 percent more potential buyers toured homes and nearly 27 percent more potential buyers made offers. A reading of higher than 100 for the Redfin Housing Demand Index indicates stronger or higher-than-expected demand, while a reading of lower than 100 indicates weak demand. For September 2015, the reading was 101. This data indicates that there is a healthy pool of buyers ready and willing to purchase a home as long as they find the right one, according to Redfin. “Buyer demand gained momentum after Labor Day when a pop of fresh listings hit the market,” said Redfin chief economist Nela Richardson. New li...

A recent report from ATTOM Data Solutions, parent company for RealtyTrac, found that although men may make more money than women, women do a better job of avoiding foreclosure. ATTOM reports that in order to determine this information, they looked at the public property records for more than five million single-family home and condos nationwide. Specifically, it is noted that overall male homeowners have slightly higher foreclosure rates compared to female homeowners. This is represented by 73 out of 10,000 male homeowners in foreclosure compared to 72 out of every 10,000 female homeowners. Following this trend married men and widowers both have significantly higher foreclosure rates than married women and widows. Broken down further, it was shown that 83 out of every 10,000 married male homeowners are in foreclosure. This is compared to 66 out of every 10,000 married female homeowners. It was also shown that 112 out of every 10,000 widowed male homeowners were in foreclosu...

With less REO properties available for investors, declines in REO sales triggered a further decline for national cash sales. Not all states experienced the same level of decline though, according to  the latest Cash Sales and Distressed Sales Data Report from CoreLogic . Cash sales accounted for 29.7 percent of total home sales in July 2016, down 1.9 percentage points year over year from July 2015. Prior to the housing crisis, the cash sales share of total home sales averaged approximately 25 percent. CoreLogic reports that if the cash sales share continues to fall at the same rate it did in July 2016, the share should hit 25 percent by mid-2018. REO sales, no surprise, had the largest cash sales share in July 2016 at 57.6 percent. Following behind, resales had the next highest cash sales share at 29.4 percent with short sales close behind at 28.1 percent and newly constructed homes at 15 percent. While the percentage of REO sales within the all-cash category remained high,...