RealtyBizNews: Real Estate News
With the latest on mortgages, refinancing, real estate & home tips
Throughout the housing crisis, one of the biggest stumbling blocks faced by real estate agents, buyers and sellers alike has been the appraisal process. Would the appraised value be lower than the agreed sales price, and if so, how much lower would it be? It’s thought that thousands of potential transactions have been derailed due to lower-than-expected appraisals.
There’s some good news for military servicemembers on the horizon, after Capitol Hill lawmakers agreed on new legislation that would extend foreclosure protection to enlisted personnel who bought their homes after they went on active duty. Known as the Family Home Protection Act (H.R. 1842), the bill takes over from where the old Servicemembers Civil Relief Act left off.
Foreclosure errors made by lenders during 2009 and 2010 were more widespread than first thought, according to new findings from government regulators. Almost 30% of the more than 3.9 million homes that were foreclosed on during that period were lost due to possible bank errors
Underwater homeowners have been given a tremendous boost by rising home prices over the last 12 months, with more than 1.7 million borrowers regaining equity by the end of 2012. This means that there are now 38.1 million homeowners with equity in the US, according to the latest report from CoreLogic.
With the economy finally showing signs of recovery from years of stagnation, mortgage rates have been slowly picking up too. Last week, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage climbed to its highest level in almost six months, reaching 3.63% on average according to the latest figures from Freddie Mac.
The foreclosure crisis played havoc with real estate markets across the nation, yet some markets were clearly worse hit than others. Now, those areas that suffered the most are leading the nation in refinancings as homeowners look to reduced their monthly mortgage payements and hold onto their homes.
As of next month, homeowners who were wrongly foreclosed upon as a result of banks’ “robosigning” will begin to receive compensation from lenders, with the amounts ranging from a few hundred dollars to as much as $125,000 in some cases, said federal regulators last week.
In 2012, UK remortgaging activity dropped steeply compared to the levels seen at the start of 2008, showed the latest research on the topic published by Lloyds TSB. Remortgages represented 51% of total mortgage lending between January 2008 and October 2008 and fell last year to only 24%.
There’s still some way to go but all the signs are that the foreclosure crisis is finally coming to an end. Latest figures from RealtyTrac show that foreclosure filings have continued their downward trend, falling to the lowest level since April 2007 at the end of last month.
Australian non-bank lender Pepper has just announced another strong move to consolidate its position as top pan-European loan servicing and real estate manager by acquiring the loan business of Celeris in Spain for €290 million. The newly acquired business will trade as the Pepper Finance Corporation after the buy.
