Distressed Properties Sale Articles

Purchasing foreclosure houses in Jacksonville, Florida for qualified working families in the area is the major goal of the Jacksonville Housing and Neighborhoods Department.

With $26 million in funding received from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program, the city of Jacksonville is stepping up its affordable housing program by buying foreclosed homes and rehabilitating them for sale to qualified working families.

The program is a winner for every sector, according to Donna Reed Mountain of Kendale Land Development. It also helps create jobs, aside from putting lower-income families into homes and rejuvenating blighted neighborhoods. She said that the program enabled her company to find work again, and now she works five days a week instead of two days a week when the company has no projects to do.

Amy Rankin, marketing officer for the NSP program, said the best result of the program is the provision of an affordable house in a good neighborhood to working families who otherwise could not buy a home without some assistance.

The Jacksonville NSP-funded affordable housing program helps qualified developers in purchasing foreclosure houses or distressed properties by providing them with acquisition financing and repair cost financing.

After the properties are rehabilitated, they are offered for sale to families who have been preselected based on income requirements.

Byron Colley, a Jacksonville construction businessman, said the federal program is a real help to the community. Now, construction workers, subcontractors and suppliers have work to do. Families are not the only ones helped, but also the trades, he added.

Currently, there are 51 houses being acquired, repaired or rebuilt under the NSP program.

City officials said the program is expected to help absorb excess foreclosure inventory and contain the continued rise in foreclosure properties in the metro area.

Based on a foreclosure survey conducted by a real estate research firm, the number of foreclosure filings in Jacksonville in August soared to its highest level in over 5 years to nearly 3,900, marking a 51-percent increase from 2,550 filings in July and a staggering 111-percent jump from 1,830 filings in August last year.

The 3,000 barrier was surpassed in June, when total filings reached 3,640, the first time the city exceeded 3,000 units since April 2005.

According to Richard Zeisel, a distressed specialist in the area, said he believes filings will continue to rise partly because of the resetting of Alt-A mortgage loans. The NSP-funded program of purchasing foreclosure houses then is a timely response to the problem.

The expected growth in Foreclosed House inventories is a valid argument for the extension of the first time home buyer tax credit, according to a report released by Washington, D.C.-based Campbell Surveys and analysis by several economists.

The report showed that the federal $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit has prompted 357,000 first time home buyers to make their home purchases within the period February 17 to September 15.

Campbell Surveys analysts said they examined real estate transactions before and after the enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which included the federal tax credit incentive program.

They said that before the February 17 enactment, home purchases made by first time home buyers comprised 32 percent of all home sales. After the enactment, home sales made to first time homebuyers sharply increased, accounting for 42 to 43 percent of total home sales.

Robert Dietz, economist of the National Association of Home Builders, said the association is pushing for another year of extension, until November 30, 2010, and the inclusion of all buyers of primary homes.

Legislation to extend the credit is pending in the U.S. House and Senate. Supporters of the tax credit extension, such as IHS Global Insight economist Patrick Newport, argued that the extension would contain foreclosed house inventories arising from the continued rise in unemployment and the resetting of ARMs.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, 1.4 million Americans have already claimed the home buyer tax credit incentive.

Thomas Popik, research director at Campbell Surveys, said that his team’s 357,000 estimate for March through September is nearly equal to the estimates made by the National Association of Realtors and Moody’s Economy.com.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s, said that 175,000 homes were sold to first time home buyers through July and he expected 400,000 more home sales to be completed for the same group of buyers. He reiterated that the sales would have not occurred if the first time home buyer tax credit was not offered.

Similarly, Walt Molony of NAR, said that his group estimated an additional 350,000 sales of previously-owned homes this year and that sales will drop by 6 percent if the tax credit is not extended.

Molony explained that a bigger foreclosed house inventory is expected over the coming year and that the tax credit incentive is needed to absorb the inventory and stabilize house prices.

The number of first-time home buyers and investors buying foreclosure homes in Ohio is expected to step up after foreclosure filings soared in industrial and small towns across the state, based on data from the research organization Policy Matters Ohio.

Find foreclosed properties for sale in Greater Baltimore as over $1.8 billion worth of commercial properties are already distressed, based on data from New York City-based Real Capital Analytics.

Cheap foreclosed homes are available in Surprise, Arizona, based on data prepared by Jay Butler, an associate professor of real estate at the Arizona State University W.P. Carey School of Business.

Investors looking for cheap land for sale can find plenty of potential investments in idled subdivisions in metro Atlanta as banks that have foreclosed on the projects are now selling them at discounted prices.

Foreclosed homes for sale are being offered to lower-income families in Southern Nevada under a federal program launched in 2008 by President Bush to stabilize neighborhoods and another federal program launched by President Obama this year to stimulate the economy.

The substantial number of Indianapolis foreclosure homes has boosted home affordability in the city and helped put the city on top of a list of the ten most affordable cities to buy a house in the U.S.

Find foreclosures in Honolulu by considering foreclosed condos as the city’s condo market slowed despite sharp reduction in condo prices.

Nearly 70 Chicago foreclosure homes will be auctioned off in a special event this August at the Chicago Marriott Southwest.