More foreclosures and short sales hit the market
OC Register

There were more foreclosures and short sales on the market last Thursday in Orange County than two weeks earlier — not a comforting trend heading into the holidays

The chart from Steve Thomas at Altera Real Estate in Aliso Viejo shows that while foreclosures and short sales (when a bank agrees to accept less than debt owed on a property) have declined over much of this year, over the past month they have been flat or increasing slightly.

Loans sought for jobless homeowners
Boston.com

FALL RIVER - Representative Barney Frank said yesterday that he is pushing a proposal to use some of the interest the government collects from the financial industry bailout to give loans to unemployed homeowners who are struggling to pay the mortgage.

The lack of such aid has been identified as a big weakness in the Obama administration’s plan to tackle the mortgage crisis. A report by a congressional oversight panel said the $50 billion program “was not designed to address foreclosures caused by unemployment.’’

Banks to prepay FDIC for failures
The Washington Post

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will collect $45 billion from the banking industry to cover the rising cost of bank failures, an unprecedented assessment that reflects the agency's projections that the current round of failures will not peak until next year.

The FDIC's board voted Thursday to require banks to pay at the end of this year the amount they would owe the FDIC over the next three years. The agency collects insurance premiums from all banks, which it uses to reimburse depositors in failed banks.

New REOs Jump 22 Percent in California: Regional Report
DSNews

After three months of consecutive declines, the number of foreclosed homes in California taken back by banks rose by 22.24 percent from September to October, according to ForeclosureRadar, a local property information site that tracks every foreclosure in the Golden State and provides daily auction updates.

The company’s tally of new REOs is a 20.95 percent increase compared to October 2008, but despite the seemingly dramatic mushrooming, the latest numbers are still well below record levels. The number of foreclosures repossessed by banks in California last month remains 42.56 percent below the peak reached in July 2008, ForeclosureRadar’s data shows.

Ten Questions on the Volatile Housing Market
The Wall Street Journal

The U.S. housing market has been in a slump for the past four years. When will it ever end?
In recent years, real estate has proven as jittery and unreliable as any other market. The average U.S. home price nearly doubled between January 2000 and April 2006, according to the First American LoanPerformance index. Since then, the average has fallen about 30%.

The drop has been 53% in the Las Vegas metropolitan area and 39% in Miami, where about a quarter of all households with mortgages are behind on their payments or in foreclosure. The value of your home might be determined more by whether the neighbors keep their jobs than whether the house has ample light and closet space.

by joelc