If it's springtime, it must be time to appeal property tax assessments. In recent years, falling market values have inspired millions of homeowners to appeal their property tax assessments in hopes of lowering their tax bills, especially in "sand states" where values have fallen the most since 2006. But this year, the rush to judgment may be over.
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A new survey of homeowners released today found that two out of five, or 41 percent, of homeowners would consider walking away from their mortgages if their homes were worth less than the amount they owed.
The survey, by search site Trulia.com and RealtyTrac, the online marketplace for foreclosed properties, demonstrates the growing popularity of "strategic defaults, which were the subject of a 60 minutes segment last Sunday.
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The delinquency rate for mortgages decreased from 10.44 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 9.38 percent this quarter, but when adjusted for seasonal trends the rate actually increased 59 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2009 to a rate of 10.06 percent, and rose 94 basis points from one year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) National Delinquency Survey.
Reporting a 2.7 percent rise in net earnings today for the first quarter, the nation's second largest home improvement retailer remains cautious about the balance of 2010.
Now that the homebuyer tax credit has passed into history, many are starting to wonder whether many buyers were tacking the value of the credit onto their sales price. Prices now are falling in many markets and had buyers waited until the credit expired, they could have bought the same house without Uncle Sam's help.
Hard times have come to real estate agents as well as to their customers. With fewer houses to sell and commissions shrinking due to lower prices, more and more agents are looking for work in other fields or settling for less money.
Last quarter, more homeowners voluntarily defaulted on their mortgages and chose to walk away from their homes than the total number of mortgages permanently modified to date under the Administration's year-old Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP).
PMI's second quarter U.S. Market Risk Index showed fresh evidence of a recovering national housing market, including improved prospects of higher housing prices in many markets within two years.
The homebuyer tax credit faded away Friday night with a whimper in most markets and a bang in just a few, according to reports from across the county.
The Mortgage Monitor report released today by Lender Processing Services, Inc., a leading provider of mortgage performance data and analytics, showed modest improvements in the number of loans curing to current and reductions in total new delinquencies.
If you have decent credit, live in a rural area and earn less than 115 percent of the median income in your area, you might just qualify for the best mortgage deal still available in America.
A steady decline in minority homeownership has driven the national homeownership rate to its lowest level in a decade, according to data released by the Census Bureau for the first quarter of 2010.
Last week's 27 percent surge in new home sales in March, the largest advance since April 1963, signals future increases in existing home sales, which rose only 7 percent in March, and may show the real impact of the homebuyer tax credit, which expires at the end of this week.
Investors are back in the housing markets, driven by affordable prices, abundant foreclosures, low interest rates and now… rising rents.
Revisions in the government's Making Home Affordable Program (HAMP) may create new incentives for loan servicers and to defraud troubled homeowners according to a new report from the Inspector General who oversees the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP).
As the final two weeks of the homebuyer tax credit tick away, many sellers are playing a game of "chicken" with buyers by refusing to negotiate on price and seeking other concessions, knowing that buyers may not have time to find another home in time to make the tax credit deadline, according to reports from real estate professionals across the country posted in the popular real estate site Active Rain.
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