A brighter note on foreclosures

Arizona Foreclosure & Real Estate News

Article Abstract: According to a recent report many of the Arizona foreclosure filings were duplicates. Reports that foreclosures in Arizona increased tremendously may not be the case. Pre-foreclosures in Arizona were actually at September levels last month which puts the state par with the rest of the nation. Also almost 2,000 homeowners received a reprieve from Bank of American, who recently took over Countrywide, one of the largest sub-prime lenders in the country. The full AZ foreclosure article is below:

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by Catherine Reagor - Nov. 12, 2008 12:00 AM

A quick look at October's filings shows the foreclosure problem in metropolitan Phoenix is getting a lot worse. But this is one of those times when the numbers can be misleading.

Notice-of-trustee sales, or pre-foreclosures, hit a new high of 8,503 in Maricopa County during October. But almost 900 of those filings were duplicates of previously recorded moves by lenders to foreclose on a home, data firm Information Market reports.

Without the duplicates, October's pre-foreclosure filings were pretty close to September's level.

It's the first time during the past 18 months of climbing foreclosures that a large number of filings were duplicates, said Tom Ruff of Information Market. He is looking into what's behind the duplicate filings but wants to make sure people tracking the foreclosure market know things aren't necessarily getting any more dire.

Also, working against a big jump in pre-foreclosures is a drop in all pending foreclosures in the Valley.

Almost 2,000 Valley homeowners facing foreclosure received a reprieve last month from lender Bank of America, which acquired the nation's biggest subprime lender, Countrywide, last summer.

BofA's action is part of an agreement with the Arizona attorney general and other state attorneys general to work with borrowers to try to find payments they can afford. At the beginning of this month, JPMorgan Chase announced that it would assist 400,000 families who need help making their home-loan payments. Then on Tuesday, Citibank said it would launch a similar program to help its struggling borrowers.

Foreclosure cancellations in the Phoenix area jumped to 3,516 in October, nearly double the rate of September's cancellations. At the end of October, there were 27,874 foreclosures pending in the Valley.

Ruff has identified an additional 5,500 foreclosures that could be temporarily halted because of BofA and Chase's programs. Citibank's new effort could mean at least an additional 1,000 homeowners get help.

The one foreclosure number that there's no getting around is the number of trustee sales in October. These sales, which represent the number of people losing their homes, climbed to 4,587 from 4,378 in September. Duplicate filings didn't drive the increase. And efforts by lenders to work with borrowers didn't come in time.

 

 

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