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Foreclosures are still big news in real estate across the country. Most homeowners are looking forward to a day when foreclosures make up a much smaller share of the market. For now, however, 1 in 119 homes are in foreclosure. One in every 577 housing units received a foreclosure filing in the month of February. These stats come from Realty Trac, who monitors the state of foreclosures. They report that California was leading the pack in the number of foreclosed homes in Feburary. The figure was over 56,000.
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What homes are most affected by this trend? It appears that modestly sized homes in the 1200 to 1399 square foot range carry the largest percentage of foreclosures. This trend was also high, however, in homes greater than 2600 square feet.
Investors all across the nation are taking advantage of foreclosure pricing, which is as much as 39 percent less than comparables in parts of the Northeast. Virginia saw the largest price difference between regular residential sale and foreclosure pricing. There was an average savings of $93,552.
Nationwide, home values are on the downtrend. According to Zillow.com, February saw monthly home value depreciation at -1.1 percent. Annualized depreciation increased from -7.4 percent to - 8.2 percent.
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Topping the charts with the largest annual declines were Mobile, Pueblo, Ocala, Detroit, Atlanta, Flagstaff, and Spokane.
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Zillow notes, "We believe that we will see continuing improvement in monthly depreciation rates for the balance of the year with improvement possibly slowing or stagnating in the fall, but continuing thereafter. At this pace, that would place a bottom in national home values in the Q4 2011 or Q1 2012 time frame. Here, a bottom is defined as an end to consistent monthly declines in home values."
The most recent Federal Reserve Beige Book (April 2011) reports that residential real estate activity has increased in most Districts. Let's take a look at the latest trends:
- First off, sluggish sales were experienced in New York, Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco for their high end homes.
- Commercial activity was also slow, except in Dallas and Richmond.
In spending and retail sales, we saw only modest gains in February. According to the Commerce Department, total retail sales are up 0.4 percent, and while this is the smallest gain in nine months, it is movement in the right direction. Influencing this statistic was gasoline sales, accounting for 10.7 percent of all retail sales and increasing 2.6 percent in February. Economists expect gas pricing to continue to slow the economic recovery.
