
Is the US home market, showing signs of recovery? There are distinct signs of that surely. Take, for instance, Riverside County. The number of foreclosures in the county has plunged by 49.9 per cent in the first half of 2010 when compared to the same period last year.
Banks had sent default notices to at least 8,474 home owners in the county. This was less than the previous year’s total figure of 16,906. The number of foreclosed homes in San Diego also dropped.
It may be pointed out here that the Federal government had come up with a program to help troubled homeowners. Under this program, the loans of homeowners are being modified, first on an experimental basis, and then permanently. The program picked off slowly and most homeowners complained that the banks have been slow in responding to them.
However, the scheme has not been able to address the problem of negative equity. There are many homes in various regions whose values are underwater. People owe more on these homes than what they are worth. Hence, they find it better to walk out of the homes rather than pay mortgage on them.
A real estate expert, John Walsh, said, "Several factors are at play here and it’s hard to know how they play into each other right now," Walsh said. "A year and a half ago, the sub-prime loan mess was the black hole. Now, playing catch-up is the financial distress households are experiencing because of the Advertisement North County Cosmetic recession.. Add to the mix shifting policy decisions, both by lending institutions and in public policy,"
RealtyTrac CEO, James J. Saccacio said that in the first three months of the year, the economy had improved a little. "One difference, however, is that the increases were more tilted toward the final stage of foreclosure," he said.
He also said, "the highest quarterly total … ever seen … and may be further evidence that lenders are starting to make a dent in the backlog of distressed inventory that has built up over the last year as foreclosure prevention programs and processing delays slowed down the normal foreclosure timeline."
In Riverside County, there was quite a bit foreclosure activity. One in almost 34 homes was in various stages of foreclosure. The second highest volume of foreclosure was noted in Stanislaus County. This was closely followed by Merced, San Bernardino and San Joaquin.