Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Bank of America foreclosure rate surged in August

Diana Olick points out that new foreclosure notices by Bank of America doubled in August, compared to previous months:
Bank of America is ramping up its foreclosure processing, sending out far more notices of default to borrowers in August than in previous months, well over 200 percent more month-to-month.

A notice of default is the first stage of the foreclosure process in non-judicial foreclosures states, that is, where foreclosures do not go before a judge.

The notice of default is usually sent when a borrower is 90 days or more overdue in payments, but that timeline has been extended significantly during this housing crisis, due to the so-called "robo-signing" processing scandal and the sheer volume of troubled loans. ...

RealtyTrac, a widely followed foreclosure sale and data site, is also confirming a surge in overall notices of default in its August numbers, to be released later this week. They do not cite Bank of America specifically, which bought Countrywide Financial, taking on millions of troubled loans.
Will this push prices lower?

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for your article about business. Such a big help.

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  2. Yes, just in time for my pricing prediction dip.

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  3. Not so much.  Remember it is different here...

    In that regard, ive been tracking foreclosure rates per realtytrac data for a few years now.  As is the case with almost every other national vs. local trend, we are far ahead of the rest of the country (one of the main reasons I knew james was dead wrong when he said DC bottoms after the rest of the country).

    Anyhoo, here is the # of foreclosures, per jurisdiction for the last 3 years now.

    .................2009....2010...2011
    Arlington.........80.......69......27
    Alexandria.......78.......63......49
    Fairfax........1204......797....518
    Loudoun........521......353....229
    Pr. William.....873......632....392
    DC...............452......373.....27*
    Montgomery....385......279.....92
    Pr. George....1364......661....247

    Note, the dramatic improvement in DC proper looks to be due to a change in the way RealtyTrac counts activity in the jurisdiction.  If the old counting method was continued, I would guess DC foreclosures are down only 50% from peak (vs the down 95% reported here). 

    Still, the rest of the data confirms that for the DC area the dramatic drop in foreclosures continues unabated.  Yet another reason why you need to take any nationally reported trend with a massive grain of salt. 

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  4. Well, first of all, I was joking. Additionally, this is just BAC foreclosures--likely they're very desperate to get to the end of the long, dark tunnel of their toxic assets and I suspect wrapping up foreclosures is one part of that. I think foreclosure activity by banks has been slowed down in order to prevent a drop in house prices--what is that statistic out there, that on average people who've been foreclosed on continue to live in their home over two years? Finally, 2011 ain't over, so I'm not sure that we can use it to compare as yet...?

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  5. Didnt realize you were joking.  Fair enough.

    Regarding "2011 aint over yet" - sorry, I should have clarified these are reports comparing August 2011 to August 2010 and August 2009. 

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