Tagged: realty trac

Michigan mortgage lenders are taking longer to foreclose on delinquent homeowners.  In 2007, the entire foreclosure process in Michigan took on average 78 days to complete.   This year, the average foreclosure is taking 235 days to complete.  The reason is a mixture of the economy and paperwork. 

According to Realty Trac, this is not just a Michigan issue:

The number of home foreclosures in Michigan inched higher last month. One in every 311 homes in Michigan received a foreclosure noticed in March. The number of foreclosures was up about 4 percent from February.

Michigan had the nation’s fifth highest home foreclosure rate in March, behind Nevada, Arizona, California and Utah.     

Daren Bloomquist with Realty Trac says mortgage holders are starting to send more initial foreclosure notices and repossess more homes in Michigan. Bloomquist says an improving economy is the only way to reduce future foreclosure notices in Michigan. 

 “The more the economy improves and jobs improve during the next couple months the less we’ll see that huge spike in foreclosure numbers down the road.”  

While March’s foreclosure numbers rose slightly, overall Michigan’s home foreclosure numbers declined during the first three months of the year.

Foreclosure filings in Michigan have fallen to levels not seen since 2008.   Realty Trac reports foreclosure filings dropped by 30 percent in February compared to a year ago. 

Daren Bloomquist is with Realty Trac.  He says mortgage lenders are finding it difficult to get home foreclosures started, since last fall’s scandal involving incorrect paperwork forcing people out of their homes.  New rules require more safeguards in preparing a foreclosure filing.  But Bloomquist says this is only delaying the inevitable for many delinquent home owners.

  “What hasn’t gone away is there are still a lot of properties that eventually we people will be foreclosed on.  That’s really the only solution for some of these situations.”  

Bloomquist says the slowed foreclosure process might help reduce the number of bank owned homes on the real estate market.   The high number of foreclosed homes on the market is blamed for causing depressed home sale prices.

Fewer homebuyers were interested in buying a previously foreclosed home in Michigan last year. The result is an increasingly high number of bank-owned homes just sitting on the real estate market.  

Just under 41 thousand formerly foreclosed homes sold last year in Michigan.  That’s down by a third compared to 2009 and 2008.  The prices paid for those homes also dropped.

Analysts expected a big jump in home foreclosures in Michigan in January.  But the jump didn’t materialize.

 Home foreclosures slowed last fall in Michigan and around the country as banks dealt with a scandal about robo-signings.   Essentially mortgage lenders signing foreclosure documents without checking to make sure what they were signing was accurate or truthful.  Foreclosures were expected to spike this month.  But they didn’t.  Realty Trac reports Michigan saw only a 4% increase in foreclosure filings in January.   Nationally only a one  percent increase.

No Michigan housing markets rank among the 25 worst for home foreclosures in a new national survey.    But, that may change by the end of this year.