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Foreclosure Homes
   Detailed in Report

by Vic Kolenc / El Paso Times 07/01/2010
 
EL PASO -- One hundred and sixty-three El Paso homes in some stage of foreclosure were sold in the first three months of this year at an average sales price of $108,233, according to a new report.

The sales of homes in foreclosure accounted for 9.5 percent of all home sales in El Paso in the first quarter, reported RealtyTrac, a California company that tracks foreclosures. It released its first U.S. home fore closures sales report Wednesday.

El Paso homes in foreclosure sold at 20 percent below the average price for homes not in foreclosure, Realtytrac reported.

Nationwide, 232,959 foreclosure homes sold in the first quarter -- 31 percent of all home sales. The average sales price was 27 percent below homes not in foreclosure.

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Buying Beats Renting as Foreclosures
    Cut Home Prices in Texas, California
By Danielle Kucem - Oct 8. 2010
The surge in Arizona foreclosures allowed Chris Escobedo, a 31-year-old college counselor with a wife and two children, to buy his first home -- one larger than the house he had been leasing.

"We realized what kind of house we could get for the same amount we were paying in rent," Escobedo said in an interview. Monthly costs including taxes and insurance for his new home, a foreclosed property near Phoenix, total $1,014 -- just $14 more than the rent on his old place, he said. Cities in Texas, California, Florida and Arizona offered the best deals for renters looking to buy in September as an increase in foreclosures, a decline in home values and an unemployment rate near a 26-year high kept prices down, San Francisco-based real estate data company Trulia Inc. said today.

Arlington, Texas, topped the list of the cities in which buying was a better value than renting, followed by Fresno, California; Miami; Mesa, Arizona; and Phoenix. Trulia compared the average rent on two-bedroom apartments and other rentals in its database with total homeownership costs, including mortgage payments, taxes and insurance, in the 50 largest U.S. cities.

Foreclosures are adding to a swelling U.S. housing supply as an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent and the end of a federal homebuyer tax credit dampen purchases. In August, home seizures rose 25 percent from a year earlier to 95,364, RealtyTrac Inc. said. Almost one-fourth of all U.S. home sales in the second quarter involved properties in some stage of mortgage distress, according to the Irvine, California-based data provider.

Defaults Boost Rents
Young renters who normally would have postponed buying are finding homeownership most affordable in the cities with the highest foreclosure rates, said Tara-Nicholle Nelson, a spokeswoman for Trulia and real estate broker. Also, demand for rentals by people whose homes were repossessed is boosting rents in those cities, she said.

That's the case in the Phoenix area, said Bill Wilkerson, a broker with ZipRealty Inc. based in the city.

"If you're looking to rent for $1,000 a month, for example, there are about 2,500 properties available right now," Wilkerson said. "If you're looking at buying, there are more than 27,000 homes available with a similar mortgage payment."

Florida, Arizona and California had the highest U.S. foreclosure rates after Nevada in  August. One in every 155 Florida houses received a foreclosure notice, 2 1/2 times the national average, according to RealtyTrac. In Arizona, one in 165 homes got a filing, and in California one in 194 did.

New York, Seattle
New York topped Trulia's list of cities in which renting was more affordable than buying. It was followed by Seattle; Fort Worth, Texas; Omaha, Nebraska; and Sacramento, California. Workforce demand has helped prop up home prices in those cities, making renting a relatively better deal, Trulia said. Arizona's foreclosure market gave Escobedo, who works for Apollo Group Inc.'s University of Phoenix, the push he needed to purchase a home last month. He and his wife Robyn were looking
for a four-bedroom house with a pool, a large yard, a short commute to work and at least 2,300 square feet (214 square meters) of space.

After a month of looking, they bought a foreclosed home in Queen Creek, southeast of Phoenix, with everything they wanted for $156,000. A 30-year mortgage with a 4.5 percent interest rate helped make it even more affordable. Renting a similar house probably would cost $1,400 a month -- and without the income-tax benefit that comes with buying, Escobedo said.

"Interest rates and the write-off, as far as taxes are concerned, were another plus," he said.

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