All the Real Estate News That’s Fit to RE-Print™

Welcome to our weekly edition of Real Estate Investing News This Week. Here’s the best of this week’s real estate news:

  • CoreLogic Home Price Index: Prices Up 12.4%
  • HUD announces new short sales requirements
  • RealtyTrac® has identified two monsters threatening the housing recovery

We hope these real estate news items help you stay up-to-date with your real estate investing strategies and inspire some profitable real estate deals for you.

CoreLogic: Home Prices Up 12.4 Percent

august home price indexOn Tuesday, CoreLogic® released its August CoreLogic Home Price Index Report. Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 12.4 percent on a year-over-year basis in August.
Excluding distressed sales, home prices increased year-over-year by 11.2 percent.
Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.
Other Highlights:

  • Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were:  Nevada (+25.9 percent), California (+23.1 percent), Arizona (+16.4 percent), Wyoming (+15 percent) and Georgia (+14.8 percent).
  • Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were: Nevada (+23.4 percent), California (+19.8 percent), Arizona (+14 percent), Utah (+13.7 percent) and Florida (+13.5 percent).

Access the full report here >>>  Home Price Index Report

HUD Announces New Short Sale Requirements

By Hugh Moore
short sale signEffective October 1, 2013, HUD has announced the following changes to their Federal Housing Administration (FHA) short sale requirements.

  • The property cannot be listed with or sold to any of the borrower’s relatives, friends, or business associates.
  • The mortgage must be in default on the date the short sale transaction closes.
  • Before closing, any additional liens against the property must be released.
  • No hidden terms or special understandings can exist between any of the parties involved in the transaction, including buyer, seller, appraiser, sales agent, closing agent, and mortgagee.

More details here>>>

Commentary:

Monsters of the Market: Vampire REOs and Zombie Foreclosures

By RealtyTrac
RealtyTrac has identified two monsters threatening the housing recovery: Vampire REOs and Zombie Foreclosures.
Vampire REOs are bank-owned homes that are still occupied by the previous homeowner who was foreclosed on.

real estate monster

Is there a monster near you?


On the surface these properties often will look like normal, non-distressed homes, but beneath the surface they represent a shadow inventory that is becoming more imminent as rising home prices motivate banks to sell off these homes to try to recoup their losses on soured loans.
Zombie foreclosures are homes that are still languishing in the foreclosure process but have been vacated by the homeowner being foreclosed.
Often these homes are more obviously distressed, falling into disrepair with no one to perform regular maintenance and upkeep. As such, they often represent a threat to the quality of the surrounding neighborhood, dragging down home values.
These threats to the housing market can be bargain opportunities for pro-active buyers and investors.
Zombie foreclosures represent a prime opportunity for a short sale that helps the homeowner, the neighborhood and even the hesitant-to-foreclose bank in the process. And vampire bank-owned homes represent imminent inventory that you can act on before other buyers and investors are aware of it.