From Homescape

Nevada, California and Arizona top state foreclosure rates, according to a foreclosure market report released by RealtyTrac this week. The report, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 243,353 properties, a 4 percent increase from the previous month and a nearly 65 percent increase from April 2007. The data also shows one in every 519 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing during the month.

“The total number of U.S. properties with foreclosure activity in April was the highest monthly total we’ve seen since we began issuing the report in January 2005,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “Although only about 2 percent of households nationwide are in foreclosure, these properties contribute to already bloated inventories of homes for sale, and put downward pressure on home values. Areas of California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona continue to be particularly hard-hit.”

In areas hit hardest by the housing crisis, property tax bases are eroding, putting municipal budgets in peril. The city council in Vallejo, California — part of a metropolitan area with a foreclosure rate that ranked sixth highest in the nation in April — last week voted to have the city file for bankruptcy. The San Francisco suburb of 117,000 people is expected to generate $5 million less in revenue than projected, because retail sales and property values are down amid an economic slowdown and slumping real estate market, according to a report issued by city manager Joseph Tanner.

Topping state foreclosure rates
Despite a 5 percent month-over-month decrease in foreclosure activity in April, Nevada continued to document the nation’s highest state foreclosure rate. One in every 146 Nevada households received a foreclosure filing in April, 3.6 times the national average, and the state’s foreclosure activity was up 95 percent from April 2007.

California posted the second highest state foreclosure rate in April, with one in every 204 households receiving a foreclosure filing during the month. Foreclosure filings were reported on 64,683 California properties in April, down less than 1 percent from the previous month, but still the most of any state, and an increase of 112 percent from April 2007.

Arizona foreclosure activity in April increased 26 percent from the previous month and 181 percent from April 2007, helping to bump the state’s foreclosure rate up to third-highest among the states. Foreclosure filings were reported on 11,620 Arizona properties in March, one in every 224 total households.

Florida had one in every 242 households receiving a foreclosure filing in April. The Sunshine State documented the nation’s fourth-highest state foreclosure rate. Foreclosure filings were reported on 35,264 Florida properties during the month, the nation’s second-highest total. Florida foreclosure activity increased nearly 17 percent on a month-to-month basis and 146 percent on a year-over-year basis.

Colorado foreclosure activity in April was down nearly 3 percent from the previous month and up just 3 percent from April 2007, but the state’s rate still registered fifth-highest among the states. One in every 349 Colorado households received a foreclosure filing in April, nearly 1.5 times the national average.

Other states with foreclosure rates ranking among the top 10 were Maryland, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan and Massachusetts.

California and Florida cities on the hot list
Six California cities documented foreclosure rates that ranked in the top 10 among the 230 metropolitan areas tracked in the report. Merced took the top spot, with one in every 66 households receiving a foreclosure filing during the month, followed by Stockton at No. 2, Modesto at No. 3 and Riverside-San Bernardino at No. 4. Other California cities on the list were Vallejo-Fairfield at No. 6 and Bakersfield at No. 8.

Three Florida cities registered foreclosure rates among the top 10: Cape Coral-Fort Myers at No. 5, Port Lucie-Fort Pierce at No. 9 and Fort Lauderdale at No. 10.

With one in every 116 households receiving foreclosure filings in April, the Las Vegas metro area documented the nation’s seventh-highest metro rate.

Check out other state rates among foreclosures at Informationbuilders.com/realtytrac/ActiveReport

Got hot local housing tips or a story you want to share? Contact Amy Le at openingdoorsblog@homescape.com.

Last week I attended the National Association of Real Estate Editors conference in Dallas. While there was much discussion on what has been deemed “the worst housing crisis since the Depression,” real estate and financial trade groups appeared to be optimistic about the fate of the market. It appears that all eyes are currently locked on the federal government to see how they will help soften the blow.

Federal Housing Authority Commissioner Brian Montgomery, who spoke at the conference, gave a roaring endorsement for FHA modernization. He said there are affordable FHA-backed loans that are not subprime. Montgomery believes that FHA loans should become the first option and not just a last resort for new homebuyers.

“People need to realize that there are alternatives, that they don’t have to walk away from homes because of foreclosure,” Montgomery said. “FHA modernization has bipartisan support, but delay of FHA modernization due to partisan politics is hurting consumers,”

FHASecure program
The new FHASecure program, rolled out by the Bush administration in August, was originally designed to help borrowers who had fallen behind on payments on adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) loans after an interest-rate reset. On April 9, the administration said it would expand the FHASecure program by creating two new categories of eligible borrowers:

1. Those with ARM loans who were late on two consecutive monthly mortgage payments or at two different times over the previous 12 months. FHA will require a 97 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio for these borrowers to refinance into a government-backed loan — which in many cases would require lenders to write down some principal.

2. Those with ARM loans who were late on three consecutive monthly mortgage payments or at three different times over the past 12 months. FHA will require a 90 percent LTV ratio for these borrowers to refinance.

HUD said the expanded FHASecure guidelines are set to be implemented on July 14 in conjunction with risk-based premium pricing.

Political gridlock
Montgomery said FHA has already helped some 200,000 American home owners with troubled loans refinance and expects to help another 500,000 homeowners by the end of the year. FHASecure accounted for $28.5 billion of the $68 billion in loans FHA has helped facilitate since September.

Democrats are pushing for an even bigger, $300 billion expansion of FHA loan guarantee programs to enable up to 2 million FHA-backed refinance loans in cases where lenders agree to accept no more than 85 percent of a property’s current appraised value. That plan, which is opposed by the Bush administration, is apart of the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act. The bill was approved last week but fell short of the margin that would be needed to override President Bush’s threat to veto it.

The Bush administration opposes the expansion of FHA loan guarantees put forward in March by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and has called it a “bailout” of lenders and speculators.

Got hot local housing tips or a story you want to share? Contact Amy Le at openingdoorsblog@homescape.com.

To say that midcentury architects were more practical is an understatement. Yes, we’ve seen a sudden green movement taking over, and NO, I don’t think this is bad — on the contrary, it’s something everyone should be aware of. But looking at Miami’s architecture, I have to admit that I have a soft spot for those buildings of the 1950s and 1960s. I have a special soft spot for certain architects such as Wahl Snyder, Marion Manley and Alfred Browning Parker.

When I walk into a house designed by either three, I feel it! My heart starts racing and there’s an unquestionable passion that can be felt through the construction and details of the space. I walked into a small Alfred Browning Parker home with a client not long ago, and I instantly knew it was his work. I asked the agent if the home was designed by BP, and to my disappointment the agent looked at me and said, “Who?”

Signature style

Browning Parker was the master of utilizing space, wide overhangs, clerestory windows and massing to take advantage of warm climates without air conditioning. Frank Lloyd Wright’s influence is obvious in his work, because of the organic nature and use of local materials. Snyder’s signature was to bring exterior spaces into the living areas. He would work with cross ventilation and create seamless transitions between the inside and outside of his spaces. Materials were key and clerestory lighting was a must. Take a look at his Miami Shores Residence. Manley was Florida’s first licensed woman architect, and at 75 she was still busy designing good quality homes. She used local materials, high ceilings, cross ventilation and never ignored our tropical climate.

The next generation
These three architects are the epitome of the green movement, and they created their masterpieces without today’s technology and media hype. Browning Parker, who’s about 90-years-old, continues to pass on his guiding principals to a new generation of architects when he gives special lectures at universities across the country. His five guiding principals till this day are: “Build simply. Build as directly as possible with no complications. Use the materials at hand and keep these sparse. Let your building love its site and glorify its climate. Design for use and make it beautiful.”

To read more on these wonderful architects, check out Georgia Tasker’s article published in The Miami Herald about two homes designed in the 1960s by Manley and Browning Parker. Both homes are open to their surroundings, and both are models for green living today.

Here’s a quote by Janet McIlvane, a research analyst with the Florida Solar Energy Center, that I think really defines the shift in housing and design that is evident in current times.

“After World War II, there was a move away from individually crafted homes....We began to produce homes with a subdivision production mindset. We were going to build 30 houses, not one, and build them all alike. And in that transition, we started looking at how to make things easier, how to build more easily and quickly.

“That’s how the industrial revolution transitioned into the housing market. So we jettisoned the front porch, made the windows smaller and sealed up our houses. In Florida, those were the very components that allowed us to survive in the hot, humid climate.”

Ines Hegedus-Garcia

While some economists and real estate experts are predicting that many housing markets across the country won’t hit bottom until late 2009 or even 2010, Christmas may come early for some more-fortunate home sellers. Money Magazine recently published their Top 10 list of metro areas that are expected to see price gains over the next year. Texas real estate seems to be leading the charge. To see how home values are appreciating or depreciating in your area, check out market-trend analyses of top metro areas across the country by FiServ Lending Solutions.

Everything is bigger in Texas, including the positive prices on homes in these towns:

McAllen
Median home price: $109,000
12-month price gain projection: 4%
5-year price change: 23.3%
View homes for sale in McAllen

El Paso
Median home price: $134,000
12 month price gain projection: 1.8%
5-year price change: 51.9%
View homes for sale in El Paso

Fort Worth/Arlington
Median home price: $134,000
12-month price gain projection: 1.4%
5-year price change: 17.4%
View homes for sale in Fort Worth

Houston
Median home price: $150,000
12-month price gain projection: 1.2%
5-year price change: 25.1%
View homes for sale in Houston

Dallas
Median home price: $161,000
12-month price gain projection: 1.2%
5-year price change: 15.8%
View homes for sale in Dallas

San Antonio
Median home price: $152,000
12-month price gain projection: 0.8%
5-year price change: 39.6%
View homes for sale in San Antonio

Sources: MetroTex Association of Realtors, city and county assessor’s office in McAllen, First American CoreLogic, FiServ Lending Solutions and LoanPerformance data.

Got hot local housing tips or a story you want to share? Contact Amy Le at openingdoorsblog@homescape.com.

Despite a lucrative book deal, millions in endorsements and a brief stint on a reality show, former major league baseball player Jose Canseco still couldn’t save his home from a foreclosure strikeout.

The 43-year-old Canseco retired from the major leagues in 2001, but in recent years has been at the forefront of a media frenzy with his tell-all-book on steroid abuse in the league. On Thursday, Canseco landed himself in the headlines again with another startling admission. The Associated Press reported that Canseco told the celebrity TV show, Inside Edition, “It didn’t make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else.” Foreclosure documents show Canseco owed a bank more than $2.5 million on the 7,300-square-foot-home located in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino.

The poor house
While the former MVP may not be in the same financial mess as other working-class families currently facing foreclosure, Canseco says his dwindling finances are the cause behind his recent misfortune. He told Inside Edition, “You know my life, this financial thing, is a very complicated issue. Obviously, when you make all that money, people think, ‘OK, let’s assume it is $35 million.’ People have to understand that $35 million, you’re paying the government 41 percent. That leaves you with about $17 or $18 million, not even. Then you’re taking care of your whole family.”

With gas and food costs up, it sure must be tough raising a family off of a meager $17 million. Dining out at five-star restaurants and pumping fuel into a suped-up SUV will drive you to the poor house alone. No way Jose, no sympathy from this baseball fan. While there are a good number of hard-working families who have fallen on hard times and have lost their homes — in many cases, not by their own making — a part of me looks at Canseco’s attitude as symptomatic of the real causes behind the housing bust. People borrowed money they knew they couldn’t pay back, used the equity in their home like an ATM machine and bought property they really couldn’t afford.

Living the American Dream
Before I get accused of being an elitist, it’s important to note I spent most of my life with a plastic spoon in my mouth. While I may not have had to walk 14 miles up a hill to get to school, my parents did come to this country with $10 in their pocket. Our family of four lived in a tiny 1-bedroom apartment until I was 8 years old. My parents worked minimum-wage jobs as a janitor and waitress, but they saved every dime they earned, and eventually bought their own home and started their own business. We all want to live the American Dream, and I truly believe anyone can achieve it in this country. But before that dream can be lived, it has to be earned.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m the poster child for fiscal responsibility, but it blows my mind when I see people live a lifestyle way beyond their means. I have friends who have $15,000 in credit card debt, but still go out and by a $3,000 flat-screen television. And I’m sure I’m not the only person who knows people like this. We may not be able to predict the future, but we can sure try to prepare for it the best we can.

Got hot local housing tips or a story you want to share? Contact Amy Le at openingdoorsblog@homescape.com.