When Brent Moreland and his wife, Amanda, put their first home on the market last fall, they tried everything to make the Knoxville, Tennessee, two-bedroom townhouse look good to buyers. They took impressive photos with the help of a professional photographer friend, went online for furniture staging ideas and even created a blog to help [...]
Climbing rents for apartments are combining with a continued decline in home prices to push once-reluctant home buyers into finally taking the plunge, say economists and real-estate agents, helping what appears to be a good start to the housing industry’s all-important spring selling season. Although increased buying activity from investors and second-home purchasers are also [...]
State and federal officials who recently completed a $25 billion settlement with five of the nation’s largest banks over shoddy foreclosure practices have begun discussing how to apply some of the terms of that deal to a wider array of financial firms. The landmark agreement finalized in February in part forces the five major banks [...]
As many as 1.25 million of America’s least cared for homes are headed for auction after a year-long probe into foreclosure practices kept them off the market. Sales of repossessed properties probably will rise 25 percent this year from 1 million in 2011, according to Moody’s Analytics Inc. Prices for the homes could drop as [...]
Federal regulators are poised to crack down on eight financial firms that are not part of the recent government settlement over home foreclosure practices involving sloppy, inaccurate or forged documents. Last week, a senior Federal Reserve official recommended fines for these additional firms, raising questions about how deep foreclosure problems run through the banking industry. [...]
It’s a landlord’s market and financial firms are taking advantage. One private equity firm, Waypoint Real Estate, is buying about five foreclosed homes per day and turning them into rentals in an aim to find a new way to make a buck off of foreclosed homes, the Washington Post reports. Other private investment firms are [...]
Capitalization tax law — three words that have little meaning to most people, will become very important to real estate owners this year as the IRS just released the long-awaited changes to tangible property regulations. This new guidance will impact accounting for expenses incurred by real estate companies when an acquisition, remodel or disposition is [...]
In Miami, condominiums are hot again. In Phoenix, builders are opening new communities. In New Jersey, buyers are finding it takes about three years to foreclose on a property In Atlanta, home prices are down 14 percent annually, thanks to a new wave of foreclosures. In California, more than half of all home sales in [...]
IFPN Homeowner Foreclosure Prevention Tip Sheet 1. Don’t ignore the problem. The further behind you become, the harder it will be to reinstate your loan because you’ll have fewer options and the more likely that you will lose your house. 2. Act fast, even if you are not in foreclosure yet. If you are struggling [...]
The number of new foreclosures on homes initiated by banks fell considerably in the fourth quarter of 2011 due to an emphasis on programs intended to keep borrowers in their houses and the effects of existing and anticipated settlements concerning foreclosure abuses. A report by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said [...]
