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Foreclosures in Massachusetts Show No Signs of Abating

The number of Bay State foreclosures started by lenders fell in June, but finished foreclosures more than doubled from a year ago, according to a Boston-based real estate tracker.

“The foreclosure picture in Massachusetts hasn’t really improved that much,” said Timothy Warren, head of the Warren Group.

Lenders filed 2,220 petitions to foreclose – the first step in the foreclosure process – last month, a nearly 22 percent drop from a year earlier. But foreclosure petitions increased 5 percent in June from 2,110 in May.

“The level of foreclosure starts for the first half of the year is only slightly lower than a year ago,” said Warren.

“We have been averaging just over 2,200 foreclosure petitions a month this year compared to about 2,300 a month last year.”

While the number of foreclosures initiated in June declined, the number of completed foreclosures more than doubled from a year earlier. A total of 1,313 foreclosure deeds – the final step in seizing a home – were recorded, a 109 percent jump from 628 in June 2009.

Foreclosure deeds surged in every county in the Bay State except Nantucket in June.

Avon Massachusetts Foreclosure Auction: JULY 29, 2010 – 10:00 A.M.

151 E. High Street

Avon, MA. 02322

• 1 Family

• 2 Bedrooms

• 1 Full Bath

• GLA = 1,008 Sq. Ft.

• Lot = .72 acres

• Heat – Forced hot water/Oil

• Exterior – Vinyl siding

• Built in 1920

• Book: 19826

• Page: 279

TERMS: Five Thousand Dollars ($ 5,000) will be required to be paid by certified or bank check at the time and place of sale as earnest money. The balance is to be paid by certified or bank check within thirty (30) days of the date of the sale and shall be deposited in escrow with the Law Office of John E. McCluskey, Esq., P.C. 932 Main Street, Brockton, Massachusetts. A deed will be provided to purchaser for recording upon receipt in fulll of the purchase price. Other terms will be announced at the sale.

Click here for more information:

http://www.callahanre.com/flyer151easthigh.pdf

Massachusetts Near Top of New England Foreclosures

Downtown Boston Foreclosures along Rose Kennedy Greenway Increasing

A second-floor condominium in a luxury building just off the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway boasts a gourmet kitchen, golden-colored polished concrete floors, and spectacular views of Boston Harbor. This spring, it gained an undesirable distinction: The 2,600-square-foot condo went into foreclosure.

In fact, half of the units at Greenway Place, a newly renovated 12-unit, eight-story historic building, have gone into foreclosure, at least briefly, over the past two years. Such troubles are unusual in Boston’s downtown market, which has largely been cushioned from the rash of foreclosures that have plagued Massachusetts since home prices starting falling in 2005.

This year, however, foreclosure activity for downtown condos has started to edge upward. Petitions, the first step in the process of a lender taking back a property, have swelled to 46 for during the first five months of the year, compared with 30 during the same period last year, according to Warren Group, a Boston company that tracks real estate data. Petitions have been attached to some of the city’s most deluxe addresses over the past year, including the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton Towers and the Residences at the Intercontinental, according to the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds.

Completed foreclosures occur less frequently but also have increased slightly. Downtown condo owners lost eight properties to foreclosure during the first five months of 2010, compared with six during the same period last year, according to Warren Group. In May, a buyer purchased a foreclosed unit in Folio Boston, a luxury condo complex, for $650,000 — about $275,000 less than it sold for in 2006. Another unit in the Greenway Place was taken back by a lender this month and quickly resold for $699,000.

Whether these foreclosures represent a blip in time or a sign of what’s to come is up to debate, local real estate professionals say.

Kevin Ahearn, president of the Boston marketing and brokerage company Otis & Ahearn, said a bump up in the number of foreclosure petitions on high-end condos is the result of financial troubles among wealthy homeowners that likely will soon ebb because investment portfolios have stabilized. He said sales and prices in the high-end market are on the increase this year.

“It is a delayed reaction,’’ Ahearn said. “You are on an upswing now.’’

Debra Taylor Blair, president of Listing Information Network, a Boston company that tracks downtown real estate, said troubles at Greenway Place are unique to the building — it’s a boutique building on the fringe of the financial district that offers no parking or concierge services. “Fundamentally, I feel the downtown condo market is on rock solid footing,’’ Taylor Blair said.

Other market watchers are not so sure. Jon Gollinger, East Coast chief executive of Accelerated Marketing Partners, a Boston company that runs auctions for high-end buildings nationwide, said Boston’s downtown likely will see more foreclosures as wealthy people struggle with job loss and declining home values.

“It’s inevitable,’’ he said.

Greenway Place, located at 199 State St., across from the Marriott Long Wharf, appears to have had more than its share of troubles. The building was touted by developers in 2005 as a “hidden jewel’’ once overshadowed by the Central Artery. When the thoroughfare was dismantled as part of the Big Dig, the building was converted from office space into deluxe residential units with lofty price tags ranging from $1.3 million to $2.9 million.

But the building’s launch in 2005 coincided with the start of the state’s housing market downfall. Developer Richard Tambone was unable to sell five of the 12 units, and they eventually fell into foreclosure. Several owners stopped paying their condo fees, and lawsuits mounted.

Under financial pressure, Tambone sold three units at auction in 2008 and another in June for $640,000 in a short sale, a process in which the lender agrees to a price less than the mortgage balance. Tambone’s last remaining unit, with an original price tag of $1.8 million, was foreclosed upon by Bank of America Corp. this month and sold days later to a new owner for $699,000, public records show.

Tambone, president of Tambone Investment Group in Burlington, said he was a victim of bad timing as condo values in the area fell precipitously. Despite the problems, he said, he is still “very proud’’ of the building and continues to tout the project on his company’s website. He maintains that unlike some developers who abandoned struggling projects in recent years, he has worked with lenders to sell the remaining units. He said the lawsuits, including one from a lender and another from disgruntled investors, have been settled.

“So many other developers walked away,’’ Tambone said. “You can’t control the economy.’’

Christos Christoudias, a Greenway Place condo trustee, is optimistic about the future of the building, which is surrounded by good restaurants and is within walking distance to the harbor. Christoudias said he bought his unit in 2007 for 25 percent less than the initial asking price. When he moved in, fees were too high and many owners were delinquent in making payments, Christoudias said. The association eliminated the concierge, reduced monthly dues, and started collection procedures against owners who weren’t paying.

“It’s finally all figured out,’’ he said. “Now we have a surplus of condo fees.’’

But another owner, investor Ryan Connelly, is probably not so upbeat about the building. Connelly bought the second-floor unit at a foreclosure auction in 2008 for $901,000, according to the unit deed. Even after making major improvements, including the golden flooring, he has yet to find a buyer, according to listing broker Herion Karbunara. In May, the unit fell back into foreclosure and is now listed for $1.4 million — $1.2 million less than it was marketed for in 2008.

Connelly did not respond to requests for an interview, but Karbunara said the lowered price “breaks his heart.’’

“Once a building gets a bad rap, it’s very hard to clean it up, especially if it’s small,’’ he said. “I feel good about the building. I feel like it turned around.’’

1 Million Homes to Be Repossessed in 2010!

The national foreclosure numbers continue to bounce around a bit, rising here, falling there, but at a very high level.

However, the days of letting troubled homeowners sit in limbo for months or years are long gone.

Banks are moving to seize homes and then unload them on the real estate market. Of course, the timing could not be better, coming just as prices falter and sales plunge with the end of the home buyer tax credit, but that’s a story/rant for another day.

Overall, the pace with which banks are seizing homes is escalating dramatically as we hurtle towards that dubious, 1-million-homes-repossessed milestone.

Bank repossessions jumped 5 percent from the first quarter and are a whopping 38 percent over the second quarter of 2009. The grand tally of 269,062 homes seized set a new quarterly high, RealtyTrac finds.

OK, so how is Massachusetts doing in all this frenzy of foreclosure activity?

Well, not so hot.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of comparing the Bay State with foreclosure disaster zones like Nevada and Arizona. We are not in that league.

But Massachusetts still had nearly 23,000 homes and condos hit with foreclosure filings and actions during the first half of the year. That’s a 24 percent jump from the first half of 2009.

In fact the total number of foreclosure filings in Massachusetts is very close to the numbers seen in New York and Pennsylvania, at more than 24,000 and 27,000 respectively.

Of course, our two fellow Northeastern states are also much larger. Our beloved Bay State, at 6.3 million strong, has less than a third of New York’s population and about half of Pennsylvania’s.

That’s certainly no reason to pat ourselves on the back. Rather, what has gone so wrong here in Massachusetts?

House Foreclosures sell at 30% discount Nationally

Foreclosures accounted for a third of all sales — and sold at a nearly 30% discount — during the first three months of 2010.

According to a new report from RealtyTrac, the marketer of foreclosed properties, 31% of all sales were foreclosures. And homebuyers purchasing those properties paid a whopping 27% less, on average, compared to sales of non-distressed homes.

These foreclosure sales include properties sold in short sales or after a bank repossession, known as REOs in industry terms. It does not include transfers from borrowers to banks, as in a sheriff’s auction.

REOs, those homes already taken back from borrowers, commanded lower prices than short sales and other pre-foreclosures. The average REO sold for 34% less than conventional sales while pre-foreclosures averaged only 15% less.

Part of the reason for the bigger price cut for REOs is that many of them come to the market in poor condition, their previous owners either unable to or unwilling to maintain them.

Beaten-down condos: ‘Deals of lifetime’

Foreclosures have become a dominant feature of many real estate markets, finding willing buyers among young bargain hunters and savvy housing market veterans.

During 2009, more than 1.2 million property sales involved foreclosures. That grew 25% compared with the year before, and 2,500% from 2005.

“That number boggled my mind,” said Rick Sharga, a spokesman for RealtyTrac. “A 2,500% increase over a four-year period surprised even us.”

Foreclosure sales were highest, expectedly in the bubble states. In Nevada, for example, they represented nearly 64% of transactions. And that’s actually an improvement over the 75% of all sales during the first three months of 2009.

Surprisingly, both Massachusetts and Rhode Island had higher incidences of foreclosure sales than did the bubble state of Florida, at 42% vs. 39%.

“Massachusetts and Rhode Island were two of the only Northeastern states that racked up unsustainable price increases during the boom,” pointed out Sharga.

Managing foreclosure inventories

Lenders have been trying to manage their inventories of foreclosed homes to prevent them from flooding the market and dragging down prices.

“It will be interesting to watch how they will manage the inventory levels of distressed properties on the market in order to prevent more dramatic price deterioration,” said Saccacio.

Sharga said the impact of foreclosure sales on the rest of the homes for sale can be very strong. He cited Nevada, where the price difference between foreclosed properties and conventional sales is very narrow, only 17%.

“That state had such a high incidence of foreclosure sales it managed to depreciate the entire inventory there,” he said

Massachusetts Foreclosure Petitions Decline Year Over Year and Month Over Month

Lenders initiated fewer foreclosures in Massachusetts in May than they did a year ago and in the prior month, according to a new report from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

Foreclosures petitions, which mark the first step in the foreclosure process in the Bay State, fell 9.4 percent to 2,110 from 2,329 in May 2009 and were also down 13.2 percent from 2,431 in April. A total of 11,118 petitions to foreclose were filed statewide in the first five months of the year, a 1.3 percent increase from 10,978 during the same period in 2009.

But the number of completed foreclosures more than doubled in May compared to a year earlier. Foreclosure deeds, which are recorded when a property has been foreclosed on, surged 119.7 percent to 1,283 from 584 in May 2009. May foreclosures were down 6.7 percent from the prior month’s 1,375 foreclosure deeds. Year-to-date foreclosure deeds rose 48.4 percent to 6,107 from 4,114 a year earlier.

Boston Foreclosure Scams Targeted in New Initiative

Homeowners struggling to make mortgage payments beware: Some people promising help just want to grab your scarce dollars.

That is the key message of a campaign launched in Massachusetts on Monday to alert homeowners to the proliferation of loan modification schemes nationwide. The campaign, backed by local, state, and federal agencies, urges owners not to pay any money in advance of a securing a refinancing deal and advises them to use a federally approved loan counselor for refinancing and to report suspected fraud to federal or state authorities.

“Loan modification scams are reaching epidemic proportions across the nation,” said Thomas J. Curry, a board member of NeighborWorks America, a Washington nonprofit spearheading the nationwide program. “Countless fraudulent companies are making a great deal of money by preying on the fears of worried homeowners.”

The effort comes as foreclosure activity mounts in Massachusetts. During the first four months of the year, 4,821 homeowners lost their properties to lenders, a 36.6 percent increase from the same time a year ago, according to Warren Group, a Boston company that tracks local real estate. Another 9,008 homeowners went into foreclosure during that time.

Grace Ross, a founder of the nonprofit Massachusetts Alliance Against Predatory Lending, praised the new campaign as a much-needed effort to keep financial predators from taking advantage of desperate homeowners. Only a small percentage of people seeking relief from lenders are getting it, she said, and many are not aware of their legal rights.

“The crisis continues,” Ross said of foreclosures in the state.

Barbara Anthony, undersecretary of the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, said officials are working on many fronts to help homeowners, including by hosting workshops to bring lenders and mortgage holders together.

“A seemingly quick fix to a foreclosure can be attractive to families in the midst of a crisis, but homeowners need to be aware of the potential to be scammed,” said Anthony. “The quick-and-easy promises of unscrupulous entities offer false hope.”

Mortgage loan schemes in Massachusetts typically fall into one of three categories, according to the state attorney general’s office.

They include attempts to dupe homeowners into transferring ownership of their properties to someone else; programs that charge hefty fees but provide little or no help; and for-fee bankruptcy filings that are intended to help an owner keep their house, but are rejected by the courts because of improper paperwork.

Homeowners are urged to avoid anyone who guarantees a way to avoid foreclosure and to make sure a counseling agency is approved by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The campaign will feature fliers, public service announcements, and placards on buses. For more information about how to avoid foreclosure and report suspected scams, visit www.loanscamalert.org or call 1-888-995-4673

Massachusetts Gas and Convenience Store Foreclosure Auctions

Tranzon Auction Properties, with corporate offices in Portland, Maine, announced today that it has been engaged by TD Bank to market and auction 16 gas and convenience stores stretching from Southern New Hampshire to South-Eastern Massachusetts.

“We’re marketing these properties locally, regionally and nationally to alert interested parties of the sales scheduled to start on June 21^st and run through the 29^th,” says Thomas Saturley, President of Tranzon Auction Properties. “We’re very pleased to be offering these properties, I spent quite a few professional years in the gasoline trades, so station sales are near and dear to my heart.”

Brecht Palombo, of Tranzon Auction Properties’ Massachusetts office, notes that the sales offer a unique opportunity for entrepreneurial buyers to get started in the gasoline business, or for established players to add to their existing portfolio of locations. “The calls started the minute we put these up on the website,” says Palombo. “Folks had been looking at these stores since they shut down earlier this year. Acquiring these at auction provides a solid opportunity to purchase at a fair price, and buyers are interested.”

For a complete list of properties, please visit www.cstoreauction.com

Foreclosure Auction at 36 Plain Street, Middleboro, MA

Foreclosure Auction at 36 Plain Street, Middleboro, MA

Got Space? Got Land? Got Privacy? You will if you move here! Fantastic North Middleboro location. This house has it all. Perfect for extended family living. Farmers Porch, Master bath features Steam Bath and Jacuzzi Tub. Huge bonus room over garage w/reinforced beams will keep everyone entertained. 2 central air units, huge inviting foyer, beautiful cabinets in kitchen, wrap around porch, 4 bedrooms, and 3 full baths. Lots of frontage. Lots of privacy. Not your typical cookie cutter postage lot.

Property type:	Single Family
Bedrooms:	4
Bathrooms:	3
Sqft:	3,200
Lot size:	132,858 sq ft / 3.05 acres
Year built:	1991
Parking type:	–
Cooling system:	–
Heating system:	–
Fireplace:	–
Days on Zillow:	306
Last sold:	October 27 2006
MLS number:	70956014

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