OK, we will never catch up to Nevada, the foreclosure capital of the world.

But Massachusetts has one of the highest levels of foreclosure activity of any state in the Northeast, with numbers close to those of considerably larger states like New York and Pennsylvania.

I took another look at the latest foreclosure numbers RealtyTrac sent over the other day.

Based on the percentage of households facing a trip to the auction block, Massachusetts is battling it out for second place with Connecticut, with New Jersey the regional leader.

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

That is considerably above the 13,315 foreclosure filings Connecticut saw during the first six months of the year, but adjusted for population, our gambling happy neighbor to the south actually has a slightly greater percentage of troubled properties, which account for .92 percent of the market in the Nutmeg State. The percentage of properties facing a trip the auction block in Massachusetts is a shade below Connecticut, or .84 percent of all properties.

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. The Bay State, at 6.3 million strong, has less than a third of New York’s population and about half of Pennsylvania’s.

I have tended to be skeptical about what I have felt were overblown claims about the impact of foreclosures in Massachusetts, but even if we are not Nevada, which had more than 64,000 foreclosure filings and actions in the first half of the year, it’s still a problem here.

The Globe has an interesting piece on an uptick in foreclosure filings in the downtown Boston luxury condo market.

Good story, though the real action now is taking place in the suburbs, in old mill cities like Lawrence, and in some of Boston’s poorest neighborhoods.

OK, we will never catch up to Nevada, the foreclosure capital of the world.

But Massachusetts has one of the highest levels of foreclosure activity of any state in the Northeast, with numbers close to those of considerably larger states like New York and Pennsylvania.

I took another look at the latest foreclosure numbers RealtyTrac sent over the other day.

Based on the percentage of households facing a trip to the auction block, Massachusetts is battling it out for second place with Connecticut, with New Jersey the regional leader.Lenders hit nearly 23,000 homes and condos with foreclosure filings and actions in Massachusetts during the first half of the year. That’s a 24 percent jump from the first half of 2009.

That is considerably above the 13,315 foreclosure filings Connecticut saw during the first six months of the year, but adjusted for population, our gambling happy neighbor to the south actually has a slightly greater percentage of troubled properties, which account for .92 percent of the market in the Nutmeg State. The percentage of properties facing a trip the auction block in Massachusetts is a shade below Connecticut, or .84 percent of all properties.

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. The Bay State, at 6.3 million strong, has less than a third of New York’s population and about half of Pennsylvania’s.

I have tended to be skeptical about what I have felt were overblown claims about the impact of foreclosures in Massachusetts, but even if we are not Nevada, which had more than 64,000 foreclosure filings and actions in the first half of the year, it’s still a problem here.

The Globe has an interesting piece on an uptick in foreclosure filings in the downtown Boston luxury condo market.

Good story, though the real action now is taking place in the suburbs, in old mill cities like Lawrence, and in some of Boston’s poorest neighborhoods.

“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

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.

The status of the 120-acre parcel has been uncertain since late 2009, when bankers foreclosed on plans to build The Commons at Prospect Hill, an ambitious development of offices, shops, and restaurants, on the site.

Yesterday, Park said he’s planning a more modest mixed-use office and retail development for the site, with about a third less density than was planned by the previous developer. Specifically, Park said he would like to see a corporate headquarters, a department store, and a mix of national and local retailers.

Park said he bought the property because of its “prominence on 128, in the epicenter of technology outside Boston,’’ adding that he thinks “real estate prices have reached rock bottom, and we’re poised for an upturn.’’

Mayor Jeannette McCarthy of Waltham said she’s pleased with the new buyer, adding this is a great opportunity to deal with major traffic issues because Park has traffic design experience. “I’m happy with the fact that [Park] understands first-hand the problems,’’ said McCarthy.

The property was sold by German bank Helaba and PB Capital, which seized it in October, after bidding $42.5 million for the 120-acre site at a foreclosure auction.

Park & Co. also has been planning a development across Route 128 from the Polaroid site for more than eight years, but yesterday Park said he plans to develop the Polaroid property first.

“My hope is that we will be able to develop a traffic plan for the Polaroid site that will work with the development we’ve been working on across 128,’’ he said.

Park said he was planning “a phased development,’’ and was eager to get the project going.

“I’d like to get something started this summer,’’ he said.

Bank of America’s Foreclosure Fight Plan

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

SUSIE GHARIB: Welcome relief today for some people who can’t make their mortgage payments if they’re with Bank of America. Tom, under pressure from state attorneys general, the bank agreed to forgive as much as 30 percent of the loan principal. Today’s announcement comes as part of a settlement with the state of Massachusetts.

TOM HUDSON: And you know Susie, lots of strings are attached though to qualify. In fact for one thing, relief is only for certain types of mortgages. The homeowners also have to be at least 60 days behind on their payments and significantly underwater on those loans. Now just 45,000 people are eligible nationwide.

GHARIB: And those loans could be reduced by a combined total of $3 billion. The plan goes into effect in May. Now leading the negotiations with Bank of America was Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and she joins us now. Attorney General Coakley, thank so you much for coming on the program.

MARTHA COAKLEY, MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL: Good evening.

GHARIB: Let me begin by just congratulating you on the deal. Forty five thousand people will be helped by this agreement. But my question is, is that enough? We report on our show all the time that there are millions of people who are under water in that they owe more to banks than the value of their home. Is this enough?

COAKLEY: Well, it is certainly a good start, because we’ve tried with other attorneys general to push this idea that modifying loans, reducing principal so that you get modifications that actually work to keep people in their homes, this is the first time that people have really been willing to do this. And so Countrywide, those who have Countrywide Mortgages will benefit, but our hope is that other servicers, holders of notes will recognize that this is really what has to happen to make sure that we stop the spread of foreclosure and we start to turn this economic crisis around.

GHARIB: Well, that’s a good point. Do you think that your agreement with Bank of America will be a prototype for other lenders and even for the Federal government for the Treasury to do something similar?

COAKLEY: Well, we hope so because for several years now, we’ve worked on foreclosure rescue schemes, on bringing lawsuits. The attorneys general had an agreement with Bank of America, with Countrywide in the past. But even though the servicers have said they’ve been willing to modify loans, we’ve seen somewhat half hearted efforts even from the Federal pressure. This is an agreement that they will do this and we believe it’s commercially reasonable for them to do it, rather than to have homes foreclosed upon. And we hope that it finally is beginning to dawn that this is what should happen to turn this around, keep them in the home, but also stop the greater threat of foreclosures, make sure we don’t have the abandoned property and keep people back, you know, paying a monthly amount so that we really stop the trend that we’ve seen that’s really underlying the root of a lot of this economic crisis.

GHARIB: You mentioned about the half hearted efforts. Even in the case of this deal with Bank of America, what can you do to make sure that they really do modify loans in this way?

COAKLEY: Well, I think it’s clear that as a result of our investigation and in fact that we were looking for this remedy. We were prepared to bring suit if we weren’t able to reach this agreement. And some of the money that comes to the commonwealth are for monitoring and implementation of this agreement. We believe very strongly that this has to happen. It has to happen in a way that actually keeps people in their homes. So we’re committed to it. And the fact that it is going to be national I think will have both other servicers as well as other attorneys (AUDIO GAP) people in their homes not just modifying those foreclosure in another six months or a year.

GHARIB: So what’s next? What’s your next move? What else can you do and other states do to help distressed homeowners who are not part of, who do not have loans with Bank of America, but what more can you do to help distressed homeowners?

COAKLEY: Well, as we have looked at the range of options, as we have in Massachusetts brought a suit against Freemont and a suit pending against Option One, we are continuing to focus on both holding accountable those who made these kinds of loans and I should point out that they’re not just sub-prime loans here. These were loans that were made in a variety of ways to people who might have had more, they were credit worthy borrowers. They might have had less risky financial products and I think we’re going to continue to look at those who have made the loans, those who are servicing the loans, where the sticking point has been. Let’s get the servicers together with the holders of the notes to say this is what really should be happening, to continue this push to really stop the spread of foreclosures. So we’re going to continue to stay active with many of the other attorneys general and I know the Federal government through its program in working in conjunction with attorneys general looking at mortgage fraud, but also looking at ways in which we start making these remedies be real remedies to keep people in their homes.

GHARIB: Certainly a lot more work to be done. We appreciate your coming on the program to tell us about this first phase. Thank you very much.

COAKLEY: Thank you.

GHARIB: My guest tonight, Martha Coakley, Massachusetts attorney general.

Berkeley had planned a major condominium and mixed-use project in the Seaport District in Boston. Two of the buildings facing foreclosure in Boston are office buildings at 368 and 381 Congress St., the Herald reported.

Berkeley President Young K. Park could not be reached by telephone for comment this morning.

Berkeley had been facing foreclosure at three properties in the 20-acre CitySquare development, with an auction tentatively scheduled for the office buildings at 100 and 120 Front St. in Worcester, as well as a parking garage at Foster and Commercial streets. That auction was stayed, and Berkeley officials have not replied to requests for comment.

A subsidiary of the Worcester-based Hanover Insurance Group is negotiating to buy the properties that comprise CitySquare, with the exception of the properties that had formerly been the object of foreclosure proceedings.

In 2006 Mr. Park told the Telegram & Gazette that he was renovating a warehouse and adding three floors to create 100 units of housing at Fort Point Channel. In December 2004, Berkeley spent a reported $97 million to buy 14 buildings, two parking garages and four undeveloped parcels at Fort Point Channel from the Boston Wharf Co. Berkeley planned to build a 1-million-square-foot mixed-use development within walking distance of the Wharf District.

Wells Fargo Bank set a May 5 sale of the parcels after Berkeley defaulted on a mortgage, according to a legal notice announcing the auction, the Herald reported. Mr. Park told the Herald yesterday that he was trying to work through his problems with Wells Fargo.

But there is a flurry of signs, some national, and one local, that we just might be finally reaching a turning point.

On the macro level, the number of homeowners falling behind on their mortgages actually fell in the fourth quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Friday.

Mortgages either 30 or 60 days past due fell in the fourth quarter compared to both the third quarter of 2009 and the last three months of 2008 as well.

Meanwhile, a few government officials appear to be finally getting the idea the time is past for fancy sounding initiatives with big numbers that, when push comes to shove, just don’t work.

The Obama Administration is sending $1.5 billion to five states hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis, namely Nevada, California, Florida, Arizona and Michigan. The money will be used to do everything from bail out underwater homeowners to help the jobless pay their mortgages.

That has got to be more effective than all those silly loan modifications.

And locally, the number of foreclosed homes sitting empty in neighborhoods across Boston is also starting to fall markedly.At one point, there were nearly 1,200 foreclosure specials out there in neighborhoods like Dorchester, Roxbury, East Boston and Mattapan.

That number has since plunged to 778, Evelyn Friedman, head of the Department of Neighborhood Development, tells me.

City Hall has either purchased or put under agreement 120 foreclosed homes, which it plans to resell to local nonprofit housing organizations, developers and individual homeowners.

“I would hope in the next two or three years we would be finished with the foreclosure problem here in Boston,” Friedman said.

Bold words yes, but backed up with some real action.

The number of foreclosures fell last year. Yet at the same time, lenders began the process of foreclosing on hundreds more homes in the area.

High unemployment will probably result in more homeowners falling behind on their mortgage payments. If there is another wave of foreclosures, however, it probably will not be as extreme as the original surge, according to government, real estate and bank officials.

“I don’t think we’re entirely out of the woods, not until the economy rebounds more robustly,” said Patrick J. Sullivan, director of New Bedford’s Office of Housing and Community Development. “We’re staying optimistic that the worst has past us.”

The nature of the foreclosures appears to be shifting, too. While the original crisis was sparked by predatory loans and people buying homes they could not afford, future defaults will result from more traditional causes: job losses, illnesses and other personal upheavals, experts said.

Those more standard types of foreclosures might be accelerated in the aftermath of the subprime crisis. People who are facing job losses or divorce also see that the values of their homes have declined and even might be worth less than what they owe, said Carl W. Taber, executive vice president and chief lending officer at Citizens-Union Savings Bank.

Still, Taber doubts that a second wave of foreclosures would equal the scale of the subprime wreckage.

“We are seeing some positive signs, but we are seeing these lingering problems,” he said.

One positive sign is the smaller number of homes lost to foreclosure in 2009.

Bristol County’s foreclosures slid from 1,135 in 2008 to 884 last year, a 22 percent drop. Plymouth County’s foreclosures fell from 1,184 in 2008 to 933 last year, a 21 percent decline, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

At the same time, however, foreclosures were still above 2007′s numbers, and the number of new foreclosure proceedings rose in 2009.

Petitions jumped by just over 33 percent to 2,490 in Bristol County, and by nearly 34 percent to 3,108 in Plymouth County, when compared to the year before, according to the data.

New foreclosure proceedings could remain high this year as people continue to struggle with job losses or fewer work hours, said Timothy M. Warren Jr., chief executive officer of The Warren Group.

“I do think they are going to remain at their high levels,” Warren said.

At the other end of the process, he said there might be a logjam of pending foreclosures that could become final. He attributed the backlog to some lenders making adjustments after courtroom setbacks and delays of paperwork getting to the registries of deeds.

New Bedford has been hit particularly hard by foreclosures, and the citywide statistics from The Warren Group show a similar mixed picture.

Completed foreclosures in the city declined by a third in 2009 from the previous year. There were 204 properties taken last year, compared to 306 in 2008 and 217 in 2007. Petitions numbered 508 last year, higher than the previous year (399) but still below 2007 (575).

On the national scene, there has been good news and bad news in the past week.

The percentage of borrowers who missed just one payment on their home loans fell to 3.6 percent in the final quarter of 2009 from 3.8 percent in the third quarter, the Associated Press reported, based on the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest survey results.

While there was a glimmer of hope in the delinquency numbers, there was some disappointment with the progress in the federal government’s efforts to help distressed homeowners.

More than 1 million homeowners across the country have received offers of trial loan modifications under the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable program, but only 116,000 have permanent modifications through January, according to the new government numbers released last week.

In Massachusetts, out of 21,435 modifications, only 2,788 are considered permanent.

“I have been very disappointed,” U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said in a telephone interview.

Frank said he will meet with officials from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Treasury to discuss what he sees as an impediment: banks’ unrealistic valuation of second mortgages that they hold. He wants to persuade banks, particularly ones that received federal help, to wipe out those second mortgages.

“Banks have to recognize they’re not worth anything,” he said.

Frank has also proposed using some of the interest from the government’s bailout of the financial industry to help unemployed people who are struggling with their mortgages. He said the plan has passed the House of Representatives.

In other news, President Barack Obama on Friday announced $1.5 billion in funding for programs in states hardest hit by the housing crisis. However, Massachusetts is not among the targeted states.

Helping matters locally, home buyers, bankers and real estate agents have become more accustomed to short sales — when an owner is able to sell a house for less than the mortgage is worth, getting the lender to forgive the difference or work it out somehow, said Ralph Grassia, regional vice president for Jack Conway & Co.

Short sales are more common. In the past six months, some bankers have even started encouraging distressed owners to sell and avoid future problems, Grassia said.

The glut of foreclosed homes that drove down prices is easing as well, he said.

“The real estate market has taken a turn for the better,” he said. “The foreclosures will always be factor out there, but I think what’s happening is the market is not flooded with them as it was before.”

Affluent towns including Nantucket, Concord, Weston, and Winchester, saw triple or quadruple digit percent increases in foreclosure deeds during the first 11 months of the year, according to data released yesterday by Warren Group, a private company that tracks real estate data.

The numbers are tiny to be sure – 19 homes in Nantucket and six in Concord – a problem dwarfed by the hundreds of homes lost to foreclosure in cities like Springfield, Worcester, and Brockton. However, the increasing problem in costlier towns presents evidence that the battered economy and an 8.8 percent unemployment rate is leaving no community untouched, many housing experts agree.

“The wealthier communities are experiencing maybe for the first time the hardship that low-income and minority communities have been feeling for many years,’’ said Bruce Marks, chief executive of the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, a nonprofit advocacy organization based in Jamaica Plain.

Statewide, the number of foreclosure deeds, which represent a completed foreclosure, dropped 26.8 percent to 8,409 between January and November compared with the same time last year, according to Warren Group. But petitions, the first step in a foreclosure process, increased 28.2 percent this year to 25,868 – a sign that the foreclosure crisis has yet to ebb.

Many communities that were hardest hit by foreclosures over the last several years saw the problem slow in 2009. For example, in Worcester the number of foreclosure deeds fell to 445 between January and November, a 36.8 percent drop compared with the same time last year. Dorchester, the Boston neighborhood most plagued by streets of boarded-up and abandoned buildings, saw foreclosure deeds fall 40.5 percent to 352 this year.

Dean Baker, codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., said that poorer neighborhoods most affected by the subprime market and predatory lending probably have seen the worst wave of the foreclosure crisis, which occurred in 2007 and 2008. Most vulnerable homeowners already have lost their homes. In wealthier neighborhoods, residents are now being affected by the economy and housing price declines that can wipe out all their equity, he said.

“You have record high rates of unemployment for people with college degrees,’’ Baker said.

In Nantucket, where median home prices hover at about $1.25 million, 19 homes were lost to foreclosure during the first 11 months of the year, up 1,800 percent from the one recorded foreclosure in 2008, according to Warren Group. Foreclosure petitions also jumped to 75, a 102.7 percent increased compared with the same period in 2008.

Weston, where median home prices reach $1.2 million, saw a rise in foreclosure deeds between January and November of this year to six compared with two during the same time last year. Seventeen homeowners went into foreclosure this year, representing a 41 percent increase from the year before, according to Warren data.

Virginia Pratt, a foreclosure prevention counselor at the nonprofit, Jamaica Plain-based Ecumenical Social Action Committee, said she gets more calls from distressed homeowners in the suburbs. She said many with incomes of about $150,000 talk about losing their jobs or having a health complication that limits their income. They no longer can access credit to help them through lean times and aren’t able to cut costs enough.

“The lower income doesn’t support the higher income lifestyle,’’ she said. “It’s people being stuck.’’