According to the study, there has been a significant increase in the number of foreclosures for top-tier homes, with 35 percent foreclosure in middle-tier housing and 30 percent in the top-tier and 35 percent in the bottom-tier.

Industry experts noted the dramatic increase in foreclosures and the significant shift to more repossession in the top tier. Last year, top tier homes accounted for 16 percent of foreclosure rates while 29 percent in the middle-tier.

In Hartford, Connecticut, completed sales for single family homes increased by 2.91 percent to 976 in September from 948 for the same month last year. Meanwhile pending home sales also rose by 16.47 percent to 976 in September from 948 for the same month the previous year.

Industry experts said that the increase in home sales last month was probably due to the federal tax credit of $8,000 which is given to first-time homebuyers only. However, the tax credit is set to expire on November 30. They believe that the U.S. Congress should find a way to expand and extend the federal tax credit as a way to maintain the current home sales trend across the country.

On the other hand, while pending and closed sales increased, the median home sale price in Connecticut declined by 4.35 percent to $220,000 from $230,000 the previous year. Also, new listings declined by 9/14 percent while the number of properties on the market dropped by 6.82 percent.

Experts also pointed out that houses are spending more and more time remaining unsold on the market. On the average, a home stays on the market 69 days from 64 days. Additionally, pending sales last month rose by 2.95 percent compared with August while closed sales declined by 6.08 percent.

A sad note was the 6.38 percent drop in the median home price in September compared to the $235,000 the previous month.

Nationwide, over 16 million homeowners have lower home values compared with their mortgages. To qualify for refinancing, lenders are requiring that owners of single family homes cover the cost difference and others.

The total home sales in the Miami region moved up in September, with sub-$100,000 deals accounting for about one-third of the total sales. However, the median price dropped to about $159,000 from $160,000 for three consecutive months.

In the Miami metropolitan area that covers the counties of Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward, there were about 7,225 completed sales for condominiums, new and resale homes. The numbers represented a 0.7 percent increase from August and 31.1 percent rise from September 2008’s 5,509.

Furthermore, the total number of escrow closings was the third lowest for the month of September, way below the figures in 2007 and 2008. Also, September was the seventh straight month in which sales have increased on a year-to-year basis in the Miami region.

In single family homes prices, September numbers posted 48.8 percent which were below the 211 peak price posted in the region in the summer of 2006.

According to industry analysts, the 0.7 sales gains posted in September was abnormal. They said that since 1997, home sales usually dropped about 10.6 percent between September and August. They observed that September home sales were also unusually strong in other housing markets, nationwide.

Analysts said that the most likely reasons are short sales which are starting to become popular as a way for distressed homeowners to avoid the trouble of the foreclosure proceedings, new appraisal rules which have resulted to longer escrows, historically low loan rates and the flood of first-time buyers looking for cheap foreclosure properties to buy before the federal tax credit of $8,000 will expire.

Properties that sold below $100,000 accounted for 31 percent of the total sales, an increase of 30 percent from August and 13.8 percent compared with the previous year.

Industry experts said that foreclosures are still a force to reckon with in the housing market, pulling down prices as what happened with single family homes with price declines for 36 straight months.

According to industry experts, auctions allow investors to purchase the best foreclosure properties at cheap prices. Investors can check out foreclosure listings if they are interested in finding available foreclosure homes at Hialeah and the surrounding areas.

Most foreclosure listings feature multi-family and single houses, duplexes and buildings of various kinds. Typically, foreclosure of a Hialeah distressed property takes only almost two months. At the end of three months, the foreclosure property will be placed on the auction block.

The auction is usually conducted by the court clerk who will also be responsible for turning over the property to the winning bidder. Notices of sale will be released which contain all the necessary information such as the place and time of auction and case details.

HUD-foreclosed houses are popular in Hialeah and its surrounding areas, especially after the hurricanes in Florida. Majority of HUD-foreclosure houses are sold at very low prices. Usually, the preference to buy the foreclosed property is given to owner-occupants.

Previous owners who want to buy back their property should arrange their finances before the auction. A pre-approved loan will give them leverage during the auction. Usually, the HUD provides incentives to encourage repairs of the Hialeah foreclosure homes.

Meanwhile, seized property auctions are common in Hialeah. After various notices and homeowners still failed to find ways to remain on their properties, the distressed houses will finally by seized due to non-payment of mortgage.

Once the lender acquires the distressed home, it becomes a repossessed property. The lender has the option to remodel or refurnish the repossessed property to boost its resale value. Industry experts said that repossessed properties are great bargains as they can be bought at very cheap prices.

Many lenders in Hialeah conduct foreclosure auctions and anyone who has the means can join in the bidding process. Many first-time homebuyers prefer to buy foreclosure properties at auctions because of their low prices.

Countywide, home buyers, real estate investors and agents seeking foreclosure properties, real-estate owned and auction opportunities can find great deals in Miami-Dade. The most populated county in Florida, Miami-Dade is an international playground attractive to foreign visitors.

In Phoenix, home sales this year exceeded the numbers reported last year. But foreclosure houses still accounted for most of property sales. A recent market report showed that one in every two home sales was a foreclosure last month.

Industry analysts said that the housing market recovery in the city, as well as statewide, will not be achieved until the foreclosure rate drops to manageable level, which is pegged at one foreclosure per 20 regular home sales.

In August 2008, 3,100 foreclosure houses were reported out of the 6,000 total homes resold. The figures represented a decline from the 7,300 resale deals and 4,200 foreclosures sales reported in July.
But the numbers were higher compared with 4,200 resale deals and 3,300 foreclosure sales in Phoenix last month.

Meanwhile, in Lake Havasu City, Arizona foreclosure homes continue to dominate the home sales in the area. Year-to-date figures showed an increasing trend in home sales, led by Arizona foreclosure homes.
According to market data, over 1,070 single family homes were sold in the city, surpassing the total home sales in August last year by over 250 properties.

A month to month improvement in home sales was seen this year. Last month, 125 houses were sold in the city compared with 95 for the same month last year.

The increasing number of home sales in the city gave hope to industry experts that the market is starting to stabilize.
Foreclosure houses accounted for more than 50 percent of the total home sales. Out of the 125 homes sold last month, 67 were foreclosures with prices ranging from $130,000 to as much as $167,000.

Also last month, 121 active foreclosures were on the market and 99 were pending. Meanwhile, 88 houses were in some kind of foreclosure process in Kingman and 92 in Bullhead City.

Industry experts noted that many banks still lagged behind in short sales. In August, only 18 short sales were reported in Lake Havasu City, 8 in Bullhead City and 4 in Kingman totaling to 30 out of nearly 342 properties sold in Mohave County.

Experts said that there are still many properties going into foreclosure because banks are lacking in their efforts to help homeowners save their properties from repossession.

The growing foreclosure problem in the state has severely affected homeowners’ associations in Dallas-Fort Worth area. Adding to the associations’ problems are the recession, unemployment and rising number of abandoned and vacant houses.

All these problems resulted to slow collection of association dues. To boost their collections and their coffers, many homeowners’ association in Texas have increased their dues, imposed emergency fees and forced foreclosures.

Furthermore, some associations save money by delaying capital improvements and maintenance, reviewing service bids and even requesting residents to volunteer for projects. In some communities, the associations have put up their own parks and amenities to compensate for the lack of city facilities.

Industry experts said that homeowners’ associations have been severely hurting from the large volume of Texas foreclosure homes. Residents in Park View hills have been opposing a special assessment that doubled their annual association dues, in addition that it should be paid within a month.

Frustrated homeowners crowded into association meetings, complaining about the special assessment and accusing the association of incompetence for neglecting maintenance. Their complaints prompted the homeowners’ association to extend for a month the deadline to pay the special assessment and to start cutting the waist-high grasses in the park and cleaning the flower beds.

Meanwhile, in Woodland Springs, the homeowners’ association also boosted the community’s water-well production in order to reduce water costs, reviewed its contract for property management services and landscaping and invested in cash reserves. Some homeowners’ association members said that they need to do something in order to survive.

On the other hand, condominium communities are also reeling from the effects of foreclosures. According to industry experts, condominium owners are facing a difficult situation because their monthly dues are almost equal to yearly assessments in neighborhoods with single-family houses.

Experts said that homeowners’ associations used to keep their assessments low during economic downturns. But this left many of them short of funds when the foreclosure problem hit and collections declined.

An increase of 4 percent in total home sales was registered in July compared to the previous month while total sales represented a substantial increase of 32.5 percent from July 2008.

Meanwhile, the number of default and foreclosure filings fell in July to 2,550 filings, a significant drop of 30 percent compared to June, which had 3,640 filings. It was also lower than the 2,670 cases filed in May.

However, despite the increase in home sales, the median sales price for single-family houses in the Jacksonville metro area dropped to around $150,000, which is much lower than the $190,000 median price in October 2008, when home prices began to decline sharply.

The median sales price for all residential types in July dropped to $156,800, a decrease of 3 percent from the previous month and a substantial decrease from the median price of $184,100 in July 2008.

The median home sales price slightly increased in May to $164,200 from the previous month and then slightly declined in June to $162,100. The drop in July became more substantial.

As the uncertainty about foreclosures hover across Jacksonville and other places in Florida, new home builders are still hesitant to pursue pending construction projects. New housing starts in July declined to 276 units, a drop of 8 percent from the 300 units completed in June, based on a report from the Northeast Florida Builders Association.

Across the state, although the number of bank-owned repossessed homes dropped by 8 percent from June, overall foreclosure filings were still higher by 7 percent from June because of 9-percent increases in both scheduled auctions and default notices.

In July, Florida had more than 56,000 of its households given default or foreclosure notices, according to a nationwide survey of foreclosures by a real estate research firm. Over 35,000 received lis pendens notices and over 14,500 got foreclosure sale notices. Nearly 7,000 were repossessed by lenders to add to their real-estate owned inventories.

In a study of metro area foreclosures nationwide, Jacksonville ranked 30th among 203 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates in the first 6 months of this year. More than 13,500 households in the city received default or foreclosure notices, representing 2.32 percent of all households in the area.

After 60 years in business, Centex has to be merged with another company to improve its profitability which was severely affected by the downturn in the housing industry brought about by the increase in the number of Dallas foreclosure homes.

Home construction activity in the Dallas-Fort Worth area was the lowest in decades. Since 2007, single-family house starts declined over 60 percent. The flood of foreclosure properties on the market has resulted to a dramatic drop in home prices and values.

Meanwhile, following the merger, Pulte plans to retain the Fox and Jacobs and Centex brands on various home building projects across the United States. Pulte Chief Executive Officer Richard Dugas disclosed that the company will position both brands to target first-time homebuyers.

Under Pulte’s plan, it will focus on providing unique offerings for Fox and Jacobs and Centex brands in about 900 subdivisions located in 29 states.

Dugas said that the goal of the company is to become the largest and most profitable homebuilder in the country. By acquiring Centex, Pulte has expanded its business and eliminated a competitor in the U.S. homebuilding industry.

According to industry analysts, Pulte’s acquisition move has allowed it to gain significant market share and access to Fox and Jacobs, City Homes and Centex Homes labels.

Nearly 70 percent of shareholders of Centex approved the sale deal. Under the deal, each Centex share will be exchanged with 0.975 Pulte share. The merged company is 68 percent owned by Pulte shareholders.

Analysts said that the merger will allow Centex to realize cost savings of about $350 million. It also plans to retire as much as $1.5 billion debt.

Meanwhile, a protest was held outside the headquarters of Centex by a group of people who opposed the merger of the two homebuilders. They criticized Pulte’s construction practices and Centex for its loan defaults.

For several years, the two homebuilders have been the top housing developers in North Texas. In 2008, Centex had 900 housing starts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area while Pulte had 500. The figures represented a decline from the combined 4,300 housing starts of both companies in 2006.

According to industry experts, condominiums as low as $20,000 and single-family homes at less than $60,000 are generating multiple offers and overbidding. They said that despite market data showing a slow rise in home prices, it appears that foreclosure houses will prevent further improvement in the pricing trend.

Experts said that many cheap properties are located in neighborhoods severely affected by the foreclosure crisis, including Antioch, Oakland, Richmond, Pittsburg and Vallejo. These cheap properties are mostly short sales or bank foreclosed homes.

As an example, experts pointed out that a one-bedroom condominium at Lakeview complex in Pittsburg is short selling for $48,000. The owner purchased the property in 2007 for $228,000.

Meanwhile, many homeowners’ properties are worth less than the total mortgage they owed to their lenders. This is one factor that is a cause of concern to industry experts. They said that homeowners whose mortgages are higher than the values of their properties are candidates for foreclosures.

They added that these homeowners would lose interest to continue paying their mortgages and instead would walk away from their distressed properties and leave them for lenders to be foreclosed.

Meanwhile, the popularity of bargain-priced properties has helped entice more buyers, who are just waiting for the right time, to get on the bidding frenzy. Industry experts said that banks, burdened with repossessed homes on their inventory, have started to offer properties at very low prices to attract cash-rich buyers, especially first-time homebuyers who are laden with federal tax credit of $8,000.

Furthermore, banks are in a hurry to dispose of properties clogging their inventory because the longer bank repo homes remained unsold, the higher the costs they would incur.

According to industry experts, banks prefer homebuyers with cash for quick closing of sales deals and because many foreclosed homes are uninhabitable which means they could not qualify for a loan.

On the other hand, experts said that condominiums are cheap buys because of some financing issues. They said that government-supported loans which accounted for about 90 percent of loans in the current market, are not made available to owners of these complexes.

They pointed out that many condominium residents are delinquent on their homeowners’ association dues plus the fact that most of these units are not occupied by their owners.

Of the total home sales last month, 737 or 41.99 percent were Orlando foreclosure homes. The number of foreclosure homes sold was the reason why home prices failed to catch up with the rising sales in the area.

According to industry analysts, foreclosure properties continue to pull down home prices. This is because foreclosed houses are sold at below market prices and sellers of existing homes are forced to slash their prices in order to attract buyers.

Statewide, existing home sales increased in July for 11 consecutive months. Last month’s home sales also represented an increase compared with the previous month’s figures.

Sales of existing homes increased by 37 percent or 15,882 in July, compared with 11,595 properties sold for the same month the previous year. Compared with June figures, July sales of existing homes rose by 0.2 percent.

Meanwhile, statewide condominium sales in July rose by 48 percent. For the same month, existing home sales in 18 metropolitan statistical areas in Florida also inch up, as well as in condominium sales.

Last month, the median existing home sales price in Florida was $147,600, a 24 percent decline from the previous year’s $193,800. As with other areas in the country where home prices are languishing at the bottom, the drop in prices is blamed on the significant number of foreclosure homes for sale on the market.

Meanwhile, the median existing single-family home sales price in Florida was $181,600 in June, a decline of 15 percent from the same month a year ago.

Industry analysts said the continuing drop in home prices is a major reason why Florida experienced an increase in home sales. Buyers flocked to the market because of discounted prices and a wide selection of properties to buy.

Added to these reasons are the federal tax credit provided by the government to first-time homebuyers.

But analysts said that the current increase in home sales is not enough to assume that the housing market is recovering. They said that the rising unemployment rate is threatening to destroy whatever steps the housing market has made towards achieving a full recovery.

However, with the continuous rise in the number of unsold properties, the unabated spread of foreclosure and the falling home prices, experts do not expect an immediate housing market recovery.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, construction of apartments and new homes declined 12.8 percent in April to an annual seasonally adjusted rate of 458.000 units. The numbers were the lowest in the construction activity record. Furthermore, new building permit applications also declined 3.3 percent to year-over-year rate of 494,000, still the lowest data on the record.

The biggest decline in building permit applications and construction activity last month was seen in the multifamily sector. On the other hand, single-family permit applications and construction both increased, indicating that this sector of the house construction is starting to get back on its feet and on its way to stability.

Despite the continuous increase in foreclosures in the country, single-family house construction performed a 2.8 percent jump, reflecting a yearly rate of 368,000 construction. In March, construction activity at the single-family home level showed a gain of 0.3 percent, but figures remained unchanged in February.

BMO Capita Markets economist Benjamin Reitzes said that the overall housing construction in the United States remains very weak. However, he pointed out that the show of stability in single-family home permit applications and construction is encouraging.

Meanwhile, multifamily home construction declined 46.1 percent to 90,000 units annually, with a 23 percent drop in March. Permit applications for multifamily construction also dropped by as much as 19.9 percent to 121,000 houses.

According to analysts, the apartment construction activity was severely affected by the flood of condominiums on the market and by strict credit conditions for the commercial real estate.

Analysts noted that the recovery for single-family home construction will be far from coming as massive unemployment and the unabated foreclosures continue to wreak havoc on this sector.

Paul Dales of Capital Economics said that low-priced bank foreclosed home and the excess new homes supply on the market have made new home construction less appealing.