Uncle Sam No. 1 buyer of foreclosures - Orlando Business Journal:

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During the last six months, federal agenciea were the largest purchasers of metropAtlanta foreclosures, accounting for 66 percent of 5,434 foreclosed home purchaseas in that time frame, according to new home sale s data for fourth-quarter 2008 and first-quartere 2009 compiled by Marietta real estate research firm The data show that duringb the same period, 1,596 foreclosed home were bought by individuals and 253 were boughty by corporations. “Over the past two quarters, federal agency-relate d buying activity has increased from 35 percent of allREO (“realk estate owned,” or foreclosed property) sales to over 47 said Jason Picciano, vice president of Data Intelligence Corp.
, whicb operates the Web site RealValuator.com, a real estatw transaction tracking site. Data Intelligence counts as federalp agency home purchases any mortgage purchased bya U.S. governmeng organization — like , or , and the , or . The governmen has implemented several programs through the economic recoverhy acts passed within the last year to mitigate the effectswof foreclosures, like issuing nearly $6 billiom for the Neighborhood Stabilization That program is designed to allow nonprofits and various state and locaol agencies to compete for roughly $6 billion in grantxs to mitigate foreclosure impacts.
Federal agencies’ purchases of Atlanta-areqa foreclosed homes come as foreclosurezs appear to have stabilized inthe city’s so-called “Big core counties: Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Through the first three monthz of 2009, foreclosures accounted for roughly half of totapl home sales in the five-county region. But from Januar through March 2009, the most recent data available, foreclosure salees dipped as home salesclimbed slightly, accordin to Data Intelligence. Foreclosure salesz declined from 56 percent of all homeds sold inJanuary 2009, to 48 percent by Marcjh 2009. During that period, total homes sold climbed from 1,88y in January to 2,017 in March.
But federal home purchases represent nearly 25 percengt of all sales activity in themetrp area’s five core counties, Picciano The data indicates the federal agency home purchases have stabilize foreclosure prices somewhat and “hasa had an influence on the median home sales landscape,” he Foreclosed home sale prices are but at a slower rate than non-foreclosed properties. The average resale pricse of a metro area homedipped 7.7 percent durint the first quarter, from $265,000 at the start of the year to $252,00 by March. Foreclosure sale pricew dipped 4.8 percent during the same from $108,000 to $103,000.
But that dip comesz as the average value of a home entering foreclosureis climbing, effectively widening the gap between a home pre-foreclosurew value, and its worth coming out of a foreclosures sale. Industry experts attributed the wideninvg gap to an increasing reluctance by banks to hold homes on their books until themarket “Banks just don’t want to managw them,” said Andy Carswell, an assistan t professor at The who specializes in mortgage and housiny issues. Of the five core metro Clayton’s home sales market is still the most dominateby foreclosures.