HUD's Inventory of REOs More Than Double a Year Ago
HUD has released a report detailing recent business activity at the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). It shows that the federal agency's inventory of REO homes has ballooned as sales from this portfolio fell sharply during the final months of 2010 and early part of this year.
The number of repossessed single-family properties held at the end of February 2011 was 68,801, according to the HUD report. That figure represents an increase of more than 50 percent from a year earlier, when the tally of these government-owned homes stood at 44,605.
HUD manages the disposition of homes with FHA loans that have been repossessed.
After hitting a high-water mark of 8,893 last June, sales of the agency's REOs began to slide, but with moderate
month-to-month declines typically in the range of 200 to 300 fewer property sales - that is until November.
During that month, the number of REOs sold from the government portfolio plunged 20 percent, from 7,289 in October to 5,817 in November.
The next month, the agency's already-depressed sales were cut in half. Just 2,749 HUD homes were sold in December.
The number of REO sales slipped by another 117 in January to 2,632, but then bumped up to 4,221 during the month of February.
The steep drop in REO sales over the prior four-month period, though, has left the federal agency holding a bloated inventory of properties.
The HUD report also noted that the number of FHA insurance claims on single-family homes filed as a result of foreclosures, short sales, and deeds-in-lieu totaled 8,619 in February, up from just over 6,000 the month before.
It's the first time in five months that the federal insurer has seen an increase in single-family default claims. February's claims amounted to $1.08 billion.
The number of loss mitigation claims paid during February was 15,031, with more than two-thirds resulting from loan modifications.
The cumulative number of defaults reported on FHA-insured loans for the 2011 fiscal year, which for the federal agency began last October, stood at 619,712 as of the end of February.
Article by: Carrie Bay 05/06/2011
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