BluegrassForeclosure.com

While home prices continue to be in a slow decline, 3.5% from April to May, the housing market in N. Ky. remains active.  The Kentucky Post is reporting that home sales jumped up slightly 5.5% during the same time period.  This is a good sign for investors as they can expect to turn over some of their foreclosure investments either by selling homes or by renting them out.  With interest rates down slightly, many would-be buyers are finally getting back into the market, albeit tentatively.

Every Kentucky court is different, and every judge had his/her way of doing something.  But one thing is certain, all judges want to lessen the amount of foreclosures.  The only way they can affect this is by slowing down the process, make the lenders come to the table, and look for room to negotiate on how to bring the loan current or modify it.  Jefferson County is doing this in their courts.  Read the story here.

Jefferson County has the highest number of foreclosures going through the court system.  It probably also has the highest number of foreclosures per capita.  So I’m not surprised that the courts are trying to slow things down.  But along with making the lender come to the table, the courts should think about requiring the borrower take financial classes on how to handle money.  They are just as likely to fall back into foreclosure eventually, unless they are trained on making better decisions.  Borrowers monthly budgets need to be scrutinized, since all too often, they will make sure they have cable tv, but cannot make their loan payments.

The master commissioner sale does not have to be the final solution to this problem, but if you are going to attack a problem, you should attack it from all sides.

RealtyTrac is reporting that home foreclosures rose in May, which is a year over year increase.  See here for more details.  We will continue discussing more on the numbers.

Even homes built for Extreme Home Makeover are falling prey to the economy.  Click here.

As you have probably already read, accroding to the Mortgage Bankers Association, a record 12% of homeowners are either in foreclosure status or are behind at least 1 month on their mortgage payment.  One ray of hope is that the MBA is forecasting national GDP to finally stop its downward slide.  However, the good news basically stops there as the unemployment rate looks to hover around 10% for the next several quaters.  It appears that we are in for a jobless recovery and one where we won’t see real job growth until 2011 or later.  Click here for the full report.

Master Commissioner Deeds were transferred back to the banks in Franklin County on the following properties:

702 Wilson St, Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp,  $28,635.00

Benson Valley Rd, Deutsche Bank National Trust, $40,000.00

141 Pleasant Hill Dr, Century Bank, $99,000.00

119 Creekstone Ct, Deutsche Bank National Trust, $60,000.00

314 Cardinal Ave, Commonwealth Credit Union, $78,000.00

For better or for worse, Kentucky only ranks 41st in overall foreclosures, according to RealtyTrac.com.  This presents many possibilities for investing, but hopefully will not add to the overall effect of pulling down our economy here in this state.  We will continue to monitor these numbers.

So you want to get into the foreclosure market, but do not have the time or inclination to track down individual deals.  Check out UVestor.com.  I am not necessarily offering an edorsement, but it looks promising on a national level and now includes listings in Louisville.  If you try out the service, please send an evaluation of it and let us know if it is worth it.

The Columbus Dispatch had an interesting article that the recent boom and bust was not a housing price bubble that burst, but rather a credit bubble.  Credit became too easy to get and so more and more consumers went after the home of their dreams, knowing full well that they wouldn’t be able to afford the payments.

This makes sense to some degree.  Houses are still being bought and sold, even today.  Albeit, for much more reasonable price.  Things are still moving.  Credit can still be gotten by individuals.

Also, this particular article went on to discuss how much value homes in the U.S. have lost since 2006.  According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (there is an agency for everything), estimates that homes have lost value equal to $4.2 trillion.  That’s a pretty big number.

With that much value lost, you make the call, was it a housing bubble or credit bubble?

For more on the article, click here.

We will review the quarterly numbers shortly, but even though the statewide average continues to climb, Kentucky is still under the national foreclosure rate. I think there are two factors contributing to this.

First, we are a little insulated with our job market not fluctuating as violently as other states. Don’t get me wrong, we still have an incredibly high unemployment rate, just hitting over 10%. But our job market has already taken numerous hits over the years, with coal being down and then up, tobacco farming being down, then dairy farming being up. We’ve weathered it before and we can do it again.

Second, trends just taking longer in Kentucky to manifest themselves. Hopefully, this doesn’t mean that we will be in for a longer downturn than other states, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we had to wait out the down period for quite awhile.