Home seizures by banks set record
MSN Real Estate
By Melinda Fulmer
...The foreclosure crisis hit a new peak in the first quarter, as banks took back the largest number of properties to date. The number of homes entering REO status (short for "real estate owned" by a bank) climbed 35% to 257,944 — the highest quarterly total ever — from 190,543 in the first quarter of last year and 9% from the previous quarter, according to real-estate data firm RealtyTrac. The increase comes as lenders seized more property that couldn't qualify under the Obama administration's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP)...
..."There have not been a lot of households that have been successful under HAMP," says Gary Painter, director of research at the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate. "It's likely that many of the people who could be helped have been helped." The good news is there doesn't appear to be a huge wave of properties entering default. In the first quarter, 304,799 properties received default notices, an increase of just 1% from the previous quarter and a decrease of 1% from the same time last year. Default notices have dropped 11% from their peak in last year's third quarter...