Stockton foreclosure listings continue to grow because of the high level of unemployment in the area. Although the pace of foreclosures slowed down slightly in the July to September quarter compared to the same period last year, the rate of foreclosure in the area still increased by nearly 2 percent from the previous three-month period.

In San Joaquin County, where Stockton is located, the unemployment rate hit 15.5 percent in September, with more than 47,000 losing their jobs in September out of a total workforce of 304,600.

According to the Employment Development Department of California, the employment sectors that laid off the highest number of workers in September were the construction, transportation, warehousing and limited-service restaurant sectors.

A lot of federal government workers were also laid off, with the Defense Department the only government agency that did not terminate employees in September. The EDD said that nearly 20 percent of workers in the building and contracting sector were laid off in September.

Based on a regional economics study released by the nonprofit Great Valley Center for the Central Valley, where San Joaquin is located, the valley is very different geographically, culturally and economically from other regions in California. Although the Central Valley tops other California regions in agricultural production, the valley lags the state based on income.

The unique challenges faced by the region have been contributing to the still high number of properties entering Stockton foreclosure listings. The nonprofit report said that many areas of the region have high population growth rates, but also high unemployment rates. The region also provides some of the lowest wage rates and has the highest income disparities in the state and in the U.S.

In 2007, the per capita income of the Central Valley was only around $29,000, which is among the nation’s lowest and which is 29 percent lower than the average in California. The analysts contended that if the valley were a U.S. state, it would be 48th among the states based on per capita income.

In terms of housing, new building permits dropped by a staggering 404 percent in the valley last year compared to 2005, with the northern San Joaquin area suffering the sharpest drop of 853 percent.

Foreclosures hit the valley hard, with north San Joaquin again suffering the most with the highest rate of foreclosure in the region.

Reverend Jesse Jackson, a civil-rights activist and former presidential candidate, has called on churchgoers at the Friendship Baptist Church to help trim down foreclosure house listings by opposing predatory lending.

He urged them to join a national campaign to challenge banks and their lending practices which he called predatory and greedy. He called on people at the Friendship Baptist in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to join in the national initiative that aims to make changes on the banking systems and push for the renegotiation of bank loan terms.

According to industry experts, the increase in foreclosure house listings started due to the collapse of subprime lending. They also cited some studies that showed that banks have disregarded some of their lending rules and provided loans to people with questionable credit background.

Experts said that the collapse in the subprime lending led to the crisis in the financial system. Some are questioning the decision of the federal government to bailout the banks which they believed contributed to the current foreclosure crisis.

Meanwhile, Friendship Baptist Church pastor Reverend Stacey Frazier explained that he requested Jackson to give a speech before his congregation. He said that many members of the congregation lost their homes to foreclosure and with the unemployment rate increasing rapidly, many more are expected to go into foreclosures in the coming months.

Frazier said that he hopes Jackson would be able to challenge and motivate his congregation to allow them to recover from the impact of the economic and foreclosure crisis.

Recent market data showed that the number of foreclosure properties in North Carolina drop by 38 percent in the first six months of this year. However, the good news brought about by the significant decline in foreclosure rate was offset by the drastic rise in foreclosure activity last June.

June foreclosure rate rose by 23 percent compared with May figures. This brought the total number of foreclosure homes in the state to 3.175. On the other hand, a drop of 26 percent was posted for the first half compared with the last six months of 2008.

Industry experts said that the rise in the number of foreclosure house listings due to unemployment is prevalent not just in North Carolina but also across the country. And more foreclosures are expected as long as the unemployment problem remains unsolved.

It seems that loan modification is turning out to be a popular method of curtailing foreclosure home listing in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Recent market data showed that so far, about 5,000 residential homes have been foreclosed by mortgage lenders and banks in 2009. However, a significant number of borrowers were able to save their properties by convincing their lenders to reduce their monthly mortgage payments into affordable rates.

Industry experts said that loan modification is becoming popular and lenient in the Saint Louis region. But they cautioned that the process still continues to frustrate many borrowers, with a great number of them being rejected and ending in foreclosure.

Most homeowners would say that their problems started when they lost their jobs. However, given no choice, many of these homeowners would take another job that pays $1,500 a month, a considerable reduction from their previous salaries. Some homeowners would find their properties are worth less than their total mortgage and so would walk away from their properties and leave it for banks to place them on foreclosure home listing.

A typical loan modification process involves reducing the monthly payment to affordable rates. In Saint Louis, loan modifications are becoming common due to the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) of the Obama Administration.

The program provides counseling to distressed homeowners as well as financial incentives to mortgage lenders. So far, about 500,000 were in the trial modification process. Normally, homeowners would have their payments reduced during the trial period, which is three months. The banks would then agree to lower monthly mortgage payments and interest rates for at least 5 years.

In some cases, borrowers would be required to give three regular monthly payments before the rates could be lowered. Some interest rates are reduced by about 2 percent.

Since June to September, the number of people who participated in the loan modification program has reached 100,000 every month. However, in September, homeowners who availed of the program accounted for 16 percent of the total number of delinquent mortgages.

Industry experts said that there are indications that loan modifications has greatly help the city of Saint Louis trim down the number of properties on foreclosure home listing.

Los Angeles foreclosure lists continued to grow as the unemployment rate in the area continued to rise, based on data from a foreclosure tracking firm.

A total of 69,403 households in the Los Angeles, Santa Ana and Long Beach metro area received foreclosure filings in the July to September quarter, representing 1.6 percent of all residential units in the area. One in every 63 households was in default or in foreclosure, putting the Los Angeles metro area 23rd in a ranking of the 203 largest metro areas in the U.S. based on rates of foreclosure.

Leo Nordine, who specializes in lender-repossessed homes, said that the number of foreclosures could have been higher if there were no federal, state and bank programs preventing the entry of many homes into foreclosure.

Nordine said that his foreclosure sale business has not been as busy as over the past 12 months. What he has observed though are the rising number of high-end homes in Los Angeles foreclosure lists and the falling number of move-up buyers. He added that buyers who typically sell their homes and then buy houses priced higher than $500,000 have been disappearing because of the still high number of job losses.

The unemployment rate in Los Angeles County rose to 12.7 percent in September as more employees in the movie and tourism industries got laid off. The rate was higher than the August rate of 12.2 percent and much higher than the September 2008 rate of 8.3 percent. Over the past 12 months, over 210,000 employees throughout the county lost their jobs.

Nonetheless, the number of payroll jobs rose in September by 19,000 from August due to the return of teachers to their jobs, but the increase was offset by job losses in the hospitality, leisure and film sectors. Overall, payroll jobs rose slightly to almost 3.9 million jobs from August.

However, compared to September 2008, payroll jobs declined by 4.1 percent or 164,000 jobs, with the manufacturing industry eliminating the most number of jobs. Losses in the retail, professional, business services and construction ranked next.

Because of the job losses, analysts in the Los Angeles area projected another wave of foreclosures, but so far, foreclosure activity has not been as fast as expected, although the number of defaults and actual foreclosures are still high.

Houston foreclosure lists grew in the first weeks of October compared to foreclosures during the same month last year because of the effects of Hurricane Ike, based on a report from the Houston Association of Realtors.

The realtors explained that the foreclosure count was low in the months of September and October last year because of foreclosure moratoriums that were granted to homeowners in areas hit by Hurricane Ike in September last year.

Steve Barnes, CEO and president of the Houston unit of Coldwell Banker United, said that there were at least two weeks after the hurricane that Houston businesses were practically not moving because of damages and losses from the hurricane.

In Harris County last October 6, the number of homes and other properties sold off in a foreclosure auction soared by 72 percent compared to the number of units sold off in October last year, based on data from the Woodlands Foreclosure Information and Listing Service.

As of the first weeks of October this year, there were 1,068 residential properties in Houston foreclosure lists, a substantial increase from 622 units in October last year.

In September, a total of 4,792 single-family houses in the Houston Multiple Listing Service were sold. The properties included existing homes and new homes located in the counties of Harris, Montgomery, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Waller, Wharton and Galveston.

Sales prices stayed flat during September, with the median sales price for single-family houses increasingly slightly to $156,200.

The number of pending home sales in September increased by 41.3 percent from sales in September last year to 3,650 transactions. A lot of sales transactions last year were also interrupted by Hurricane Ike.

Barnes said that home sales comparisons in the last months of this year will continue to be influenced by Hurricane Ike because it took many months for the real estate sector to recover after Hurricane Ike.

Based on data from the Foreclosure Information and Listing Service, the number of units listed as of September dropped by more than 9 percent to 45,520 compared to September last year. Compared to the previous month, listings dropped by 503 units to a housing inventory level considered balanced.

According to Ralph Murdoch of Foreclosure Information, foreclosures are expected to drop gradually from their peak level of 1,278 in July as efforts to remedy unemployment begin to have results.

The way Philadelphia foreclosure listings are being contained by the city and state governments is being studied by the Obama administration for its plan of further improving its foreclosure prevention program.

Federal officials are considering using part of the $50 billion allotted for the loan modification program to help jobless homeowners keep their homes.

Elizabeth Warren, chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Panel which oversees the Troubled Asset Relief Program, has been asking the Treasury Department to examine the use of some TARP funds to provide bridge loans to homeowners who have been laid off in recent months. She suggested also that the program does not charge interest until the homeowners get another job.

COP member Richard Neiman explained that recent foreclosures are no longer caused by subprime or other types of risky home loans, but by unemployment. He added that the rising number of prime mortgages getting foreclosed is an indication of the worsening impact of unemployment.

In September, job losses increased to 9.8 percent, pushing up the national unemployment rate to 9.8 percent, a 26-year record high. Since December 2007, a total of 7.2 million workers have been laid off and the jobless rate has doubled.

Administration officials have been looking at the program that has been effectively containing Philadelphia foreclosure listings and other listings throughout Pennsylvania under the state Homeowners Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program.

HEMAP was established by Pennsylvania state officials in 1984 to help jobless homeowners survive while they look for jobs. The unemployed homeowners who qualify under the program are given loans with a term of two or three years, depending on the economic conditions and the financial situations of the homeowners. The borrowers are not required to pay the loans until they get their next jobs and earn enough that enables them to pay their monthly home loan payments and utility bills.

John Dodds, head of the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, said that helping the unemployed while they look for work prevents unnecessary foreclosures that cause neighborhood deterioration.

According to reports, several officials of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department have met with state officials of Pennsylvania and discussed the HEMAP and its viability as a nationwide program.

In addition, officers of the Philadelphia Legal Assistance Center explained that the HEMAP program is provided only to qualified unemployed, such as persons who have been laid off recently and who are likely to find another job.

Foreclosed list sales increased again in Santa Clara County, California in September, based on data from a real estate research firm based in San Diego.

Sales of foreclosed homes and condo units accounted for 27.2 percent of total housing units sold in September, an increase from 26.4 percent in August. The 27.2-percent share remains a record high, as double-digits figures were never reached in the 1990s when the housing market also suffered difficulties. In September 2007, the share was only 3.9 percent.

According to analysts in the area, the level of foreclosures is still high because of unemployment, negative equity and the inability of homeowners to get loan modifications.

Meanwhile, overall house sales in Santa Clara in September climbed up by 17 percent compared to the same month last year. Analysts cited low loan rates and the expiration of the federal tax credit as the major factors for the increase in sales.

The total number of homes sold in September was 1,307 units, an increase from the 1,116 units sold in the same month last year.

The median home sales price in September dropped by 8 percent to $506,000 from the $550,000 median price last year. According to realtors in the area, the drop in the median was driven by the higher number of lower-priced homes and the high proportion of foreclosed list sales.

The median home sales price in the San Francisco Bay Area also dropped last September, with home sales increasing in most areas of the Bay Area.

Several mortgage brokers said the California market is difficult to label now because of different trends in various areas, with some markets soaring in sales and the others still drowning in foreclosures.

Narbik Karamian, a mortgage broker in Los Gatos, said foreclosures remains high in many areas and the number of non-owner-occupied homes is above normal levels.

Another analyst, Matt Anderson, who works for Oakland-based economics research firm Foresight Analytics, said that among the key reasons for the increase in sales is the drop in mortgage rates. He predicted that home sales in October and in November will increase as well.

The analysts however agree with the contention that all sales projections depend on how fast the economy is going to recover and how effective job creation efforts will solve the unemployment problem. All of them reiterated that although home affordability has been improving, foreclosed list sales will still dominate the market if the unemployment issue is not addressed.

Complaints against a federal foreclosure prevention program from troubled homeowners who are at risk of losing their properties to bank foreclosure listings are growing in numbers every day.

Some of these troubled homeowners said that they have lost their jobs and could not afford to pay for their mortgage, and thus, facing the risk of losing it to foreclosure. They said that because they could not afford to pay for their houses, the federal government should help to make them affordable.

According to industry experts, thousands of homeowners nationwide are facing obstacles one after the other in their efforts to avail of loan modifications under the $75 billion program. The Home Affordability Modification Program was once regarded as the core of the Obama Administration’s campaign to help struggling homeowners avoid bank foreclosure listings.

Market data showed that a fraction of borrowers who are eligible for mortgage relief under the loan modification program have been enrolled and were able to have their loans change to low monthly payments.

Consumer advocacy groups are pointing out the fingers on banks over the failure of the loan modification program to help many eligible homeowners. They said that banks are controlling who will qualify for the mortgage relief program.

They added that distressed homeowners who were not able to avail of the federal program are often directed towards banks’ own mortgage relief programs, which advocates said, are more costly and complicated.

Industry experts said that many banks offering loan modification programs charge large upfront and back-end fees that are prohibited under the federal government’s program. The practice of these banks is causing borrowers to incur more debts.

Because of the slow pace of mortgage relief and the exorbitant cost of availing of loan modification programs, many frustrated homeowners are taking matters into their hands, such as writing, e-mailing or calling members of the U.S. Congress.

Some lawmakers are responding to the cry of some troubled homeowners. Representative Keith Ellison has scheduled a meeting in Minnesota, Minneapolis to address complaints and gripes of local homeowners who are facing bank foreclosure listings about the slow loan modification process.

Ellison’s office is expecting about 200 people to attend the town hall meeting which will be held at the Center for Changing Lives.

Foreclosure home in Tulare County, California is expected to rise after the end of the moratorium. Industry experts said that so far, the increase is not yet evident in the real estate market in the area, adding that the current inventory of foreclosure houses for sale is at its lowest level.

Experts said that right now, the market needs more foreclosure properties so as to give buyers more choices and to keep up with the rising demand for cheap houses. Meanwhile, industry veterans and experts predict that the absorption rate of the current market will be enough to handle the expected release of foreclosure home that may result from the end of the moratorium in California.

Experts pointed out that the current state of the real estate market is best approach through long-term investment. They said that from a long term perspective, an individual who does not own a home, is searching for a bigger house or if a person is seeking for an investment, then now is the right time to buy.

According to market data, there are currently 916 active housing listings, a drop from the 933 in August, compared with 1,681 from a year ago and 2,013 in the same month in 2007. The data also showed that there are about 3.12 months worth of supply of houses at the current rate of market sales.

Meanwhile, industry experts noted that the slowing down of new home sales and slight credit tightness experienced by the housing market in 2007 had an effect on the new-home market. But they said that some local buildings are experiencing an improved level of home sales.

On the other hand, the home sales volume rose by 48 percent in the first seven months of this year, compared with the same period last year. Industry experts said that interest rates have always played a key role to home sales. The current interest rates are about 5.5 percent, which is near historic levels.

Meanwhile, online real estate buying and selling is playing a major role in the current market, according to experts. They said that online buying and selling help boost the current housing market in Tulare County. But industry experts are one in saying that affordability is the single, most important factor that has expanded the real estate market in Tulare County. And again, the abundance of foreclosure home is driving the market expansion.

The number of properties on Pittsburgh foreclosure listings is expected to jump up in the coming months as the 79-week unemployment extensions and benefits will come to a close. It is expected that 20,000 unemployment benefits will expire in Pennsylvania while 45,000 will come to an end in New Jersey. An additional 14,000 people in Pennsylvania will lose their benefits before the end of this week.

Industry analysts said that if an area has a high unemployment rate, it follows that the foreclosure activity in the same area is also at its highest. They said that the previous wave of foreclosure was brought about by homeowners who took out bad loans. This time, the Pittsburgh foreclosure listings will consist of properties owned by borrowers who failed to pay their mortgages because they lost their jobs and their source of income.

Industry analysts said that severely affected are people with low-paying jobs, such as house cleaners, clerks, security guards and food-service workers. Additionally, a great number of single mothers are expected to become homeless because of foreclosure and high unemployment.

A survey of homeless agencies and shelters showed a rising number of individuals being forced to seek shelter because of the economic downturn. Officials said that they have been receiving many calls from individuals who lost their jobs and facing foreclosures.

Inter-Faith Housing Alliance executive director Laura Wall Starke said that many people who are not yet homeless are starting to find alternative accommodations. Catholic Charities Emergency and Community Services program director Bonnie Jordan said that a new breed of homeless are out there, adding that they are people who have lost their jobs and used up their unemployment benefits.

In the past, individuals who have lost their jobs or facing foreclosures turn on their relatives or friends for help. But the worsening economy has taken its toll on almost everyone that finding help is becoming difficult.

Industry analyst are hoping that the flock of buyers taking advantage of the low priced foreclosure properties in Pittsburgh could help lift the city’s economy and housing market.

Pittsburgh has always been attractive to real estate investors and buyers because of the wide range of economic opportunities, expanding medical, educational and cultural infrastructures and low cost of living.