Great home buying opportunities exist in foreclosure home listing in Minnesota as home prices continue to fall throughout the state.

In addition to a greatly improved home affordability, the unemployment rate in Minnesota is also improving, giving better profit and employment prospects for investors and home buyers.

In September, the state unemployment rate dropped to 7.3 percent, as the national jobless rate rose to 9.8 percent. The Minnesota Employment and Economic Development Department reported that around 15,000 more residents got jobs in September, although 7,900 workers lost their jobs during the month.

Home prices in Minnesota, particularly in the Twin Cities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, have been falling because of the continued rise in foreclosures. According to realtors in the state, many houses for sale are down to their price levels in 2000.

As reported recently by a foreclosure monitoring firm, the pace of foreclosures in Minnesota increased by over 16 percent in the July to September quarter, compared to the previous period. The foreclosure rate of one out of every 217 homes put Minnesota 18th in a ranking of U.S. states based on foreclosure growth rates.

A total of 10,620 default and foreclosure notices were filed, with more than 5,000 residential units posted in foreclosure home listing. Compared to the same three-month period last year, the foreclosure pace this year in Minnesota rose by more than 100 percent.

According to local realtors, house sales have been rising in Saint Paul and Minneapolis because of sharply reduced prices. Other factors are lower mortgage rates and the efforts of first time homebuyers to beat the expiration of the federal tax credit.

The realtors also reported that almost 50 percent of home sales in recent weeks in Saint Paul and Minnesota are foreclosures and short sales. The prediction that more residential properties will enter the market has been welcomed by prospective home buyers, but has been causing concerns in the housing sector. Analysts have predicted that house prices in Saint Paul and Minneapolis will fall further by more than 15 percent.

The cities of Duluth and Rochester have also been enduring price declines, but at a slower rate than the Twin Cities. House prices in both cities have been declining by more than 6 percent, although Rochester is holding up more strongly, with its foreclosure home listing still filled with a lot of affordable residential units.

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.

Homebuyers and investors find foreclosure listings the most convenient and fastest way to choose and buy foreclosure properties. Now they have more foreclosure listings to choose from as two cities in Idaho have become the new hot spots for foreclosures. This means that bargain-priced properties are now flooding the Idaho market.

Recent market data showed that housing markets in Boise and Nampa in Idaho are the new hot spots of foreclosures in the country. The biggest year-over-year foreclosure rate increases across the country occurred in the area of Boise and Nampa and Utah cities of Provo, Orem and Salt Lake.

Industry experts said that prospective buyers find foreclosure listings in Boise and Nampa loaded with low-priced deals. In the third quarter, foreclosure rate in the area rose by a whopping 142 percent compared with the same period last year.

So far, there were 4,157 foreclosed homes in the housing market of Boise/Nampa. The rising unemployment is the major factor being blamed for the growing foreclosures in the area. But industry analysts are hoping that the slight improvement in the labor market figures would be a start towards the recovery of the local economy and the housing market.

In September, the seasonally adjusted rate of unemployment in the state declined to 8.8 percent. On the other hand, the national unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percentage point while the economy continued to be sluggish and unresponsive to efforts to revive it.

The Obama Administration accredited the drop in the unemployment rate in Idaho on the nearly 2,103 jobs saved or created through the help of the federal stimulus funds. The federal government has been aggressive in its campaign to help stave off foreclosures across the country, launching programs such as loan modification and Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

It also intensified its efforts to address the growing unemployment rate. However, U.S. Timothy Geithner said that the stimulus program is just beginning to show some results, adding that it would take some considerable amount of time for jobs to be created and unemployment to descend from its current rate.

On its part, Idaho provided about $504 million worth of supplemental and extended unemployment insurance benefits. For the meantime, buyers can continue to find foreclosure listings with good deals in Idaho as more and more homeowners walk away from their properties that are worth less than the total mortgage they owed.

San Jose foreclosure listings continued to grow in the third quarter as more foreclosures occurred in higher-cost neighborhoods, based on data from a foreclosure tracking firm.

In the July to September quarter, a total of 8,185 residential units in the San Jose-Santa Clara-Sunnyvale metro area have been hit with default and foreclosure notices, representing 1.29 percent of all households in the area.

With a foreclosure rate of one in 77, the San Jose metro area ranked 35th in a ranking of 203 of the largest metro areas in the country based on rates of foreclosure. The rate marked a 2.68-percent increase from the previous quarter and a nearly 29-percent rise from the July to September quarter in 2008.

According to foreclosure analysts, the increases in foreclosure filings in the third quarter were no longer largely caused by the delinquencies of subprime borrowers, but by unemployment and the rate resetting of pay option adjustable mortgage loans. According to Credit Suisse, the next flood of foreclosures will arise from the resetting of Alt-A and option ARM loans over the next several months.

While the unemployment rate in the San Jose metro area dropped to 11.8 percent in September from 12.1 percent in August, the jobless level is still high, much higher than the nationwide rate of 9.8 percent. Job losses in the manufacturing, hospitality and leisure sectors pushed more homes into San Jose foreclosure listings.

In nearby San Benito, the jobless rate was 12.5 percent, and in Santa Clara, the jobless rate was 11.8 percent. These two counties lost a total of 2,600 jobs between August and September this year.

Unemployment has also adversely affected housing in high-end communities. Based on data from Credit Suisse, many middle-class Americans took out Alt-A and option ARM loans during the boom years of 2004 to 2007. Because more and more residents of higher-cost neighborhoods have also been losing their high-paying jobs, a rising number of higher-end homes have been entering foreclosure.

As seen in the foreclosure chart of metro areas recently released by a foreclosure research firm, the pace of foreclosure has been rising in cities which were previously at the bottom of the chart.

In San Jose, homes which were purchased for $850,000 are now being sold at only $420,000, more than 50 percent below their original prices. California analysts predict that the trend will continue into the next year.

Affordable homes in San Francisco foreclosure listings are being offered to lower-income families through the combined home loan programs of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco and the Federal Housing Administration.

According to Marietta Nunez, community lending vice president for FHLBank San Francisco, the Individual Development and Empowerment Account and Workforce Initiative Subsidy for Homeownership programs of the bank can be combined with the Streamlined 203(k) rehab program of FHA to help lower-income families move from renting to home ownership.

The IDEA and WISH grant programs of the bank provide grants to qualified low-income or moderate-income families to help them pay their closing costs and make their down payments. The bank provides up to $15,000 in grants, granting $3 to match every dollar saved by the qualified buyer for the acquisition of a home.

Among qualified families are those that have FHLBank individual development accounts, which are designed for home ownership, and those who are members of the Family Self-Sufficiency homeownership initiative of the local housing authority in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, the FHA Streamlined initiative provides up to $35,000 for the repair of a home purchased from San Francisco foreclosure listings and listings of older residential properties. The Streamlined program is a simplified version of the standard 203(k) program because it combines financing for the purchase and repair of homes into only one mortgage loan.

Nunez said that the combination of the bank’s closing and down payment assistance initiatives with the FHA home purchase and rehabilitation initiatives is a potent combination to prevent the destabilizing impacts of foreclosure properties on neighborhoods. She added that the combined programs have been helping nonprofits and housing agencies acquire bank-owned foreclosures and older properties and turn them into affordable housing units.

According to San Francisco FHL Bank, it has already provided $10 million in IDEA and WISH grants to nonprofits and housing agencies to help qualified families buy their first homes.

Meanwhile, based on data from a real estate research company, nearly 33 percent of all previously owned houses sold in September were foreclosures that have been repossessed by lenders within 12 months prior to the sale.

Additionally, more than 25 percent of all home loan purchases in San Francisco in September were financed through FHA loans, an increase from the 24.9 percent level in August.

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.

The Oakland County in Michigan has received a grant to support efforts to trim down the number of foreclosure homes on real estate listing. The almost $17 million multi-year grant has been awarded to the Community and Economic Development Department.

Under the program, the agency will use the grant to help homeowners who are struggling to remain in their houses. The federal stimulus funds are made possible under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which was enacted to alleviate the impact of the worldwide economic downturn which started last year.

The Obama Administration believed that the federal funds would help prevent a disastrous financial collapse and restore economic growth. The law appropriated total funding of $787 billion, with nearly one-third allotted for tax cuts to small businesses and individuals. The remaining funds are distributed to various local governments, county and state agencies.

In Michigan, the federal funds were able to help cities, villages, townships and counties. So far, 13 agencies in Michigan have received fund allocation to start several projects, create jobs and develop infrastructure. As of September 30, over $9.3 billion in federal stimulus funds were allocated to Michigan recipients.

On its part, Oakland County received almost $280 million, a portion of which is used on initiatives that will reduce the number of foreclosure properties on real estate listing.

Some Michigan agencies that received shares from the $3.6 billion grant are education with $2.7 billion, $1.6 billion for infrastructure, $1.7 billion for energy projects, $1.06 billion for health care, $626 million for human services, $234 million for work force development, $141 million for public safety and $62 million for projects related to natural resources.

Additionally as much as $150 million has been received by the county for bond authorization. Meanwhile, the county will receive multi-year grants for four years targeting repossession activity.

County officials said that majority of grants are not direct funding but cost reimbursement. The procedure involves the county getting the grants and allocating it to various projects before it could be reimbursed.

Private and public schools across the county have received about $157 million while the Oakland Livingston Human Services Agency received $11.5 million for programs related to home weatherization.
Industry experts said that the federal stimulus funds will go a long in helping various initiatives in Michigan, particularly the effort to reduce the number of foreclosed homes on real estate listing.

A foreclosure list is a powerful tool that is used by both savvy investors and seasoned homebuyers. If you are looking for a low-cost foreclosed home, you may want to use a foreclosure list as well. Foreclosed property listings, as their name suggests, are a database or list of available foreclosed homes. Buyers can easily consult these lists to find the properties that interest them.

There are many advantages to using a list of foreclosed homes. One of the best reasons to use a foreclosed property list is time. Few investors and buyers have the time to go out and research various distressed properties. A good list offers you all the available properties in your area, so that you can spend your time looking for promising properties instead of researching from scratch.

Good lists include pre-foreclosures, REO (real estate owned properties), HUD homes, and other types of distressed properties, giving you a one-stop resource for various property types. Without lists, you might have to consult several resources to find the information you need. Most good lists even offer you full contact details for each property, so that you can easily and quickly find the sellers of the homes that interest you. This saves you even more time, since it allows you to quickly reach the people you need to speak with about a specific property.

Time is of the essence if you are looking for foreclosed homes. Many foreclosure properties are sold at below market value and therefore tend to sell much more quickly than traditional property. Very good foreclosure bargains, especially, tend to sell fast. A good foreclosure list saves you time, so that you can find properties that are still available. A good foreclosure list is simply your best tool when shopping for properties.