What REO?

Posted on April 3, 2014 by grim

From HousingWire:

Fannie and Freddie can’t get REO to market fast enough

The market is ravenous for more REO-to-rental properties, but the inventory is struggling to keep pace.

According to the latest report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, REO inventory increased slightly in the fourth quarter as property acquisitions outpaced dispositions for the second consecutive quarter.

The total number of property acquisitions dropped 13% while dispositions decreased 7% during the quarter.

Along with that, completed third-party sales and foreclosure sales continued a downward trend with a 15% reduction in the fourth quarter and foreclosure starts down 3%.

But this comes with news of the market continuing to heal.

The FHFA also reported that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac completed more than 3.1 million foreclosure prevention actions since the start of conservatorship in 2008, helping more than 2.5 million borrowers stay in their homes.

Meanwhile, the inventory of REO homes steadily declined year-over-year since 2010.
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For two months straight, acquisitions outpaced dispositions, with 49,149 acquisitions and 46,673 dispositions in the fourth quarter of 2013 and 56,794 acquisitions and 50,277 dispositions in the third quarter of 2013.

The last time acquisitions were greater than dispositions was in 2010 when the numbers, granted, were much larger.

Lynn Effinger, noted in a HousingWire blog, “Many note that with so much government intervention over the past several years with programs such as foreclosure moratoria, HAMP, HAFA, and others purportedly created to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure, the for sale REO market began drying up in late 2009.”

Posted in Foreclosures, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 85 Comments

February Corelogic – 2 years of price gains

Posted on April 2, 2014 by grim

From HousingWire:

CoreLogic: Home prices increase into second year

Home prices, including distressed sales, jumped 12.2% in February 2014 compared to a year prior, marking 24 months of consecutive year-over-year increases in home prices nationally, the latest CoreLogic report said.

Month-over-month it slightly increased by 0.8% in February compared to January.

And the same level of ferocity is seen at the state level.

Fourteen states showed double-digit growth year-over-year, in addition to 22 states posting at or within 10% of their price peaks.
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Taking away distressed sales, home sales nationally grew 10.7% in February from a year ago and 0.9% month-over-month.

“As the spring home-buying season kicks off, house price appreciation continues to be strong,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Although prices should remain strong in the near term due to a short supply of homes on the market, price increases should moderate over the next year as home equity releases pent-up supply.”

Last month CoreLogic introduced a new forecast metric that provides and advanced indication of trends in home prices. Home prices, including distressed sales, are estimated to increase 0.5% month-over-month from February to March.

In addition, home prices, including distressed sales, are expected to increase 10.5% year-over-year from March 2013 to March 2014.

“February marks two straight years of year-over-year gains in national prices across the United States,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “The consistent upward movement in home prices should ultimately prove to be an important stimulant for higher levels of sustained market activity and growth in the housing economy.”

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 62 Comments

Where’s the money coming from?

Posted on April 1, 2014 by grim

From the WSJ:

Manhattan Apartment Prices Up, Headed Higher

There is little relief in sight for Manhattan apartment hunters, brokers and analysts said, as low inventory and high demand have driven up prices to near or above record levels.

Prices in the first quarter rose across many market categories, with especially strong price growth in sales of new condominiums. The median price for a new condo rose to $1.73 million, up 30.6% from the first quarter of 2013, according to a market report by Douglas Elliman.

Brokers said that during much of the housing recovery, buyers had been very cautious about prices, which typically moved up and down in a small range. But with inventory falling to record lows, prices have pushed higher in the last few quarters, and now have surged still higher.

The Douglas Elliman report found that the median price of a Manhattan co-operative apartment set a record at $760,000 in the latest quarter, as did the median condo price of $1.355 million. The average price per square foot of $1,363 also was a record. The prices exceeded peaks set in 2008, near the end of the last real-estate boom.

“People have to be prepared to bid more than they want, sometimes more than the asking price,” said Gregory J. Heym, the chief economist at Halstead and Brown Harris Stevens.

The median price of a Manhattan apartment was $972,428, up 18.5% over the same quarter in 2013, the Elliman report found. The average apartment price was $1.77 million, up 30.9%.

Jonathan Miller, an appraiser at Miller Samuel Inc. who prepared the Elliman report, noted that last year’s first quarter was weak because sellers rushed to close on transactions before the end of 2012 to obtain of favorable capital-gains rates. But since then, he said, sales had been usually strong, while the number of listings contracted. There is now a 4½-month supply of apartments on the market, at the current sales rate. “With no relief in sight, we saw a pop in prices,” he said.

Despite the rising prices, demand remained usually strong and broad, brokers said. Rather than driving buyers out of the market, the rise in prices, has convinced more people that it was a good time to buy, brokers said. “We are seeing the largest and most diverse group of buyers I have seen in my real-estate career,” said Pamela Liebman, president of Corcoran Group.

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, NYC | 91 Comments

Commercial and Residential Tax Appeals Swamp NJ

Posted on March 31, 2014 by grim

From NJBIZ:

With April 1 deadline looming, N.J. facing surge of property tax appeals

With many types of commercial real estate still reeling from the downturn, New Jersey faces a tidal wave of property tax appeals from thousands of weary, often cash-strapped building owners across the state. And it’s only likely to get worse.

Exactly how much worse will become clearer after April 1, the deadline for filing property tax appeals in most towns in New Jersey. But the backlog already is staggering: Nearly 44,000 cases were pending before the state’s tax court through last June, according to the annual report from the judiciary.

That includes more than 25,000 new cases that were filed during fiscal year 2013, a total that’s more than double the new filings in 2008 and one that has grown in all but two of the past 10 years, the report said. Half of those new cases came just from Bergen, Essex and Passaic counties — which have large concentrations of commercial property — while Morris, Monmouth and Middlesex each had more than 1,500 new filings.

Experts say there are no signs of a slowdown on the horizon. Frank Ferruggia, a McCarter & English attorney who specializes in property tax appeals, said the market for properties such as office buildings has not recovered to pre-recession levels — and expenses are rising as rental and occupancy rates remain stagnant.
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“There’s really very little incentive for towns to reassess and reflect a declining market,” said Ferruggia, a partner with the Newark-based firm. “People have to file appeals and get their remedy, and those are not happening that quickly.”
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Local governments are taking any number of steps to deal with the avalanche of appeals, Dressel said. They include trying to set aside extra cash in their budgets for settlements, short-term financing, reducing services and even raising taxes, he said.

It’s a perfect storm that is only adding to New Jersey’s backlog of pending property tax appeals, one that has been swelling since the downturn. Ferruggia said the state’s tax court, which currently has six judges, is “trying to manage their case load as best they can,” but the sheer volume means it can take more than a year to settle a case.
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The state also is grappling with appeals for residential property, which are lumped in with the tax court data. But experts say those are largely handled by county tax boards, which hear appeals for property assessed below $1 million and tend to resolve cases more quickly.

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate, Property Taxes | 93 Comments

3,700 fewer jobs in February

Posted on March 28, 2014 by grim

From the Star Ledger:

NJ shed 3,700 jobs in February as unemployment rate remained unchanged

New Jersey shed 3,700 jobs in February due to private sector cutbacks, though the state’s unemployment rate remained unchanged at 7.1 percent, according to preliminary data released today by the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

State officials blamed the harsh winter weather for the declines.

But the report had a touch of good news. It said revised data for January shows the state gained 6,300 jobs during the first month of the year, instead of losing 3,900 as initially reported.

Employment gains were felt in the trade, transportation and utilities sector, which added 3,900 jobs; professional and business services, which grew by 2,700; and the information sector, which netted 1,000 workers.

Among the industries that lost jobs, the leisure and hospitality sector shed 4,800 workers; financial activities cut 3,200; and construction jobs were 2,000 lower.

Government jobs grew by 1,200, according to preliminary data.

“The winter has clearly affected the state’s job market—the February count, especially in a sector like leisure and hospitality, was probably held down by the big storm around Valentine’s Day,” said Charles Steindel, chief economist for the state Department of Treasury, in a statement.

“The large and welcome upward revision for January suggests that in these conditions the preliminary numbers may be less reliable than usual. We anticipate that the numbers should get better with the weather,” he added.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Recovery, New Jersey Real Estate | 138 Comments

South Jersey Recovery Lagging

Posted on March 27, 2014 by grim

From the Press of Atlantic City:

South Jersey still lags nation in real estate recovery

South Jersey’s struggling real-estate market is lagging New Jersey’s construction recovery, an economist told the New Jersey Builders Association on Tuesday.

New Jersey has seen a jump in new-construction permits and five consecutive quarters of rising home prices.

The state sold 85,000 homes last year, the most since the housing boom of 2006.

Nationally, the picture is even better.

But South Jersey is behind the rest of the state in sales, home prices and new construction, said Jeffrey Otteau, president of the real-estate analysis firm Otteau Valuation Group Inc.

He and Michael Wolf, an economist with Wells Fargo Securities, gave their forecast for the building industry for 2014 to construction executives Tuesday at Resorts Casino Hotel.
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A cold, snowy winter has not helped. Apparently, buyers don’t go house hunting when it snows.
“We have a weather effect. Seasonality is playing a little role. We expect it to rebound a little but not at the pace of 2013,” Wolf said.

Otteau said total home sales declined by 12 percent in January and February. A similar effect was observed in California, where the decline cannot be attributed to bad weather, he said.

“The market could be fraying at the edges,” he said.

The economy has not recovered from the 2007 recession. The recovery from the technical end of the recession will be in its fifth full year in June, Otteau said.

“Most recessions took 24 months to recover. This one is essentially 5 years old, and we’re still missing jobs,” he said.
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“The market is sensitive to where you live in New Jersey. Central and northern New Jersey have done better,” he said. “But home values are up, housing permits are up. And that will go up again this year.”

Builder Dean Mon, of Sea Girt, Monmouth County, said the industry picked up speed last year after years of stagnation following the 2008 home-mortgage crisis.

“We’ve picked ourselves off the floor. Provided everything goes as expected, we should be OK,” he said. “We doubled the housing starts last year. And now the economy is beginning to pick up a little.”

A stagnant housing market continues to dog South Jersey. While most of central and northern New Jersey’s real-estate market has recovered, Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland counties are considered in distress, Otteau said.

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, South Jersey Real Estate | 76 Comments

NYC Metro Price Growth Strong

Posted on March 26, 2014 by grim

From the Record:

Home prices in region up 6.7%, biggest rise since 2006

Home prices in the region rose 6.7 percent in the year ending in January, the biggest jump since the housing-boom year of 2006, the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home price index said Tuesday.

Nationally, home prices were up by 13.2 percent year over year, pushed up by big gains in California, as well as in Sun Belt cities such as Las Vegas, where values collapsed during the housing bust. But month-to-month gains have begun slowing down, possibly indicating that home values will not rise as quickly this year. Northern areas showed especially weak month-to-month results in January, possibly because of the harsh winter.

“The housing recovery may have taken a breather due to the cold weather,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Even with last year’s strong gains, home values both nationwide and in the region are about 20 percent below their peaks of mid-2006, and back to the levels of mid-2004.

January’s numbers continued a pattern of home values in the region rising less than the national averages. One reason is that they did not drop as much as in other areas of the country during the housing bust, so they have less lost ground to make up. In addition, New Jersey still has a large overhang of distressed properties in the foreclosure pipeline, and job growth has been slow in the state.

After last year’s 11.3 percent rise in home prices nationwide — the biggest jump since 2005 — “the housing market is showing signs of moving forward with more normal price increases,” Blitzer said.

Posted in Housing Recovery, New Jersey Real Estate | 82 Comments

More millionaires than ever before in NJ

Posted on March 25, 2014 by grim

From the Star Ledger:

New Jersey has more millionaires than ever

Just before the start of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in January, Oxfam International reported 85 individuals own 65 times as much wealth as the entire bottom half of the world’s population. That’s 85 rich people with 46 percent of the world’s wealth ($110 trillion) compared to three billion poor people controlling only seven percent of the world’s wealth ($1.7 trillion.) The rest of us are somewhere in between.
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They also reported income inequality is growing in affluent countries. The US leads that inequality list with one percent of our richest neighbors having benefitted most from economic growth in the past five years.

The other 99 percent saw incomes shrink a little. Yes, only a little. Inequality didn’t deepen because the poor were getting significantly poorer, but because the rich were getting incredibly richer. The Oxfam report drew the attention of President Obama who commented that income inequality is one of America’s most urgent problems.

In New Jersey numbers didn’t change much in the past few years. As population grew, so did the number of wealthy households. Seven years ago when whispers of a millionaires’ tax began to be heard around Trenton, New Jersey had the second highest number of millionaire households in the country with 6.46 percent reporting annual incomes above a million. Only Hawaii had more.

The latest report by Phoenix Marketing International, which tracks wealth as part of its financial services program, showed New Jersey as number two again, with 7.49 percent earning more than a million bucks a year. This time Maryland beat us and Hawaii dropped to number four.
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Numbers are solid but statistics can be interpreted many ways. The number of actual millionaire households in New Jersey did increase, and the increase seems proportionate to other states with high-income households, but could it have been better? How does your income compare to your income seven years ago? Could it be better? What can make it better?

Posted in Demographics, Economics | 121 Comments

Technology Death Knell for the MLS

Posted on March 24, 2014 by grim

From HousingWire:

How the Internet chips away the MLS

What the Internet and Uber are doing to the taxi business is happening in its own way to real estate brokers and the MLS.

Earlier this month, Inman News reported from an industry conference that a study by Jonathan Green, vice president real estate services for CoreLogic (CLGX), found that nearly half of all homes sold last year were never listed in an MLS or were listed only after a buyer was lined up.

The MLS, that coveted and proprietary listing report that gave unique value and advantage to real estate agents using it for decades, is falling out of use in favor of more open, free listing services, such as Zillow (Z) and other off-MLS listings.

Inman reported that CoreLogic’s analysis compared public record transaction data with MLS data in four counties, and extrapolating on those findings shows that MLS use is rapidly declining.

Inman reported that Corelogic says that this raises significant questions for the industry:

Will the prevalence of off-MLS listings (or FSBOs) continue to grow?

Will behavior change in proportion to inventory?

Will brokers attempt to systematically or effectively monetize pre-MLS listings?

Will this behavior dilute the “first position” status of the MLS as a marketing engine?

Will this behavior change the perception of the MLS as the record of choice for listing and sales content?

What’s hurt the MLSs has been good for companies like Zillow. And Zillow has been aggressive in taking things to the next level as the company grows. Zillow’s website is an open listing for both real estate brokers and buyers.

In mid-March Move (MOVE) and the National Association of Realtors filed a lawsuit against Zillow and Errol Samuelson, chief industry development officer for Zillow, in a Washington state superior court, alleging breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and – most critically – misappropriation of trade secrets.

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate | 91 Comments

Flood insurance just got cheaper … for now

Posted on March 22, 2014 by grim

From the Star Ledger:

President signs bill approving flood insurance rollbacks

President Obama signed legislation today, fast tracked by Congress last week, that rolls back scheduled increases in federal flood insurance.

The new law caps annual rate increases and repeals provisions eliminating flood insurance subsidies on existing properties for home buyers at the time of sale.

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), one of the sponsors of the legislation, called it a tremendous victory for thousands of New Jersey homeowners who were facing skyrocketing flood insurance costs. He said the planned increases, due to take effect next year, would have further threatened the state’s recovery from Hurricane Sandy and jeopardized the financial security of thousands of residents.

Congress took up the issue after Hurricane Sandy, as homeowners began raising concerns over mandated changes in the National Flood Insurance Program implemented in 2012 meant to make the program more financially stable.

Those reforms under the Biggert-Waters Act, which had passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, had called for rates reflecting the true cost of flood risk. But the new rules led to big premium increases for policyholders who complained they end of the subsidies would force them from their homes.

Under the bill signed by the president today, annual rate increases in flood insurance will be capped at an average of 15 percent, with a maximum of 18 percent for primary homeowners. Secondary homeowners can still see their premiums rise by 25 percent a year.

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, New Jersey Real Estate, Shore Real Estate | 64 Comments

February Home Sales? Not so good (except maybe for prices)

Posted on March 21, 2014 by grim

From the WSJ:

U.S. Housing Recovery Hits Hurdles

A broad measure of home sales fell again in February, the latest sign of severe weather and worsening affordability undermining the housing recovery.

Sales of previously owned homes fell 0.4% in February from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.6 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That matched a forecast by economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and was the sixth decline in sales in the past seven months.

“Existing-home sales remain in a rut,” said BNP Paribas economist Laura Rosner.

Sales have been on the decline since hitting an annual rate of 5.38 million in July, a four-year high. Rising mortgage rates and soaring home prices have sidelined many prospective buyers, while cold and stormy weather has dissuaded others from going house-hunting in recent months.

Existing-home sales, which account for more than 90% of all home purchases in the U.S., fell in the Northeast and Midwest but rose in the South and West.

The National Association of Realtors said the median home price in February was $189,000, up 9.1% from a year earlier, in part because supply constraints are driving up prices.

The trade group said two million homes were available for sale last month, which represents a supply of about 5.2 months. It estimates a supply of 6 to 6½ months represents a rough balance between buyers and sellers.

“Affordability is continuing to weaken,” said Lawrence Yun, the trade group’s chief economist, though he added sales activity should pick up after winter ends. “Some transactions are simply being delayed, so there should be some improvement in the months ahead,” Mr. Yun said.

Posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 67 Comments

Live in NYC, Rent in Jersey City

Posted on March 20, 2014 by grim

From the Jersey Journal:

Rentals, not condos, still rule on this side of Hudson

Despite a booming condo market in New York City, developers on this side of the Hudson River are still wary about shifting their focus away from building rental units any time soon, local experts tell The Jersey Journal.

“It’s too risky,” said Eric Silverman, who with his brother, Paul, has developed numerous Downtown Jersey City properties, including a new rental building under construction next to City Hall.

Financing for condos dried up after the recession, leading to a near-total focus on developing rental units, including at luxury properties like the Beacon in Jersey City. The market for condos in Hudson County won’t return to its former strength for at least a few years, Silverman told The Jersey Journal.

“It’ll be a while before the lenders forget,” he said.

Jonathan Kushner, of KRE Group, said he’s “starting to think about” building condos, but nothing close to the scale of KRE’s $666 million project in Journal Square, which, when finished, will house 1,840 rental apartments in three towers.

The men were part of a discussion on the condo-vs.-rental market at the second annual New Jersey Gold Coast Investment Summit, a confab of developers and investors held earlier this month at Maritime Parc, overlooking Downtown Jersey City and Lower Manhattan.

The developers’ hesitancy to build condos is bad news for real estate financiers like Mark DeLillo, of New York-based investment firm BlueGate Partners. DeLillo told The Jersey Journal he’s willing to pony up the cash if developers like the Silvermans build condos.

“We’ll even raise money for the developer so it looks like they’re fully investing in the deal,” he said, noting the strength of Manhattan’s condo market.

The problem with comparing Jersey City’s market to New York’s, according to Silverman, is that in New York, you can get more than $1,500 a square foot, meaning investors can “make some money.” With prices in Jersey City coming in at half that, he said, the same moneymaking opportunity doesn’t exist.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, New Jersey Real Estate | 109 Comments

Buyers Market in NJ Suburbs of Philly?

Posted on March 19, 2014 by grim

From NBC Philly:

Study: Philly Area 2nd Best Market in the Country for Home Buyers

If you’re looking to buy a home, Philly might be the place for you. The Philadelphia area is the second best market in the country for home buyers, according to a new study conducted by a website that specializes in real estate market research.

On Wednesday, Zillow.com released their list of the 10 best markets for home sellers and 10 best markets for home buyers. Philadelphia ranked second on their list of best buyers’ markets, right behind Cleveland, Ohio.
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“Top buyers’ markets tend to have lots of inventory, steep price cuts and homes that linger on the market,” said Cory Hopkins of Zillow.com. “Top sellers’ markets tend to have low inventory, homes that are selling for more than the asking price and a quick turnover. Zillow analyzed data on sale-to-list price ratio, number of days listings spent on Zillow and percent of homes on the market with a price cut, and ranked the cities within your metro relative to one another.”

Within the Philadelphia Metro area, Pittman, New Jersey was ranked the number 1 buyers’ market while Newark, Delaware was ranked the number 1 sellers’ market.
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Zillow also calculated that the median estimated home value for the Philadelphia area on a given day was $193,000 for the month of February, up 2.4 percent from February, 2013.

Nationally, the median estimated home value was $169,200 in February, up 5.6 percent from February, 2013, according to Zillow.

Hopkins also says the values for homes in the Philly metro area are expected to rise another 1.3 percent over the next 12 months.

Dr. Stan Humphries, the chief economist for Zillow, says their latest report shows that the West Coast may be better for sellers and the East Coast better for buyers.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Recovery, New Jersey Real Estate | 124 Comments

Will 2014 be the strongest year since the bust?

Posted on March 18, 2014 by grim

From HousingWire:

Economist: 3 major things you need to know about the 2014 housing market

No. 1: 2014 should prove to be the strongest year for housing activity since before the Great Recession.
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Propelling home sales are job growth and housing affordability. The latter reflects the interplay of household income, mortgage rates and house prices. In 2013, while housing activity picked up, it was a year when job growth remained low and virtually unchanged from the previous year. Moreover, affordability, while still high, fell sharply in the second half.

Most economists expect an improved job market in 2014, with employment growth accelerating and the unemployment rate continuing to decline. That jobless rate drop will reflect more of a pickup in employment than further declines in the labor force participation rate. This will be the key factor improving housing demand this year, even if mortgage rates rise and affordability declines. While the housing market tends to do especially well when the job market improves and mortgage rates decline simultaneously, that combination of events occurs only rarely.

More often, either job gains accelerate while mortgage rates rise, or job gains decline while mortgage rates drop. Typically, housing activity expands in the former case and contracts in the latter. People buy homes when their job and income prospects improve – even if it’s more expensive to do so – rather than buy when it is inexpensive to do so but they’re worried about keeping their jobs.
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No. 2: Demographics should start to favor housing activity.
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Reflecting the slow pace of household formations, there is an increasing pent-up demand for households. After all, most of these young adults would prefer the freedom of being on their own (and their parents really don’t want them as full-time residents, either). We estimate the economy is short by more than three million households.

If the economy expands at a faster pace this year, bringing a more rapid rate of job creation, that should translate into more households, raising housing demand. We won’t see all three million missing households return to the housing market at once. (That wouldn’t be a good thing for the housing market anyway, since that would be on top of the 1.2 million households that normally would develop this year; such a surge would swamp the existing housing supply). Beginning in 2014, the pace of household formations should accelerate to an above-trend pace for several years, pushing up housing demand.

No. 3: Mortgage availability shouldn’t worsen and may improve.

Mortgage credit isn’t nearly as easy to get as it was during the housing boom, and it shouldn’t be. Still, compared with recent years, mortgage availability has increased slightly. And reasons exist for mortgage availability to be no worse in 2014 than in the past few years. Actually, it may be somewhat easier to get a mortgage loan.
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In response, mortgage lenders probably will ease lending standards to the extent possible under the QM rules to boost lending activity by increasing purchase originations. As a result, the increase in new households expected to be created this year, spurred by a stronger job market, should find that qualifying for a mortgage loan will be somewhat easier in 2014 than in prior years.

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Recovery, Mortgages, National Real Estate | 101 Comments

NJ’s concerted effort to freeze the foreclosure pipeline continues

Posted on March 17, 2014 by grim

From the Star Ledger:

Bill to help NJ families avoid foreclosures advances

Legislation that would create a fund to help low and moderate income families afford foreclosure prevention services was passed out of committee Thursday and can now be voted on by the entire Assembly, officials said.

The bill, which is sponsored by Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, would establish an $800 surcharge on each foreclosure complaint filed in New Jersey, which would be used to create the Foreclosure Prevention and Neighborhood Stabilization Trust Fund within the Department of Community Affairs, a news release from the Assembly Democrats office said.

“Foreclosure involves the loss of a family’s home, which is often the family’s most valuable asset, and foreclosure undermines the stability, health and economic vitality of neighborhoods,” Watson Coleman said.

Watson Coleman said foreclosures also have a negative impact on property values in the state and cost the state millions in expenses.

If the bill becomes law, the DCA will be able to provide up to $10 million from the proposed fund to nonprofits for the purpose of maintaining or expanding foreclosure prevention programs, the bill said.

The bill was passed by the Housing and Community Development Committee Thursday in 4-1 party line vote, with one abstention.

Posted in Foreclosures, New Jersey Real Estate, Politics | 72 Comments