Hotpads.com, offers free views of residential properties. Shown here
are some of the foreclosures in Plainfield. (Click to enlarge image.)
If Union County were a state, it would rank as having the second highest foreclosure rate per thousand subprime mortgages in the country.
With 5.2 foreclosures per thousand subprime mortgages, it comes in behind Florida (6.2) but well ahead of Calilfornia (4.6) and Nevada (3.7), according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
You can read or print out the full Fed report here --
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released its quarterly figures on Thursday for existing home sales in the country's metropolitan areas (see here -- PDF). The Newark/Union County area has registered a 6.9% decline in the median sales price over 2007's QII figure.
Experts say that prices may need to fall up to 30% from their 2006 highs, in addition to a reduction in the inventory of unsold homes in order to think the corner has been turned in the housing market.
According to the NAR, about a third of sales were either 'short sales' (where the bank accepts less than the amount owed on a mortgage) or outright foreclosures. The Ledger reports (see here) that banks are better off with short sales (where losses run around 19% of the loan amount) than outright foreclosures (at 40%).
Lastly, I have found a FREE mapping tool at hotpads.com (see the saved Plainfield map here), which looks to be more useful even than the for-pay RealtyTrac website. You can zoom the maps, choose among sales, rentals and foreclosures, and by clicking on 'list' instead of 'map' get a list of the subject properties with details. This is one site to bookmark if you are interested in real estate matters.
If you are a hard core real estate buff, you will also want to bookmark Jim Bednar's NJ Real Estate Report, a treasure trove of all things real estate. WARNING: It's addictive.
P.S. Note the discrepancy between the Hotpads map and the map in the Federal Reserve report. I suspect the Fed report is less than accurate because of the habit of many people of just using '07060' as the ZIP code for Plainfield and omitting the '07062' and '07063' ZIPs, which would give a result like the Fed's.
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1 comments:
Just a note on the hotpad.... I checked and the house on Madison Avenue has already been sold by the bank and the new owners are attempting to comply with historic district regulations. Point being - too late for that one...
Nancy
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