Recent housing surveys are showing an uptick in home prices, particularly in cities in warm-weather “sand states” that had been hard-hit during the housing slump, such as in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Miami, and Tampa. But some housing experts worry that the lift in prices may be temporary due to banks “hoarding foreclosures.”
Some real estate professionals allege that the “synthetically pumped prices” are being caused by “banks stockpiling foreclosed properties and purposely keeping them off the market until area prices truly soar.”
Some markets are seeing a decrease in inventory of for-sale homes, which has helped lift home prices in some areas due to an increase in demand but limited supply. But real estate professionals say they’re concerned what will be temporary when banks start releasing more foreclosures to the market. Some have accused banks of purposely holding onto foreclosures to wait for home prices to recover so that they can get higher returns for the homes, but real estate experts are concerned that could stall the housing recovery.
However, Mark Vitner, Wells Fargo senior economist, asserts that large banks are not hoarding foreclosures and waiting for prices to perk up.
"I don't think there's any concerted effort to hold properties back from the market," Vitner told MSNBC.com. "The process to [work through and re-sell] foreclosure inventory is lengthy and there just seems to be a lot of hurdles out there to getting these properties to market. A lot of the best properties have been in foreclosure and have already sold."
Backing up that assertion, CoreLogic, a market analytics service, reports that residential shadow inventory -- which includes foreclosures -- fell to 1.5 million units in April, a 14.8 percent drop from the same month one year earlier.
Also we have to keep in mind that the short sale process became much easier and faster and that accounts for a big part of default loans, bottom line is we are in the middle of the year here in Las Vegas that is considered one of the most distressed markets in the country and foreclosure inventory is very thin, good deals that come up on the market have multiple offers and are subject to a bidding war !!
Just wanted to share this information with all potential home buyers as well as investors wondering if it is time to buy .
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