Based on records from the public trustee office of El Paso County, new foreclosure filings climbed up slightly in May, affirming earlier contention that the county will still reach the 4,000 to 5,000 total of units entering home auction listings this year.

Similarly, the pace of home auctions in Colorado also slowed down in May. It moved out of the top-ten list of state foreclosure rate and its April tenth-ranking was taken by Maryland, where spikes in foreclosures occurred in May. Colorado moved down by two places to 12th.

A total of 4,843 houses in Colorado entered foreclosure in May, a sharp drop of more than 24 percent from April, when 6,382 homes became distressed, and down by 0.7 percent from the total in May last year. The month-over-month decrease rate was much bigger than the 3.3-percent decrease in filings nationwide.

Officials of the Colorado Division of Housing said that the figures reflect economic improvements in Colorado. Although they use a different methodology to track statewide foreclosures than those used by research firms, the resulting trends are similar.

Despite the slowdown in Colorado Springs home auctions in May, there are indications that auctions will rev up again. The default rate for mortgage loans in the area jumped up to 5 percent in April, up from 3.8 percent in April last year. The foreclosure rate also increased to 1.7 percent, up from 1.5 percent one year earlier.

The default rate statewide also increased to 5.4 percent, up from 3.7 percent in April last year. The foreclosure rate climbed up to 1.8 percent, up from 1.5 percent one year earlier.

Since January last year, the default rate and foreclosure rate in Colorado Springs continued to rise month-over-month. With five percent of all Colorado mortgaged homes in default by more than three months, it is expected that Colorado Springs home auctions will step up in the coming months if distressed homes are not rescued.

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Colorado Springs Home Auctions Slowed but Defaults Rose is a post from Foreclosure-Auction.net - Your online source for house auctions for sale.

Additionally, the risk of foreclosure has prevented a number of renters from pursuing their plans of buying homes. Frequent news about Denver foreclosure auctions are developing in them the fear that they could also default and ultimately enter foreclosure.

As of the latest report from the Treasury Department, there are 8,256 Denver homes in the Home Affordable Modification Program, indicating the relatively high number of distressed homes in the Denver-Aurora area. This number of homes at risk of getting posted for foreclosure auction for sale is discouraging a number of renters from buying a home despite the low mortgage rates and low home prices.

Home auctions in Colorado also surged in the first quarter, with 5,303 units of the 16,023 distressed homes purchased back by mortgage lenders during the quarter. Between March and April, the number of repo homes also increased from 2,141 units to 2,147.

In the first quarter, the average rate for rental housing increased slightly over the year from $1,004 to $1,036. The increase was attributed to the drop in residential rental vacancy rate to 3.1 percent, based on data from the Colorado Housing Division. The vacancy rate one year earlier was 3.6 percent while the vacancy rate in the previous quarter was 5.5 percent.

Because of the improvement in rental housing occupancy, the median rental rate in Denver in the first quarter increased to $995, up by 4.7 percent from $950 one year earlier and by 3.1 percent from $965 in the previous quarter.

On the other hand, the still relatively low prices of repo homes have encouraged a number of renters to finally purchase a home. Total house sales shot up by 24 percent over the year.

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Mixed Effects of Repo Homes on Rental Properties in Denver is a post from Foreclosure-Auction.net - Your online source for house auctions for sale.

In the first quarter, a total of 710 housing units were repossessed through home auctions for sale in Denver County, accounting for 34.6 percent of the 2,052 foreclosure actions filed in the county during the quarter. It also marked a jump of 22.5 percent from the previous quarter and a spike of 23.8 percent from the first quarter last year.

Meanwhile, total home sales in March spiked to a total of 3,602 units, up by almost 48 percent from 2,436 homes in February and up by 12.4 percent from the 3,206 units sold in March last year.

The median price for single-family houses sold in March was $229,000, a jump of 12.3 percent from the $203,950 median in March last year. The median price for condos also increased by 2.4 percent year-over-year to $131,579.

Analysts contended that first time home buyers were the major drivers of home sales in March as 70 percent of all single-family houses sold were priced lower than $300,000 and most of the condos sold were priced below $200,000.

In the first quarter, of the 5,303 homes that were repossessed through foreclosure auctions in Colorado, 13.39 percent of these or a total of 710 units were bought back by banks through Denver foreclosure auctions. Colorado REOs in turn accounted for 2.06 percent of total REOs nationwide during the quarter.

Local analysts said that jobs and wage increases will be the major factors for a reduction in foreclosure activity in Colorado, particularly in Denver. The unemployment rate in Colorado rose to 7.9 percent in March, up from the February jobless rate of 7.7 percent.

Officials of the state Labor and Employment Department, however, explained that the surge in the statewide jobless rate was a result of the increase in number of people that entered the work force, and not because of further losses in jobs. There were 209,800 residents looking for work in March, down from 211,700 persons in March last year.

Compared to other Colorado counties, Denver County posted the second-highest number of REOs in the first quarter. It was Arapahoe County which posted the highest number with a total of 748 REO units.

A number of analysts contended that the surge in unemployment in the Denver metro area could drive more homes into Denver foreclosure auctions. The metro jobless rate rose to 8.5 percent in March, up by 0.1 percentage point from February.

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Sales and Prices Improved Amid Denver Foreclosure Auctions is a post from Foreclosure-Auction.net - Your online source for house auctions for sale.

According to the Colorado Housing Division, foreclosure filing declines were reported in the counties of Arapahoe, Broomfield, Douglas, Adams, Denver, Weld and Jefferson. Only the counties of El Paso, Mesa, Larimer and Pueblo saw increases in foreclosure filings in the first quarter.

In Mesa, foreclosure filings went up by 47.1 percent, while Pueblo and Larimer each reported a 10 percent rise. On the other hand, Boulder County saw a 4.7 percent rise in foreclosure filings.

The figures could bring a sigh of relief to officials and residents of Colorado which RealtyTrac, a foreclosure monitoring firm, identified to have the fifth highest foreclosure rate in the United States in 2008. Colorado ended the year of 2008 with 66,795 house repos filings. And last year’s state foreclosure rate was 27.90 percentage higher than the previous year.

Meanwhile, not all is well in El Paso County as it reported the worsening of foreclosure activity in the area in the first quarter.

According to the Housing Division, El Paso’s foreclosure filings reached 1,292 in the first quarter, representing a 6.3 percent rise compared with figures for the same period in 2008.

Furthermore, completed foreclosures in El Paso jumped 2.6 percent. According to Kathi Williams, director of the Housing Division, the rise in El Paso foreclosure listings may be a result of the increasing unemployment rate and oversupply of properties for sale.

The abundance of properties on the market increases competition and distressed homeowners are finding it hard to find investors or buyers for their distressed properties.

However, the Housing Division noted that the foreclosure rate of El Paso is not as bad as that of Mesa which saw an 83.3 percent rise in house repos in the first quarter. For the first quarter, El Paso had one foreclosed property for every 418.2 homeowners.

On the other hand, Rick Simon of the Bank of America Home Loans said that banks are continuing to look for ways to help homeowners prevent foreclosures. However, the longer a distressed homeowner responds to the house repos problem, the harder it is to stop foreclosure.

First Quarter Decline in Colorado House Repos is a post from Foreclosure-Auction.net - Your online source for house auctions for sale.