RealtyTrac of Irvine, California reported Thursday that in November, foreclosure homes filings fell 8% from October, the fourth straight month in a row.
November saw the lowest amount of foreclosure homes filings activity since February with one filing for every 417 houses nationally.
RealtyTrac chief executive James J. Saccacio said the numbers, which were 18% higher than the same month last year, were a result of "loan modifications and other foreclosure homes prevention efforts.”
However, Saccacio warned that a complete recovery will come only "when unemployment recedes to normal, healthy levels and when availability of credit reaches a more rational balance between the extremes of the past few years."
Despite the buying boom promoted by the tax credit, data from Integrated Asset Services of Denver showed values continuing to decline.
In October, home values actually declined 0.05% nationally from September, with the Northeast, especially metropolitan Boston, faring the worst. The Northeast region fell 1.6% and the Middle Atlantic, 0.06%.
Dave McCarthy, president and CEO of Integrated Asset Services says, "I have no doubt that the tax credit persuaded some buyers to make their purchase sooner than they otherwise would have." and "It's reasonable to think the broader market will reflect that reality at some point down the road."
On Thursday, a Treasury report on the Obama administration's Making Home Affordable program showed the effort coming up woefully short in getting lenders to alter mortgage terms permanently, even though Saccacio credited loan modification efforts as helping slow the rate of foreclosures.
Programs to mitigate foreclosures are not having the desired impact, said Michael Feder, president of Radar Logic in New York, which tracks the housing market.
The Treasury Department reported Thursday that just 31,382 loans of the four million mortgages targeted had been modified permanently since the program began in February. There are 728,000 loans in “experimentation " modification.
Feder said, by some estimates there is as much as $1 trillion in potential foreclosures already delinquent.
Contributed by MLR Realty
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