Repossessed Property News. Updated Daily

Stop Home Repossession - A Guide for Homeowners in Financial ... By James Smith The buy back property companies specialise in buying houses which can help homeowners in problems with the bank to stop home repossession, and are acknowledged experts in this field of helping such house owners in trouble who need to ... Best International News - http://bestinternationalnews.com/

Stop Home Repossession - A Guide for Homeowners in Financial ... By James Smith They do end up buying your house they will often allow you to rent the property back after the sale has gone through. This can be very useful as most owners wish to stop home repossession as they are close to their work, schools for ... Business Article Depot - http://www.businessarticledepot.com/

Spanish Property Horror Stories and How to Keep Away From Them ... By admin Due to a court order issued by the bank for repossession of the property, the couple was unable to obtain their mortgage while paying more than €50000 to that bank at 18% interest over a period of two years in order to postpone legal ... Greater Michigan Realty - http://www.greatermichiganrealty.com/blog/

4.2 million Britons fear repossession By TotallyMoney 4.2 million mortgage holders are concerned that they will slip into negative equity in the next 12 months as property prices continue to fall across the country. Over two-thirds of homeowners believe the government should do more to ... TotallyMoney News - http://www.totallymoney.com/news/

Analysts predict a greater number of repossessions this year By admin Are you thinking of buying a repossessed property at auction? As most people are aware the housing market is going through a lot of turmoil at present, as it has been for some months. Many homeowners are unable to keep ... Glitec Finance - http://www.glitec.co.uk/

Funny Online Business: More Worries For Buy-To-Let Tenants As ... By Alex Levinson 'If you have paid all the rent up front, then if the house is repossessed you need to put in a claim against the landlord for the outstanding rent and deposit.This would be paid out of any surplus once the property is sold. ... Funny Online Business - http://funnyonlinebusinesses.blogspot.com/

Missing Your Mortgage Payments: What To Do When You Can’t Pay Your ... By financialpress Repossession costs the mortgage lender a lot of time and money and will often be avoided at all costs, so they’re on your side and it’s important to let them know when you have trouble so that they can provide solutions or workarounds. The important thing to remember is that the vast majority, 98%, are still making payments and having no immediate troubles, the people who are struggling are those who went for 100% mortgages or have had a ... Property & Real Estate News ... Mortgage Weekly - http://mortgageweekly.wordpress.com/

Leading economist expects 90000 repossessions this year By Gill Montia Leading economist expects 90000 repossessions this year. by Gill Montia. Leading economist expects 90000 repossessions this year. The managing director of economic forecasting agency, Capital Economics, has predicted that mortgage ... Finance Markets: Finance News... - http://www.financemarkets.co.uk/

Making Money From Property In The UK: How to make money from ... By CJ Banks are selling off their repossessed property for dirt cheap and for the astute property investor with money in the bank to pay a deposit, the World can be their oyster. If you haven't considered buying property at auction for a ... Making Money From Property In The UK - http://ukpropertysuccess.blogspot.com/

A flat in the block below sold for £238,000 in 2006. Now it’s been resold at auction for just £71,000

By Becky Barrow
Last updated at 12:44 AM on 23rd June 2008

Once seen as a sure-fire way of making a small fortune, newly-built flats have become the worst victims of the housing market meltdown.

Prices of new-builds in city centres have collapsed, with many sold at auction for a fraction of their value only two years ago.

In one case, a three-bedroom flat in Kelso Heights, a development on Belle Vue Road in Leeds, was bought for £237,999 in March 2006 but has just sold for £71,000 – a fall of £166,999.

Suffering: The Kelso Heights development near Leeds city centre

In another, a one-bedroom flat in Melbourne Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, was bought for £142,800 in May 2006. It sold at auction this month for £78,000 – just over half the original price.

There are hundreds of examples of similar disasters, according to David Sandeman, managing director of the auction experts Essential Information Group.

Many of the owners are buy-to-let investors. The worst hit are those who have not saved any money into a pension but planned for their flat to be their retirement nest egg.

Mr Sandeman said: ‘We are at a stage where there are now flats which are completely unsaleable.’

In many cases, the flats have been repossessed after the owners failed to meet rising mortgage costs.

Mr Sandeman added: ‘People believed all the hype and the marketing that they would be able to rent out their flat for £1,200 a month to a professional couple.

‘They could only actually get £800 a month renting it out to students who have trashed it.’

As the housing market continues to tumble, auctioneers' hammers are coming down on ever more bargains

• Andrew Moody
• The Observer,
• Sunday June 8 2008
• Article history

People buying at auction are snapping up properties at up to 30 per cent below estate agent prices, according to the latest market estimates.

Combined with the credit crunch, a flood of properties coming into auction rooms from repossession companies has made it possible for buyers with funding to secure real bargains. Many auction houses report a big change in mood in the salerooms over the past two or three months: until recently, amateur investors and developers inspired by such programmes such as Homes Under the Hammer often bid prices up to levels above those of similar properties available through high-street agents. Now, according to the Essential Information Group (EIG), the auction information company, around 48 per cent of lots are not selling, which means prices are being driven down.

	Mortgages - Buying homes at auctions cheaper - 04/06/2008
	It is more gloom for property market as repossessions are rising faster than expected and the Council of Mortgage Lenders are predicting that 45,000 homes will be repossessed in 2008 up from 27,000 last year. With such scary figures on mortgages, some experts argue that already there are an increasing number of properties up for grabs at auction and they say this could be the ideal time to bag a repossessed bargain. But Simon Clarke of Gem Financial Services says that, although there are good deals to be had, many people shy away from the idea. “A lot of people won’t even buy a car at auction as they see it as too much of a risk,” he says. Market experts say that the key to buying a repossessed home is to be prepared by researching both the auction process and the property on which you want to bid.

Tuesday 2nd June 2008
Panic selling by landlords could turn slump into rout 
Yesterday bargain hunters were out in force at Britain's biggest residential auction house, Allsop, where repossessed buy-to-let properties were going under the hammer. Auctioneer Michael Linane said: "We are seeing a lot of the one and two-bed investment-type property, and expect to see a lot more. If you're a vendor, you're on the back foot. It's definitely a buyer's market."

Buy-to-let landlords profiting from misfortune

The number of house repossessions is rising, opening a lucrative line in discount acquisitions, but buy-to-letters should take care, says Isobel Ross

Bargain-hunting landlords are set to take advantage of the growing number of properties being repossessed from homeowners unable to keep up their mortgage payments.

Repossession: Huge rise in homes at risk in Nuneaton and Bedworth

May 12 2008 By SiâN Powell

THE number of householders who face losing their homes in Nuneaton and Bedworth has shot up to 80 a month.

Debt advisers say the alarming figure shows the credit crunch is hitting local families hard and that cash problems are mounting.

And they predict the crisis is getting worse, as the rising cost of living hits home.

Nuneaton County Court issued 239 mortgage possession claims in the first three months of the year.

That's an increase of a quarter on the same period last year and shows that a growing number of people are failing to meet mortgage payments.

The figures have just been announced by the government's Ministry of Justice.

They also record a dramatic increase in repossession orders throughout Coventry and Warwickshire.

Banks grab back homes
Published Date: 12 May 2008
By Mark Hookham
Westminster reporter
THE number of homeowners in Sheffield who face having their properties repossessed for failing to keep up with mortgage payments has shot up by 37 per cent.
Figures released by the Ministry of Justice show there were 223 orders made in the Sheffield county court area in the first three months of this year.
This was 37 per cent higher than the first quarter of 2007.

Charity issues warning over repossessions

Thursday 8th May 2008

The number of repossessions this year could come close to the record high of 59,000 set in the early 1990s, a leading housing charity has claimed.

Shelter claims that the number of secondary loans taken out by homeowners during times of high property inflation now put many people at risk of having their homes taken from them.

The organisation believes that 20 per cent of all repossession orders passing through the county courts involve secondary loans secured against property and the number of houses reclaimed could reach up to 53,000.

Shelter chief executive, Adam Sampson, told the Observer that lenders of other financial products are taking action themselves to reclaim their outlay and that these actions distort the figures.

"Those ones, by and large, are not counted in the statistics; but they will add substantially to the total number of people who will lose their homes. Initial indications are that it could increase the total number by a fifth, but it could be worse than that," he said.

Repossessed houses are sold on at an average of 36 per cent less than their market value, according to www.repossessed-house-sales.co.uk.

The storm clouds looming over the housing market grow darker every day. But for some aspiring homeowners there could be a silver lining, with bargains emerging as asking prices tumble and sellers become ever more desperate to get properties off their hands.

It takes courage to buy at a time when some commentators are predicting that house prices could fall a further 15 per cent. Even Britain's biggest lenders and surveyors, which have an interest in talking up the market, now admit that they expect property prices to fall.

Asking prices for properties new to the market were down by an average of 0.1 per cent over the past month, according to Rightmove.co.uk, the property website. In some regions the slide has been even more severe: in the North West prices fell by 1.4 per cent and in London by 0.9 per cent. And it could become much worse. David Miles, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, the investment bank, says that up to 1.2 million people - one in ten homeowners - could be pushed into negative equity, where their mortgages are greater than the value of their property.

As the gloom spreads, though, bargains are beginning to emerge. Michael Holt, of Charterhouse Standard Holdings, has been buying residential property on behalf of private investors for more than a decade and says: “We are spotting some great bargains. Even if the market continues to struggle in the near term, buy and hold for five or ten years and you will almost certainly make a healthy profit.”

Some of the best deals can be found at auction.  Many are in poor condition or are buy-to-let properties that have been reposessed.

Repossessions account for a large percentage of auctioned properties and the Council of Mortgage Lenders predicts that more than 45,000 homes will be repossessed this year, against 27,100 last year.

LONDON (Reuters) - Investment firm Assetz said on Tuesday it wanted to raise 20 million pounds for a fund specialising in foreclosed British homes, even though it was still bullish about the outlook for house prices.

Assetz Chief Executive Stuart Law said he was confident of raising the money from institutions and private investors and that the fund would have 100 million pounds of firepower with additional debt funding.

"We do not need much equity because we are buying well below market value," Law said. "There are plenty of niche opportunities out there for repossessed properties."

He said it was possible to get rental yields on repossessed and sale-and-rentback properties above 7 percent, compared with a more typical 5 to 5-1/2 percent in the buy-to-let market.

Law said Assetz -- which is based in Cheshire and has an office in London's Mayfair district -- had access to at least 30 repossessed properties each month, about double the rate available a year earlier.

Locating the cause of the property crisis with Kirstie Allsopp

Channel 4's Kirstie Allsopp tells Alice Thomson why there is no need to panic over house prices

Kirstie Allsopp was once the nation's favourite fairy godmother. With her meandering curves and no-nonsense approach she was voted one of the world's sexiest women as she raced around the country waving her parasol over properties.

Charles Moore: Why is everyone worried about house prices? Britain's most luscious and well-bred estate agent helped hundreds of families find their dream home in Channel 4's Location, Location, Location and amused seven million viewers as she got down on her knees to examine the grouting.   Kirstie Allsopp at her home in west London. ‘It is not selfish or irresponsible to want a roof over your head for your family’ Now, however, the "ditsy girl with the cleavage and the dark hair" as she calls herself, has become the witch who pricked the housing bubble. She and her co-presenters of property shows have been vilified for distorting the market and encouraging people to buy beyond their means. No accusation could irritate the Tories' adviser on property more. "People had been asking me even before the sub-prime and credit crunch whether I felt I was responsible for the hike in property prices and first time buyers finding it hard to get on the ladder. Absolutely not," she says. "The programmes were not about forcing wildly extravagant palaces on people but about finding the right properties. "It is good to buy, we shouldn't forget that. It's not irresponsible or selfish to want a roof over your head for your family. My last couple were a nanny, and a soldier in the Armed Forces. They had been saving up for six years. "The only thing that makes my blood boil is that they will have to find £2,000 in stamp duty."       She is pragmatic about the spectre of Repossession, Repossession. "I don't have a problem with people on my shows buying a house that has been repossessed but I have a huge problem with someone who can't make the mortgage payments having to shell out for a Hip (Home Information Pack) before they can sell their property, that is cruel." She adds "so-called" every time you mention the word "crash" but she admits there will be victims of a slow-down. "Many will have been irresponsible, but there will be some desperately sad stories, often combined with family breakdown from people who were lent too much by the banks.'' The people she finds most irresponsible are those who are trying to whip up fear. "There is a website called Housepricecrash.com and I am their deadliest enemy.  "They built millions of houses in America last year, we built 160,000. The Americans have space so there is no premium for land, it's a different market. The only link is that the British banks were idiotic enough to buy their bundles of debt and we're going to have to help pay it back." Her advice, which she is happy to provide to any party, is simple. "First stamp duty must be lowered and graduated. It is a main reason for stagnation.'' She adds: "People can't afford to keep trading up or relocating jobs if they have to pay £10,000 in stamp duty, Hips have made it worse which is why they have to go." She also wants to make moving less stressful. "Rich people get good legal advice and can move fast. Commercial property deals take place in 48 hours.'' She won't become an MP because she thinks people are even more cynical about them than they are about television presenters. But she is more hon(ey) than Hon - she relates more to beauticians than barristers. "I think it is because I have travelled up and down the country three weeks out of four for the last few years and my parents brought me up to understand how others live.'' She also finds it helps not having a degree, starting work at 18 and becoming a stepmother when she started living with Ben and his two sons. They now have a one-year-old boy called Bay. "It's my parents' ruby wedding anniversary today so until recently I didn't have an understanding of broken families. Now I do. It makes you aware in property deals of the complications of many people's lives.'' Location, Location, Location has been recommissioned for another two years, after that she wants to do a programme on family life. Here she doesn't quite practise what she preaches, as she hasn't yet married Ben.

Karl Marx once wrote that those who are unaware of history are enslaved by it. Nowhere is this truer than in the British home ownership market, where institutional and individual memories seem to be remarkably short term. Go back to summer 2007 and we were in a golden age (for existing owners) of easy loans and seemingly endlessly rising prices. A few commentators did question how long and how far it could go on, but in the rush to try to get on the bottom rung of the ladder before it disappeared, many buyers stretched themselves to the limit and beyond.

Fast forward to spring 2008 and mortgages are in short supply, the number of mortgage advances is down 40% from a year ago and mortgage interest rates and repossession rates are rising sharply as lenders draw in their horns, require much larger deposits and remove some of their generous offers from the market.

• Will Hutton
• The Observer,
• Sunday April 13 2008

The baleful 'For Sale' signs do not carry a health warning, but they should. House prices can go down as well as up. And however smart you are, the impact is universal, despite everybody hoping that somehow, someone else will suffer the pain.

Last week, the reality began to sink in. The Halifax reported a 2.5 per cent monthly fall in house prices, the biggest since 1992. It is behind the curve. Prices are already 10 per cent down in most parts of the country; even the London market, which is supposedly holding up, is in trouble. I know of prices that have fallen by 25 per cent. The problem is that market interdependency is being undermined; the seller of the £1m house depends upon the buyer selling his or her £700,000 house and so on down to the first-time buyer. If any part of the chain is hit by the new tight terms of credit, the deals collapse. And the number of sales is plunging.

The blight hits everyone. The most tragic are those whose houses are repossessed, but most of the suffering is hidden.

367 homes in Huddersfield repossessed in 2007

Apr 10 2008 by Henryk Zientek,  Huddersfield Daily Examiner

HUNDREDS of people lost their home in Huddersfield last year.

Government figures showed that 367 properties across Huddersfield were hit by repossession orders last year.

And estate agents in Huddersfield have reported a fall in the number of first-time buyers – as lenders take a tougher stance on mortgage deals following the global credit crisis.

But they said sales were being completed against a backdrop of falling house prices, with buyers increasingly able to drive a hard bargain.

The comments follow figures from the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, the Halifax, showing that house prices fell by 2.5% in March – the biggest monthly fall since September 1992 and the second largest drop ever.

House prices could drop 10% this year – papers 9 April

Britain is heading for a decline in the housing market similar to that in America, while the number of people having their homes repossessed could double, the International Monetary Fund said.

 

Negative equity threat for 75,000 households

More than 75,000 households could be plunged into negative equity this year with Labour heartlands expected to bear the brunt of the credit crunch, data from the biggest banks and building societies have shown.

Crisis map: Is your home at risk? Areas of Manchester, Glasgow, south-east London and Birmingham are said to be potential "negative equity hot spots", as the value of the average home is only a modest amount above the mortgage on the property. advertisement These areas are most susceptible to a fall in house prices and people face having their homes repossessed or may find themselves unable to move or take out a new mortgage. The new analysis, from Experian, one of the country's largest credit reference agencies, is based on information from more than 80 per cent of Britain's lenders.

• Saturday April 5 2008

• 
  
• Article history

About this article

 

This article appeared  on Saturday April 05 2008   Financial section. It was last updated at 00:04 on April 05 2008.

Home repossessions could soar to more than 60,000 this year as families struggle to cope with mortgage payments and increases in council tax and utility bills, the Liberal Democrats said yesterday.

It's crunch time: Surviving the credit crisis

The credit crisis is hitting everyone from first-time buyers to buy-to-let investors – but do you understand exactly how it's affecting you? Helen Monks provides answers to the big questions we are all askingIs now a good time to buy at auction?

Yes, but buyers might not have the pick of the crop. The number of homes offered at auction rose by 15 per cent last year, while the number of repossessed properties rose by 20 per cent, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

The CML predicts even more repossessions in 2008 – meaning more homes under the hammer. But if buyers are hoping to pick up a four-bedroom home in a desirable area for a knock-down price, they may be disappointed: much of the repossessed stock coming to auction is ex-local authority houses and flats.

How boom quickly converted to bust

Repo man comes calling at former mill's flats bought at the height of rush for riches

• Robert Booth
• The Guardian,
• Tuesday March 25 2008
• Article history

With its double-height living room and views across the Pennines and Manchester's city centre, the two-bedroom apartment in a converted Victorian biscuit factory must have seemed fairly priced to Christopher Williams at £236,500.

Now, three years on, Williams's outlay for a slice of the city-living dream looks ridiculous. His flat has been repossessed and will go under the auctioneer's hammer tomorrow with a guide price of £100,000.

Welcome to Albion Mill, which has few, if any, rivals to the title of the British housing development hardest hit by the recent economic downturn. In the converted mill building itself, the repo man has struck at 28 of the 58 apartments since it opened in 2005. Eight more repossessions have taken place among the 229 apartments in the rest of the complex

Repossessions rising as investors decline offer of homes sold at auction

Tip of the iceberg

Already there are signs that the higher mortgage costs are starting to bite, and industry figures show that there was a 20% rise in home repossessions in Britain during 2007.

At the County Court, Martina van Derleij is a barrister who has spent the morning dealing with those who cannot cope with the tightened credit environment.

"You go to court and there are lists for bankruptcies and lists for repossessions and you see those lists getting longer," she says.

"These people are the tip of the iceberg. I suspect this will continue for the next few years as people come off fixed mortgage rates and have to go on to variable rates," Ms van Derleij adds.

Monday, March 10, 2008

The housing association Respond claims bad policy has left young families vulnerable to high mortgage payments that many cannot afford

It says house repossessions increased by 33% last year as rising interest rates left many people unable to meet their repayments.

Charity seeks repossessions safety net

Repossessions of homes rise

Stuart Greer

ALMOST 1,350 families lost their homes in our borough last year, as the world-wide debt crisis continues to tighten its grip.

Mortgage lenders filed 14 per cent more – or 166 – repossession claims at Oldham County Court in 2007, than the year before.

The figure means we are second only to Manchester as the borough with the highest number of repossessions in Greater Manchester, which overall saw 9,000 families lose their homes last year.