Foreclosures increased again in January as banks continued to work through a large backlogs of defaulting loans in their books, RealtyTrac reports. The number of foreclosure filings — including default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions — increased 3 percent from December to January.
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The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced it will soon be piloting a foreclosure-to-rental program, in which it’ll offer qualified investors the chance to buy a pool of foreclosed homes all at once as long as long as they agree to rent the properties for a specified period.
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In another setback for the bank, Citigroup will have to pay $158.3 million over claims that it had misled the government into insuring risky mortgage loans over a six-year time span, resulting in millions of dollars in government losses.
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Signs are improving in the new-home market and builders are feeling more optimistic about where the real estate market is heading, after coming off last year’s worst year on record for new home construction.
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“Mom and pop investors” are trying to capitalize on a depressed real estate market in the hopes of one day being able to cash in. An article in USA Today highlights this new breed of small-scale investors who like to buy and hold properties, opposed to the high-dollar large investment firms that once dominated the real estate market who preferred to buy and flip their property investments.
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