Number of foreclosure sales on LI drops
On Long Island, 10.8 percent of first-quarter home sales were bank-owned foreclosures, compared to 28 percent nationwide. The nation’s inventory of properties repossessed or in foreclosure: 1.9 million. (April 6, 2011) Credit: Getty Images
The number of Long Island homes sold in foreclosure in the first three months of 2011 dropped by more than half compared to the same time period a year ago, according to RealtyTrac.
Foreclosed home sales in Nassau and Suffolk dropped to 381 from 837 in the first quarter, a 54.48 percent year-over-year decline.
Long Island foreclosure sales also fell slightly as a percent of total sales in the first quarter compared to the last quarter of 2010, bucking the national trend, which edged up slightly.
In a report being released Thursday, RealtyTrac, a California-based foreclosure information service, said that 10.8 percent of home sales on Long Island were of bank-owned residences or properties in foreclosure, compared to 10.9 percent in the previous quarter and 15.2 percent a year earlier. Nationally, foreclosure sales were 28 percent of all home sales, up 1 percentage point from the previous quarter and down from 29 percent a year earlier.
"While foreclosure sales continue to account for an unusually high percentage of all residential home sales, sales volume is well off the peak we saw in the first quarter of 2009, when nearly 350,000 foreclosure properties sold to third parties," RealtyTrac chief executive James Saccacio said in a news release. In the first quarter of this year, 158,434 foreclosure properties were sold in the United States.
The slower pace of foreclosure sales probably adds stability to home prices, Saccacio said, but it also delays the housing recovery because clearing the national inventory of 1.9 million properties repossessed by banks or in foreclosure will take longer.
Foreclosure sales were highest in Nevada, accounting for 53 percent.
The slowdown hasn't affected attendance at the Nassau County Bar Association's free monthly mortgage foreclosure legal clinics, said Gale Berg, director of its pro bono programs.
"At the clinics there's no drop," Berg said. "The need for us to have the clinics is still there, people are still calling the bar association asking for help with foreclosure on a daily basis."
The clinics began two years ago and every month draw 30 to 50 homeowners seeking help, she said. However, fewer homeowners have been using the association's free legal services at the Nassau County courthouse for mandatory foreclosure conferences compared to year ago, she said.
The average sale price of foreclosed homes fell to $274,886 in the first quarter on Long Island, a $15,136 drop compared to the first quarter of 2010.
Thomas McGiveron, a real estate broker at RealtyConnect USA in Hauppauge, said one reason for the fall in home prices was the expiration of an $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time home buyers.
"The tax credit had impacted every buyer, every house, all foreclosures," he said.
McGiveron said that banks were more cautious about foreclosing on properties now after robo-signing scandals revealed that banks weren't always reviewing documents before signing them.
"Banks pulled back, and that slowed everything down," he said.
