Category Archives: SHORT SALES

What is a Deed in Lieu?

Posted on by

A Deed in Lieu of foreclosure (DIL) is an option in which a mortgagor (or a home owner) voluntarily deeds the subject property to the lender in exchange for a release from all obligations under the mortgage. A DIL of foreclosure might not be accepted from mortgagors who can financially make their mortgage payments. Often times, this can be as damaging to your credit as a foreclosure and should be considered a last resort (in most cases)

“there are several disadvantages to a deed in lieu, most importantly, it is almost as bad on your credit as a foreclosure or bankruptcy, a short sale can be viewed as a much better option in terms of your credit

“it is considerably more difficult to qualify for a deed in lieu if you have a 2nd, 3rd..mortgage

What are the benefits of a deed in lieu?

Many believe that a deed in lieu of foreclosure looks better on your credit report than does a foreclosure or bankruptcy. In addition, unlike in the short sale situation, you do not necessarily have to take responsibility for selling your house (you may end up simply handing over title and then letting the lender sell the house).

Are there disadvantages to a deed in lieu?

There are several disadvantages to a deed in lieu. If you have second or third mortgages, home equity loans, or tax liens against your property, you probably cannot qualify for a deed in lieu.

In addition, getting a lender to accept a deed in lieu of foreclosure is difficult in the current market. Banks are not in the real estate business, most lenders want cash, not real estate — especially if they own hundreds of other foreclosed properties which is a likely scenario these days. On the other hand, the bank might think it better to accept a deed in lieu rather than drag out the lengthy foreclosure process and incur more expenses. Beware of tax consequences; a deed in lieu may generate unwelcome taxable income based on the amount of your “forgiven debt.”

 

 

 

Source: http://www.sandiegohopenow.com

What is a Loan Modification?

Posted on by

A loan modification restructures the terms of a loan without actually refinancing the property it secures. Modification of a loan applies to the terms governing the interest rate, the amount of the monthly payment, the term of the loan, but very rarely the principle balance.

Are you a good candidate for Loan Modification?

All of the following are great candidates for modification:

  • Any homeowner currently stuck with an adjustable rate mortgage
  • Any homeowner with a “PayOption ARM”
  • Any homeowner behind on Payments
  • Any homeowner with a “hardship” or inability to pay what is currently owed
  • Any homeowner that has little to negative equity
  • Any homeowner that cannot refinance

Are there any NECESSARY requirements to be considered for a loan modification?

  • Your monthly mortgage must be affected by a verifiable reduction in income or an increase in expenses.
  • It is required that you have a source of a stable and predictable monthly income.

How long is the Loan Modification process?

This depends on the lender, but typical turn times can range from 4-6 weeks up to over a year.

What happens during a Loan Modification?

During a loan modification the terms of your mortgage are renegotiated to bring the interest rate down to a percentage that fits into your budget and the monthly payment no longer presents a severe strain on your ability to meet your other financial obligations.

Loan Modification – Pros

1. Lenders are making a big push for loan modifications. Based on our recent experience it has proven difficult for a truly lasting and helpful modification to be completed.

2. Many lenders seem to be able complete Loan Modifications in the same time it takes to complete short sales.

3. In the future you might get your entire investment back. (It is theoretically possible, though no one can say for sure if it will happen)

4. You may minimize damage to your credit.

5. You may be able to do a loan mod and not waive your anti – deficiency protections.

Loan Modification – Cons

1. Without leverage it is unlikely you will negotiate a principle reduction. We are not seeing these happen.

2. In a typical loan modification – you may just be buying time. You make payments until you decide to sell or your payments go back up. Will it be better to attempt a short sale in a few years? I doubt it. But, you never know.

3. If you are not careful you may lose of waive important anti -deficiency protections. If you have assets or a salary to protect or you expect to have those things, this will need to be negotiated.

4. Your mod may not be successful enough to eliminate the full financial problem.

 

 

 

Source:  http://www.sandiegohopenow.com

4 Myths About Short Sales

Posted on by

I don’t have a serious enough hardship to qualify for a short sale.

Today, it’s harder to “Not” qualify, than it is to Qualify. There are numerous ways to qualify for a short sale and a borrower does not have to be behind on payments. If a borrower can show that they are struggling to make payments or are facing some other type of hardship such as a divorce, tenant moving, job transfer, medical emergency, decrease in pay, etc., then a bank will seriously consider approving a short sale.

I’ll be responsible for the difference between what I owe and what my home sells for.

CA Senate Bill 458 (Now CA Civil Code 580e) No-Recourse Short Sale Bill was passed on July 15th, 2011. It specifically requires all lenders, including Junior Liens and HELOC’s, to forgive the remaining balance after a short sale is completed. This is a major victory for upside down homeowners in CA and can allow short sellers to breathe a sigh of relief by not having to worry about their lender pursuing them for money after a short sale. There are a few exceptions and some other minor details. Contact us TODAY find out more about the new Senate Bill 458 and how it will affect you after a short sale. 800-399-9659

My credit will be ruined if I do a short sale.

A short sale can actually save your credit. It is treated by your lender as a “settlement of debt”, and as opposed to a foreclosure, it is infinitely easier on credit and for a much shorter period of time.

I will owe taxes on the amount of loss that the bank takes on my short sale.

This can be avoided most of the time. As an example, if your lender accepts $100,000 less than what you owe them they may report this amount to the IRS, and you will be taxed on that $100,000 as ‘ordinary income’ at the end of the year. Good news is there are many ways to avoid this tax, including recent legislation. You can research the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 or see if you qualify for “Insolvency”. Contact your tax advisor.

Short Sales – Pros

1. CA Senate Bill 458 No-Recourse Short Sale Bill was passed on July 15th, 2011. It requires and guarantees you will be forgiven on all debt after a short sale in CA

2. If your property is 100,000 dollars upside down, you get rid of the liability now. If you do a loan mod and then have to sell your house in two years, you may still be 100,000 dollars upside down or worse.

3. Within a few years your credit rating may recover and you may be in a position to purchase property in a down market.

6. You may get to live rent free for a while.

Short Sales – Cons

1. You may not be able to buy a house for a little while. (Average 1 to 2 years)

2. You will have to move eventually.

3. You may damage your credit (Though much less than a foreclosure)

4. You have to deal with the hassle of the selling process.

 

 

 

Source: http://www.sandiegohopenow.com

 

Home Prices Hit New Lows

Posted on by

A key gauge of home prices in the nation’s largest cities fell in December to its lowest level since the start of the housing crisis in mid-2006.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of 20 American cities fell 1.1% from November to December and 4% from December 2010. Eighteen out of the 20 cities tracked by the index posted declines and Atlanta, Las Vegas, Seattle and Tampa,Fla., each saw average home prices hit new lows.

“In terms of prices, the housing market ended 2011 on a very disappointing note,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices. “While we thought we saw some signs of stabilization in the middle of 2011, it appears that neither the economy nor consumer confidence was strong enough to move the market in a positive direction as the year ended.”

All of the California cities in the index posted declines from the prior month. Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco fell 1.1%, 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively. The drop continues a slide that began last year as sales weakened and the jobs picture remained bleak.

In December, Miami and Phoenix were the only two metro areas that posted monthly gains, up 0.2% and 0.8%, respectively.

A separate, national index published quarterly by S&P Case Shiller, also released Tuesday, showed deterioration in home values. The national composite fell by 3.8% during the fourth quarter of 2011 and was down 4.0% versus the fourth quarter of 2010.

The steep drops indicate that the housing market likely began 2012 in decline, as the broader economic recovery was not enough to lift home values. Home prices are now below their low hit in April 2009 — reached during the depths of the financial crisis.

[Updated 7:53 a.m., Feb. 28: Robert Shiller, a professor at Yale University and co-creator of the index, said in a conference call Tuesday he was slightly more optimistic about housing’s future than he was a year ago, “but not that optimistic.”

“We are in a situation where a lot of people think, long-term, this is great, home prices are low,” Shiller said. “But somehow they think in the short-run … we are still in a holding pattern.”

Karl E. Case, the other co-creator of the index and a professor at Wellesley College, said he was more optimistic that the housing market would begin to improve given that, according to Census data, more U.S. households are being created, meaning there will be more demand for housing. If demand remains high — and supply relatively low — the housing market should begin to improve, he said.

“There are some bright spots,” he said.

 

 

Source: www.latimes.com By Alejandro Lazo

Housing’s Dilemma: There’s Not Enough To Buy

Posted on by

Last week I wrote about how fewer foreclosures up for sale in the housing market could actually mean lower overall home prices.

My reasoning is that foreclosures are in high demand right now, and organic, non-distressed sellers are still not coming back to the market. Without the foreclosures, there really is no competitive market.That may sound counter-intuitive, given that we always talk about how distressed sales deflate comparable home prices.

I hate to say, “I told you so,” but … today the National Association of Realtors reported that inventories of homes for sale in January fell to 2.31 million,the lowest supply since March, 2005. Rather than pushing home prices higher, they are still down, 2 percent, from a year ago.

The Realtors noted that 35 percent of all home sales were distressed (either foreclosures or short sales). Investor demand is high, they say, even claiming that a recent program initiated to sell the foreclosures of  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in bulk to investors is unnecessary.

“Based on the swiftness of how REO (bank-owned) properties are moving in the market, it may not be needed,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. He did admit that such a program would also take away thousands of potential listings from Realtors.

Banks are ramping up the repossessions, as the so-called “Robo-signing” foreclosure paperwork scandal is fading and a settlement with federal and state governments has been reached. But they are not going to flood the market with these properties, for fear of losing pricing power. That’s why we are now starting to see bidding wars in some of the hottest distressed markets.

Sales of existing homes in the West, which comprise the hardest hit states of Arizona, Nevada and California, jumped 8 percent in January month to month. More than half of sales out West are foreclosures and short sales. Demand is definitely rising, but only on the lower end.

If you look at sales distribution by price, 69.9 percent of homes sold in November were under $250,000. That moved up to 72.2 percent in January. Given that there is just a two month difference, seasonality, i.e, higher priced homes selling at different times of year, doesn’t apply.

As I wrote last week, organic, non-distressed sellers are making up less and less of the overall housing market. That does not a healthy housing market make. Without good, move-up homes available, the market cannot see real price appreciation.

“The main limit on sales volume now is willing sellers, not willing buyers,” says Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, a real-estate brokerage.

 

 

 

Source: By: Diana Olick-CNBC Real Estate Reporter; http://www.cnbc.com/id/46482311

The Skinny on the Short Sale

Posted on by

With the amount of Short Sales on the market it is CRITICAL to use an agent who specializes in this field.  Short sales will be here for a while.  Call us the Short Sale Specialists with all your questions.  We’d be happy to assist you whether you are buying or selling!  360 Realty 800-399-9659 x 313!

There are many flavors of compromise you can strike with your lender if you are facing foreclosure. One of the toughest to execute is the short sale.

What Is a “Short Sale”?

The title “short sale” is somewhat misleading; many assume that “short” means quick, implying a transaction that has a short escrow period. Au contraire. A short sale refers to a homeowner’s sale of their home for a net sales price (after commissions, closing costs, etc.) that is less than what the homeowner owes their mortgage lender(s).

Why Is a Short Sale Desirable?

A short sale is an alternative to foreclosure. A short sale prevents you from having to go through the foreclosure and eviction. A short sale does make a smudge on your credit report but is much less traumatic to your credit than foreclosure.

What Makes a Short Sale Hard to Complete?

Because a short sale results in the lender losing (a) funds they are owed and (b) the property which secured the mortgage loan, these transactions must be done with the full participation and agreement of the homeowner’s lender(s).

Lenders are institutions, not people. They often move at a snail’s pace when evaluating a request for a short sale. Short sales are more frequent in a declining market — many lenders are simply not equipped to handle the deluge of short sale requests they receive.

Realtors who work on short sale transactions all have stories of trying for weeks to get the short sale “package” to the correct person in the loss mitigation department! Once the package is in the hands of the right person, the bank may have some reason they disagree with the deal between the buyer and seller, and may insist on inserting the bank’s price increase, reduction in closing cost credits, or other major alteration of the terms of the deal.

During a short sale, the buyer, seller and even the real estate agents are somewhat subject to the whims of the bank — the deal cannot be done without the bank’s agreement.

 

 

Source: By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Esq., FrontDoor.com

What Is The Short Sale Process In California?

Posted on by

The key to a short sale process in California that is filled with success is having a compelling package and consistent follow up with a bank negotiator.  If the broker is aware of important bank contacts, they can raise the short sale process request above low level negotiations.  Throughout a short sale, the contacts that are known at the bank are often more essential than the information a person knows.

Here are the steps involved with a short sale transaction and the approximate amount of time needed to complete each task.

1. Meet with Short Specialist to do a free evaluation.

2. Fill up an application.

3. Financial data given by the homeowner to show hardship — 5 business days

4.  State the home and acquire an authorization letter — 1 business day

5.  Place the home on the market and get offers — 2 months

6.  Bundle all financial data according to bank requirements — 3 business days

5.  Give bundle to bank and get receipt — 3 business days

7.  A negotiator is assigned to the file — 2 weeks

8.  Order of the appraisal/BPO — 2 weeks

9.  Answer from the bank about terms and conditions — 3 weeks

9.  Everyone negotiates terms and conditions — 2 weeks

10.  Escrow is established and the transaction closes — 4 weeks

These steps will add almost three or four months to the short sale process in California, not including the time it will take for escrow to finish.

Making A Short Sale Package That Is Compelling

The beginning to the short sale process is documenting a hardship in accordance with a compelling package.  Prior to placing the home up for sale, the broker will take time to adequately prepared and document a hardship that will be reviewed by the bank after the package is submitted.

After the hardship package is completed, the broker must establish a competitive price for the house.  Even though the broker may recommend a good price to list the home for, the bank will be the last deciding factor that will set the price based on market information about the value that they will agree to set the home for sale at.

The aim of the marketing process is to gather serious and qualified buyers who are willing to endure the transaction throughout the negotiation process.  Getting various offers will show the bank that that the seller has tried every option to get them the best possible price for the house.

After the offers to buy have been carefully reviewed and all of the buyers have been pre-qualified, the broker’s job becomes preparing the total package that will be handed to the bank.  This part in the process is important because if the submitted paperwork is not finished properly, the bank will normally put the package in the garbage.

For A Successful Short Sale Process In California You Need Consistent Bank Follow Up

Since the paperwork has been handed to the bank, usually through fax or email, the broker must continue to follow up and confirm that the package for short sale was received and placed into the system.  This is important and can save a lot of time.  After the bank has put the documentation into the system, they will assign a negotiator to the file.  An efficient short sale broker will follow up in a small amount of time after handing over the documents to confirm that all of the important paperwork was received and to get contact information about the bank negotiator.

Next in the process of short sales, is to confirm that the BPO or appraisal has been ordered.  It is vital to obtain a report with the comparable sales for the individual doing the valuation.  Handing them a list of repairs and the estimated costs to fix them, will give a more accurate evaluation while making sure that the process moves to the approval phase quicker.

Waiting For The Bank’s Decision

The bank normally reviews the documents with the appraisal and determines the price that they will agree to sell the house for.  Their answer may or may not be reasonable, so it is essential to comprehend that the bank’s answer is only one response.  It may begin a process or set of negotiations that will help to settle a price and conditions included into the approval from the bank.  Perhaps this is the most important skill of the broker, since the bank is only looking for the highest amount of money.  After all of the details have been negotiated and agreed to by all parties,  the sale process will move ahead and open escrow.  Throughout the period of escrow, the buyer will fully inspect the house and work with the lender to get a home loan.  It is at this point, that there begins to be a light at the end of the long and dark tunnel.

Closing

After the buyer’s loan is approved, a final closing will be prepared for the bank to confirm that all conditions have been met and escrow can close the transaction.  This may take at least three months in addition to the time needed to close escrow. Carefully preparing the case of the homeowner and pursuing the sale, the broker can make strong case in order to have a successful Short Sale process in Californiaand follow through every step of the way.

The U.S. Foreclosure Crisis, Beverly Hills-Style

Posted on by

The dynamics of the residential real estate collapse are very different in elite neighborhoods

The careworn house not far from Santa Monica Boulevard resembles millions of other homes that have been foreclosed on since the calamitous U.S. housing crash four years ago.

Garbage spews from trash bags behind the property. A smashed television leans against broken furniture. A filthy toy dog lies on its side, an ear draped across its face. The garden is overgrown. The house needs a paint job.

Yet the property on North Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills, California, is no ordinary foreclosure.

A sprawling, Spanish-style estate, fringed by majestic pine trees and located near the boutiques of Santa Monica Boulevard, its former owners were served with a default notice in 2010; they were $205,000 behind in their payments on mortgages totaling $6.9 million.

Welcome to foreclosure Beverly Hills-style.

Some 180 houses in Beverly Hills, the storied Los Angeles enclave rich with Hollywood stars and music moguls, have been foreclosed on by lenders, scheduled for auction, or served with a default notice, the highest level since the 2008 financial crash, according to a Reuters analysis of figures compiled by RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosures nationwide.

As in the default-ravaged suburban subdivisions of Phoenix, Arizona, and Tampa, Florida, plunging realestate prices are the root of the problem in Beverly Hills.

But the dynamics of the residential real estate collapse are very different in elite neighborhoods such as this. The majority of delinquent homeowners here owe more than $1 million. Many are walking away not because they can’t pay, but because they judge it would be foolish to keep doing so.

“It’s a business decision, not an emotional one which it is for normal people,” said Deborah Bremner, owner of the Bremner Group at Coldwell Banker, which specializes in high-end properties in the Los Angeles area. “I go to cocktail parties and all people are talking about is whether it is time to walk away, although they will never be quoted in the real world.”

She said she had seen in Beverly Hills a big increase in “strategic defaults,” in which owners who can still afford to make their monthly mortgage payment choose not to because the property is now worth so much less than the giant loan used to buy it during the housing bubble.

Strategic default is an especially appealing option in California, one of only a handful of U.S. states where primary mortgages made by banks are “non-recourse” loans. That means the loan is secured solely by the property, and banks cannot go after a delinquent owner’s wages or other assets if they default.

Bremner said she helped a client buy a Beverly Hills mansion last year that the prior owner had bought for over $4 million. He decided to stop paying his $3 million mortgage – even though he could easily afford it – when the value of the property had dropped to $2.5 million.

“They were able to comfortably cover the loan,” Bremner said. “They were just no longer willing to see the value of the property drop.”

A huge “shadow inventory” is building of elite homes that are in default but have not been put on the market. Of the 180 distressed properties in Beverly Hills, only 12 are up for sale.

The backlog reflects the pent-up flood of foreclosed properties of all price ranges that are expected to hit the U.S. market this year, especially after five major banks reached a $25 billion settlement last week with the U.S. over fraudulent foreclosure practices.

‘Jumbo’ loans
Across the United States, the largest increase in foreclosures and delinquencies, compared with 2008 levels, is with “jumbo” mortgages – loans too large to be insured by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government controlled mortgage finance providers. Foreclosures on jumbo loans are up 579 percent since 2008, greater than any other form of loan, according to a report last month by Lender Processing Services, Inc.

Strategic defaults are now more likely among jumbo loan-holders than any other type of borrower, according to a report issued late last year by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Nearly 40 percent of delinquencies among non-governmental mortgages, which are mostly jumbo loans, are strategic defaults, the report said.

“Now that these homeowners with jumbo loans are finding out you can do this, more and more are doing strategic foreclosures,” said Jon Maddux the CEO of YouWalkAway.com, which advises homeowners who are “underwater,” the term for those whose loans exceed the value of their home.

Nathaniel J. Friedman, a Beverly Hills lawyer, insists he is not a strategic defaulter – that he never missed a mortgage payment in his life. But he stopped making payments on his five-bedroom, six-bathroom Beverly Hills house on Schuyler Road three years ago.

Friedman, who had mortgages totaling $3 million with the now-defunct Countrywide Home Loans, returned home one evening in January 2009 to find a letter from Countrywide freezing his $150,000 line of credit, which was linked to his second $900,000 loan. His primary loan was $2.1 million. The property is worth about $2 million today.

Friedman says he decided to stop paying out of a sense of vengeance from the moment he received that letter. He has been in negotiations for months with Bank of America, which took over Countrywide after its collapse, to modify the loan.

“I thought to hell with it,” he told Reuters. “Why should I keep feeding a dead horse if the bank has no confidence in me?”

“I was able to maneuver things my way because of the inertia of the banking sector,” Friedman said. He believes the bank will blink first, and eventually modify his loan.

 

 

Source:   Thomson Reuters, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46411361/ns/business-real_estate/#.Tz1aT8VSSKY

A Big Step Forward for the Housing Market

Posted on by

For years, the housing market has been locked in a deep freeze, as a combination of underwater mortgages, reluctant lenders, and a lack of political will have kept a huge mass of homes off the market and in limbo. But as banks are finally coming to the conclusion that it makes more sense to accept smaller losses now to move forward, rather than clinging to the fading hope that they’ll somehow recover more in the future, housing could finally get the catalyst it needs to recover.

Banks and short sales
Banks have had problem mortgages on their balance sheets for years. But after stubbornly hanging on to those trouble assets, some banks are coming around and changing their tone when it comes to so-called “short sales.” In fact, not only are they allowing such transactions to happen, they’re also giving homeowners some big incentives to do so.

Short sales occur when a prospective buyer makes an offer on a home that isn’t enough to pay off the seller’s mortgage. Especially in states like California, where the lender often doesn’t have recourse to hold the homeowner liable for any shortfall, lenders have often resisted short sales. For a while, that made sense, as banks figured that short-sale offers were lowballing the true value of the home and that if they foreclosed on the property, they could resell it at its higher market price.

But lately, banks have realized that the foreclosure process is long, costly, and fraught with peril. With regulatory investigations into foreclosure practices adding to the potential problems of years-long delays and an obstacle course of legal requirements, banks are concluding that it’s better to accept the bird in hand of a short sale than to hope for a recovery that may take years to come.

Gimme some money
What’s most surprising about this about-face is the length to which some banks are going to get short sales done. JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM  ) reportedly offered one homeowner $30,000 to accept a short sale on a $600,000 home, despite having a loan for nearly $200,000 more.

Real estate agents that Bloomberg interviewed said that the company offers $10,000 to $35,000 for many (but not all) of the 5,000 short sales it approves in a typical month. Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC  ) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC  ) have made similar offers to certain homeowners, especially in states like Florida, where foreclosure is especially onerous.

Is it the end of the bust?
What the housing market has needed all along is a market-clearing event like this. While refinancing and mortgage modifications only kicked the can down the road, allowing actual purchases and sales to occur is a step in the right direction.

A host of companies could benefit. Already, homebuilder stocks have soared as news on the housing front has gotten progressively better, and improving employment reports suggest that consumers may finally be getting back on their feet.

But other possible winners include companies with land development opportunities. For instance, Howard Hughes Corp. (NYSE: HHC  ) owns master planned communities and other real-estate holdings in 18 states, with key properties near Houston, Las Vegas, New York, and Honolulu. Having the housing market flowing again would open the door to further development. Similarly, St. Joe Company (NYSE: JOE  ) could return to profitability if itsextensive Florida land holdings find themselves back in demand, which could happen once the market starts perking up again.

Move forward
It’s always a tough decision to cut your losses and admit that you’ve made a mistake. Although it’s taken too long, it’s good news that banks have finally figured out that throwing good money after bad doesn’t make any sense. With banks finally biting the bullet and letting the housing market breathe again, a recovery should come a lot faster than it otherwise would have.

Housing is a key component of planning for retirement.

 

 

 

Source: By Dan Caplinger

http://www.fool.com/how-to-invest/personal-finance/home/2012/02/09/a-big-step-forward-for-the-housing-market.aspx

Distress Sales at Near Record Activity

Posted on by

•  Nearly 4,000 California distressed properties sold last month

•  ‘Foreclosure starts remain near record low levels

Real estate investors started off 2012 with a bang, with sales to third parties, typically investors, rising significantly in January throughout California, according to a new report Tuesday from foreclosure information company ForeclosureRadar Inc. of Discovery Bay.

In California, investors purchased 3,964 properties for $766.2 million last month, it says. Note that trustee sale investors must pay in cash, in full, with no title insurance or inspections prior to purchase. This is the fourth largest month on record in California, and the busiest since March of 2011.

Nevada saw the largest month-over-month increase in the West in foreclosure sales, with investors there purchasing 973 properties for $99.1 million. This increase, coupled with the dramatic decline in new foreclosures that began in October 2011, is quickly depleting the foreclosure inventory that remains scheduled for sale in Nevada. Year-over-year the number of Nevada properties scheduled for sale has dropped 57.6 percent.

Despite what appears to be significant percentage increases in foreclosure starts in California, Nevada and Washington, these increases barely offset the declines seen over the holidays, says the ForeclosureRadar report. Compared to January one year ago, foreclosure starts are significantly lower now — despite the fact that many banks were still under self-imposed moratoriums due to robo-signing last year, it says.

“January’s numbers should put to rest any notion that we will see a wave of foreclosures in 2012, at least in the western states that we cover,” says Sean O’Toole, founder and CEO of ForeclosureRadar. “Foreclosure starts remain near record low levels, significantly lower than a year ago, when many banks still had self-imposed moratoriums in place due to the robo-signing scandal. Add to that a foreclosure timeframe of more than eight months, and there is little chance of a wave this year even if all the banks started the foreclosure process en masse tomorrow.”

In the Central Valley, foreclosure starts dropped year-over-year except in Kings County, which showed a sharp uptick.

Here are ForeclosureRadar’s figures for foreclosure starts in the Central Valley in January, by county, compared to year-earlier numbers.

• Butte: 6; -94.69 percent

• Fresno: 537; -21.49 percent

• Kern: 580; -24.38 percent

• Kings: 147; +56.38 percent

• Madera: 89; – 32.06 percent

• Merced: 157; -25.94 percent

• Sacramento: 1,110; -19.51 percent

• San Joaquin: 558; -22.50 percent

• Stanislaus: 424; -18.93 percent

• Tulare: 295; -8.67 percent

• Yolo: 85; -18.27

• Yuba: 67; -17.28 percent