The rate of foreclosures becoming steady.

A new dawn is hovering over the US economy. The foreclosure rates are holding steady. The number of houses entering foreclosures is now almost in line with the number of repossessions. The homeowners who were significantly behind with their payments are now attracting the default notices as usual, but the rate of default has dropped and the percentage of the fall is 30%. This will mean that fewer people will be losing their homes to foreclosures.

However, the lenders have repossessed 95,000 properties, which is way higher than what was repossessed in the same period last year. The number of repossessions last year was 76,000. It now appears that the lenders are allowing longer delinquencies and they are sending out default notices with delays.

The reason for this delay is that after the lenders send out the default notices, the regulations require them to actually move ahead with foreclosures within a certain time frame. This will simply add up to their inventories.

Also, there are chances that as soon as the borrowers find the default notices in their letter boxes, they might empty the houses and leave. This will leave the property vulnerable to vandalism. The lenders are then forced to take over the properties and this simply increases their maintenance costs. Reports, however, show that once the lenders start with foreclosure proceedings, they make fast movements with repossessions, because the housing market is improving and houses are sold out faster. This helps them to avoid further loss.

Some reports show that though the lenders repossess the houses, they may not put the properties on market for sale to control the foreclosure flow and prevent further erosion of housing prices. If prices fall further below, the lenders will be hurt due to the depreciation and even the consumers will face troubles with depreciated market value as they will then have to pay more than the actual value of their homes.

However, with large inventories on repossessed properties still existing, homebuyers are the gainers, because the lenders are offering discounts on purchase of foreclosed properties.

 For the latest foreclosure news and for the most updated listings of foreclosures, visit ForeclosureDataBank.com.