Utah Law Gives Owners Some Protections In Foreclosure

Gov. Gary Herbert has signed into law the only bill to emerge from the Legislature that attempts to deal with the thousands of home foreclosures expected in Utah this year.

One in every 273 homes in Utah had a foreclosure filing in February, the fourth-highest rate in the nation, according to RealtyTrac, a California company that collects real-estate data. It said 3,488 properties had some kind of foreclosure notice filed last month.

SB261 allows homeowners who were illegally foreclosed on to seek damages. It also requires that homeowners be given written notification that a foreclosure sale is proceeding despite any reduced payment agreement and are liable for damages if they do not.

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Banks’ Loan Quagmire Snares 3 In Utah Family

If the Olsens of Utah County are any indication, the dysfunction among the nation’s banks who service mortgages runs long and deep.

Three members of the same family have experienced mounting frustrations, dislocations and months of stress in trying to renegotiate loans on their homes after they had financial setbacks. Each had bought or constructed homes near the height of the housing market only to see their finances and homeownership threatened for a variety of reasons in the economic meltdown.

Each at some point made decisions about their loans and their dealings with the banks out of frustration or naivete about negotiating with large and, based on their experiences, what appears to be poorly administered processes at the institutions.

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Professor Shares Tips On Buying A Home

Buying a house is not just about getting the most for the money, contrary to popular opinion.

Bryan Sudweeks, an associate professor at the Marriott School of Management, taught the class “Buying a Home” as part of the Show Me the Money financial planning seminar at the Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center on Saturday.

“The single biggest mistake young couples make out of school is buying too big a home,” he said.

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Foreclosures Drive Home Sales In Utah

Nearly one-fifth of all home sales in Utah last year were foreclosures, a new report shows.

The state’s share of distressed property sales, 19.7 percent, is lower than many other states, including neighboring Nevada (57.4 percent), Arizona (49.2 percent), Colorado (24.7 percent) and Idaho (28.4 percent).

Nationally, foreclosed homes accounted for nearly 26 percent of all U.S. residential sales, according to a report by RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosures nationally.

In a normal market, foreclosures typically account for 1 percent to 5 percent of the home-sale market, said Daren Blomquist, managing editor of the RealtyTrac. Even though foreclosures are a smaller share of overall home sales in the state, “19 percent is still abnormally high,” he added.

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Southern Utah Housing Market Sees Bright Spot

Sales of new homes tumbled 11.2 percent between December and January as home builders struggle to compete in markets saturated with foreclosed homes.

Economists call it a worrisome sign, because it follows the worst year for new home sales in nearly 50 years. But there may be a bright spot on the horizon for real estate, at least in Southern Utah.

It isn't hard to find a brand new house for sale in St. George. In fact, "for sale" signs seem to be everywhere after the region suffered greatly in the nationwide housing crisis.

But there is one market in Southern Utah that is suddenly booming. 

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Despite Fears About Buying A Home, Now May Be The Time

Interest rates are near historic lows. Real estate is more affordable than it was three years ago. And the inventory of homes for sale gives buyers more choices than they’ve had in years.

So why aren’t more people buying?

Certainly, there are scores of potential buyers who no longer can qualify for loans under today’s tighter lending criteria. And others can’t because of layoffs, pay cuts and other recessionary hardships.

Even among those who can and want to buy, many are still holding off out of fear that it just isn’t the right time, but are they missing an opportunity?

“Consumer confidence is really low,” said Eric Allen, director of Metrostudy in Salt Lake City, which tracks the housing market.”

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4Q Wasatch Front Home Sales, Prices Decline

The residential real estate market remains mired in one of the worst downturns ever along the Wasatch Front, but it is showing some signs of improvement, a new report shows.

In Salt Lake County, 1,934 existing single-family homes were sold in the fourth quarter of 2010, down 21 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2009, the Salt Lake Board of Realtors reported Thursday. The median selling price was $215,000, down 4.4 percent from the same three-month period in 2009. Median prices peaked at $256,000 in the summer of 2007.

The Realtor group attributes the declines in both sales and prices to federal home-buying incentives that boosted demand for homes in late 2009 and early 2010. Sales fell off in the second half of last year after the incentives expired.

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Seizing an Opportunity: Housing Slump Whets Investors’ Appetite in Resale of Foreclosures

Most CEOs entered 2011 hoping the economy will soon fire on all cylinders. For one business chief, however, mortgage delinquencies and tight credit standards are a dream come true.

Sean Whalen is the CEO of Property23, an Orem-based startup that has successfully capitalized on the recent real estate meltdown, seeking out foreclosure properties across the country and prepping them for resale. Most of its clients are fellow investors who are hoping to rent or resell at double-digit profit when the recovery gathers steam. Since it was founded in 2008, the company has bought and sold no less than 4,000 properties and currently employs more than 100 people.

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Utah Lawmakers Look To Reduce Foreclosures

For the third straight year, Utah was among the worst states in the U.S. for the rate of foreclosure filings per household, according to a recently released nationwide report. Two state lawmakers now want to do something about it.


Irvine, Calif.-based research firm RealtyTrac reported this month that Utah had the nation’s 5th highest foreclosure rate in 2010, representing nearly 20 percent hike from 2009 and a 119 percent jump from 2008. The report showed that one in every 29 Utah housing units received a foreclosure filing last year.

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How Accurate Are Property Records?

A Utah court case in which the owner of a Draper townhouse got clear title to the property, even though he still owed $132,000 on it, raises new legal and financial questions about a property-records database created by mortgage bankers. 

The award of a title free of liens means that whoever owns the promissory note on the Draper property — likely a group of faraway investors — no longer has the right to foreclose to collect on a delinquent loan. Indeed, the townhouse owner has sold the property and kept the money. Those who own the promissory note probably don’t even know what occurred.

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Utah County Woman Sues Group Of Developers

A 77-year-old Utah County woman is suing a group of developers, saying she was swindled out of $600,000 after being promised a 15 percent return on a real estate project in Hurricane.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Patricia Tanner has sued H&S Investments, Summit Development, Management, American Commercial Real Estate Specialists Group, and Utah Commercial Real Estate.

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Homeowners Left In Lurch After Loan Modification Company Suddenly Closes

The sudden closure of a Utah County loan modification company has left several clients in danger of losing their homes.

The doors of Modify Utah's American Fork office located on east Utah Valley Drive were shuttered this week, leaving clients wondering what will happen to their homes. The company had been in the business of "assisting customers to obtain loan modifications of their home mortgage loans."

According to a letter from the firm's attorney, Paxton Guymon, Modify Utah ceased doing business for several reasons, including "a significant portion of (its) customers have failed or refused to pay ... for services provided, recently imposed restrictions impeding the company's ability to process or receive payments and lien holders unwillingness to work with loan modification companies."

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Utahns Split On Renting vs. Buying In Today's Economy

Do we rent or do we buy? That is the question some Utahns are contemplating in today's shaky economy. Analysts say a growing number of Americans are renting rather than buying a home.

Resident Ron Thorpe and his wife bought their home in Tooele 10 years ago. He's even contemplated buying another house but doesn't want to pay two mortgages. He says now is the time to seize the home buying opportunity because of the state of the economy.

"Interest rates are at their record low," says Thorpe. "Housing prices have come down and you always need a home to live in."
Other Utahns aren't so sure about that. Rose Park resident Klarissa Mesi says she prefers to rent because it saves her money.

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Despite Freezes, Foreclosures March On In Utah And Beyond

For most Americans at risk of losing their homes —especially those in Utah — the brutal business of foreclosure goes on.

Bank of America halted foreclosures across the country to address banks’ use of flawed foreclosure paperwork, but three other banks did so only in 23 states where judges have to review foreclosures— and Utah wasn’t one of them. And other banks holding millions of mortgages have not suspended any foreclosures.

As with all real estate matters, location is everything. So what does the industry’s moratorium mean for states such as Utah, Arizona, California and Nevada that typically have no judicial review of foreclosure cases (except when homeowners sue a bank)?

For now, “It’s probably going to have little — if any — effect in Utah,” said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of RealtyTrac cq , a company that tracks foreclosures nationally.

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Home Sales Up; Prices Down

Home sales along the Wasatch Front are up dramatically so far this year, but what happens now that a federal buying incentive of up to $8,000 is expiring?

Certainly, the federal tax credit — along with low mortgage rates — played a leading role in pushing up sales of single-family homes in the first quarter. Although prices continued to fall, sales in Salt Lake County rose by 15.3 percent and condo sales by nearly 27 percent, compared with the same period in 2009.

Exactly how many of the buyers of 1,716 homes and 350 condos that changed hands in the first three months will claim or have claimed the credit isn’t known, but it could have been as high as a third, said Bill Heiner, president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, which issued its home-sale report Tuesday.

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Resale Fees That Only Developers Could Love

REBECCA AND TRENT DUPAIX of Eagle Mountain, Utah, spent a year searching for their dream home. The couple, who have five children, considered 15 to 20 houses before finding “the one.”

They were thrilled when they closed on a $227,000, rock-and-stucco home with five bedrooms and two and a half baths in March 2009.

But four months later, when a local television reporter was doing a story on housing taxes in their subdivision, the Dupaixs discovered that their sales contract included a “resale fee” that allows the developer to collect 1 percent of the sales price from the seller every time the property changes hands — for the next 99 years.

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Obama Awards Utah $5 Million To Stabilize Communities

Five million dollars in grants, intended to reverse the effects of foreclosures in local communities, will be headed to Utah, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Thursday.

The funds will provide emergency assistance to help Utah communities acquire, redevelop or demolish foreclosed properties.

"These grants will support local efforts to reverse the effects these foreclosed properties have on their surrounding neighborhoods," said Secretary Shaun Donovan. "We want to make certain that we target these funds to those places with especially high foreclosure activity so we can help turn the tide in our battle against abandonment and blight."

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Utah Remains Among Highest In Surge Of Foreclosure Filings

The number of Utah households facing foreclosure jumped by 75 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, much higher than the 16 percent increase nationally, a new report shows.

Nearly 10,800 households in the state, or one in every 88 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, said RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based company that tracks filings. The firm said Utah has the fifth-highest rate of foreclosure filings of all states, behind only Nevada, Arizona, Florida and California. The Beehive State has been in the top tier for much of the past year.

Nationally, more than 900,000 households, or one in every 138 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, which ranges from a homeowner being warned he or she is behind on their mortgage to a bank taking possession. Across the country, more homes were taken over by banks and scheduled for a foreclosure sale than in any quarter going back to at least January 2005, when RealtyTrac began reporting the data, the firm said. Experts say it’s a sign that banks are starting to wade through the backlog of troubled home loans at a faster pace, according to the report.

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Utah Panel Pushing For Energy-Efficient Homes

Utah’s Uniform Building Code Commission is poised to push the Legislature to mandate that new houses be more energy-efficient.

But a key group is already pushing back.

Homebuilders say the new standards would unnecessarily jack up the prices for new houses, while conservation advocates counter that they would save energy — and homeowners’ money.

The commission last month approved the new code on a 5-2 vote but will take a final vote after a public hearing Wednesday.

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Conflict of Interest? ABC 4 investigates judges' ties to Bank of America

"They're foreclosing illegally here in Utah.” Those were the words of St. George Attorney John Christian Barlow spoken in early June. Barlow at the time had appeared before a Federal Judge arguing that the banking giant, Bank of America, was foreclosing illegally in the State of Utah. The Southern Utah Attorney believed that because B.O.A. was not a registered business or corporation in the state, they lacked authority to do business here.

Barlow had succeeded in getting a 5th Circuit Court Judge to agree with him. As a result, the judge imposed an injunction on all Bank of America foreclosures. Weeks later, the case went before a Federal Judge where B.O.A. argued that they were regulated by federal, not state laws. Federal Judge Clark Waddoups heard the case, and threw out the injunction therefore Bank of America’s foreclosure company (ReConTrust) was allowed to foreclose once again.

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