According to CoreLogic, there were 52,000 completed foreclosures in the U.S. in April 2013, down from 62,000 in April 2012, a year-over-year decrease of 16 percent. On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures remained flat at 52,000*, the same number reported for March 2013.

As a basis of comparison, prior to the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006. Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 4.4 million completed foreclosures across the country.

As of April 2013, approximately 1.1 million homes in the U.S. were in some stage of foreclosure, known as the foreclosure inventory, compared to 1.5 million in April 2012, a year-over-year decrease of 24 percent. Month over month, the foreclosure inventory was down 2 percent from March 2013 to April 2013. The foreclosure inventory as of April 2013 represented 2.8 percent of all homes with a mortgage compared to 3.5 percent in March 2013.

“The shadow of foreclosure and distress continues to fade, with the annualized sum of completed foreclosures having declined for 17 straight months,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Six states have year-over-year declines in the foreclosure inventory of more than 40 percent, and in Arizona and California the year-over-year decline is more than 50 percent.”

“The shadow inventory continued to drop in April as the number of completed foreclosures fell by 16 percent on a year-over-year basis,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Fewer distressed properties combined with improving home prices and a pickup in home purchases are significant signals that the ongoing recovery in the housing and mortgage markets continues to gather steam.”

Highlights as of April 2013:

The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in April 2013 were: Florida (102,000), California (79,000), Michigan (68,000), Texas (53,000) and Georgia (47,000). These five states account for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationally.

The five states with the lowest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in April 2013 were: South Dakota (81), District of Columbia (100), North Dakota (461), Hawaii (466) and West Virginia (527).

The five states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: Florida (9.5 percent), New Jersey (7.4 percent), New York (5.1 percent), Maine (4.4 percent) and Nevada (4.3 percent).

The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: Wyoming (0.5 percent), Alaska (0.6 percent), North Dakota (0.7 percent), Nebraska (0.8 percent) and Virginia (0.9 percent).

*March data was revised. Revisions are standard, and to ensure accuracy, CoreLogic incorporates newly released data to provide updated results.

A completed foreclosure occurs when a property is auctioned and results in the purchase of the home at auction by either a third party, such as an investor, or by the lender. If the home is purchased by the lender, it is moved into the lender’s real estate owned (REO) inventory. In “foreclosure by advertisement” states, a redemption period begins after the auction and runs for a statutory period, e.g., six months. During that period, the borrower may regain the foreclosed home by paying all amounts due as calculated under the statute. For purposes of this Foreclosure Report, because so few homes are actually redeemed following an auction, it is assumed that the foreclosure process ends in “foreclosure by advertisement” states at the completion of the auction.

Nationally some 1,689,000 properties are in the presale foreclosure inventories. Presale foreclosures Last month presale inventories fell 0.41 percent on a monthly basis and 19.61 percent on a year-over-year basis, according to Lender Processing Services’ “first look” mortgage report.

Presale foreclosures, also called preforeclosures, are properties that have yet go to auction where they are either sold to a third party or go back to the lender to become REOs. They are still owned by their original owners. By selling properties at a huge discount at the pre-sale stage, lenders can reduce their inventories, and avoid carrying costs and rehabilitation expenses exceeding $10,000 per property.

Bulk sales of hundreds of homes at a time can quickly build up the inventories of rental properties that large hedge funds like Blackstone and Waypoint, especially since they pay far below the comparable costs of REOs or even auction sales.

Individual investors and owner-occupants, on the other hand, have a difficult time finding presale foreclosures in their markets. Zillow is one of the few large sites to list presale foreclosures.

However, the large investor purchases of pre-sale foreclosures are speeding up the rehabilitation of defaulted homes and turning them into rentals more quickly than the foreclosure process in many states.

“One of the catalysts in the current upswing has been the large investment funds purchasing REO and other distressed single family homes to rent out. As we also mentioned at that time, the economics of doing this was very compelling, particularly with very low investment returns available in the more traditional financial markets. This is still the case today, even though there have been significant price increases in many of the previously distressed markets of interest,” notes Home Value Forecasts.

“These funds have been renovating the homes, which has helped improve the overall conditions of the surrounding neighborhoods. This injection of capital can only be positive since it is unlikely that homeowner buyers would have had the means to do the same. In addition, having observed a number of real estate cycles, we have noticed that while each one may appear to be different on the surface, they all have the common thread that some type of catalyst gets them going in the first place. Once the cycle starts, a virtuous process of higher sales leads to higher prices which leads to more buyers coming into the market out of fear that they will miss out. At the same time, higher sales typically leads to a shortage of inventory available for sale except in those markets where new homes can easily be built. A unique aspect of the current real estate market environment is that it has the strong fundamental support of very low mortgage rates and historically high levels of home affordability,” said HVF.

On April 1, FHA ill raise the annual mortgage insurance premium paid by borrowers on most new FHA loans by 10 basis points, or 0.1 percent, which the agency expects will add $13 a month to the average borrower’s monthly payments. FHA will also increase premiums on jumbo mortgages (those $625,500 or bigger) by 5 basis points or 0.05 percent, to 155 basis points — the maximum currently allowed by law. Certain streamline refinance transactions will be excluded from the premium increases, the agency said.

The agency is saddled with as much as $16.3 billion in debt due to defaults on loans it insured as the housing market crashed and is facing the grim possibility of asking Congress for a bail out in the midst of the rancorous debate over the budget deficit.

The details of the April 1 changes were released Monday and suggest that impact of the changes to FHA loans, popular with first-time buyers because of their low down payments, will be felt more by new borrowers than those who took out FHA loans before 2009.

FHA is the greatest source of financing for first-time buyers. Some 46 percent of all first-time home buyers relied on FHA loans last year. Affordable prices and buyer’s market conditions make this a good time for first-time buyers but, largely because of difficulties getting financing, the market share for first-time buyers is depressed, accounting for only 30 percent of home sales in January compared to the normal level of about 40 percent. The FHA changes will make it even more difficult and costly for first-time buyers to get financing.

Beginning April 1, 2013 — 39 days from now — new FHA borrowers will pay as much as 1.55 percent for annual FHA mortgage insurance, and for the first time ever, they will pay the FHA mortgage insurance premium (MIP) for the entire life of their loan, according to blogger Dan Green.

The MIP is split in two parts. The first part is called “upfront mortgage insurance” (UFMIP) and it’s a one-time payment that is made at closing. UFMIP is traditionally added to the loan size, and is not used in loan-to-value (LTV) calculations for an FHA loan. The FHA will continue to assess upfront mortgage insurance premiums at 1.75 percent of the loan size for all new borrowers, or $1,750 for every $100,000 borrowed. This is the same rate at which the FHA currently assesses UFMIP.

The second part of FHA mortgage insurance is known as the annual mortgage insurance premium (MIP). Annual MIP is paid monthly as part of the regular mortgage payment. After April 1, the annual MIP will increase for the majority of new mortgages by 10 basis points, or 0.1 percent. This is expected to add $13 a month to the average borrower’s monthly payments.

FHA has automatically canceled required premium payments after loans reached 78 percent of their original value…until now. New borrowers will have to pay required annual mortgage insurance premiums for the life of the loan. Unlike upfront mortgage insurance premiums, annual MIP payments vary based on your loan term, your loan-to-value, and your loan size. The agency estimates it lost billions of dollars in premium revenue on mortgages endorsed from 2010 through 2012 because of this cancellation policy.

Refinancing borrowers who have been with FHA four years or more also will get a break. If a current FHA-insured mortgage pre-dates June 1, 2009, the FHA will allow the borrower to use the FHA Streamline Refinance program and not require him to pay the new, higher MIP rates. For these “grandfathered” loans, the UFMIP charged is equal to 0.01 percent of the loan size, or $10 for every $100,000 borrowed. This amount is added to the loan balance at the time of closing. The annual mortgage insurance premium schedule for such “old loans” is similarly low: 15-year fixed rate mortgage with loan-to-value of 78 percent or less –no annual MIP required; 15-year fixed rate mortgage with loan-to-value greater than 78 percent –0.55 percent annual MIP; and 30-year fixed rate mortgage, all loan-to-values–0.55 percent annual MIP.

Many first-time buyers have borderline FICO scores and borrowers with FICO credit scores below 620 and a total debt-to-income ratio of more than 43 percent will not be eligible for processing through FHA’s automated underwriting system after April 1. They will have to be processed manually, with lenders documenting compensating factors such as a larger down payment or a higher level of reserves.

Borrowers with jumbo loans of $625,000 or more will also see premiums increase, by 5 basis points or 0.05 percent. The minimum downpayment requirement on jumbo loans will go from 3.5 percent to 5 percent on loans between $625,500 to $729,000.

The two rules which are being finalized the year, the Qualified Mortgage rule (QM) and the Qualified Residential Mortgage rule (QM), reduce risk for lenders but place new burdens on borrowers. The QM rule codifies tighter higher underwriting standards that lenders have implemented since 2006 that deny loans to borrowers who cannot demonstrate their ability to repay. The QRM rule encourages borrowers to make down payments greater than the current average in order to avoid risk retention requirements that amount to significantly higher interest rates.

However, the full impact of the rules won’t be felt for years. The QM rule finalized last month allows loans that meet GSE and FHA underwriting guidelines-most of the mortgages originated today– to be excluded for up to seven years. When they do take full effect, the impact will be greatest in Southern and Western states where prices risen and fallen the most. Jumbo mortgages, which do not conform to GSE guideliens, will feel the effect as early as next year.

An analysis by CoreLogic economist Sam Khater found that only 52 percent of mortgages that conform to GSE and FHA standards will meet the QM rule’s eligibility requirements when the exclusion expires.

“By far the greatest impact is the debt-to-income threshold which removed 24 percent of all originations, said Khater. “The second largest category is low or no-documentations lending, which removed 16 percent. The remaining QM provisions only remove 8 percent of loans. ”

Assuming that the QRM rule, which is not yet finalized, will Impose 10 percent down payments (the national median is currently 9 percent), then the combined impact of the QRM and QM rules will be to remove 60 percent of loans, Khater wrote, leaving just 40 percent of the market “QM and QRM eligible.

“While QM and ARM remove 60 percent of loans, they remove more than 90 percent of the risk,” Khater concluded.

However, the short-to-medium impact will he small and ironically the QM rule actual will reinforce the role of the GSEs in the next seven years, due to the exclusion.

The Washington Post, citing Treasury Department sources reported this morning that the President is weighing whether to use his executive powers to expand the program to include non-agency loans in the successful refinancing program. Congress refused to approve such an expansion of the program last year.

HARP has helped about 1.8 million homeowners refinance since April 2009. Some 81,600 borrowers used the HARP program to refinance last month alone, according to HUD. Some 11 million homeowners have been unable to refinance under HARP.

The HARP program, which has been modified a number of times since its launch four years ago, is limited by that fact that borrowers’ loans must be held by one of the government sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. As a result, it has not been able to help millions of homeowners.

“Even with the expanded HARP 2.0 guidelines, we are still finding that 4 out of 10 borrowers we speak with are unable to qualify for a refinance due to participating lender restrictions,” said Brian Maier, a Las Vegas, NV mortgage broker last July.

The plan, if adopted, would likely be aimed at homeowners who have otherwise kept up with their mortgage payments but have been unable to refinance because the loan against their home exceeds its depressed value. Many Republicans in Congress have balked at the idea amid concerns over the cost to taxpayer, according to the Post.

In his State of the Union Speech last year the President proposed an expansion of the HARP program that would provide access to refinancing for all non-GSE borrowers who are current on their payments and meet a set of simple criteria. However, the plan required action by Congress, which failed to materialize.

The Post reported that Michael A. Stegman, a senior Treasury Department official, said late last month that the administration would “consider non-legislative means at our disposal to help responsible .?.?. homeowners access these low rates.” But he added, “the legislative route would be preferable.”

In an editorial last week, the New York Times said, “The program demonstrates a clear contrast with Republicans, both in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail. Many, including Mitt Romney, want the government to do nothing to help homeowners on the verge of foreclosure. That should not stop the White House and other Democrats from vigorously making the case that there is an alternative to that coldhearted prescription, if lawmakers would just seize it.”

A judicial state that has had its share of controversy over robo-signing practices as well as high levels of negative equity and deep declines in home values since 2006, Florida markets still offer investors the best opportunities to buy and profit by either flipping or renting and holding renovated foreclosures.

To select the best places to buy foreclosures in 2013, RealtyTrac scored all metro areas with a population of 500,000 or more by summing up four numbers: months’ supply of foreclosure inventory, percentage of foreclosure sales, foreclosure discount, and percentage increase in foreclosure activity in 2012.

Topping the list of best places to buy foreclosures in 2013 was the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville metro area in Florida with a total score of 394: 34 months’ supply of inventory, foreclosure sales representing 24 percent of all sales, average foreclosure discount of 28 percent, and a 308 percent increase in foreclosure activity in 2012 compared to 2011.

Five other Florida cities ranked among the Top 20 best places to buy foreclosures: Lakeland, Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, and Miami.

Late last year, Zillow calculated that the foreclosure discounts in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties shrank to 2.9 percent discount in September, down from 6.8 percent a year earlier Accordiong to Zillow, South Florida’s peak foreclosure discount was 22.7 percent in August 2008. But during the past year, a lack of homes for sale has frustrated buyers and led to multiple offers and bidding wars.

“The smallest foreclosure discount is found in places where competition for homes is so high, people there are willing to pay the same amount for a foreclosure re-sale that they would for a non-distressed home simply to take advantage of historic affordability,” Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries said in a statement.

RealtyTrac listed five New York cities among the 20 best places to buy foreclosures in 2013, based largely on big backlogs of foreclosure inventory and big increases in foreclosure activity in 2012: Rochester, Albany, New York, Poughkeepsie, and Syracuse. Like Florida, New York is a judicial state.

Other cities in the Top 20 were Chicago, Ill.; El Paso, Texas; Philadelphia; Allentown, Pa.; Youngstown, Ohio; Bridgeport, Conn.; Cleveland, Ohio; New Haven, Conn.; and Indianapolis, Ind.

The metro with the lowest score was McAllen, Texas, with a 12-month supply of foreclosure inventory, foreclosure sales accounting for 7 percent of all sales, an average foreclosure discount of 21 percent, and a 66 percent decrease in foreclosure activity in 2012 compared to 2011.

Metros with the lowest scores were dominated by cities in the west, including Ogden, Utah; Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Portland, Ore., San Jose, Calif., and Honolulu.

RealtyTrac reported that Foreclosure activity in 2012 decreased from 2011 in 12 out of the nation’s 20 largest metro areas, led by Phoenix (down 37 percent), San Francisco (down 30 percent), Detroit (down 26 percent), Los Angeles (down 24 percent), and San Diego (down 24 percent).

But 2012 foreclosure activity increased in eight of the 20 largest metros, led by Tampa (80 percent increase), Miami (36 percent increase), Baltimore (34 percent increase), Chicago (30 percent increase), and New York (28 percent increase).

A new TransUnion survey found that nearly half of respondents (48 percent) said rental prices on the majority of their units had increased since this same time last year. Approximately 44 percent said rental prices remained the same. In the 2011 TransUnion rental survey, only 39 percent reported an increase while 48 percent said prices remained the same.

“Data throughout the last year has pointed to a healthier rental market, and our survey helps validate the current strength of the rental industry,” said Steve Roe, vice president, TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions. “The rise in rental prices, coupled with a decrease in vacancy rates and the ability to attract new residents with less effort are all positive signs for the market and rental property managers.”

Despite increasing rental prices, more property managers are finding it easier to locate prospective residents. Nearly 73 percent of respondents said it is not difficult to find residents compared to 67 percent last year.

Even with a healthier rental market, property managers continue to be concerned with attracting profitable and reliable residents for the remainder of the year. Nearly 60 percent of respondents said they are concerned or very concerned to find such tenants. “Though this number is down from 65 percent in last year’s survey, it does point to the continued unease about the economy and a lingering question about the ability of tenants to make timely rental payments,” added Roe.

Property managers also may be cautious because more than half of survey respondents (53 percent) said they have had a renter “skip out” leaving the unit with unpaid rent or damages. Approximately 18 percent of those surveyed said a tenant has skipped out in the last year.

“Finding reliable tenants is critical as property managers can lose thousands of dollars in rent if a tenant skips out of a rental unit, or if the property manager must take action to evict someone from a unit,” said Roe. “Nearly 50% of small property managers said they’ve had someone skip out of their rental unit. Many of these people only rent out a few units, thus it’s especially important for them to do all they can to identify reliable tenants.”

FHA foreclosures rose 73 percent in April, driven primarily by defaults of loans made in 2008 and 2009 vintage loans, raising new questions about the solvency of the popular government program, which accounts for about a third of all new mortgages.

New foreclosures on FHA-backed loans rose to 63,126 in April from 36,311 a month earlier, mortgage-data provider Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS) said yesterday.

“In 2008, when the loan origination market virtually dried up, the FHA stepped in to fill the void,” explained Herb Blecher, senior vice president for LPS Applied Analytics, which released the data of FHA foreclosures in its May Mortgage Monitor Report. “FHA originations tripled that year, and increased to five times historical averages in 2009. High volumes like that, even with low default rates, can produce larger numbers of foreclosure starts. That represents a lot of loans to work through - the 2008 vintage alone represents some $14 billion of unpaid balances in foreclosure, and the overall FHA foreclosure inventory continues to rise.

The FHA immediately challenged the data, saying its own numbers showed an 11 percent drop in April foreclosures to 18,975. LPS may have erred extrapolating numbers from its database of information on 40 million loans, said an FHA spokesman.

The LPS report showed that defaults for loans written from 2004 through 2010 rose in April, but the largest spike was in loans originated in 2008 and 2009. Since the 2008-2009 period, when FHA lending exploded as private lenders pulled out of the housing market, reaching nearly 2.5 million loans, FHA has instituted higher lending standards, including higher credit requirements and increased mortgage insurance premiums to reduce its risk. As a result, default rates on loans written after 2008 have improved significantly, according to LPS.

Though FHA foreclosures are still far below private lenders as a percentage of total inventory, the sheer dollar volume of LPS figures could have a significant implications for the agency’s portfolio, especially if the trend continues.

A new survey by Realtor.com found that the 55.7 percent of consumers fear that the backlogged foreclosure inventory that built up during the two year period following the Robo-signing scandal when lenders slowed down processing, especially in the 26 judicial states where a court order is required to foreclose. Homeowners and non-homeowners are equally concerned.

April data released today by CoreLogic found that foreclosure inventories today are at about the same level they were at the first of the year, when the backlog was at its peak and before 49 state Attorneys General Agreement with major lenders was signed in March. Approximately 1.4 million homes, or 3.4 percent of all homes with a mortgage, were in the national foreclosure inventory as of April 2012 compared to 1.5 million, or 3.5 percent, in April 2011 and 1.4 million, or 3.4 percent, in March 2012, according to CoreLogic. The backlogged inventory at its current level represents about 39 percent of the approximately 3.6 million foreclosures completed across the country since the start of the financial crisis in September 2008, there have been.

Participants in the Realtor.com survey want lenders to take action to keep the ’shadow inventory’ of foreclosures from lowering home values. One in four (28.3 percent) Americans prefer the lease-purchase option instead of: Selling them slowly to preserve home values (12.8 percent); Selling them to investors to fix up and rent out (11 percent); Continuing business as usual (10.8 percent); Selling them quickly to eliminate the backlog even if home values suffer (10.6 percent); And renting them out until prices improve (8.7 percent).

“As lenders begin processing their distressed inventories and releasing them for sale at the local level, we look to them to move carefully and monitor conditions so recently gained home values aren’t diminished,” said Steve Berkowitz, chief executive officer of Realtor.com operator Move, Inc.

“The inventory of homes in foreclosure in judicial foreclosure states is growing, but this increase is being more than offset by declining inventories in non-judicial states where the processing timelines to clear a foreclosure are shorter,” said Anand Nallathambi, chief executive officer of CoreLogic. “Nationally the inventory of homes in foreclosure decreased 0.1 percent from what it was a year ago at this time, and has leveled off over the first four months of 2012.”

Four of the five states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were judicial states: Florida (12.0 percent), New Jersey (6.7 percent), Illinois (5.3 percent), and New York (5.0 percent). The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in April 2012 were: California (142,000), Florida (92,000), Michigan (60,000), Texas (58,000) and Georgia (57,000). These five states account for 48.8 percent of all completed foreclosures nationally.

The Realtor.com survey found that Interest in buying foreclosures has almost tripled among potential home buyers in the past two and half years, and 92.1 percent of those buyers plan to live in them rather than use them as investments, according to a new national survey released today by Realtor.com. This suggests the stigma once associated with buying a foreclosure as a home has faded.

Homebuyer interest in foreclosures jumped 159 percent since October 2009 when foreclosures accounted for 29 percent of all home sales. In fact, more than two-thirds (64.9 percent) of today’s homebuyers said they’re likely to buy a foreclosure compared to 25.3 percent two and a half years ago. Only 6.9 percent of today’s potential home buyers are interested in buying a foreclosure as an investment, down from 13.2 percent in October 2009, the survey found.

Fear of losing a home to foreclosure has declined in recent years. Today, approximately one third of Americans (34.9 percent) fear they or someone they know will face foreclosure in the next year, down -33.5 percent from March 2009 levels when 52.5 percent expressed this concern. Fear of facing foreclosure today is greatest among those earning less than $30,000 a year and slightly higher among non-homeowners than homeowners.

Most Americans say they haven’t seen improvement in the foreclosure situation where they live. The Realtor.com survey found most Americans (49 percent) think the foreclosure situation is about the same as it was last year, while close to one in six (17.6 percent) say the foreclosure situation is worse. Only 21.3 percent think the foreclosure situation in their market is better. Foreclosures have in fact declined by 34 percent in the past 12 months.

In December, about one out of every 10 FHA mortgages, 9.73 percent, was seriously delinquent, or 90 days past due. Compare that to all mortgages, whose seriously delinquent rate fell to 7.3 percent in December from 7.8 percent a year earlier.

For nine straight months, FHA delinquencies have risen while mortgages in general have improved. From September through November, FHA serious delinquencies rose a full percentage point and in 2011, the number of seriously delinquent loans increased by 100,399.

As of December 31, 2011, the FHA insured a total of 7,415,002 loans and the prior fiscal year showed a total of 598,140 mortgages seriously delinquent. The number of mortgage defaults from the previous year increased by18.9 percent.

The large increase in FHA defaults is a source of growing concern since the FHA’s insurance reserve fund to cover loan losses is virtually depleted. By law, the FHA is supposed to maintain a capital ratio of 2.0 percent but the fund ratio is currently at only 0.12 percent. Analysis from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget released this week showed the fund would actually fall into the red this year and need an unprecedented bailout from the Treasury Department. The American Enterprise Institute estimated the FHA would need a total capital infusion of $52.90 billion.

Over the past two years, FHA implemented several reforms to reduce its risk, including increasing is mortgage insurance payment and limiting eligibility of high risk borrowers. Continued deterioration of the reserve fund will certainly trigger additional legislation to increase costs to borrowers even more. Last month FHA financed some 35 percent of all purchase mortgages in the nation. Seventy-seven percent of FHA borrowers are first-time home buyers.