Foreclosures for sale: deals disappear on foreclosures for sale | Bedford NY Real Estate

In four-county Metro Orlando, a RealtyTrac snapshot of more than 1,300 foreclosure sales in July and August revealed an average discount of 4 percent below the homes’ market value — only slightly more than what banks are shaving off repossessed homes nationwide.

“This is likely the result of home prices stabilizing and even increasing in many markets, along with a limited supply of bank-owned properties, giving the edge to the sellers,” said Daren Blomquist, a RealtyTrac vice president. “Unlike an individual homeowner selling his or her home, the banks are not emotionally attached to these properties or to a certain value that they think the properties are worth.”

The local price-slashing varies widely by lender and location, however.

Some Metro Orlando locales reported deep discounts in bank-owned homes — from 15 percent to 29 percent below market value, according to RealyTrac’s July-August sample. Those areas, which are disparate geographically and in terms of income levels, include:

Orlando’s 32806 ZIP code, an eclectic area between downtown and Conway.

Lady Lake, a haven for retirees in Lake County.

Orlando’s 32807 ZIP, with the working-class subdivisions of Azalea Park.

Maitland, a city of middle-class and lakefront neighborhoods.

Orange County’s 32818 ZIP code, which includes parts of the historically low-income Pine Hills area.

Discounts on bank-owned homes are important not only to deal hunters but also to other homeowners. Orlando’s housing market is so thin on for-sale listings that, although it could absorb more foreclosed homes without crippling property values, the market’s recovery could slow if banks slash prices to move their distress sales faster. And getting rid of properties quickly is attractive to lenders trying to minimize legal costs, homeowner-association dues, property taxes, repair bills and other fees.

Orlando real-estate broker Dean Asher, president of the statewide industry group Florida Realtors, said the market is moving in a direction that is conducive to investment groups armed with cash buying up multiple residential properties directly from large lenders. Homebuyers dependent on financing, he added, are having a difficult time competing for the bargains.

“Years ago, we would have gotten these [foreclosures] off the books and cleaned up” the market, Asher said. “We’re moving forward, but [banks,] they’ve been holding on to these assets, and as they’re tightening the discount, they are discouraging ordinary buyers.”

According to the Orlando Regional Realtor Association, the much-larger gap between prices paid for bank-owned homes and those paid in “normal” home sales has also been shrinking. For example, in the Realtors’ core Orlando market, the single-family homes sold by lenders had a median price of $90,000 — or 42 percent less than November’s conventional sales, which had a midpoint price of $155,048. A year earlier, in November 2011, the gap had been 46 percent.