The state’s REO inventory increased by about 4,000 properties during the one-month timeframe and now stands at an estimated 108,000 repossessed homes that have not yet been resold, according to ForeclosureRadar’s report.

New foreclosure filings in California are down 16.03 percent from last year, but the pipeline is becoming increasingly clogged. ForeclosureRadar reports that there are currently 155,000 homes in the state in a pre-foreclosure status, another 123,000 properties scheduled for trustee sales, and the time-to-foreclose has lengthened to an average of 287 days.

Starting this month, ForeclosureRadar has also expanded its coverage to include data on Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, with drill-down capabilities to the state, country, city, and ZIP code levels on its Web site. The company has been tracking foreclosure activity in these additional states for over a year now to capture historical data and provide details on market trends as part of their inaugural reports.

In Arizona, ForeclosureRadar found that notices of trustee sale dropped 12.2 percent in August after climbing 28.8 percent the month prior. Banks took back more properties at auction than they resold in August leading to a continued climb in the state’s REO, up 4.79 percent from the previous month and a 60.48 percent increase year-over-year.

Among the highlights from the Nevada report, is that after seeing an increase in the average opening bid at auction in July, opening bids in August dropped by 4.6 percent. Foreclosure sales to third parties increased by 26.6 percent, and lenders took a record 324 days from the filing of a default notice to completion of the foreclosures sold at auction last month.

Oregon’s number of properties scheduled for foreclosure sale rose by 17.1 percent in August, as the number of new notices of trustee sale significantly outpaced the number of foreclosures that were cancelled or sold. Overall, notice of trustee sale filings in the state rose by 9.3 percent during the month, and notices of default were up 10.7 percent.

In Washington, foreclosure activity decreased across the board, with notices of trustee sale down 15.8 percent, completed foreclosure sales down 10.8 percent, and foreclosure cancellations down 21.8 percent. Despite these declines, the number of properties scheduled for foreclosure sale rose by 2.7 percent and bank-owned inventories increased 9.4 percent.

“Real estate markets are local, not national, and like other real estate trends, foreclosure trends vary a great deal by location,” said Sean O’Toole, CEO and founder of ForeclosureRadar. “We are excited to be able to bring timely, accurate, in-depth and location specific foreclosure data to the Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington markets.”

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The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has received congressional approval to raise borrowers’ annual premiums for single-family mortgage insurance.

House Resolution (HR) 5891 passed the Senate late Wednesday. It cleared the House last Friday, and now heads to President Obama’s desk for final sign-off.

The bill allows FHA to increase the statutory cap of the annual fee charged for federal mortgage insurance three-fold, from 0.55 percent to 1.55 percent.

On April 5th, FHA raised borrowers’ up-front mortgage insurance premiums from 1.75 percent to 2.25 percent – a move that did not require congressional approval. Now that the agency has been granted the authority to raise the annual fees assessed, FHA has said it will shift some of the premium increase from up-front to the annual cost, which is paid over the life of the loan instead of at the time of closing.

FHA Commissioner David Stevens has indicated that he may not need to raise premiums to the maximum.

Robert Story, Jr., chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) says a small increase in the annual premium, coupled with a decrease in FHA’s upfront premium, will help stabilize FHA while lowering closing costs for many borrowers.

The premium increases give FHA a means of increasing its capital reserve funds, which as of the end of fiscal year 2009 had deteriorated to its lowest level in the agency’s 75-year history. FHA is required by law to keep its capital reserve nest egg at a minimum of 2 percent of all the mortgages it insures against default. But rising delinquencies and the stress of the nation’s housing woes pushed the agency’s reserve purse to just 0.53 percent last year.

A larger FHA reform bill – which includes not only the premium increase, but also gives FHA greater enforcement authority against lenders who originate bad loans – is currently on the legislative table. And although the House had already approved the full-length reform bill, lawmakers pulled out the provision for the premium increase and made it a separate measure to speed its passage before the Senate recesses on August 7.

Both chambers of Congress also passed a companion standalone bill that addresses FHA’s multi-family business, which is being sent to the president along with HR 5891.

House Resolution 5872 increases FHA’s commitment authority for its multifamily insurance programs by $5 billion for the remainder of the fiscal year. Without this increase, FHA would have exhausted its current authority sometime in mid-August and would have been forced to stop issuing any commitments to insure the loans in their current pipeline of applications until the next fiscal year, which begins October 1st.

“FHA’s multifamily programs have been a critical source of funding to build and renovate multifamily and rental housing during the recent credit crunch,” Story commented. “MBA has been working tirelessly with officials at FHA and on Capitol Hill to help keep the program up and running and we are gratified that Congress acted before a shutdown became reality.”

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The nation’s REO stock fell 0.6 percent in May to 524,000 properties, according to analysis released by Barclays Capital.

In addition, the research firm estimates that housing’s shadow inventory – which Barclays defines as the supply of homes that are 90 or more days delinquent or in the process of foreclosure, meaning they are nearing REO status – declined by 2.3 percent to 4.02 million properties.

A separate study released by Clear Capital supports the assumption that indeed, there are fewer REOs influencing the market. The real estate valuation firm reports that REO saturation – the percentage of bank-owned homes sold as compared to all properties sold – is steadily declining.

Data from Clear Capital shows that REO saturation dropped 22.7 percent nationally during the May to July period. The company says that’s nearly 20 percentage points less than the REO saturation peak hit back in the first quarter of 2009.

Fewer REOs, coupled with a boost in overall sales from the homebuyer tax credit, have given home prices a lift, according to Clear Capital’s study.

Home prices nationally gained 7.9 percent during the May to July rolling quarter, Clear Capital reports. On a year-over-year basis, prices were up 8.1 percent as of the end of July, but the analysts at Clear Capital note that the latest annual reading represents a slow-down from the 8.8 percent yearly increase recorded in June.

“While quarterly gains are showing strong momentum across the country, these recent price advancements are just the latest turn in a volatile housing market that has seen ‘W’ shaped price trends over the last two years,” said Dr. Alex Villacorta, Clear Capital’s senior statistician.

Villacorta said that despite the up and down behavior of prices since the worst of the housing downturn, national prices are still up 13.6 percent from the trough, providing a cushion against potential future declines and the start of a double-dip.

Future price declines are exactly what’s being forecast. The analysts at Barclays said in their report, “With the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit, we expect the elevated pace of distressed liquidations to depress prices by 7 percent over the next three quarters.”

In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” over the weekend, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan added his own caveat to the mix. Greenspan warned that a decline in home prices could upset the modest economic recovery, with that double-dip spreading beyond just property values and sending the United States down another sharp recessionary slope.

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