A new development is catching home buyers off guard as the spring sales season gets under way: Bidding wars are back.
From California to Florida, many buyers are increasingly competing for the same house. Unlike the bidding wars that typified the go-go years and largely reflected surging sales, today’s are a result of supply shortages.
Peter Earl McCollough for The Wall Street Journal
Debbie and Bill Wetherell received multiple offers for their home.
“It’s a little surprising because we thought bidding wars were done with,” said Andy Aley, who is looking to buy his first home in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. The 31-year-old attorney was outbid this year when he offered up to $23,000 above the $357,000 listing price and agreed to waive inspections and other closing conditions.
Competitive bidding in the current environment isn’t producing huge price increases or leaving sellers with hefty profits, as occurred during the housing boom. Still, the bidding wars caused by tight inventory provide the latest evidence that housing demand is starting to pick up after a six-year-long slump.
An index that measures the number of contracts signed to purchase previously owned homes rose in March to its highest level in nearly two years, up 12.8% from a year ago and 4.1% from February, the National Association of Realtors reported on Thursday.
“We very much believe we’ve hit bottom,” said Ivy Zelman, chief executive of a research firm, who was among the first to warn of a downturn seven years ago. Earlier this week, she raised her home-price forecast for the year, calling for a 1% annual gain, up from a 1% decline.
View Interactive

The Wall Street Journal’s quarterly survey found that the inventory of homes listed for sale declined sharply in all 28 markets tracked. Real-estate agents consider a market balanced when there is a six-month supply of homes for sale. At the height of the housing crisis, in 2008, there was an 11.1-months’ supply. In March, there was a 6.3-months’ supply.
Inventory levels in many markets were at the lowest level in years. At the current pace of sales, it would take just 1.5 months to sell all the homes listed in Sacramento, Calif., and 2.4 months to sell all the homes listed in Phoenix. San Francisco and Washington, D.C., each have 3.4 months of supply, while Miami has 4.1 months of supply.
Other markets have plenty of homes. Chicago, for example, has 9.4 months of supply, while New York’s Long Island has 16.1 months of supply. Even in those markets, the number of houses for sale is edging down.
Increased competition is frustrating buyers and their agents. “We’re writing a record number of offers, but we’re not seeing a record number of closings and that’s because it’s so competitive,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of real-estate brokerage Redfin Corp. in Seattle with offices in 14 states.
Nearly 83% of offers that Redfin agents have made on behalf of clients in the San Francisco Bay area this year and 71% in Southern California have had competing bids. Redfin represented a buyer that made the winning bid on a Gaithersburg, Md., home earlier this month after agreeing to adopt the dog of the seller, who was relocating and looking to find a new home for “Buddy,” a white toy poodle.
Inventories are declining for a number of reasons. Some sellers, unwilling to accept prices that are still down from their peak by one-third, are taking their homes off the market in anticipation of higher prices down the road. Meanwhile, investors have been outmaneuvering consumers for the best properties, often making cash offers that are quickly accepted by sellers.
In addition, some economists say that inventory levels are being held artificially low because Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the nation’s biggest banks have been slow to list for sale hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes they currently own. The lenders slowed down foreclosure sales and repossessions after record-keeping abuses surfaced 18 months ago.
Banks and other mortgage investors owned nearly 450,000 foreclosed properties at the end of March, and another two million mortgages were in some stage of foreclosure.
Inventories could rise, putting more pressure on prices, if the banks and other lenders step up their efforts to sell their properties. Real-estate agents say they aren’t concerned. “There’s an enormous appetite for foreclosures. Release the inventory. It will sell,” said Richard Smith, chief executive of Realogy Corp., which owns the Coldwell Banker and Century 21 real-estate brands.

The declining inventory of older homes is spurring sales of new homes. New home sales are up 16% so far this year, compared with a year ago, while inventories of new homes fell in March to their lowest level since record keeping began in 1963.
Meritage Homes Corp., a builder based in Scottsdale, Ariz., reported Thursday a 36% increase in orders for the quarter ending in March versus the previous-year period.
Even though bidding wars are pushing prices higher, many homes are still selling for prices far lower than a few years ago. Increased demand is “entirely affordability driven, which tells me there will be strong resistance to price increases” by buyers, says Jeffrey Otteau, president of Otteau Valuation Group, an East Brunswick, N.J., appraisal firm.
Rents are rising at a time when mortgage rates have fallen to very low levels. The result is that the monthly mortgage payment on a median-priced home is lower than any time since the 1990s. Freddie Mac reported on Thursday that mortgage rates fell to 3.88% for the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage, near its lowest recorded level.
Enlarge Image

Close

Rates are “so low that we can afford a house that was out of our price range before,” said Aarthi Srinivasan, who is looking with her husband for a home around Palo Alto, Calif., one of the country’s hottest real-estate markets.
Ms. Srinivasan says she fears that prices are being bid up too quickly. She says she had her “aha moment” earlier this year while touring a 50-year-old house that needed extensive remodeling. The home, listed at $1.1 million, received nearly 10 offers and eventually went under contract for more than $1.3 million to a buyer who hadn’t even viewed the property.
“There are only so many buyers who are going to be in such a hurry, so we’re hoping it’ll top off soon,” she says. On Monday, they offered to pay more than the $1.2 million list price for a four-bedroom, bank-owned foreclosure. They haven’t found out if they made the top bid.
On the other side of those transactions are sellers like Debbie and Bill Wetherell, who had 17 offers in four days for their four-bedroom home in Danville, Calif. “I was floored. It was so fast, it was surreal,” says Ms. Wetherell. The home sold on Wednesday for $796,000, more than $50,000 above the asking price.
Still, the sale is for nearly $180,000 less than what they paid for the house in 2005. Ms. Wetherell’s husband has commuted to Reno, Nev., for five years and they have decided to relocate.
Housing markets face other headwinds. More than 11 million homeowners owe more than their home is worth. It is a big reason that the “trade-up” market has been stalled. These homeowners can’t sell their current homes, let alone come up with the down payment for their next home.
Mortgage-lending standards remain tough. Real-estate agents say an unusually high share of deals are falling apart because homes won’t appraise at the price that buyers have agreed to pay sellers.
Still, borrowers with stable jobs are looking to make deals. Kelly Pajela-Fu and her husband offered to pay the asking price of $600,000 for a four-bedroom home in Marblehead, Mass., within a day of the property hitting the market.
“We just knew this house would go quickly,” says Ms. Pajela-Fu, a 31-year-old doctor who had lost out on an earlier offer. Their strategy to avoid a bidding war paid off: The sellers accepted their offer before having an open house.

Click to view the Pinellas County real estate Monthly Indicators

The media sometimes obsesses over the negatives, but last year brought several important improvements in key metrics that should not be brushed aside, such as an improved inventory picture. Foreclosures also dominate news stories, and for good reason. People should occupy homes, not banks. Which means qualified buyers need reliable access to mortgage capital, and distressed properties may need further attention in 2012 to expedite transfer of ownership and tax-base recapture. As we delve into a new year, we’re seeing mostly positive signs. Let’s examine some of them.

New Listings were down 18.3 percent for detached homes and 29.9 percent for attached properties. Pending Sales increased 2.9 percent for single-family homes but decreased 11.3 percent for townhouse-condo properties.The Median Sales Price was up 9.8 percent to $118,000 for detached homes and 14.5 percent to $85,000 for attached properties. Months Supply of Inventory decreased 39.7 percent for single-family units and 36.7 percent for townhouse-condo units.

U.S. economic data has been encouraging. The unemployment rate flirted with a 3-year low and an initial reading on the fourth quarter of 2011 GDP was in-line with expectations. Mortgage rates posted yet another fresh new record low. At the risk of sounding redundant (at the risk of sounding redundant), the missing puzzle piece is still jobs. Improvements in the labor market will spur housing demand through new household formations, improve family financials and galvanize consumer confidence.

Click to view the Pinellas County real estate Monthly Indicators

Shortly after the federal government enacted sweeping healthcare reform earlier this year, there was considerable concern over a last-minute addition to the legislation: a 3.8 percent tax on investment income of upper-income households to help shore up Medicare. The tax takes effect in 2013.

Among the concerns expressed among consumers and business people, including real estate professionals, both then and today, is that the tax amounts to a transfer tax on real estate. Not true, NAR Director of Tax Policy Linda Goold says.

Here’s how the tax works. For individuals earning $200,000 a year or more and married couples earning $250,000 a year or more, certain investment income above these income levels might be subject to the 3.8 percent tax on a portion of that income. I say “might” because whether the tax applies or not depends on many factors having to do with the kind and amount of the investment income the household receives.

Investment income includes capital gains, dividends, interest payments, and, for those who own rental property, net rental income.

Importantly, the $250,000 (for individuals) and $500,000 (for married couples) capital gain exclusion on the sale of a principal residence remains in place. So, if you’re a married household that sold a house for a $500,000 gain (that’s gain, not sale proceeds), that amount remains excluded from your income calculation.

Let’s take a look at a married couple that has $325,000 in adjusted gross income (AGI), plus $525,000 in capital gains from the sale of their house.

This household would be considered upper-income by most standards. Not only is their income relatively high, at $325,000 (adjusted gross income, or AGI), but they’re receiving a $525,000 gain on their house sale. Presumably, they bought their house years ago and it’s appreciated over the years, so upon selling it, their gain is a relatively high $525,000.

For this household, only $25,000 in investment income would be subject to the 3.8 percent tax. That would amount to $950. That’s because it’s the $25,000 over the $500,000 capital gains exclusion that’s taxable.

Before they would know that, though, they would have to do a calculation that involves their adjusted gross income. They would have to add their capital gain of $25,000 to the amount of their income above the $250,000 income trigger (for married couples). Since their income is $325,000, they would add the $25,000 to $75,000 ($325,000 – $250,000), which would equal $100,000. Then they would compare the $25,000 to that $100,000, and apply the tax to the lesser of the two, which is the $25,000. Thus, $25,000 x 3.8% = $950.

So, you have a household that had income of $850,000 for the year, and its tax on investment equaled $950.

This is a simplification. Other tax issues could come into play. But it shows that the tax applies to just a portion of investment income for certain upper-income households and that the capital gains exclusion remains untouched.

Nobody likes taxes, and this tax was inserted into the legislation at the 11th hour as a “pay-for,” that is, as a revenue generator to help offset some of the costs of the reform. It’s expected to generate $325 billion over eight years.

NAR has prepared a brochure that looks at how the tax might apply under eight income scenarios: 1) sale of principal residence (which we just looked at), 2) sale of a non-real estate asset, 3) gain, interest, and dividend from securities, 4) real estate investment income, 5) rental income as sole source of earnings, 6) sale of second home with no rental use, 7) sale of inherited investment property, and 8. purchase and sale of investment property.

You can download the brochure for free. It’s written in plain language and I think you’ll find it organized efficiently, so you can see at a glance the potential considerations for the different scenarios. Of course, it’s just guidance: each household’s situation will be different, so you would want to suggest to your customers and clients that they consult with a tax advisor to make sure the tax is applied correctly in their case.

You can also get a good sense of how the tax works in the video above, in which Goold walks through a sample income scenario.

Report from CNN Money (click here) show Pinellas county with a -3% drop in property values over the 1st quarter of 2012. The 2nd part of this report show a huge price increase expected in the follow 4 quarters. We are already seeing a tremendous amount of activity in St. Petersburg and the beaches so far this year, including multiple offers and lots of cash sales. I’m sure the interest rates are playing a big part with sub 4% rates.

If you look at my last blog post you can see the inventory levels and the number of sales of both single family and condos on the rise. Check back with us in Mid Feb for Jan 2012’s numbers.

Click to view December 2011 Pinellas County Residential Real Estate Report

The same story keeps repeating itself in the local real estate market. Listings are down for both the
condo and single family market. There does appear to be more strength in the single family market
versus the condo market. For all of 2011 the median sales price for condo’s dropped by $13,000 even
while listings have been at five year lows and sales have increased by 7.4% from December 2010 to
December 2011. In the single family market the median sales price has managed to see some support
at a floor of $125,000 from December 2010 to December 2011 while listings decreased by almost
62%.
Overall the residential market sales, as well as the median sales price were relatively flat year over
year. Active inventory is at a 6 year low (6.4 months supply of inventory) with just over 24% of the
7,964 active listings being distressed. Of the 1,927 distressed listings, 1,596 are short sales and 331 are
foreclosures.
Condo sales from December 2010 to December 2011 are up 7.5%. The median sales price for condos
dropped by $14,000 and condo listings decreased from 5,205 to 4,010 or 23% for the same time
period.
Single family listings are down from 6,327 to 3,954, or 38% from December 2011 to December 2010.
The median sales as noted previously remained stagnate year over year. Single family sales decreased
by 4.4% for the same time period.
Pending sales for the residential market are up almost 14% from December 2010 to December 2011.
However 74% of those pending sales are either short sales or foreclosures and 26% are non-distressed
properties. When you look at the pending sales that actually close you will see that 65% of the closed
sales in December were non-distressed and 35% are distressed. This may be due to more short sales
being listed as pending from December 2010 to December 2011.
Days on market also continues increase on all property types. Non-distressed properties days on
market increased almost 33%, short sale nearly doubled and bank owned properties increased almost
40% from December 2010 to December 2011.

Click to view December 2011 Pinellas County Residential Real Estate Report

WASHINGTON – Oct. 25, 2011 – Two big questions loom over the Obama administration’s latest bid to help troubled homeowners: Will it work? And who would benefit?

By easing eligibility rules, the administration hopes 1 million more homeowners will qualify for its refinancing program and lower their mortgage payments – twice the number who have already. The program has helped only a fraction of the number the administration had envisioned.

In part, that’s because many homeowners who would like to refinance can’t, because they owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth. But it’s also because banks are under no obligation to refinance a mortgage they hold – a limitation that won’t change under the new plan.

Here are some of the major questions and answers about the administration’s initiative:

Q: What is the program?

A. The Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, was started in 2009. It lets homeowners refinance their mortgages at lower rates. Borrowers can bypass the usual requirement of having at least 20 percent equity in their home. But few people have signed up. Many “underwater” borrowers – those who owe more than their homes are worth – couldn’t qualify under the program. Roughly 22.5 percent of U.S. homeowners, about 11 million, are underwater, according to CoreLogic, a real estate data firm. As of Aug. 31, fewer than 900,000 homeowners, and just 72,000 underwater homeowners, have refinanced through the administration’s program. The administration had estimated that the program would help 4 million to 5 million homeowners.

Q. Why did so few benefit?

A. Mainly because those who’d lost the most in their homes weren’t eligible. Participation was limited to those whose home values were no more than 25 percent below what they owed their lender. That excluded roughly 10 percent of borrowers, CoreLogic says. In some hard-hit areas, borrowers have lost nearly 50 percent of their home’s value. Another problem: Homeowners must pay thousands in closing costs and appraisal fees to refinance. Typically, that adds up to 1 percent of the loan’s value – $2,000 in fees on a $200,000 loan. Sinking home prices also left many fearful that prices had yet to bottom. They didn’t want to throw good money after a depreciating asset. Or their credit scores were too low. Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan acknowledged that the program has “not reached the scale we had hoped.”

Q: What changes is the administration making?

A. Homeowners’ eligibility won’t be affected by how far their home’s value has fallen. And some fees for closing, title insurance and lien processing will be eliminated. So refinancing will be cheaper. The number of homeowners who need an appraisal will be reduced, saving more money. Some fees for those who refinance into a shorter-term mortgage will also be waived. Banks won’t have to buy back the mortgages from Fannie or Freddie, as they previously had to when dealing with some risky loans. That change will free many lenders to offer refinance loans. The program will also be extended 18 months, through 2013.

Q: Who’s eligible?

A. Those whose loans are owned or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which the government took control of three years ago. Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages – nearly 31 million loans. They buy loans from lenders, package them into bonds with a guarantee against default and sell them to investors. To qualify for refinancing, a loan must have been sold to Fannie and Freddie before June 2009. Homeowners can determine whether Fannie or Freddie owns their mortgage by going online: Freddie’s loan tool is at freddiemac.com/mymortgage; Fannie’s is at fanniemae.com/loanlookup. Mortgages that were refinanced over the past 2 1/2 years aren’t eligible. Homeowners must also be current on their mortgage. One late payment within six months, or more than one in the past year, would mean disqualification. Perhaps the biggest limitation on the program: It’s voluntary for lenders. A bank remains free to reject a refinancing even if a homeowner meets all requirements.

Q: Will it work?

A. For those who can qualify, the savings could be significant. If, for example, a homeowner with a $200,000 mortgage at 6 percent can refinance down to 4.5 percent, the savings would be $3,000 a year. But the benefit to the economy will likely be limited. Even homeowners who are eligible and who choose to refinance through the government program could opt to sock away their savings or pay down debt rather than spend it.

Q: How many homeowners will be eligible or will choose to participate?

A: Not entirely clear. The government estimates that up to 1 million more people could qualify. Moody’s Analytics says the figure could be as high as 1.6 million. Both figures are a fraction of the 11 million or more homeowners who are underwater, according to CoreLogic, a real estate data research firm.

Q: Who will benefit most?

A: Underwater homeowners in the hard-hit states of Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada could be greatly helped. Many are stuck with high mortgage rates after they were approved for mortgages with little or no money as a downpayment and few requirements. The average annual savings for a U.S. household would be $2,500, officials say.

Q: When will it start?

A: Fannie and Freddie will issue the full details of the plan lenders and servicers on Nov. 15, officials say. The revamped program could be in place for some lenders as early as Dec. 1.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press, Derek Kravitz, AP real estate writer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The White House is considering a housing proposal that would allow millions of homeowners with government-backed mortgages to refinance into lower interest rates, The New York Times reports.

“A wave of refinancing could be a strong stimulus to the economy, because it would lower consumers’ mortgage bills right away and allow them to spend elsewhere,” an article in The New York Times notes.

Many homeowners have been unable to take advantage of today’s low interest rates — which are averaging around 4 percent — because they don’t qualify for refinancing at the best rates since they owe more on their home than it is currently worth or because of poor credit. The refinancing plan is still under discussion of how it would work, The New York Times said.

“This is the best stimulus out there because it doesn’t increase the deficit, it accomplishes monetary policy, and it reduces defaults in housing,” Christopher J. Mayer, an economist at the Columbia Business School, told The New York Times.

The White House is also considering other options to try to stimulate the housing market or save homeowners from foreclosure. Such options include more changes to its refinancing programs so more homeowners can participate or a home rental program to that would rent out foreclosures instead of putting them for sale so foreclosures would stop weighing down overall home prices.

“This is just want this economy needs! I was just saying I would love to refinance my home but after talking to Wells Fargo I was told they couldn’t refinance my home because my loan to value wasn’t within tolerance. I was looking to refinance to a 15 year mortgage to take advantage of the low rates. I do hope this gets through the White House. I could see this as a huge plus for most Americans, putting $150-$200 a month or more in their pockets.”

Congress has extended FHA loan limits in 2009, 2010 and 2011 on an annual basis, but on October 1, 2011, the loan limits for the FHA will decline due to changes set in law. FHA loan limits are set slightly differently than those for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. By law, the lowest limit for any county for one-unit homes is $271,050. The ceiling for FHA currently cannot exceed $729,750, but that ceiling is set to decline on October 1, 2011 to $625,500.
For counties that lie between these limits, the mortgage loan limit is equal to the area median house price multiplied by 125% (currently) or 115% (as of October 1, 2011).
According to the limits published by the Federal Housing Administration, 620 of 3143 counties in the United States, or 20% of the total, will see a decrease in the applicable FHA loan limit. Many, but not all, of the affected areas are concentrated along the coasts and other high cost areas such as California. It is also worth noting that every county that will realize a decrease in its applicable GSE loan limits is also among the 620 counties that will face a decline in the FHA loan limit.
We use the American Community Survey (ACS) to demonstrate that these counties include significant concentrations of population and housing, more than the share of the counties affected (one in five) would suggest. In fact, the affected counties contain 44.3 million owner-occupied housing units of the 75.3 million nationwide or 59% of all owner-occupied housing in the U.S.
For counties facing a decline, the average decline in the FHA loan limit is $58,060 or 14% from current levels. For Pinellas and Hillsboro counties there is a $21,450 decline, $157,300 for Manatee and Sarasota counties.
To estimate the range of homes that will be affected by the change, we assume an average 3.5% down payment (the minimum required under present law by the FHA). Using home value data from the American Community Survey (ACS), we interpolate prices by county. With this approach, we estimate the following impacts concerning affected homes:
• Under present law, 8.32 million owner-occupied homes are priced above the existing FHA loan limits
• Under the changes set to take place on October 1, 2011, an additional 3.87 million owner-occupied homes will be put above the limit, bringing the total number of homes that are not eligible for FHA-insured mortgages to 12.2 million.

Fewer Americans had their homes repossessed by banks or were put on notice for being behind on their mortgage payments in April compared to a year ago.

That would ordinarily suggest improving fortunes for U.S. homeowners, but the decline had less to do with any turnaround in the housing market than with foreclosure processing delays that appear to be getting worse. That is threatening to drag out a housing recovery, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

It’s taking longer for lenders to move against homeowners who have stopped paying their mortgage and to take back homes already in some stage of the foreclosure process. In states like New York, for example, it now takes an average of more than two years for a home to go from the initial stage of foreclosure to being repossessed by a bank, the firm said.

Those delays, partly due to banks working through foreclosure documentation problems that came to light last fall, means it could take many more years for lenders to deal with a backlog of seriously delinquent properties, which numbers up to 3.7 million, by some estimates.

“It’s going to take between three to four years just to get those loans into foreclosure at our current pace,” said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac. “And that doesn’t spell good news for the housing market.”

Banks repossessed 69,532 homes last month, down 5 percent from March and down 25 percent compared with April of last year, according to RealtyTrac, which tracks warnings sent to homeowners throughout the foreclosure process.

The number of properties receiving an initial notice of default fell to 63,422, down 14 percent from March and down 39 percent from April 2010.

Homes scheduled for auction for the first time also declined in April, falling to 86,304. That’s down 7 percent from March and 37 percent below April of last year.

A weak housing market, sliding home prices and pressure on lenders to give troubled homeowners more time to work out new payment arrangements or loan terms have all contributed to the longer time frame for foreclosures.

Many banks also have taken steps to revisit thousands of foreclosure cases since last fall, delaying the processing of new foreclosures. The logjam has been compounded by court delays in states like Florida, New York and New Jersey, where a judge must approve foreclosures.

In the first three months of this year, it took an average of 400 days for a U.S. home to go from receiving an initial notice of default to being foreclosed on, RealtyTrac said.

That’s up from an average of 340 days in the same period last year and more than double the 151-day average in the first quarter of 2007.

The delays are even lengthier at the state level. In New York and New Jersey, the foreclosure process took more than 900 days, on average, to run its course in the first quarter – more than three times the average length of time in the first quarter of 2007 for both states.

In Florida, one of the states hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis, the process took an average of 619 days in the first quarter, up from 470 days a year earlier. In the first quarter of 2007, it took an average of 169 days for the process to play out, RealtyTrac said.

Barring a pickup in the pace of foreclosures, it is likely fewer homes will be repossessed this year than in 2010, when lenders took back more than a million, Sharga said.

Despite the drop in foreclosure activity last month, several states continue to have outsized foreclosure rates.

Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, with one in every 97 households receiving a foreclosure notice in April. It also bucked the overall national trend, as bank repossessions jumped 23 percent from March and climbed 12 percent from April of last year, RealtyTrac said.

Lenders may have elected to pick up the pace of foreclosures in Nevada to take advantage of brisk foreclosure sales in Las Vegas. In March, sales of previously occupied homes in Las Vegas hit a five-year high, with distressed properties accounting for 69 percent of sales, according to DataQuick.

Stung by the crash of the housing market, some struggling homeowners are using a little known but increasingly popular provision of the bankruptcy code to eliminate second mortgages and avoid foreclosure.

Statistics are hard to come by, but bankruptcy lawyers say the provision has been used effectively on hundreds, if not thousands, of cases in the San Francisco Bay Area during the past two years.

“It’s a big thing in our valley,” said James “Ike” Shulman, a San Jose bankruptcy lawyer. “But it’s not widely known.”

Shulman, co-founder of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, said he has helped a number of clients who have filed for personal bankruptcy use the law to hold on to their houses – including three last week.

Cathy Moran, a Mountain View, Calif., bankruptcy lawyer, said one of her clients had a $132,000 second mortgage voided by the court.

“This is a really big-ticket issue that allows people to keep a home and conform the mortgage to something closer to real value,” Moran said.

Bankruptcy laws prevent homeowners from eliminating the debt of a first mortgage if they plan to stay in their home. But second mortgages are treated differently. They can be declared unsecured debt when there is no equity to cover them, as is the case for millions of houses that are now worth far less than a few years ago.

When that happens in a personal bankruptcy proceeding, the second mortgage is put on hold and no payments are required while the homeowner completes a repayment plan for other debts, which typically takes three to five years. At that point, the second mortgage is eliminated.

Many of these second mortgages were granted during the housing bubble, when home prices were going in one direction only – up, up and up.

“A lot of these are loans that shouldn’t have been made at all,” said Henry Sommer, editor of Collier on Bankruptcy, a publication on bankruptcy law.

One of Shulman’s clients, Veronica – who asked that her full name not be used – was struggling to keep the San Jose house she bought in 2005 for $612,000.

Her home’s value has dropped to about $367,000 – less than her first mortgage of $489,000 – which allowed her to petition the bankruptcy court to set aside her $122,000 second mortgage. The court granted her motion.

She successfully completed her payment plan for other debts two months ago, and her second mortgage is now eliminated.

“It’s wonderful,” she said. “After almost six years, I am finally able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m so, so grateful.”

Mortgage bankers don’t like the practice.

It’s “a troublesome phenomenon. It’s one of those things that’s just now developing and bubbling up,” said Dustin Hobbs, spokesman for the California Mortgage Bankers Association. But there is little the mortgage industry can do, aside from seeking to change the law. That could be difficult given the current partisan lineup in Washington.

And there are no complaints from investors in first mortgages, like the pension and retirement funds represented by the Association of Mortgage Investors. “We think with the right controls, something like this to allow a responsible, distressed homeowner to reorganize their assets, liabilities and cash flows is a very pro-business proposition,” said Chris Katopis, the association’s executive director. “We disagree with what the mortgage bankers associations are saying on this.”

The law has been like this for years, bankruptcy lawyers say. It’s just never been used as much because in the past there was usually enough equity in a home to cover the second mortgage.

“We’re having great results” using the rule, said Brette Evans, a San Jose bankruptcy lawyer. In one recent case, a small-business owner was able to hang on to her home by setting aside a $240,000 second mortgage, she said.

That put the borrower in “a safe zone” where she could work out a modification of her first mortgage, Evans said.