U.S. Banks' Foreclosure Holdings Increased 12.5% in Q1: Report

Foreclosed property held by U.S. banks increased 12.5 percent to $41.5 billion during the first quarter of this year, according to a recent analysis by SNL Financial, a financial market research firm out of Charlottesville, Virginia.

The company says banks’ aggregate foreclosed inventory is up from $36.9 billion at year-end 2009, and $11.7 billion in the first quarter of 2008.

SNL data shows that other real estate owned, or OREO (which essentially means the same as REO and is defined as real property owned by a banking institution, most frequently the result of a borrower’s default and foreclosure), represented 0.3 percent of banks’ assets in the

first quarter of 2010, up from 0.1 percent in the comparable period of 2008.

According to SNL analyst Andrew Schukman, during the first three months of this year, one-to-four unit family properties in the process of foreclosure but not yet to OREO, or REO, status increased 9.1 percent to $78.6 billion. With these repossessions coming down the pipeline, Schukman says OREO as a percentage of banks’ assets will likely continue to grow as additional properties complete foreclosure.

While properties continue to grow on banks’ balance sheets, the type of real estate being reclaimed has changed. According to SNL data, construction and land development properties represented nearly 40 percent of total OREO in the United States as of March 31, up from 24.3 percent in the first quarter of 2008.

Meanwhile, one-to-four family OREO fell to 28.4 percent of total OREO as of March 31, compared to 44.5 percent in the first quarter of 2008.

Other types of OREO include commercial real estate, which made up 18 percent of OREO in the first quarter; foreclosed Ginnie Mae property, which comprised 6.4 percent; multifamily, making up 6.1 percent; and farmland and foreign office, each comprising less than 1.0 percent.