Housing News Digest, October 21

Real estate agents learning fine art of 'cash for keys'
For real estate agents across the country, getting people to move out of their homes without a costly and time-consuming eviction is increasingly part of the job description.

Sales of so-called “distressed” properties, meaning those in or near foreclosure, make up about 30 percent of home resales in today’s extremely depressed housing market.

Fighting back against online real estate sites
The Internet has become an integral part of everything we do, and for the past few years that has included the purchase and sale of real estate.

Well, the real estate industry nowadays isn't taking it anymore.

Websites such as Zillow.com and Trulia.com are fine, real estate brokers and agents say, but only to a point.

Sweet spot for home sales below $300,000
It probably won’t surprise anyone in the real estate industry, but most of the sales activity in the Denver area is for homes priced below $300,000.

A report released today by independent broker Gary Bauer confirmed that price-point trend.

His 11-county report found that homes priced at $299,999 or less accounted for 71 percent of all closed transactions in the first three quarters of this year.

Mortgage delinquency rate declines, foreclosure inventory rises: LPS
Mortgage delinquencies declined slightly to 8.09% in September from the previous month, according to the Lender Processing Services' (LPS: 15.25 -0.13%) first look at the monthly statistics in its loan-level database of nearly 40 million mortgages.

The rate was down 0.5% from August and 12.7% lower than year-ago figures, according to the Jacksonville, Fla.-based provider of technology, data and analytics to the mortgage and real estate industries.

Senate votes to extend jumbo conforming loan limits
The Isakson-Menendez amendment would extend the limits through 2013.

Congress elevated the conforming loan limits in 2008 to allow the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac to insure and guarantee more mortgages when the credit markets froze.