The data show that the area had only 1.4 of the total housing inventory in foreclosure, a trend that matches the statewide housing market. As we previously reported the Texas housing market is in its best shape nationwide, recording the lowest distressed housing inventory percentages.

Mark Fleming, chief economist with CoreLogic commented on the area’s amazing performance emphasizing that this is the first time when REO sales outpaced completed foreclosures, with is part of the reason why the Dallas-area foreclosure inventory dropped.

On the other hand, Dallas isn’t the only area where the foreclosure inventory is shrinking. The Houston market also performed well, with foreclosures accounting only for 1.6% of the housing inventory, while Seattle reported 1.4% of its housing inventory as foreclosed property.

As a comparison, foreclosures account for 3.4% of the national housing inventory.

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Dallas County foreclosure auction will feature an important piece of the county’s housing market: Valley View Center was pushed through the foreclosure pipeline and it is now scheduled to be sold at foreclosure auction on February 7.

The property that features 1.1 million square-feet located at Interstate 635 at Preston and Alpha roads in north Dallas was reclaimed by the lender more than a year ago, when it filed a foreclosure lawsuit against the owner claiming the title on the property, George Roddy, president of Foreclosure Listing Service from Addison said.

While the unpaid balance on the huge property is $125 million, the 39-year-old real estate was recently appraised to only $32.9 million, he added.

The mall is now in receivership (since 2010) and LNR Partners Inc. of Miami is the special servicer of the property.

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All the sites are located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and among the sites are two unused parcels of land, the new owner announced. However, most the recently purchased sites are stations that will be rebranded as 7-Eleven stores and will retain the Exxon gasoline brand.

This acquisition is in line with the 7-Eleven’s announced aggressive growth strategy, as Robbie Radant, 7-Eleven’s new vice president of mergers and acquisitions said.

7-Eleven said it will start remodeling and rebranding the sites soon. Most of the work should be done by the end of 2012, the company said.

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The statistics reveal that builders started 3,621 new homes, above 3,315 starts recorded the same period a year prior. Metrostudy found home builders started construction on 14,158 houses, a significant drop compared to 15,257 house starts recorded in 2010.

David Brown, director of Metrostudy’s Dallas-Fort Worth office commented the stats, by forecasting a continuous growth for 2012 compared to 2011.

The same stat reveals the number of closings in the area: the total hit 4,012, more than 3,978 reported a year prior. Looking back to the full calendar year, closings totaled 14,611, down from 16,823 a year prior.

The good news is that the housing inventory shrank in 2011, dropping to 8,302 at the end of 2011, from 8,755 recorded in 2010.

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Foreclosure postings for January in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are down 26% from the first month of 2011 and below the 5,500 milestone for the 11th month in a row.

Foreclosure Listing Service published its latest report covering the number of foreclosure postings, and the total hardly passed 4,000. The exact number of foreclosure postings is 4,075 for January, the Dallas Business Journal reports.

“During this foreclosure cycle, North Texas postings have risen above the 5,500 mark twelve times, most recently in February of 2011,” George Roddy, Chief executive officer of FLS said.

In the retrospective report, Roddy emphasized that home postings have climbed above 6,000 three times in this foreclosure cycle. The monthly records was recorded in April 2010, when 6,081 foreclosure notices were filed on single-family homes, condos and townhomes.

However, Roddy cautions that foreclosure postings will remain high in the foreseeable future, while this significant drop is a relief for the local housing market.

The FLS records show all four counties in had a decline in 2011 annual residential foreclosure postings, with the Dallas County reporting the highest decline with its 14% drop in annual foreclosures, and Collin County ranking second on the list. While Denton County got the third place recording 11% drop, the fourth in the row is Tarrant County, reporting 9% drop in annual home postings.

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The numbers published by the Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service placed the total commercial properties foreclosure postings to 2,860 in current year, compared with 3,313 notices issued the previous year.

When the report was released a couple days ago, George Roddy, president of FLS commented the positive news by saying that this is the first year-to-year decline in commercial foreclosure activity since 2005, when 1,002 commercial postings were filed compared to the 1,091 notices recorded in 2004.

Taking each county separately, the statistics published by the FLS shows that Dallas County commercial foreclosure postings dropped 5%, while Tarrant County’s reported a 13% drop, Collin and Denton counties saw 29% drops.

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The demand for housing pushed home prices to five year high: over $322,000, which is up 9.44% compared to a year ago average sales prices.

The increase is due to the interest and activity in four-bedroom floor plans. While sales numbers are below last year’s the average price paid for a four-bedroom lake home at Cedar Lake was up $83,600.

In addition to four-bedroom plans the second highly demanded floor plans was the two-bedroom plans. The price paid for a two-bedroom floor plan lake house is also up $14,776 compared to a year ago, reaching $180,732.

Three-bedroom floor plans which comprise more than 50% of the total market were slightly down, suffering a nearly 5% drop compared to a year ago.

However, the hardest hit price area was those with five or more bedrooms,r ecording a significant 11.35% decline compared to a year ago.

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However, this year “brought back the speculative office construction with Sterling One Construction and the City of Rockwall breaking ground on Trend Tower, a seven-story, 110,000-square-foot multi-tenant office building in Rockwall,” the report highlights. Another  60,000-square-foot speculative multi-tenant, five-story office building has broken ground at The Plaza at Preston Center, and is expected to be completed by the end of next year. Furthermore, Heady Investments started construction on a six-story, 164,000-square-foot office building in Plano in November.

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The investment company put an eye on the 485,000-square-feet Class A shopping complex a while ago, knowing that it is 100% leased and anchored by Walmart, Sam’s Club and JCPenney. These companies are ground leases of the largest shopping center for sale so far in the state of Texas.

The weighted average lease term for the recently purchased real estate is 17 years, and Dunhill is agreed to manage the property on behalf of the joint venture.

According to information published by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, the property was acquired on a 80/20 joint venture basis, which means RioCan’s interest was $65.6 million.

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According to the Foreclosure Listing Service, the area foreclosures reached their highest level with 63,835 foreclosure postings in the four-county North Texas region, which includes Dallas, Collin, Denton and Tarrant counties.

“Dallas-Fort Worth annual residential foreclosure postings have reached the lowest level in three years with just 56,358 notices filed this year threatening area homes with foreclosure,” said George Roddy Sr., president of Foreclosure Listing Service.

While the year-over-year numbers show improvement, other positive signs are showing up: Dallas County foreclosure postings dropped 14%. The other three counties of the area also recorded improvements: Collin County foreclosure postings dropped 13%. Denton County posted a 12% decline, and the smallest dip was recorded in Tarrant County, only 9%. Still, these are positive signs, that show that the housing market and the economy is gaining strength.

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