The number of home owners who were put on notice for defaulting on their mortgage payments dropped last month to the lowest level since 2006, RealtyTrac reports.

Meanwhile, foreclosure filings for the eighth straight month also were down as filings fell 33 percent in May compared to a year earlier and 2 percent month-over-month. Also, lenders took back fewer homes in May, the second straight month of declines. And bank repossessions were down in May too — down nearly 30 percent over the last 12 months.

Is this a sign of a recovery in real estate, which has been bogged down by a high number of foreclosures over the last several years?

Experts are still cautious. Lingering delays in banks’ foreclosure process may be the culprit for the declining numbers, they say, and not an overall improving picture of the number of home owners facing foreclosure.

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First, real estate. The price of homes started sliding again, even as the number of homes moving remains near historic lows. Fewer people are buying, and those who are buying need smaller loans for cheaper homes.

Unemployment and — just as significantly — underemployment have consumers sitting on their hands. No one unsure of their future income stream is making large purchases, or starting large ventures. And, even as the official jobless rate creeps downward, many economists believe the under- and unemployed number is over 20% of the workforce.

None of those people will be committing to a large loan.

Meanwhile, interest rates are about as low as they can get. Mortgage rates, for instance, are well under 5%. That means that the loans that are going out are earning less for banks — and aren’t replacing the revenue lost as older loans come off the books.

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I just had to share this with you:

10 Ways To Know If You Drink Too Much Coffee

• You answer the door before people knock.
• You ski uphill.
• You just completed another sweater and you don’t know how to knit.
• You grind your coffee beans in your mouth.
• You can take a picture of yourself from ten feet away without using the timer.
• You can type sixty words per minute… with your feet.
• You walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it’s not plugged in.
• Starbucks owns the mortgage on your house.
• You’re offended when people use the word “brew” to mean beer.
• You have a picture of your coffee mug on your coffee mug.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go grab a cup of Jo!

There are four rules of time. The first is that time is perishable. This means that it cannot be saved. In fact, time can only be spent. Because time is perishable, the only thing you can do with it is to spend it differently, to reallocate your time away from activities of low value and toward activities of higher value. But once it is gone, it is gone forever.

Time Is Indispensable The second rule of time is that time is indispensable. All work requires time. No matter what it is you want to do in life, even looking out a window or sleeping in for a few extra minutes, it requires a certain amount of time. And according to the 10/90 Rule, the 10% of time that you take to plan your activities carefully in advance will save you 90% of the effort involved in achieving your goals later. The very act of thinking through and planning your work in advance will dramatically reduce the amount of time that it takes you to do the actual job.

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More buyers are paying cash for real estate. About 28 percent of sales were all-cash transactions last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. In October 2008, the rate was 14 percent for comparison.

Indeed, cash buyers made up more than half of all transactions in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area alone last year, and about 42 percent were cash buyers in Phoenix in 2010–which marked a triple rate increase compared to 2008.

The more depressed the housing market, the higher the percentage of a cash deal, economists note.

Cash buyers can often get a 5 percent to 10 percent discount on the asking price of a home than a buyer using a mortgage because sellers often prefer cash deals since they close more quickly and it prevents a bank from changing its mind, says real estate pro Mohammed Siddiq in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

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Nothing too fancy or hard to understand here… from the Just-released Case-Shiller index, it’s clear that the housing double dip is here.

The chart (below) depicts the annual returns of the U.S. National, the 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite Home Price Indices. The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions, recorded a 1.5% decline in the third quarter of 2010 over the third quarter of 2009. In September, the 10-City and 20-City Composites recorded annual returns of +1.6% and +0.6%, respectively.

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According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, national home prices jumped 3.6% in the past year. Prices also climbed 4.4% in the second quarter compared with a 2.8% plunge in the first quarter.   “While the numbers are upbeat, other more recent data on home sales and mortgages point to fewer gains ahead,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s.

Home prices across the country could be substantially lower a year from now, according to Pat Newport, an analyst with IHS Global Insight. “It’s now apparent that the demand for housing is a lot weaker than anyone thought,” he said.  That has resulted in a glut of inventory, which a slew of bank repossessions of foreclosed properties is only making worse.

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In a letter sent to servicers, Fannie Mae said it will now review the compensatory fees due to servicers in cases where the government sponsored entity feel servicers are unnecessarily delaying foreclosure. It says that loans “must not be put on hold on a blanket basis.” Fannie Mae also says that servicers must not jump the gun either, but rather must follow the letter of the law as it pertains to HAMP/HAFA guidelines.

In a July speech, Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, told loss mitigation servicers that, “if you have an abandoned property or a borrower not willing to discuss or work with anything, then get going [and foreclose],” he advised. Fannie Mae allows several exceptions in the case where the property is occupied, unless “the borrower has displayed an obvious lack of concern for the mortgage obligation.” In cases where the property is vacant or the borrower is not going to pay any of the mortgage, “servicers must expedite foreclosure proceedings under the greatest extent allowable by law.”

Consumer spending is critical because it accounts for 70% of economic activity. The Commerce Department says spending fell 0.1% in April, rose a tiny 0.1% in May, was flat in June, but rose 0.4% in July. Personal incomes were up 0.2% in July, less than expected but at least an improvement over June when incomes had not risen at all.

With spending rising, the personal savings rate slowed to 5.9% of after-tax income. That’s down from 6.2% in June, the highest in nearly a year. Even with the July decline, the savings rate is nearly three times higher than it was before the recession began in December 2007.

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RealtyTrac reports that in July there were more than 325,000 foreclosure filings — including notices of default, auctions notices and bank repossessions — up 3.6% from the month before but down 9.7% from 12 months earlier. That is the 17th month in a row total filings exceeded 300,000, said RealtyTrac’s CEO, James Saccacio. “Declines in new default notices, which were down on a year-over-year basis for the sixth straight month in July,” he said, “have been offset by near-record levels of bank repossessions, which increased on a year-over-year basis for the eighth straight month.” A near record number of people lost their homes to mortgage payment problems in July.

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Real estate investing makes people think of money.  You will see a lot of good reasons for this.  Real estate is something that is only available in limited quantities.  After all, manufacturing more land is impossible.  As a result, real estate is nearly universally thought to be a sound investment.

However, it must be acknowledged that conventional views on real estate are changing.  This certainly has something to do with the economy.  It is not uncommon to find people who are afraid of real estate investing.  They think there is no money there anymore.  They may also believe that they cannot succeed without investing large sums of their personal money.  Both of these beliefs are dead wrong.

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President Obama’s Emergency Homeowner Loan Program is about to shovel $3 billion more at foreclosures.  One part of the plan, announced Wednesday, includes a new $1 billion program that will offer loans to unemployed borrowers at risk of losing their homes. The loans, which will be dispersed through nonprofit and housing agencies, will carry 0% interest and be good for a maximum of $50,000 for up to two years.  The administration also added $2 billion in support for its program that helps struggling homeowners in the states with highest unemployment rates.

The government previously announced $2.1 billion for 10 of the hardest hit states. States were required to put together proposals on how they would use the money, and the Treasury finished approving those plans earlier this month.  The additional $2 billion announced Wednesday will expand the program to a total of 17 states, and the nation’s capital, all of which have suffered unemployment rates higher than the national average for a year.  Diana Olick’s take:  “…the trouble today is not that so many more people are losing their jobs, it’s that those who have already lost their jobs are having a hard time getting new jobs. Plus they’re already way behind on all kinds of debt. By giving many of these folks cash to pay their loans, the government is essentially putting them deeper into debt.”

Here we go again setting new records.  Freddie Mac’s weekly report said the 30-year fixed rate slipped to 4.44% for the week ended Thursday, the lowest since it began tracking the rate in 1971. Last week’s rates stood at 4.49%, and a year ago it was at 5.29%.  The 15-year fixed rate fell to 3.92% this week, the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking it 1991, down from 3.95% last week and from 4.68% a year ago.  Adjustable-rate mortgages also declined, with the 5-year rate falling to 3.56% this week, the lowest since 2005 when the lender began tracking it.

Mortgage tracker Bankrate.com, which surveys large lenders across the country, said the average 30-year fixed loan sank to a record low for the fourth consecutive week, falling to 4.57% from 4.66% the previous week.  The 15-year fixed rate, which is a popular option for refinancing, also fell to the lowest level in the history of Bankrate’s 25-year old survey, dipping to 4.06%, from 4.11% the week before.  While the 1-year adjustable-rate mortgage held steady at 4.8% for a fourth week, the 5-year adjustable rate mortgage dropped to a record low of 3.92% from 3.95% the previous week.