Being a seller of foreclosed properties isn't easy. "It's more about the numbers, and less about the emotions," says Michael Krein, president of the National REO Brokers Association.

Real estate pros trying to move foreclosures often must clean out properties that have been abused, pay past-due utility bills, pay back HOA dues, arrange for repair of hard-to-ignore damages, and provide security in lousy neighborhoods.

Despite these issues, selling REO properties isn't all that lucrative. Commissions are split with the associate who sells the property and after payment of the costs for maintenance and cleanup. Collecting money from slow-paying banks is also part of the job.

Professionals who specialize in these properties make money on volume. For instance, so far this year Hidden valley Real Estate has sold 85 properties worth a total of $16.2 million in the Southern California area. For the year, the company expects to net less than $100,000.

It may not be big bucks or inspiring work, but there are rewards. "We've got job security into 2009," Troy Helton says.

Bargain hunters who bought foreclosed properties in April helped reverse a 30-month decline in homes sales and sent the median home price tumbling by 32 percent compared with a year ago, according to a report issued Tuesday by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

• The vast majority of sales were at the more affordable end of the spectrum. Homes priced under $500,000 accounted for 64 percent of all sales in April, compared with only 40 percent a year ago. Homes from $500,000 to $1 million, meanwhile, accounted for only 26 percent of sales this April, down sharply from 45 percent a year ago. Once-fallow markets like Sacramento and Riverside saw increases in sales of more than 20 percent as bargain-hunters took advantage of favorable interest rates, lower prices and a glut of foreclosures on the market.
• An estimated 30,000 foreclosed homes have been auctioned in California over the past year. Observers say lenders holding repossessed properties have been anxious to sell them at discounts of as much as 40 percent, and that fact is enticing buyers back into the market in greater numbers.

Single-family home prices fell 14.4 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller index. Separately, the Commerce Department reported that new home sales rose for the first time in six months while the unsold inventory of new homes declined for the twelfth consecutive month. In other news, The Conference Board said its Consumer Confidence measure declined from 62.8 in April to 57.2 in May on consumer worries about housing, higher fuel and food costs, and the future of the economy.

MAKING SENSE OF THE STORY

• S&P's survey of 20 markets showed a 2.2 percent price decline in March. A 10-market survey showed a 2.4 percent monthly decline and a 15.3 percent overall drop. In California, Los Angeles prices fell 21.7 percent in March compared with a year ago, while San Diego fell 20.5 percent.
• New home sales edged up 3.3 percent in April after an 11 percent drop in March to an annualized rate that remains 42 percent below last year's levels. The good news: Inventory feel 2.4 percent to a 10.6-month supply, down from 11.1 months in March.
• Consumer Confidence fell to the lowest level since October 1992. Other measures also dropped considerably: The group's measure of present conditions dropped from 81.9 in April to 74.4 in May, and its gauge of expectations through the end of 2008 declined from 50.0 in April to 45.7 in May. The Conference Board also reported that the percentage of consumers planning to buy a home sometime during the next six months fell from 2.5 percent in April to 2.1 percent in May.

Foreclosure filings in 10 communities within 10 miles of a military facility jumped by an average of 217 percent between January and the end of April compared with the same period a year ago - a rate more than four times that of non-military towns and cities, according to RealtyTrac. Foreclosure filings near Fort Jackson, S.C., jumped 492 percent from the same period in 2007 while filings in three California communities with nearby bases also climbed significantly.

MAKING SENSE OF THE STORY FOR CONSUMERS

• In California, Carlsbad (near Camp Pendleton) experienced a 131 percent increase in foreclosure filings from the January-April period a year ago. Also on the list were Barstow, home of a Marine Corps logistics base(120 percent) and Twentynine Palms (73 percent), home of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center. The figures compare to an overall U.S. increase in foreclosure filings of 59 percent for the period.
• Experts say military personnel who bought homes over the last few years are more likely to have received subprime loans because of relaxed lending criteria that overlooked their frequent moves, lower pay and credit scores. While Veterans Administration loans historically have met the needs of soldiers and their families, they carried more stringent qualification criteria - one reason the percentage of VA loans granted actually fell during the real estate boom.
• Military personnel are protected from losing their homes due to nonpayment of mortgages while on active duty and for 90 days after they return home. Several members of Congress, including California's Bob Filner, are advocating the timeframe be extended to a year.

Not much has changed since 60 Minutes first broadcast this story last January about the causes of the subprime mortgage mess and its effect on communities like Stockton, Calif., which this updated story calls "the nation's foreclosure capital."

MAKING SENSE OF THE STORY FOR CONSUMERS

• What's behind the subprime mortgage mess? Banks loaned hundreds of millions of dollars to homebuyers who otherwise wouldn't qualify on the assumption that home values would continue to increase. Wall Street packaged these loans as securities and sold them as investments. Those investments collapsed beginning in July 2007 under the weight of the housing market slowdown.
• As of January, 2008, there were 4,200 homes in default or foreclosure in Stockton. Today, more than 6,000 area homes are in default or foreclosure. Observers say many borrowers who ended up in default or foreclosure got there because they bought without a downpayment and borrowed significantly more than the home was worth. Mortgage lenders, meanwhile, readily approved buyers based on their "stated income."
• According to CBS, "100 of the world's biggest financial institutions now are on the hook for a reported total of $379 million in bad debt - and counting."