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According to MarketGraphics, a total of 398 home starts were counted in the Memphis metro area in the four-month period ended March 1, an increase from the 358 home starts counted during the same four-month period a year ago.

Sales of new homes in the Memphis area also increased as more homebuilders report increases in new home sales. Homebuilder Keith Grant who owns Grant and Company said he has sold 40 newly-built houses in the first quarter of 2010, a sharp jump from only 17 new units from the same period a year ago. Grant also said that the number of days his new homes are staying on the market has plunged from 120 days one year ago to only 45 days.

Local homebuilders said that the slowdown in the entry of residential properties into home foreclosure listings has helped builders in moving their new-home inventory.

Don Berge, owner and president of MarketGraphics, said that sales of homes rose when banks restricted their efforts in putting distressed properties into Memphis foreclosure listings. Berge spent 25 years in real estate lending before launching MarketGraphics, which specializes in researching and reporting activities in the housing market.

Berge also reported that housing starts rose by 84 percent to 505 units in the five-month period ended November 2009, compared to 274 units in the five-month period ended July 2009. Berge contended that this increase was the biggest over the past three years.

Several homebuilders constructed new homes because they saw a rise in demand for newly-built houses after years of no new residential construction.

Sales of newly-constructed homes that entered foreclosure listings in Tennessee also rose. One of several entities selling distressed but newly-built residential properties was Paragon National Bank, which provided development loans to residential subdivision developers during the heydays of the construction industry from 2005 to 2006. When the housing market collapsed, Paragon was left with a lot of housing units to dispose of.

In 2009, Paragon sold 70 units of housing properties in the Memphis metro area, around 35 units of which were newly-built houses. Sales of these homes, mostly located in Arlington, DeSoto and Bartlett, helped a lot the local housing market.

Berge of MarketGraphics said that the overall decline in housing stock, including properties in Memphis foreclosure listings, has been allowing home builders to sell their new homes.

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Even if you are not yet dead set on investing your savings in foreclosure properties, exploring membership online listings will pay off in the long run.

You do not have to choose and buy a property quickly. Exploring the pages of an online listings website, reading guideposts and learning more about foreclosure investing will help you choose your first investment property.

By exploring at your own pace, you can begin to discover features or factors that you ignored before, but which are now important to you. You may be surprised to learn that just looking at photos of homes and neighborhoods gives you some kind of kick – a kind of rejuvenation that makes you realize you are finally doing something right for your financial future.

Have you had that feeling of pleasure, wonder and thoughts of financial returns if you see a great but affordable home on online listings foreclosures? Then you must have already been jumpstarted – pushed and encouraged to pursue your plans of investing in foreclosures.

To get more encouragement, do further research. Check if your state or city is offering additional incentives if you buy your first home or second home. There are states and cities enticing more home buyers with incentives in addition to the federal tax credits. Most of these states and cities have recently been given federal grants to stimulate economic activity in their communities.

Many cities are offering down payment assistance and additional grants for repairs. Several local governments are offering closing cost assistance. In California, a total of $200 million has been allocated to provide $10,000 in additional tax credit for home buyers.

In New Jersey, some lawmakers introduced a bill that would grant a total of $15,000 in tax credits over three years to qualified buyers. Similarly, in South Carolina, legislators announced a down payment assistance scheme for police officers, teachers and firefighters, granting $7,000 to each homebuyer.

If you add these incentives to the federal tax credits, then you are getting a huge total of savings in home buying costs. Add to these the low purchase cost of the house and the low mortgage rate, and you feel you are at the right place at the right time. You can now enter the profitable foreclosure investing world. And this only started because you thought of exploring online listings foreclosures.

As most probably you are busy, your best option would be to use membership online foreclosure listings sites. If you wonder about listings in printed newspapers and journals, do not worry because membership online listings include those properties that are listed in printed media.

Providers of online listings obtain these real estate listings through their researchers and market contacts. Whatever listings accessed by the printed media, these are also accessed by online listings providers. Real estate sellers use both online and offline media to maximize the exposure of their properties for sale.

Membership foreclosure listings providers are recommended over other types of listings providers to save you time and effort. These membership listings are of high quality – they are updated, they offer one to two million listings, they help you search easily and they include details, photos, maps and community data. And best of all, they offer trial memberships for a week for a very low fee.

With a large number of listings providers on the Internet, your question now is how to find foreclosure listings providers that will help you find the foreclosure property you are looking for.

One tip is to check reviews of foreclosure listings, which usually describe ten top providers of listings. Do not only check the first or the second on the list; check also the others on the list because these may have the features or the properties you are looking for. Those others on the list may also offer the same quality, if not better, than those providers which charge higher membership fees.

Another tip is to check listings providers that have the word foreclosure in their domain names, which are usually short and easy to pronounce, like foreclosuredeals.com. Having these types of domain names means that they have been operating reliably for years already, since registering a short domain name with the word foreclosure is no longer possible as it was years ago.

You can also check Alexa.com, one of the websites that track the traffic of websites. Type foreclosure listings and then check the websites of providers that attract moderate to high traffic.

After finding the listings provider you want, you realize how to find foreclosure listings has been one of the crucial tasks in your foreclosure investment success.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, its residential market index which monitors builder confidence dropped by two points in March, back to the January level of 15 points. Index numbers below 50 means negative outlook for the housing market. The index has not gone beyond 50 since April 2006.

The 477 home builders surveyed said they are getting doubtful about improvements in new home sales because of the still fierce competition from foreclosures. They said the pace of foreclosures has been declining compared to the previous month, but the volume is still higher than foreclosures in 2009.

Bob Jones, chairman of NAHB, said that the continued flow of low-priced distressed homes is pushing down new-house appraisals and is making it difficult for homeowners to sell their homes so they can move up.

BMO Capital Markets economist Jennifer Lee said that the home building industry has again entered another turbulent phase after experiencing some stability over the past few months. Projections of foreclosures list growth, lack of substantial job creation and the expiration of federal supports to the housing market are making builders concerned about their situation.

The builder outlook even pushed down the share prices of a group of 12 builders that include Pulte Homes and D.R. Horton.

The decline in the number of prospective buyers indicated the waning impact of the federal tax credits. With unemployment rates rising in many places, prospective buyers have opted not to pursue their home buying plans. The gauge for prospective buyers dropped in March to 10, the lowest point over a 12-month period.

In addition, the measure for expectations for sales over the next 6 months also dropped to 24, again the lowest point since the middle of last year. This measure was 27 in February.

Builder confidence declined in the Midwest from 13 to 10 and in the South from 19 to 18 while it rose in the Northeast from 18 to 23 and in the West from 14 to 15.

According to Bloomberg, the national unemployment rate is expected to drop from 9.7 percent in January to 9.5 percent at the end of the year. It is hoped that the projected slight improvement in the employment situation would also lessen the effect of foreclosures list prices on the home building industry.

According to a survey carried out by Silicon Valley Bank, at least 10 vineyards and wineries in Napa are expected to change ownership this year and next year through distressed or foreclosure sales.

The bank, which serves mostly high-end wineries, said that seven percent of its clients have troubled finances and that 71 percent are having difficulty in finding credit. According to Bill Stevens, head of the bank’s Saint Helena wine division, 250 clients who are winemakers are reporting their worst situation in 20 years. Stevens added that the newer ones are experiencing the highest level of difficulties.

According to Robert Nicholson, land values in the valley, which hosts about 400 wine producers, have plunged by 15 percent from their peak level in 2007. The decline in values has prevented producers from refinancing their loans or making new loans.

Over the one-year period ended January 2010, the total number of vineyards and wineries that have defaulted on their loans and are expected to enter the Napa foreclosure list this year has risen four times to 18.

As consumers work out their budget and shift to cheaper wines, the dollar value of retail wine sales in the country has decreased by 3.3 percent in 2009 to $29 billion after soaring every year since 1991. The dollar value plunged despite the 1.9-percent rise in sales volume to 323 million wine cases in 2009 because consumers purchased cheaper brands, according to a report from Gomberg, Fredrikson and Associates.

According to officers of Rabobank Nederland, which finances agribusinesses, sales of premium wines – priced above $15 – fell last year by 10 percent, and sales of ultra-premium labels – priced above $30 – dropped by more than 15 percent.

Bill Harlan, owner of Oakville winery, said that foreclosures in the wine industry will surge this year. Last December, he has acquired the neighboring Diamond Oaks winery whose owner Dinesh Maniar was hit with two foreclosure filings.

Rob McMillan, founder of the Silicon Valley Bank wine division, said that over 30 wineries in California have been listed for sale. Some of these were new to the wine industry; others have high levels of debt and have high risks of entering the Napa Valley foreclosure list for vineyards and wineries.

Based on a report released by the California State Northridge Valley Economic Research Center, the number of default notices filed in January this year fell by 4 percent from the previous month to 972 notices. It also marked a stunning 41-percent drop from the 1,644 notices sent to homeowners in January 2009.

Additionally, completed foreclosures dropped to only 507 units, a significant decrease of 34 percent compared to December 2009 and an 11-percent drop from January 2009.

In part because of the drop in foreclosure activity, home prices in the Valley improved, prompting a lot of buyers to make their purchases before prices rise to high levels again.

The home price median for homes sold in January surged to $398,750, a sharp jump of 13 percent compared to the median in January last year. Another good news for market observers is the increase in home sales year-over-year for the 17th straight month.

According to William Roberts, director of the research center, the declining foreclosed listing pace in the Valley and the increase in prices and sales indicate that the housing market is starting to rise up from its troubles.

Total home sales in January rose to 1,108 units, a 13-percent increase from 982 units sold in January 2009, although a 34-percent drop from the 1,687 units sold in December 2009. Roberts, however, explained the December-January sales decline as normal based on sales data over the years.

Members of the Southland Regional Association of Realtors also affirmed the reported sales and prices increases. Jim Link, chief executive officer of the association, said that the rising trend started in March last year.

Based on Southland data, the January 2010 median sales price of $380,000 marked a 9-percent increase from the January 2009 median of 359,000 but it also marked a 20-percent drop from the December 2009 median price of $400,000. The median price for condos also increased from $190,000 in January 2009 to $215,000 in January this year.

According to Jim Link, if the Valley does not suffer another economic hit, the pace of foreclosed listing will continue its downward trend and will allow the market to finally recover from depressed home prices.

For many prospective foreclosure buyers, the best listings are those that offer information on a large number of foreclosed properties, those that offer detailed and helpful information on these properties and those that are updated frequently.

In short, the best listings are those that help you find the best and most affordable property you are looking for in the location you are targeting and in ways that are not too costly and not too time consuming.

You can find the best foreclosure listings online in at least three places: the websites of government agencies that deal with real estate properties, the websites of mortgage lenders and real estate companies, and the websites of paid foreclosure listings providers.

You can go to the websites of the Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Department of Agriculture. Several of these websites lead you to homesales.gov where you can make your home search. The other agencies lead you to the websites of their real estate management contractors where you can also do your home search.

These sites affiliated with the government are considered among the best because they are complete, updated and contain a large number of properties. They can afford to provide quality information because they are funded by the government.

Besides, during these times of record numbers of foreclosures, these government agencies want to hasten their sales and move all their repossessed properties and therefore make ways to facilitate home searching by prospective home buyers.

The websites of mortgage lenders are also easy to use and are updated. They offer you search options so you can narrow your search to the specific zip code you want or according to property type, list price, number of bedrooms or square footage.

The advantage of paid foreclosure listings over the government-affiliated sites and the lender-owned sites are their wider scope. These paid listings providers include foreclosures from all lenders, whether private- or public-owned.

The best paid listings are those that are frequently mentioned or listed in reviews and in articles. In some cases, the best foreclosure listings are not the largest providers, especially if you are interested in certain places only. Just remember that the best providers are those that are transparent – they deliver what they say on their websites and say what they do not deliver.

According to the Minnesota Area Association of Realtors, the number of condo short sales and condo foreclosure sales has risen by 4 percent in the final quarter last year from the same quarter in 2008.

Condo foreclosures have also affected prices, driving down the average price of condo units by 17 percent in 2009 in the 13 counties that make up the Twin Cities metro area. Total sales were also affected, rising by only 10 percent compared to sales in 2008. Condo sales followed the trend in the region, which posted a 16-percent drop in the average home price and a 17-percent increase in total home sales.

According to local realtors, the condo buildings suffering the most from the downturn are those that were built during the peak of the housing blast and after. They added that condos have always been more difficult to sell than single-family homes because the pool for potential condo buyers is smaller.

The condos entering foreclosure homes listings are mostly units purchased between the years 2005 and 2008 when condo prices peaked in the Twin Cities. In condo complexes, foreclosures lead to more foreclosures because condo owners who are left behind are forced to fork out more money to pay for building maintenance, taxes and other common bills.

The decision of lenders not to lend money to buyers of condo units in buildings with lower occupancy rates has also affected condo sales. Mortgage banker Alex Stenback said that condos typically have higher mortgage default rates, so lenders are stricter when screening condo buyers. Lenders are not only taking the risk of a borrower who fails, but also the risk of a condo developer that fails.

According to Saint Paul-based broker Teresa Boardman, total condo sales in downtown Saint Paul declined in 2009. She added that even though condo prices are still falling, there are only a few takers. She said that the average time a condo unit stays on the market is 240 days, much longer than the 177 days spent to sell all types of homes in Saint Paul.

Nevertheless, a rising number of buyers like systems engineer Jeff Dubois are still considering condo units in foreclosure homes listings because of expected developments in Saint Paul, such as light-rail transit and a minor league baseball stadium.