Foreclosures By The Numbers. What's Happening Across The Nation?

By: tireddadoffive


Heading into the final quarter of 2007 the foreclosure outlook nationwide can only be described as bleak at best. There is news from some camps stating that with exception of Florida, California, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Ohio the overall foreclosures filings, while currently showing 36 percent higher overall than this time last year, are down. Other sources point out that the worse may be yet to come as a new wave of filings seems to indicate another wave of foreclosures is till in the offing.

The numbers do not lie as they say and as of the end of August 2007 RealyTrac is reporting the following statistics-

• 243,947 foreclosure filings (includes default notices, auction notices, and bank repossessions) in August, compared with 179,599 in July and 113,300 in August 2006.
• One in 510 homes nationwide currently in some state of foreclosure.

Some experts point out that October may be the peak month with some 50 billion dollars in mortgage loans set to increase.

Two regions, the Sunbelt and Midwest, are responsible blamed for the bulk of the country's foreclosure filings. The Midwest has been hit hard due to the high level of job loss associated with plant closings. The Sunbelt, comprising California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, have contributed to the crisis by the way of over-inflated real estate prices brought by earlier real estate speculation that went largely unchecked for several years.

Of all states California leads the pack with one in every 224 households and some 57,975 households in some stage of default during the month of August. In fact California has six cities ranked among the 10 metro areas. Modesto led the way with one of every 79 households. Stockton, Merced, Vallejo-Fairfield, Riverside-San Bernardino and Sacramento also hit the top 10.

The root cause of the problem can be pinpointed back to when the real estate market was growing by leaps and bounds. Many homeowners were able to avoid home foreclosure by tapping into their equity thus enabling them to sell their properties at a profit or refinance and use the money to pay off past loans.

Far fewer homeowners are in that position currently. Because of the real estate housing slump many are barely keeping their heads above water, as more people discover they owe far more on their homes than they are worth. Very few have the resources they need to work out their debts and stop foreclosure.

The coming months will tell the tale as adjustable rate mortgages reset and monthly mortgage payments increase. More and more homeowners will find themselves unable to pay their mortgages and having to look for ways to stop foreclosure and keep their homes. Only after the dust settles will we be able to step back and fully access the overall damage to the economy.


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