Foreclosure Filings in U.S. to Hit Record for Second Year With 3.9 Million

[marmar]

U.S. Foreclosures to Reach 3.9 Million in Second Record Year
By Dan Levy


Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Foreclosure filings in the U.S. will reach a record for the second consecutive year with 3.9 million notices sent to homeowners in default, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

This year’s filings will surpass 2008’s total of 3.2 million as record unemployment and price erosion batter the housing market, the Irvine, California-based company said.

“We are a long way from a recovery,” John Quigley, economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an interview. “You can’t start to see improvement in the housing market until after unemployment peaks.”

Foreclosure filings exceeded 300,000 for the ninth straight month in November, RealtyTrac said today. A weak labor market and tight credit are “formidable headwinds” for the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in a Dec. 7 speech in Washington. The 7.2 million jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007 are the most of any postwar economic slump, Labor Department data show. Unemployment, at 10 percent last month, won’t peak until the first quarter, Quigley said.

Loan-modification programs and an expanded government tax credit for first-time homebuyers are helping slow the monthly pace of filings and “keeping a lid” on further foreclosures, James Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s chief executive officer, said in the statement.

November filings fell 15 percent from the July peak and dropped 8 percent from October, the seller of default data said. That was the fourth straight monthly drop. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a6aLuu9zxbcM&pos=7

[midnight]

1. Let's fight a new war. The war against poverty....

No more homeless.

[mwb970]

2. Your headline makes it sound like foreclosures are way up, but....

Fewer homes join foreclosure list in Ohio: Nationally, filings drop 8% to lowest level in 9 months
(Columbus Dispatch, December 10, 2009)

Foreclosure filings declined in November in Ohio and the rest of the nation, according to figures released this morning by the foreclosure-information service RealtyTrac.

In the month, 10,587 properties in Ohio received some sort of foreclosure notice; that was down 9 percent from October and down 18 percent from November 2008.

Nationally, foreclosure filings declined 8 percent from October, to the fewest since February. Filings nonetheless were 18 percent above November 2008's filings.

"November was the fourth straight month that U.S. foreclosure activity has declined after hitting an all-time high for our report in July," said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, in a prepared statement.

"Loan modifications and other foreclosure-prevention efforts, along with the recently extended and expanded homebuyer tax credit, are keeping a lid on the most visible symptoms of the nation's ailing housing market: foreclosures and home-value depreciation."

Is this really such bad news?

:shrug:

[AllentownJake]

3. Delinquencies are up

The only reason there aren't more foreclosures is because the banks with support from the US government are propping up the market.

[mwb970]

4. I'm sure you are right in what you say.

I was commenting on the gap between the headline of this thread ("Foreclosure Filings in U.S. to Hit Record for Second Year") and the story I read in this morning's newspaper ("Nationally, filings drop 8% to lowest level in 9 months"). The former indicates a deepening crisis, the latter indicates an easing of the crisis. They can't both be right, can they?

As you can see, the OP did not mention delinquencies, just "filings".

[AllentownJake]

5. There is a lot of sweeping things under the rug going on

The real state of the economy is going to become painfully evident when Holiday sales data is released.

[AllentownJake]

6. Also the OP is talking about 2008 to 2009

Not month to month so the headline is correct.