from Lexington Herald-Leader:
Foreclosures in Kentucky jump 45.2% in MarchBy Jim Jordan
[email protected]Foreclosures in Kentucky jumped from 476 in February to 691 in March, a 45.2 percent increase, RealtyTrac reported Tuesday.
The increase moved Kentucky to 38th place among the states, compared with 45th in February. The state also was 38th in January, when it had 572 foreclosures.
And while it was an increase compared to February, Kentucky's March total was down 1.3 percent from March 2007.
RealtyTrac said 234,685 properties were in foreclosure nationwide in March, a 5 percent increase from February and a 57 percent jump from March 2007.
"The March numbers show that overall foreclosure activity so far this year continues to run nearly 60 percent above" 2007, said RealtyTrac CEO James J. Saccacio.
Saccacio said default notices were up nearly 57 percent in March and bank repossessions of properties increased 129 percent nationwide, compared with 2007.
Auction notices were up only 32 percent, he said, indicating that more homeowners are "simply walking away and deeding their properties back to the foreclosing lender."
The top five states in foreclosures in March were Nevada, California, Florida, Arizona and Colorado. Nevada had one foreclosure for every 139 households.
The bottom five states were Mississippi, West Virginia, South Dakota, North Dakota and Vermont, which had one foreclosures for every 154,779 households.
http://www.kentucky.com/103/story/377309.html