Mortgage Foreclosures Up 56% From Last Year
Recent news resports indicate that foreclosures are on the rise. This has been expected for some time given the poor loans that many people took (i.e, interest only, adjustable rate).
Mortgage Foreclosures Up 56% From Last Year
By Bloomberg News
July 13, 2007Mortgage foreclosures in America jumped to a record in the first half as rising interest rates and falling home prices battered homeowners. Almost 926,000 foreclosure notices were filed, 56% more than a year earlier and the most since Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac started tracking the data in 2005. Foreclosures were the highest last month in California and Florida, where some home prices have fallen as much as 25%, and in Ohio and Michigan, where the automotive industry fired more than 50,000 people in the past 10 years.
The jump in 30-year mortgage rates by more than a half a percentage point since May is putting a crimp on borrowers with the best credit just as a crackdown in subprime lending standards limits the pool of qualified buyers. Foreclosures also are increasing as the supply of unsold homes hit a record 4.43 million in May, according to the National Association of Realtors.