Real Estate Blog

Homes in foreclosures

The Mortgage Bankers Association's first quarter report showed that a record 2.5 percent of all home loans being serviced by its members are now in foreclosure, which works out to about 1.1 million homes. That's up from the 2 percent of loans, or about 938,000 homes, that were in foreclosure at the end of 2007.

The report also showed that 448,000 homes, or about 1 percent of loans being serviced, began the foreclosure process during the first quarter. That's up from about 382,000 homes, or 0.83 percent, that entered foreclosure in the last three months of 2007.

The number of homeowners behind on their mortgage payments also hit a record high. Nearly 3 million home loans are now at least one payment past due, while about 737,000 are at least three months past due but not yet in foreclosure.

This marks the sixth straight quarter in which a record percentage of loans went into foreclosure. The trend has led to a widespread decline in home prices, as well as huge losses for banks and other financial firms that issued or invested in the loans.

Nearly half of the homes in foreclosure are concentrated in six states. But those states are undergoing two very different types of housing meltdowns.

California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada have been hit by a hangover after a home building boom in the middle of the decade, which was fueled by rising home prices and investors snatching up real estate using risky mortgages. Those four states have about 368,000 homes in foreclosure, or a third of the nationwide total. Roughly 3.7 percent of all of the loans in these states are now in foreclosure.

"Clearly things in California and Florida are going to get worse before they get better," said Jay Brinkman, MBA's vice president for research and economics.

The other two states that are ground zero for the crisis - Michigan and Ohio - have been hit by the more traditional economic woes stemming from rising job losses, particularly in the automotive sector.

Ohio has about 61,000 homes in foreclosure, while Michigan has about 54,000. The foreclosure rate in those two states is 3.9 percent.

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