August Foreclosures Soar
In more bad news about the state of the nation’s housing market that can be expected to strengthen calls for regulatory reform and legislation, the latest data shows that mortgage foreclosures soared in August.
The number of mortgage foreclosure filings more than doubled last month, compared to August 2006, and increased by 36 percent from those reported in July 2007, according to the Associated Press. There were a total of 243,947 foreclosure filings in August 2007, up 115 percent from the 113,300 reported in August 2006. A total of 179,599 were reported in July 2007.
Filings include default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. Properties with more than one mortgage may have more than one filing.
Nevada, California and Florida have the biggest foreclosure problem, reports AP. Respectively, there was a filing against one in 165 households, one in 224 households and one in 243 households in these states in August 2007. Nationally, the average rate of foreclosure filings last month was one in 510 households.
The situation could get worse before it gets better, an executive of the Irvine, Calif., company that provided this foreclosure filings data tells Bloomberg. “This is just the beginning of a wave of new foreclosures,” predicts Rick Sharga, executive vice president of marketing for RealtyTrac. “There are lots of people who bought homes they could only afford at the teaser rates, and now have very few options.”
