BoatBanter.com - View Single Post

Tim

On Jul 25, 8:40*am, HK wrote:
U.S. Foreclosures Double as House Prices Decline (Update1)

By Bob Ivry

July 25 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. foreclosure filings more than doubled in the
second quarter from a year earlier as falling home prices left borrowers
owing more on mortgages than their properties were worth.

One in every 171 households was foreclosed on, received a default notice
or was warned of a pending auction. That was an increase of 121 percent
from a year earlier and 14 percent from the first quarter, RealtyTrac
Inc. said today in a statement. Almost 740,000 properties were in some
stage of foreclosure, the most since the Irvine, California-based data
company began reporting in January 2005.

``Rising foreclosures are putting downward pressure on prices,
increasing the possibility that homeowners will go upside- down on their
mortgages,'' said Sheryl King, chief U.S. economist at Merrill Lynch &
Co. in New York. ``That will cause more losses in mortgage portfolios
and less willingness from investors to securitize mortgages and
therefore fewer mortgages.''

About 25 million U.S. homeowners risk owing more than the value of the
their homes, according to Bill Gross, manager of the world's biggest
bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. That would make it
impossible for them to negotiate better loan terms or sell their
property without contributing cash to the transaction.

Falling home values, led by states such as Nevada and California that
have the biggest default rate, have prompted RealtyTrac to almost double
the projected number of foreclosures this year to about 2.5 million,
said Rick Sharga, executive vice president for marketing.

Federal Legislation

``The big variable here is what effect the housing bill now being
considered by the Senate is going to have on foreclosure activity in
general,'' Sharga said in an interview. ``Based on market conditions
themselves, we are nowhere near the end of this trip. Best-case
scenario, we're looking at another year of this.''

The housing bill aims to help 400,000 Americans with subprime home loans
refinance into 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages backed by the government.
The measure passed the House of Representatives and President George W.
Bush has said he would sign it.

Subprime mortgages were available to borrowers with bad or incomplete
credit histories and default at five times the rate of prime mortgages,
according to the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington.

Bank seizures in the first half of the year increased by 154 percent to
370,179 from the same period in 2007, RealtyTrac said. Last year's
second-quarter data on bank repossessions was not available, according
to RealtyTrac.

Fewer Mortgages

Forty-eight of 50 states and 95 of the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan
areas had year-over-year increases in foreclosure filings in the second
quarter, RealtyTrac said.

Nevada was the state with the highest rate. One in every 43 households
received a foreclosure notice in the quarter, four times the national
average and an increase of 147 percent from a year earlier, according to
RealtyTrac.

Foreclosure filings tripled in California, where one in every 65
households was affected, the second-highest rate among states. Arizona
had the third-highest rate, with one every 70 households, a more than
threefold increase from the second quarter of 2007, RealtyTrac said.

Florida, Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Massachusetts and Illinois
rounded out RealtyTrac's top 10.

Lenders will cut in half the number of mortgages to purchase homes in
2008 compared with two years ago, said Guy Cecala, publisher of the
Bethesda, Maryland-based trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance.

Real Estate-Owned

Bank repossessions, or REOs -- meaning ``real estate- owned'' --
accounted for 30 percent of total foreclosure activity in the second
quarter, up from 24 percent of the total in the first quarter,
RealtyTrac said.

Foreclosures push all home values down by an estimated 6 percent, and
will contribute to national prices declining another 15 percent by the
end of 2009, Ethan Harris and Michelle Meyer, Lehman Brothers Holdings
Inc. economists in New York, said in a report yesterday.

``I believe a big part of the problem we're facing in the market right
now is uncertainty,'' Sharga said. ``Buyers aren't sure if this is the
right time to get in, lenders aren't sure where to lend, investors
aren't sure where to put their money in an environment of depreciating
assets. The psychology of the market is as responsible as the financial
part of the market.''

Seven of the 11 metropolitan areas with the highest rates of foreclosure
filings in the second quarter were in California, according to
RealtyTrac. The Stockton area, in California's Central Valley, had the
highest incidence, with one in 25 households receiving filings.

Inland Empire

In Riverside-San Bernardino, the so-called Inland Empire, where the
California Association of Realtors said home prices plummeted 35 percent
in May compared with a year earlier, one in 32 households entered
foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac.

Bakersfield, Sacramento, Oakland, Fresno and San Diego were the other
California metro areas in the top 11.

The Las Vegas area, where home values fell 27 percent in May compared
with a year earlier, according to the S&P/Case- Shiller Home Price
Index, had the third-highest foreclosure rate, with one in every 35
households, RealtyTrac said.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Phoenix and Miami were the other metropolitan
areas in RealtyTrac's top 11.

New York filings increased 62 percent from a year earlier to 16,025,
with one in every 493 households in a stage of foreclosure, the
30th-highest rate.

New Jersey filings rose 140 percent. One in every 201 households in the
state received notice, the 12th-highest rate in the U.S.

http://news.aol.com/political-machin...ll-july-21-28/