I hate to post negative news, but I’m on a personal mission to stop unqualified buyers from purchasing homes they can’t afford. Hopefully a few people reading this will take notice. “Owning” a home means having equity in a property you can afford to maintain and pay for. It’s shameful that the new home builders and the mortgage industry enable so many unqualified buyers to get in over their heads. These foreclosures are the result. One out of every 51 Texas households was foreclosed on according to this study. Wow…that’s a lot, and Texas is #4 nationwide in that ratio.
Austin Business Journal – Jan 27, 2007
The state and national foreclosure numbers are in, and they’re not pretty.Texas finished 2006 with a total of 156,876 foreclosure filings — the highest aggregate total of any state, according to a year-end report by foreclosure source RealtyTrac Inc.
Texas’ total filings equates to a rate of one foreclosure filing for every 51 households — making it the state with the fourth highest foreclosure rate.
Colorado posted the highest foreclosure rate of any state, according to the latest RealtyTrac study — one filing for every 33 households. Over the course of 2006, Colorado reported a total of 54,747 filings.RealtyTrac also ranked the nation’s 100 largest MSAs (metropolitan statistical areas) by its foreclosure rate. The Detroit/Livonia/Dearborn MSA ranked No. 1 at a foreclosure rate of one filing for every 21 households, per the year-end report. A total of 40,219 foreclosures were filed over the course of 2006 in this metropolitan area.
So how did San Antonio fare? It was ranked No. 12, with a foreclosure rate of one filing for every 37 households. A total of 14,754 filings were reported in the city over the course of 2006, according to the company.
On the national level, more than 1.2 million foreclosure filings were reported nationwide over the course of 2006. That figure represents a 42 percent jump from the number of filings in 2005, and equates to a rate of one foreclosure filling for every 92 U.S. households, the report says.
“A 42 percent, year-over-year increase is certainly noteworthy,” RealtyTrac CEO James J. Saccacio says.
He attributes the 2006 foreclosure rate to the general slowdown in housing sales.
Another prime culprit: Homeowners — namely those who took out riskier adjustable-rate and sub-prime mortgages — are getting hit with higher monthly payments.
“As more and more of these (riskier loans) re-set, we saw a surge (in foreclosures),” Saccacio says, “with the fourth quarter producing more foreclosure filings than any of the three previous quarters.”
The latest RealtyTrac report is based on data on more than 800,000 properties from nearly 2,500 counties across the country — including databases of pre-foreclosure and foreclosed properties.
RealtyTrac (www.realtytrac.com) is an online marketplace for foreclosure properties. The company’s database includes more than 1 million properties across the country — including pre-foreclosure, foreclosure, For Sale By Owner, resale and new-construction properties.
Shh..you’ll put us HUD agents out of business 🙂
Not only is it the lenders approving loans for under qualified applicants, but it is also fraudulent appraisals and income statements that have contributed to the rise in foreclosures. An alarming trend it has become. Per the Swanepoel Trends Report more and more people are being sent to jail on charges of bank fraud and conspiracy to commit mortgage fraud. Now, some lenders are tightening their loan requirements and it will make it more difficult for homebuyers to purchase or refinance. Where does it end?