Here it comes. I told everyone here three months ago that this was going to happen - that the moratorium was simply creating a 'dam,' and that the 2nd wave of foreclosures would be bigger than the first, as I had the luxury of having conversations with a friend who is now a partner at a large Miami-based law firm, who advised me their foreclosure files are exceeding 32,000 per month, in a department that has roughly 12 attorneys and 18 paralegals - and that will be expanding as people threaten to quit because they're burned out. Foreclosure Filings in U.S. Climbed to Record in First Quarter Share | Email | Print | A A A http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aRDQUt6RM.FE&refer=home By Dan Levy April 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. foreclosure filings rose to a record in the first quarter as employers cut jobs in the recession and temporary programs to delay action on defaults came to an end, RealtyTrac Inc. said. A total of 803,489 properties received a default or auction notice or were seized, 24 percent more than a year earlier, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data said in a statement today. Filings for the month of March totaled 341,180, also a record in four years of RealtyTrac data. âForeclosures havenât peaked yet,â David Olson, president of the mortgage research firm Wholesale Access in Columbia, Maryland, said in an interview. âWeâre catching up with whatâs been delayed, and those foreclosures will have to be cleared.â A flood of bank-owned properties is hitting the housing market as the U.S. recession deepens. The unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent in March, the highest since 1983, as 663,000 jobs were lost, according to the Labor Department. Home prices fell 19 percent in January from a year earlier, the fastest drop on record, according to the S&P Case/Shiller Index of 20 U.S. cities. The measure has fallen every month on a year-over-year basis since January 2007. Mortgage applications declined last week for the first time in a month, a sign that even with borrowing rates below 5 percent may not be enough to spur a housing recovery. The average rate on a 30-year loan rose to 4.87 percent last week after four weeks of declines, according to McLean, Virginia-based mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. The Federal Reserve Bank decided in March to buy as much as $300 billion in Treasuries and more than double purchases of housing debt to $1.45 billion in a bid to reduce the costs of home loans and other borrowing. Obama Plan President Barack Obamaâs housing-rescue plan is intended to help as many as 9 million homeowners near default refinance into cheaper loans. About 7.6 million mortgage holders donât qualify because they owe too much more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, according to real estate valuation service Zillow.com. Obamaâs plan allows owners to refinance if their mortgages exceed their property value by 5 percent or less. Falling home prices and rising unemployment will contribute to further increases in defaults as more homeowners find themselves owing more than their houses are worth, said mortgage consultant David Lykken. âAs long as those things happen, delinquencies will grow,â said Lykken, of Mortgage Banking Solutions in Austin, Texas. A rise in foreclosure sales wonât be enough to âoffset the growing number of foreclosures in the pipeline, accelerated by rising unemployment rates,â RealtyTracâs Chief Executive Officer James Saccacio said in the statement. Filings increased 9 percent from the fourth quarter as one in every 159 U.S. households was in some stage of foreclosure. Nevada, Arizona, California Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate. One in 27 housing units there received a filing, more than five times the national average. Arizona was second at one in 54 housing units, and California ranked third at one in 58. Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Georgia, Idaho, Utah and Oregon also ranked among the top 10 states with the highest foreclosure rates. Five states accounted for almost 60 percent of the nationâs total foreclosure filings in the first quarter, led by California with 230,915, according to RealtyTrac. That was a 36 percent increase from the same period last year, and the highest quarterly total on record. Florida ranked second with 119,220 filings, a 36 percent increase from a year earlier. Arizona was third with 49,119 filings, up 79 percent from a year earlier, and Nevada was fourth with 41,296, up 111 percent. Illinois was fifth at 38,966, up 68 percent. Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Texas and Virginia ranked sixth through tenth in total filings, RealtyTrac said.
It will take at least a decade or more before any kind of demand picks up. Foreclosures have yet to peak along with unemployment as well which I belive will cause the next depression.