The number of Illinois households threatened with losing their homes rose 62% percent in February from last year's levels, more than twice the national rate, RealtyTrac reported Thursday. Illinois had one foreclosure filing for every 369 housing units in February, the seventh-highest rate in the nation, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac. Illinois ranked sixth in January and 12th a year earlier. More than 14,000 homes in the state received at least one foreclosure-relate noticed last month, up 1.6% from January and 62.3% from February 2008. Nationwide, nearly 291,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice last month, up 5.9% from January and 30.0% from February 2008. While foreclosures are highly concentrated in the Western states and Florida, the problem is spreading to states like Idaho, Illinois and Oregon as the U.S. economy worsens. "It doesn't bode well" for the embattled U.S. housing market, said Rick Sharga, vice-president for marketing at RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing firm. "At least for the foreseeable future, it's going to continue to be pretty ugly." The rise in foreclosure filings came despite temporary halts to foreclosures by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and major banks JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Bank of America. Those companies pledged to do so in advance of President Barack Obama's plan to stem the foreclosure crisis, which was launched last week. Two states that contributed to the increase were Florida and New York, where temporary bans on foreclosures ended. But other states are moving to enact similar measures. On Wednesday the Michigan House approved legislation that would give homeowners facing foreclosure a 90-day reprieve. The legislation now goes to Michigan's Republican-led Senate, where its future is unclear. Story continues below While the number of foreclosures continues to soar nationwide, banks have held off listing properties for sale, Sharga said. There were around 700,000 such properties nationwide at the end of last year, making up a "shadow inventory" of unsold homes that could drag the housing crisis out even longer. "It's going to take us longer than you might anticipate to burn through the inventory of distressed properties," he said. The results highlight the challenge ahead for Obama and his economic advisers. The Obama administration is aiming to help up to 9 million borrowers stay in their homes through refinanced mortgages or loans that are modified to lower monthly payments. Still, the faltering economy, driven down by the collapse of the housing bubble, is causing the housing crisis to spread. Nearly 12% of all Americans with a mortgage -- a record 5.4 million homeowners -- were at least one month late or in foreclosure at the end of last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Assn. That's up from 10% at the end of the third quarter, and up from 8% percent at the end of 2007. The RealtyTrac report said more than 74,000 properties were repossessed by lenders in February as the worst recession in decades, falling home values and stricter lending standards continue to sap the U.S. real estate market. Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida had the nation's top foreclosure rates. In Nevada, one in every 70 homes received a foreclosure filing, while the number was one every 147 in Arizona. Among metro areas, Las Vegas was first, with one in every 60 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing. It was followed by the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area in Florida and five California metropolitan areas: Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Riverside-San Bernardino and Bakersfield.
You left out the part about banks rushing to get more foreclosures on the book. The thought is that Obama will bail out foreclosures first. Obama is slow to learn that the Goverment can not control the market but it can skew it
Skew it? You mean the way Reagan skewed the markets by changing the way in which inflation was reported? http://www.mondaymorningeconomist.com/cooking.html
Gadz, all those places are really bad, super hot, smog ridden, dusty, undeveloped [except for cheap housing] holes... I'm happy for people that get out of them even if they do have to abandon the houses... People of those areas, [spoken in a Moses voice... with reverb] I implore you, head to the West, there is an ocean over there, the weather is bitchin, you don't need to heat or cool the house that much, just put on a sweater... 95% of all the life on earth is within 5 miles of the world's shorelines, it's not in Bakersfield hardly at all, do you get it?? Bakersfield get horrendously hot in the summer, like 120 degrees and it makes life untenable... Riverside has heat like crazy and the smog is equal to two packs a day or something... San Bernardino is where highway 40 dumps off all the welfare seekers from the non-welfare states to the east like Arizona and Texas. The population is basically there for the California freebie life, it's home to some notorious gangs like the Hell's Angels and Devil's Disciples.. are there still Devil's Disciples? A friend of mine was one of them way, way back in the day, he went to jail for shot gunning a ... well anyhow, that's another story...
What's with that author? He explains how the problems started in the Reagan Administration and were furthered by the GHW Bush Admin... wasn't there a Clinton Administration since then? Why no commentary on how Clinton went right along with it all? The author is what is skewed.
What is it with So California? Are people there really that stupid? You would think they would learn after the umpteenth housing bubble. They have the highest unemployment rate and the highest foreclosure rate and this is supposed to the be the 6th largest economy? We should sell it back to the Mexicans...... Among metro areas, Las Vegas was first, with one in every 60 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing. It was followed by the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area in Florida and five California metropolitan areas: Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Riverside-San Bernardino and Bakersfield