Daily News and Information for the Mortgage Loan Originator
November Report: Initial Filings Up 93%, Foreclosed Homes Up 41%
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
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SACRAMENTO, CA - Foreclosures nationwide climbed closer to record levels last month as tens of thousands more struggling homeowners lost their properties. Consider a few November numbers from ForeclosureS.com, the California-based real estate publisher that's been analyzing and publishing real estate and foreclosure data for more than 20 years:
1,082,712 homes entered the foreclosure process nationwide during the first 11 months of the year, up 93% from the same time last year (559,750), and up over 7% from numbers through October.
526,936 (6.6 homes out of every 1,000) households nationwide ended up back in the hands of lenders (REO's) during the first 11 months of the year, up 41% from the same time last year.
72,101 homes nationwide were repossessed by lenders (REO's) in November alone, up 31.77 percent from October's 54,718.
ForeclosureS.com, with its data base of 3.5 million property listings, bases its analysis on the number of formal notices filed against a property in the foreclosure process. Depending on the location and laws, there can be two to three filings per property, including notice of default and/or notice of foreclosure auction, both pre-foreclosure, and notice of REO or lender owned real estate, which happens after a foreclosed property fails to sell at auction and reverts back to the lender.
Looking at pre-foreclosure filings as of December 1, according to ForeclosureS.com:
On a per capita basis, 14.8 of every 1,000 households nationwide faced pre-foreclosure, up nearly 93 percent from the same time last year.
Preforeclosure filings are up 93%, but REOs are up only 41%. That means the 52% were able to solve their foreclosure problem (through a refinance, loan modification, finding the money or selling their home).
All pre-foreclosures do not end up as REO because some homeowners avoid foreclosure by working out their financial problems either individually or more recently with the help of governments, institutions, and lenders.
ForeclosureS.com's latest numbers also show some areas of the country with triple-digit increases in pre-foreclosure and/or REO filings year over year. That comes on top of the just-released third-quarter Mortgage Banker's Delinquency Survey that showed all-time highs in the number of homeowners starting the foreclosure process--0.78 percent of all mortgages outstanding. A total 5.59 percent of all mortgages were delinquent in the third quarter, MBA reports, too.
The news in new single-family home sales isn't positive either, with October's seasonally adjusted annual rate down 23.5 percent from a year ago, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
All isn't gloom and doom for the housing sector or the nation's economy though, says Alexis McGee, president of ForeclosureS.com, and author of "The Foreclosures.com Guide to Investing: Making Huge Profits Investing in Pre-Foreclosures Without Selling Your Soul" (John Wiley, 2007).
"Our newest ForeclosureS.com report shows pockets of actual drops in the number of foreclosure and pre-foreclosure filings from a year ago. That's positive and that's the real news despite overall numbers that generally are up for the year and from 2006," adds McGee.
Foreclosures Up Nearly 100% From Last Year A national foreclosure ranking service released its September 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows an 8 percent decrease from the previous month. However, foreclosure filings from the same month one year earlier still increased 99 percent. State wide Nevada, Florida, and California posted the highest rates.
Defaults and Foreclosures Linked to Borrower Fraud Mortgage fraud costs lenders an estimated $4 billion per year and identity theft is the fastest-growing segment in the fraud arena. Over 60 percent of all mortgage fraud involves income or identity misrepresentation by the borrower, and according to the FBI, often involves the willful participation of an industry "insider".
Delinquency Rate Highest in 21 Years The total delinquency rate is the highest in the MBA survey since 1986. The rate of foreclosure starts and the percent of loans in the process of foreclosure are at the highest levels ever.
Fixed Rate Products Dominate First Half of 2007 Fixed rate mortgages dominated mortgage originations in the first half of 2007 according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's Mortgage Originations Survey. Will they continue to dominate?
21 Lenders Sued for Causing Foreclosure Mess 21 lenders including some of nation's top lenders have been named as defendants in a new lawsuit. The lenders are being sued for alleged unscrupulous lending practices which propagated the foreclosure crisis in another major U.S. city. This is the second lawsuit of its kind in less than a week.
Foreclosures Up 75 Percent in 2007 Year-end data from the 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report shows a total of 2,203,295 foreclosure filings - default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions - were reported on 1,285,873 properties nationwide during the year, up 75 percent from 2006. The report also shows that more than 1 percent of all U.S. households were in some stage of foreclosure during the year, up from 0.58 percent in 2006.
