Here’s more bad news on the housing front.
It’s shaping up to be another record year for foreclosures.
From Bloomberg by Dan Levy entitled: U.S. Home Seizures Reach Record for Third Time in Five Months
“U.S. home seizures reached a record for the third time in five months in August as lenders completed the foreclosure process for thousands of delinquent owners, according to RealtyTrac Inc.
Bank repossessions climbed 25 percent from a year earlier to 95,364, the most since the Irvine, California-based data provider began keeping records in 2005. Foreclosure filings, including default and auction notices, fell 5 percent to 338,836. One out of every 381 U.S. households received a filing, RealtyTrac said today in a statement.
“We’re on track for a record year for homes in foreclosure and repossessions,” Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice president, said in a telephone interview. “There is no improvement in the underlying economic conditions.”
Default notices are falling while seizures rise because lenders are trying to control the number of properties that enter the foreclosure process, RealtyTrac said. That doesn’t mean more owners are catching up on their mortgage payments, Sharga said.
“If the market is left to fend for itself, you may see more serious price depreciation,” he said. “Whether things fall precipitously depends on government and lenders controlling the inflow of new foreclosure actions.”
The number of homes that received default notices last month was 96,469, down 1 percent from July and 30 percent from a year earlier, RealtyTrac said. A default notice is the first stage of foreclosure. They peaked at 142,064 in April 2009.
A foreclosure auction, the second stage in the process, was scheduled on 147,003 properties, up 9 percent from July and 2 percent from August 2009. The record was 158,105 in March.
Bank seizures rose 3 percent from July and had their ninth straight monthly increase on a year-over-year basis, RealtyTrac said. The August total was 1.7 percent more than the previous record of 93,777 set in May.”
Drip….Drip….Drip.
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