Foreclosure, the game that's taking the country by storm

By Lee Russ

Monday, January 29, 2007 at 03:40 PM

And you can play, too, just like one out of every 92 households in the country did during 2006.

RealtyTrac(TM) has issued its summary of real estate foreclosures in the US for 2006.  And it ain't good (unless you're a lawyer).

RealtyTrac(TM) (http://www.realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released year-end data from its 2006 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows more than 1.2 million foreclosure filings were reported nationwide during the year, up 42 percent from 2005 and a foreclosure rate of one foreclosure filing for every 92 U.S. households.

...

 "While foreclosures are not at historically high levels, a 42 percent year-over-year increase is certainly noteworthy," said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. "The increase in the number of properties in foreclosure was driven partly by the general slowing of overall housing sales, and partly by the impact of monthly mortgage payments increasing dramatically for homeowners who held some of the riskier types of adjustable rate and sub-prime mortgages. As more and more of these loans re-set, we saw a surge to finish the year, with the fourth quarter producing more foreclosure filings than any of the three previous quarters."
    The number of total foreclosure filings rose from about 885,000 in 2005 to 1,259,118 in 2006. While that is a substantial increase, it is still within the scope of normal historical averages, according to Saccacio.

Now that's the spirit: "still within the scope of normal..."

States with the highest foreclosure rates?  Highest to lowest, they are:

Colorado
Georgia
Nevada
Texas
Michigan
Indiana
Florida
Ohio
Utah
Tennessee

Isn't it odd that with damn few exceptions, if any (I don't remember how they all voted), these are "red states" chock full of free marketeer Republicans?

Must be that "robust" economy again.