Foreclosures Keep Rising, Up 17% in December

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Foreclosures Keep Rising, Up 17% in December

Irvine, CA, Jan. 15, 2009--U.S. foreclosure filings surged 81 percent last year, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

More than 2.3 million properties got a default or auction notice, or were seized by lenders, said RealtyTrac, a seller of default data said today. That’s the most RealtyTrac has documented in four years of recordkeeping. Filings rose 41 percent in December from a year earlier to 303,410.

Without a comprehensive national policy, there could be up to 8 million new foreclosures in the next three years, according to Kenneth Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, said.

Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said up to $100 billion may be allocated to curb homeowner defaults.

Foreclosure prevention programs offered by U.S. banks and state laws that temporarily delayed property seizures “have not had any real success in slowing down this foreclosure tsunami,” James Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s chief executive officer, said in a press release. One in 54 housing units, or 1.8 percent of homes, received at least one filing in 2008.

Home prices in 20 major U.S. cities fell at the fastest rate on record in October and have dropped every month since January 2007, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. The gauge declined 18 percent after falling 17.4 percent in September.

December foreclosure filings rose 17 percent from November, RealtyTrac said. The total for the year reached 3.2 million, which includes multiple filings against some of the 2.3 million properties affected.

Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate in 2008, with 7.3 percent of housing units in some stage of default. A total of 77,693 properties received a filing, more than double the number in 2007 and a six-fold increase from 2006, according to RealtyTrac.

Florida had the second-highest rate with 4.5 percent of housing units in default. The state had 385,309 properties with filings against them, a 133 percent jump from a year earlier and up 412 percent from 2006.

Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Illinois and New Jersey were also among the states with the 10 highest rates. New York ranked 35th with 50,032 properties receiving default notices.