Foreclosures Up 53% in June from One Year Ago
Foreclosure filings in the U.S. rose 53 percent in June from a year earlier and bank repossessions increased the most since RealtyTrac Inc. began collecting data in January 2005 as deteriorating property values forced more people to give up their homes.
Irvine-based RealtyTrac said today in a statement that one in every 501 U.S. households either lost the home to foreclosure, received a default notice or was warned of a pending auction. Bank seizures rose 171 percent.
"The foreclosure problem is getting worse and will stay with us well into the next decade,'' Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said in an interview. "The job market is eroding and homeowners have less equity. Lenders are much less willing to work with you if you've got negative equity, and you're more likely to give up your house if you're deeply underwater.''
Foreclosure activity is the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s, said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac's vice president of marketing. Home prices, which fell the most on record in April, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index of 20 U.S. metropolitan areas, have created a cycle where shrinking equity drives homeowners into foreclosure, which in turn further pushes down home prices, Sharga said.
Published on July 10, 2008
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