Thread: Home Foreclosures On The Rise

Higher Interest Rates And A Weakening Real Estate Market Are Driving Home Foreclosures Through The Roof

(CBS) Weld County, Colorado, was one of the hottest housing markets in the country...until two years ago.

"At the very best, we're flat," real estate agent Matthew Revitte tells CBS News correspondent Sharon Alfonsi. "And we could be perhaps contracting."

Revitte sold many homes before oversupply and rising interest rates torpedoed the market.

"We've yet to hit bottom," he tells CBS News.

Homebuyers with adjustable rate mortgages faced payments they couldn't afford. Those forced to sell couldn't find buyers and hundreds defaulted on their loans. Now the place leads the nation in foreclosures – 1 in every 168 households. That's 700 percent higher than the national average.

"Almost overnight it's like somebody turned the lights off," Revitte tells Alfonsi. "Now we are going through the great correction."

According to a new report, they're not alone. Nationwide, more than 300,000 properties entered foreclosure during the 3rd quarter — up 43 percent from a year ago.

"Somewhere between 1.2 and 1.3 million properties will end up in some state of foreclosure over the course of 2006," says Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac, a properties listing company.

Things are so bad in Colorado that the state just set up a first-of-its-kind foreclosure help hotline. It got 1,400 calls on the first day.

"There's north of a trillion dollars in adjustable rate mortgages that are going to reset over the next 15 months," says Sharga. "And what that means for the average homeowner is an increase of between 20 and 50 percent of their monthly mortgage bill."

That's expected to sink thousands of homeowners who bought into the boom with no down payment and risky financing like interest-only loans.

Margaret Hernandez lived in Weld County for five years. Recently, she returned for the first time since she foreclosed in April.

"I can hear my kids," she recalls as she breaks down crying. "I can hear my kids talking and just hearing them playing and talking and eating and everything else...it's hard."

While the emotional toll of foreclosure is personal, the financial impact is shared. You can expect your home value to drop $10,000 or more if a neighbor defaults.

"I don't think the circumstances here in Weld County are that unique to what perhaps could happen in the rest of the country," says Revitte.

Experts CBS News spoke to agree: predicting foreclosures will climb through – at least – the end of next year, forcing many more people like Margaret Hernandez to start over again.

"I really tried hard to keep it and I think will take an eternity to own again but I'm gonna work hard at it – the Lord has to bless me some how again," says Hernandez.

Colorado, Nevada and Florida now have the highest foreclosure rates, while the number of foreclosures in California have tripled since the last year.


©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/ ... 5898.shtml

That's what happens when you finance to people that don't have credit and stick them with high interest loans. It's gambling and you rarely win. You can just guess who they have been giving these outrageous mortgages too. Yep, illegal aliens and now, they are loosing work and they are not able to pay these outrageous rates. Surprise. Those houses should have been cheap first time homes for young Americans. Part of this was a false boom based on high risk loans to illegal aliens. The world has a way of correcting itself. The housing market needs to thank The Fed Reserve and the banking industry that thought banking and financing illegal aliens was a good idea. Not to mention the money pouring out of our economy and strait into Mexico. Don't forget the foreign investors that have been giving loans to these people.

Dixie

The socialist agenda is right on track. The government will come along one day to bail this out and get people back into homes on the dole. It's already begun here. The resulting taxaction will take out the rest of homeowners. Voila! All housing is government provided. Private ownership that is the foundation of this country will be over.

http://www.metropolitanhousing.org/

CONTROL, CONTROL, CONTROL!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is what ALL of this is ultimately about! I do not deal well with controlling people. Destroy middle class (as we have PRIDE and do not want to beg for handouts) and then they have us! The poor are already beholden to the government to survive and the rich don't need help. It is painfully obvious what the agenda is. Now I know why I saw signs to get us out of the UN!

Ga. foreclosures rise 41% in 3rd qtr.

By JULIE HAIRSTON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 10/30/06

Georgia remained in the top 10 states for foreclosures in the third quarter, with one property in 195 in some level of foreclosure, according to one of the nation's largest clearinghouses for such properties.

Colorado, Nevada, Florida and Texas led the nation in the rate of foreclosure, with Georgia at No. 5 in the quarterly ranking by RealtyTrac, based in San Diego.

In the July-September quarter, 15,841 Georgia properties went into foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac figures.

That was 41.4 percent more than in the same quarter of 2005 and 3.5 percent more than in the second quarter of 2006.

Nationwide, foreclosures rose 17 percent in the third quarter of 2006 over the previous quarter and 42.7 percent over third quarter 2005.

James J. Saccacio, president of RealtyTrac, attributed the sharp increase in foreclosures to higher interest rates, a softening real estate market and the upward adjustment of a large portion of adjustable mortgages now held by American borrowers.

"With the volume of these loans — more than $1 trillion of them due to adjust over the next 15 months — this is a trend that definitely bears watching," Saccacio said in a statement.

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/bus ... amn103106e