The Foreclosure Report

Foreclosures Follow Bubble Into Lowell, Mass.

The Lowell Sun has this update from Massachusetts. "Until this spring, Northern Middlesex County had managed to buck the statewide trend of increased foreclosure filings. That has now changed in a big way, according to Middlesex North Register of Deeds Richard Howe Jr."

"In March, the foreclosure process was started on 48 homes in the region, double the number from last year in that month. In April, 58 homes were threatened with foreclosure, up 76 percent from 2005. And during the first 23 days of May, 61 properties were hit with foreclosure filings, a startling 281 percent year-over-year increase."

"'It was like a gas pump going up,' Howe said of tracking the foreclosure numbers this month."

"For more than a year, foreclosures had been increasing statewide at about a 33 percent rate, year over year. This year, through April, that number is up to 44 percent. The reason? Howe surmises that because the housing boom was late in coming to the region, the wave of foreclosures may also have lagged."

"'The amount of time from when the market peaked to when the foreclosures started spiking is kind of similar,' he noted."

posted by Ben Jones @ 10:17 AM