The Foreclosure Report

US Foreclosures Set Records

A housing report from MarketWatch. "Many more U.S. homeowners were unable to keep up with their mortgage payments in the fourth quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Tuesday, with the rate of homes entering the foreclosure process hitting a record 0.54% and the delinquency rate on U.S. home loans leaping to 4.95% from 4.67% three months earlier."

"The rise was led by subprime mortgages, where delinquencies increased to a seasonally adjusted 13.33% from 12.56%, and FHA loans, which saw a record-high delinquency rate of 13.46%."

"Delinquency rates for prime adjustable-rate mortgages rose to a seasonally adjusted 3.39% from 3.06%, while subprime ARMs increased to 14.44% from 13.22% over the quarter. The rate of delinquent prime fixed-rate loans rose to 2.27% from 2.10%, while subprime fixed-rate loans increased to 10.09% from 9.59%."

"The foreclosure inventory rate increased to a seasonally adjusted 0.5% from 0.44% for prime loans and to 4.53% from 3.86% for subprime loans. At 0.54%, the rate of homes entering the foreclosure process hasn't been this high since the second quarter of 2002, after the recession, said Doug Duncan, MBA's chief economist."

"'One of the impacts of (home-price) declines, of which some local markets clearly are registering declines today, is that it's an evaporation of equity or potential equity. And to the extent that a borrower gets in trouble in making their payments, it reduces their options for recovering from that,' Duncan said."

posted by Ben Jones @ 12:25 PM