Foreclosure Crisis Only Halfway Over

The latest data on home foreclosures and delinquencies reflect that the foreclosure crisis is only about half way over. The pace of new home foreclosures increased in the third quarter and the number of borrowers falling behind on their payments eased a bit, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The good news was that the rate of borrowers who have fallen three or more months behind on their payments has dropped to about 3.5 percent of all mortgages. That is down from a peak of 5 percent in late 2009. But it is still three and a half times the “normal” rate of about 1 percent that prevailed before the mortgage meltdown hit in late 2007.
Borrowers with subprime adjustable mortgages saw the biggest jump in new foreclosures in the third quarter. Some 4.65 percent of those subprime loans entered into foreclosure. Underwater borrowers simply walking away from their home and no longer making mortgage payments have complicated the housing market recovery process. The most critical variable affecting the pace of such defaults was the length of time a given home was in the foreclosure process. The longer the process takes, the longer the idea ‘strategic default’ has to spread from one borrower to another.

A lot depends on recovery of the economy and creating jobs fast enough to get people back to work and decrease the 9 percent unemployment rate. Continued improvement in home sales and prices will depend heavily on the volume of foreclosed homes coming back on the market.

Foreclosure defense attorney, Timothy Kingcade has helped many facing foreclosure alleviate their stress by letting them stay in their homes for at least another year, allowing them to re-organize their lives. If you have any questions on the topic of foreclosure please feel free to contact me at (305) 285-9100. You can also find useful consumer information on the Kingcade & Garcia, P.A. website at www.miamibankruptcy.com.

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