The bad news? Foreclosures are up. Way up. Up 23% over the last quarter of 2007. One in 194 households received a foreclosure filing. And that's a national average. If you focus on the hardest hit areas, the numbers are staggering.
The good news?
The good news is that your property value is falling so rapidly that it may not be worth it to put your home through the auction process as noted in Forbes
'We've seen fewer and fewer properties go through the auction process because there's either little equity in them or even negative equity. So there's no incentive for people to buy them at the auctions,'
States leading the way in defaulted or loans on the way to default listed here::
Nevada ranked again in August as the state with the highest foreclosure rate, followed by California and Arizona. As in months past, other hard-hit states included Florida, Michigan, Georgia, Ohio, Colorado, Illinois and Indiana.
If doesn't seem we're 'turning a corner', or will anytime soon (via HuffPost).
The most recent quarter marked the seventh consecutive quarter of rising foreclosure activity, RealtyTrac noted.
"What would normally alleviate the foreclosure situation in a normal market is people starting to buy properties again," said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac's vice president of marketing. However, the unavailability of loans for people without perfect credit and a significant down payment is slowing the process, he said. "It's a cycle that's going to be difficult to break, and we're certainly not at the breaking point just yet," Sharga added.
The surge in foreclosure filings also suggests that much-touted campaigns by lawmakers and the mortgage lending industry aimed at helping at-risk homeowners aren't paying off.
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So, I ask people of Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, do you think you and your neighbors are better off than 2000 or even 2004?