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First-quarter filings double nationwide. Ohio eighth among states
By Kathleen M. Howley
and Dan Levy
Bloomberg News
Published on Wednesday, Apr 30, 2008
Home foreclosure filings more than doubled nationwide in the first quarter as payments rose for subprime adjustable mortgages and falling home prices left property owners unable to sell or refinance without losing money.
Almost 650,000 properties were in some stage of foreclosure during the quarter, or one in every 194 U.S. households, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, Calif., seller of foreclosure data.
The number was 112 percent above a year ago. Nevada, California and Arizona had the highest rates.
Ohio ranked eighth among states, while Cleveland ranked 18th and Akron, 34th among metropolitan areas.
The median U.S. home price could drop by a record 5.8 percent this year, Fannie Mae, the world's largest mortgage buyer, said on April 7.
Congress, the Bush administration and regulators have urged lenders to renegotiate terms for borrowers so they can stay in their homes, easing the glut of empty houses.
Such efforts could mask the slump's extent by delaying foreclosures, RealtyTrac Chief Executive James Saccacio said.
''This country needs a cleansing,'' billionaire real-estate investor Sam Zell, chairman of Equity Group Investments LLC, said at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles. ''We need to clean out all those people who never should have bought in the first place, and not give them sympathy.''
About $460 billion in adjustable-rate loans are scheduled to reset this year, according to New York-based analysts at Citigroup Inc.
A surge in defaults among subprime borrowers spurred the collapse of the U.S. home loan market last year and caused more than $300 billion in writedowns and losses at banks and securities firms around the globe. More than 100 mortgage companies have stopped lending, closed or sold themselves.
Government attempts to slow the flood of defaults ''could be simply deferring another flood of foreclosures,'' Saccacio said. ''That could extend the length of time it takes the market to recover from this downward cycle.''
The subprime borrowing spree featured lax lending standards that allowed people to buy homes with little or no down payment, and many of those borrowers today have no incentive to pay off mortgages that are worth more than the homes they bought, Zell said.
Nevada led the nation with the highest foreclosure rate in the first three months of the year. Filings rose 137 percent to 19,595 from the first three months of 2007. One in every 54 households was in default or foreclosure, said RealtyTrac, which counts default notices, auction notices and bank repossessions and has a database of more than 1 million properties.
California had the most filings at 169,831, and the second-highest rate at one for every 78 households. Arizona had the third-highest rate, one in every 95 households. Florida was fourth at one in 97.
The foreclosure rate was one in 110 in Colorado, one in 166 in Massachusetts, one in 202 in Maryland, one in 265 in New Jersey, and one in 550 in New York, according to the report.
Home foreclosure filings more than doubled nationwide in the first quarter as payments rose for subprime adjustable mortgages and falling home prices left property owners unable to sell or refinance without losing money.
Get the full article here.
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