One Out of 54 Housing Units In The U.S. Received A Foreclosure Notice in 2008



american household foreclosuresRealtyTrac recently published an eye-opening report titled the "2008 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report". I have included a link to this report at the end of the article.

The report is absolutely bursting with interesting data, and illustrates just how bad the American housing market is.

Despite the efforts of legislators and banks to slow the rising tide of foreclosures in the country, the policies don't seem to be working. According to the report, foreclosure filings were reported on just over 300k properties in December of 2008, up 17% from the month before. Q4 foreclosures were down 4% compared to Q3, but still up 40% YoY.

As mentioned, 1.84% of "U.S. housing units" received "at least" one foreclosure notice during the year, which was up from 1.03% in 2007. This works out to 1 in every 54 housing units in the United States that received a foreclosure notice in 2008.

The hardest hit areas? It's not hard to guess if you have been following the news - California, Florida and Arizona. 523,624 California properties received a foreclosure notice in 2008, which led the nation. 385,309 properties in Florida received foreclosure filings, while 116,911 properties in Arizona receiving some sort of foreclosure notice. Other hard-hit states included Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Texas.

As a percentage (housing units to foreclosure filings), Nevada led the way in 2008 with a foreclosure filing rate of 7%. One out of every 14 housing units in Nevada received at least one foreclosure filing in 2008. Florida was second with 4.52%, while Arizona was third with 4.49% of its housing units receiving foreclosure notices.

Of the top 100 major cities in the United States, Stockton, California led the way with a foreclosure rate of 9.46%. Las Vegas, Phoenix, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando were also hit hard as well.

Riverside/San Bernardino led the way with a total of 112,284 properties that received foreclosure filings in 2008. Phoenix/Mesa and Las Vegas/Paradise were also near the top of the list in that regard.

It's pretty easy to see that the real estate market in the United States won't start to rebound until the rate of foreclosures in the nation starts to slow.

When will that be? 2009 couldn't possibly be any worse than 2008 in terms of foreclosures?

Could it?

Source: RealtyTrac - Foreclosure Activity Increases 81 Percent in 2008

Filed under: Real Estate News | The Economic Meltdown

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