The second foreclosure wave and what it may mean here
Here’s more proof that the foreclosure crisis is not going away anytime soon.
Instead, it’s just moving into new territory.
RealtyTrac’s latest report shows evidence of declining foreclosure activity for the first six months of the year in metro areas in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and California that have been the hardest hit.
But there’s been a rise in activity in states as widespread as South Carolina, Idaho, Utah and Oregon.
What we are likely seeing, the report suggests, is a falling off of subprime related foreclosures and a rise in distress tied to the poor economy and still rising jobless rates.
Even so, the top foreclosure markets, such as Las Vegas, remain king. Vegas saw a 56 percent increase in foreclosure filings in the first half of 2009, with a foreclosure rate six times the national average.
That said, the theory sounds plausible to me.
Still, there’s an interesting wrinkle in the numbers.
Foreclosure filings fell by more than 40 percent in the Boston area.
That certainly is reflection of the fall off in foreclosures ties to subprime loans, which, to date, have the main driver of the crisis here.
But it also raises the question of whether we are going to take as big a hit in the second round as the foreclosure epidemic starts taking a toll on the jobless.
The economy sure isn’t great here, but unemployment is lower than the national average.
Moreover, as noted in a Globe piece earlier this week looking at some newly emerging, positive trends for the local economy, new housing construction and autos, two of the hardest hit sectors, are not big around here.
Maybe that just means a little less misery around here, but I’ll take it.
