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.
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The elephant in the room is the fact that even A paper loans allowed for very liberal, unsound, underwriting. 100% financing, 50 DTI ratios, pay-option ARMS, VA/FHA and many other efforts to jam everyone into a house, are now coming home to roost. We have so much more to go in terms of downside...
I initially thought that you had a background in economics, real estate, history or that you might have spent time as a researcher?
After reading your articles from the Left Coast; where we have excellent real estate reporters who don’t gloss over the real estate market any longer; you just seem to take nearly any real estate headline and attempt to spin it in the most positive way for the Boston market. So many of your posts keep using Las Vegas or the out in the boondocks parts of California as somehow comparable to the city of Boston. Vastly different markets and vastly different demographics.
Out here, housing in the $1M to $5M ranges in our high net worth towns are seeing a huge increase in short sales and foreclosures. Too many people paid too much using too easy credit to buy homes at the top of the market which they now can’t afford when someone loses their job, relocates or gets divorced. Maybe people in MA. don’t have divorces, job losses or relocate?
Foreclosure fillings down? Did you ever read about the foreclosure moratorium earlier this year? Petitions to foreclose, the first step in the foreclosure process, rose 5.6 percent in your area during the first six months of 2009 from the same period last year. Am I the only one who thinks this way?
Many houses in the southwest were bought by speculators for investment purposes. What you're seeing now in southern Utah and Las Vegas are "investors" dumping losing investments. A significant portion of homes sold during the boom were never even lived in, and there are far more than are actually needed. Expect the investor dump to continue, possibly into a second wave of purchases and dumpings as the overbuilding is finally recognized for what it is.
5 more banks failed last night, thats 12 in two weeks...
amen ward. svv tends to combine blogs which clearly show his lack of understanding of the core principles of the subject matter w/ extremely lazy research and a hasty, conclusory opinion. 1/3 natick fixer upper, 1/3 the article directly next to the blog and 1/3 where do you think prices are going w/ an irrelevant opinion that contradicts his opinion from his previous entry. for me, the redeeming quality is the dialogue and independent thoughts of posters. thanks for contributing to that.
i don't generally feel it's appropriate to critique someone's performance in such a public form but i have seen little progress in his time here, which to me suggests lack of caring, and the complete lack of effort in the natick fixer upper entries almost offends me. i guess his real job though is to create traffic and repeat clicks and despite his shortcomings he seems to do a decent job of that.
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
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