August Foreclosures Predictions

The foreclosures flood has shown no signs of letting up the past July, according to real estate records from RealtyTrac, who market foreclosures properties online. There were almost 180,000 foreclosure filings in July nationwide which include auction sale notices, default notices and bank repossessions. This was a 9% raise from June and 93% higher than the foreclosure rate in July of last year. Last winter, RealtyTrac predicted a 33% rise in the number of foreclosures in the U.S., but now it has raised its numbers-the increase percentage is currently sitting at 60%, meaning there are 60% more foreclosures than last year. RealtyTrac believes that by the end of the year an astonishing 2 million foreclosures will have occurred. A leading economist’s website predictions are even more dour, predicting an amazing 2.5 million foreclosures this year. 43 states had increases in the number of foreclosures between last year and this year, however, 5 states accrued more than half the country’s total foreclosure filings-Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Florida and California. Nevada has the highest foreclosure filings rate-meaning that there are more foreclosure filings per household (1 filing for every 199 households), but California had the highest number of actual foreclosures (39,013)-four times higher than last year. California also had 6 of the top 10 cities with the highest foreclosure filings rate (see “Stockon, California Tops Foreclosure List”). Florida ranked 2^nd with 19,179 foreclosures throughout the state. Georgia ranked 2^nd for the highest rate of foreclosures, with one foreclosure for every 299 households.  Only 7 states recorded declines in their foreclosure rates from last year-Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Rhode Island to name a few.