Foreclosures Hit ‘Milestone’: 1 Million in ‘09
Foreclosures Hit ‘Milestone’: 1 Million in ‘09
Wall Street Journal
Here’s a bleak milestone: there’s been more the 1 million foreclosures filed in the U.S. so far this year, according to a count by the Center for Responsible Lending. Not all of those foreclosures will result in evictions, but the statistic offers a sobering illustration of the magnitude of the problems that still face the housing market. The CRL, a nonprofit research and lobbying group that favors aggressive policies to help troubled homeowners, estimates that there are 6,500 new foreclosures filed every day. The center estimates that there will be 2.4 million foreclosure starts in 2009, based off of figures from the Mortgage Bankers Association that are adjusted to reflect the entire mortgage market.
Mortgage Delinquencies Seen Rising Through 2009
The Associated Press
The rate at which people are falling behind on their mortgage payments went up for the ninth straight quarter in the first three months of 2009, and is expected to keep rising through the end of the year, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion. Borrowers who were 60 days or more behind on their mortgage payments rose to 5.22 percent for the first three months of the year, TransUnion said. That's 62 percent higher than the 3.23 percent delinquency rate for the first quarter of 2008. The TransUnion numbers show a smaller percentage of people behind on their payments than recently released data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, which said 12 percent of mortgage holders were past due in the first quarter.
Mortgage Applications Sink
CNN Money.com
U.S. mortgage applications fell last week, reflecting a plunge in demand for home refinancing loans as interest rates surged to their highest levels since late January, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both purchase and refinance loans, for the week ended May 29 decreased 16.2% to 658.7. Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 5.25%, up 0.44 percentage point from the previous week, its highest level since the week ended Jan. 30.