Foreclosures continue to mount


The good news is that there was a 6% drop in foreclosures from April to May. That is the good news, but the bad news is that May was the third straight month in a row for foreclosures topping 300,000.

RealtyTrac, which is the firm responsible for these figures stated that the exact number of foreclosure filings during the month was 321,480.


Nevada, Florida and California continue to be among the hardest hit areas of the country. In Nevada, one out of every 64 homes is somewhere in the foreclosure process. That is pretty scary, and Florida and California are close behind with one out of 148 for Florida and 144 for California.

A lot of analysts have forecast that housing will turn around this year, but how possible can that really be while foreclosures are running at current levels? According to RealtyTrac, in normal times there should be less than 100,000 foreclosure filings a month. We have a long way to go to get back to those levels.

In case you were wondering where we stand as opposed to this time last year, the answer is that the current foreclosure rate is 18% higher than it was last May.

Granted, we have been seeing a few encouraging signs from the housing market recently, but we still have to focus our attention on the foreclosure situation. The real factor that is going to signal a turnaround in housing will be much lower foreclosures. There is no way housing can rebound while we are seeing 300,000 plus foreclosure filings a month.

What are your thoughts on the housing market? Should we expect to see a rebound in the latter part of this year, or are we looking at next year before things start to get better?

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

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Last updated: February 10, 2012: 07:25 AM

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