1 Million Homes Lost to Foreclosure Since 08

[BK411]

March 8, 2010

More than 1 million U.S. households have lost their homes to foreclosure since the end of 2008, new figures from Irvine-based Realty Trac show.

About a fifth of those foreclosures occurred in California alone, according to figures from MDA DataQuick, another real estate data firm.

In response to a Register inquiry, Realty Trac recently released its latest figures for the total number of REO’s, or homes repossessed by banks during the foreclosure process.

Here are the cumulative REO numbers, which hadn’t been released by Realty Trac before:

•There were 918,376 REO’s nationwide in 2009.
•That’s up 6.6% from 2008, when 861,664 U.S. homes were lost to foreclosure.
•In January, the latest month for which figures are available, there were 87,648 REO’s in the nation.
•That brings to 1,006,024 the total number of REO’s that have occurred in the United States since 2008.
REO’s actually are a subset of total homes lost to foreclosure since they don’t include homes sold to third parties at foreclosure sales. If nobody bids on a home, then the property reverts back to the lender.

DataQuick tracks the actual number of California homes that were lost through foreclosure, including those sold to third parties. Those figures show:

•190,360 California homes were lost to foreclosure in 2009, or 20.7% of the U.S. REO total.
•That’s down 19.4% from 2008, when 236,231 California homes were lost to foreclosure.
•In 2008, California foreclosures amounted to 27.4% of the U.S. REO total.
•Orange County had nearly 9,200 foreclosures in 2009.
•That’s down 26% from 2008, when nearly 12,400 O.C. homes were lost to foreclosure.

source: http://mortgage.freedomblogging.com/...ce-2008/28179/

[DeadManCrawling]

I wonder, how many people are now STUCK in their homes?

I would be interested to see stats on the following:

People upside down, who would LIKE to sell, but cannot because the value won't pay off the mortgage. As a percentage of total homes.

Probably could never figure this out, though, because of difficulties in setting the parameters and deciphering the answers properly.

I bet it is a huge number though, and if the market ever does look like it is coming back, these will be added to the inventory, dragging things down even further.

A tale of two worlds, though, because some areas still haven't been hit like CA, NV, FL and so on. Yet. For their sake, I hope it remains that way.

[BK411]

DMC - that is a good point. I agree that it would probably be impossible to determine with any precision such a statistic, but it will be another factor regarding any potential recovery in the economy. The only way to guage such a statistic is to look at the number of houses on the market right now that have been for sale for multiple months.

[momisery]

Just doing the math here... my parents sold a farm in 1962 that they had owned since 1955. The split the profits of 60,000.00 Back then land/housing was an investment and we didn't seem to have huge recessions again until the gas crisis in the late Seventies. Then the dot com which was not huge.. but this one was also triggered by high gas prices for about a year leading up to the housing crisis due to people losing incomes and not buying. Everytime incomes fall we lose jobs because our economy is driven 2/3 by buying "STUFF". Perhaps what we need to do first is get people back to work with jobs that pay enough to buy STUFF. Then crack the Healthcare problems of price fixing to rip us off, and third parties rapping us for profits.