Homes in foreclosure process set another record

The rate of mortgages entering foreclosure hit another record high in the second quarter, as did the percentage of loans somewhere in the foreclosure process, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported on Friday.
The delinquency rate, a measure of mortgages with at least one overdue payment but aren't in foreclosure, also was the highest ever recorded in the 39-year history of the MBA's quarterly survey.
Only eight states -- Nevada, Florida, California, Arizona, Michigan, Rhode Island, Indiana and Ohio -- had rates of foreclosure starts that were above the national average, Brinkmann said in a telephone interview. That "is an indicator that this is not equally distributed across the country," he said.
California and Florida alone accounted for 39% of all of the foreclosures started nationally during the second quarter. Together, the two states made up 73% of the increase in foreclosures between the first and second quarters, according to the MBA.
"The worst states are getting worse," Brinkmann said
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Altogether, more than 9% of mortgage loans are either delinquent or somewhere in the foreclosure process, Brinkmann said.The percentage of loans that went into foreclosure in the second quarter was 1.08%, up from 1.01% in the first quarter and 0.59% a year ago.
Meanwhile, 2.75% of loans in the survey were somewhere in the foreclosure process, up from 2.47% last quarter and 1.4% in the second quarter of 2007.
The delinquency rate was 6.41% of all loans outstanding, according to the survey.
The rate was 6.35% in the first quarter, and 5.12% a year ago.
But Brinkmann pointed out that the overall delinquency rate was driven by loans that were 90 days or more past due -- and by those that were in California and Florida. T
he 30-day delinquency rate was below levels seen in 2002, he said.The delinquency breakdown supports the argument that the foreclosures are being driven by housing fundamentals as opposed to economic issues such as job losses, he said.
Drops in home prices seem to be driving the transition between a loan that is delinquent and one that goes into the foreclosure process.
The survey covers 45 million loans on one to four unit residential properties, representing between 80 to 85% of all first-lien residential mortgage loans outstanding in the country. Loans in the survey were reported by about 120 lenders.
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