Real Estate Story of 2009: Foreclosures and Mortgage-Related Uglies

This year, the number of foreclosures skyrocketed.
Real Estate Story of 2009: Foreclosures and Mortgage-Related Uglies
Nationwide, more than 6,600 family homes are lost to foreclosure every day. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
12/30/2009
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/florx86539401.jpg" alt="Nationwide, more than 6,600 family homes are lost to foreclosure every day. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)" title="Nationwide, more than 6,600 family homes are lost to foreclosure every day. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1824385"/></a>
Nationwide, more than 6,600 family homes are lost to foreclosure every day. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
This year, the number of foreclosures skyrocketed. Manhattan saw a 92 percent increase in foreclosures between January and February, and a 48 percent increase from the same period a year ago, according to RealtyTrac.com, a Web site which lists real estate in foreclosure.

Nationwide, more than 6,600 family homes are lost to foreclosure every day, according to the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA). More than 8,000,000 American homes are expected to be lost to foreclosure over the next five years.
By the end of the first quarter, one in eight U.S. households with a mortgage was late on loan payments, or already in the foreclosure process, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That report was released in May, following the peak of unemployment in April.

One man’s loss is often another’s gain, however, and the rise in foreclosures led droves of first-time homebuyers to enter the marketplace. Fifty-five percent of U.S. adults would consider buying foreclosed properties, according to a survey released by RealtyTrac and Trulia in May.

Further egged on by the $8,000 tax credit for first homes, first-time homebuyers made up 50 to 60 percent of sales, and investors another 30 percent, said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of RealtyTrac.

All of this activity evens out though, after years of unfettered boom, the market had to stabilize.

Stabilization in home values led to easing rates of negative equity in the third quarter of 2009. According to U.S. based real estate value monitor Zillow.com, 21 percent of all single-family homeowners’ mortgages are underwater, compared to 23 percent in the second quarter.

Negative equity occurs when the mortgage owed on the property exceeds the property’s current value. Negative equity, also called an “underwater mortgage,” is something 25 percent of American homeowners are grappling with, according to First American CoreLogic, a real estate and property information data firm. Analysts suspect that foreclosure rates and underwater mortgages will not slow until 2011.