Foreclosures, Foreclosures, Foreclosures

From CNNMoney.com - "Foreclosures up a record 81% in 2008":

U.S. foreclosure filings spiked by more than 81% in 2008, a record, according to a report released Thursday, and they're up 225% compared with 2006.

A total of 861,664 families lost their homes to foreclosure last year, according to RealtyTrac, which released its year-end report Thursday. There were more than 3.1 million foreclosure filings issued during 2008, which means that one of every 54 households received a notice last year.

And .... as has been quite evident for sometime now during this economic mess, nothing is working to prevent additional foreclosures! Despite everyone's attempts (pretty pathetic to this point) the markets are doing their thing:

"Clearly the foreclosure prevention programs implemented to date have not had any real success in slowing down this foreclosure tsunami," said James Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac in a statement.

And despite those efforts on the part of both the government and the banking industry to quell the housing crisis, defaults continued to climb as 2008 came to an end. Foreclosure filings were up 17% in December over November, and rose 41% compared with December of 2007.

"The big jump in December foreclosure activity was somewhat surprising given the moratoria enacted by both Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) and Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500), along with programs from some of the major lenders and loan servicers aimed at delaying foreclosure actions against distressed homeowners," said Saccacio.

Perhaps a rest before the walloping continues and the reality that more future mortgage payments won't be able to be made:

Both of the government-sponsored mortgage giants suspended foreclosures starting November 26, 2008 through January 31, 2009.

The devastating numbers are unlikely to improve soon.

"I don't see how we can avoid three million foreclosures again in 2009," said Rick Sharga, a RealtyTrac spokesman. His company now has nearly a million sales listings for bank-owned homes.

A brief look back in history for comparison:

"The number of mortgages 30 days past due are still below what they were during the 2001 recession," said Brinkman. But the proportion of those loans that went into foreclosure was much lower, he added - about 10%.

What's happening in your neighborhood?

The three states hit hardest by foreclosure in 2008 were Nevada, Florida and Arizona. In Nevada, 7% of homes received a foreclosure filing - such as a notice of default, auction sale notice or foreclosure sale - during the year, up 126% from 2007.

Florida filings soared 133%, hitting more than 4.5% of all households, while Arizona filings jumped 203%, also to about 4.5%. California had the highest total number of filings for any state, 523,624, more than double 2007 levels.

Stockton, Calif. had the highest rate of foreclosures of any metropolitan area, at 9.5%. Las Vegas was second with 8.9% and Riverside/San Bernardino Calif. was third with 8%.

Of the top 20 cities for foreclosures, most are in the Sun Belt, with the exception of Detroit at number 10, Memphis, which ranked 18th and Denver which was 19th.

The broken record continues to scratch out the worn out tune of housing doom and gloom. Foreclosures, foreclosures, foreclosures!