Texas Home Loan Foreclosures Continue to Rise
Being on top isn’t always a good thing.
That’s what the Lone Star State is realizing amidst a rising wave of Texas mortgage problems. Texas posted 39,869 foreclosure filings over the first three months of 2007, and with that figure, took the number three spot in terms of the aggregate foreclosure filings year-to-date.
First place went to California, which reported 80,595 foreclosure filings from January 1-March 31 of this year. Florida mortgage woes placed the Sunshine State second with 45,156 notices in the first quarter.
By the end of the first quarter, a total of 437,498 foreclosure filings had been reported in the United States, according to the latest RealtyTrac report - up from 345,554 filings in the fourth quarter of 2006.
The current figure is also quite a jump from first-quarter 2006 figures - when the national housing market reported 323,101 foreclosure filings.
The national housing market is currently averaging one foreclosure filing for every 264 households.
The RealtyTrac report is based on information compiled from a database of more than 900,000 pre-foreclosure and foreclosed pieces of real estate in nearly 2,500 counties throughout the United States.
“The rise in foreclosure activity was quite dramatic and widespread in the first quarter,” according to James J. Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac.
Saccacio adds that his company is seeing a rising number of foreclosures for homes with an estimated market value of more than $750,000.
The first-quarter Texas home loan foreclosure mark of 39,869 equates to one filing for every 202 households - 1.3 times the national average. Based on the rate of foreclosures per number of households, the Lone Star State now has the ninth highest foreclosure rate.
The top spot went to Nevada, which now averages one foreclosure filing for every 75 households - a rate that is 3.5 times the national average.
The current RealtyTrac report also includes data on the 100 cities with the highest average foreclosure rates. As of March 31, 2007, Detroit was No. 1 - with an average of one filing for every 51 households.
Fort Worth and the Dallas housing market have the 9th and 10th highest rates of foreclosure in the country, respectively, with one for every 84 households and one foreclosure for every 101 households.
Meanwhile, San Antonio currently ranked 21st on this dubious top 100 list, with an average of one mortgage default filing for every 143 homes. Over the first three months of the year, San Antonio reported a total of 3,830 filings.
SOURCE: San Antonio Business Journal