The Foreclosure Rate is Climbing

Posted on Jul 30, 2010

The foreclosure rate is rising as many of the nation's homeowner's fall behind in their monthly mortgage payments. According to RealtyTrac, Inc., more foreclosure warnings have been received during the first 6 months of this year than were distributed during the first half of 2009. The high unemployment rate appears to be the culprit, as unemployment continues to climb, so does the number of foreclosures.

According to Rick Sharga, Senior Vice President of RealtyTrac, “The face of foreclosure is driven much more now by unemployment than in the past, and it’s moving out from the places where we’ve been focusing on in the last few years, the combination of a weak job market and a weak housing market is making it difficult in some of these areas.”

In many of the larger metropolitan areas, cities with over 200,000 residents, foreclosure activity has increased between January and June of this year. Nearly 1 in 78 homes across the nation has received some form of foreclosure related notice during these months, these figures suggest that over one million homeowners are likely to fall into foreclosure by the end of this year.