NATIONAL FORECLOSURES INCREASE IN EVERY QUARTER OF 2005

[Clara T]

NATIONAL FORECLOSURES INCREASE IN EVERY QUARTER OF 2005 ACCORDING TO REALTYTRAC™ U.S. FORECLOSURE MARKET REPORT
Nearly 847,000 Properties Enter Foreclosure During The Year; Florida, Colorado and Utah Post Nation’s Highest Foreclosure Rates.

Irvine, Calif. – January 23, 2006 – RealtyTrac™ (www.realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released year-end data from its 2005 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which showed that 846,982 properties nationwide entered some stage of foreclosure in 2005, and a 25 percent increase in the number of new foreclosures from the first quarter to the fourth quarter.

RealtyTrac publishes the largest national database of pre-foreclosure and foreclosure properties, with more than 550,000 properties in nearly 2,000 counties across the country, and is the foreclosure data provider to MSN House & Home, Yahoo! Real Estate, AOL Real Estate and HomeGain.com.

“Overall U.S. foreclosure numbers climbed steadily over the course of the year, with more new foreclosures reported in every quarter,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “This trend appears to be moving the real estate foreclosure market back to its historic levels.”
Saccacio noted that the number of 2005 foreclosures needed to be kept in context. “Even with almost 850,000 properties entering some stage of foreclosure across the country over the course of the year, this represents less than 1 percent of all U.S. households. And the increase in U.S. foreclosures from Q3 to Q4 was just below 5 percent.”

http://www.realtytrac.com/news/press/pressRelease.asp?PressReleaseID=86

[LiberalPartisan]

1. The banks caused this

I'm sure it's humiliating for people to be foreclosed upon but this is really a banking problem. The banks make it so easy to get financing (debt) that people buy more home than they can afford and when things go south the end up having to give up the home the bank let them live in. So I feel for those that lose their home. And on the flip side I feel pretty good that banks will be taking it on the chin due to their predatory lending practices - i.e. too easy credit.