Remember when I talked about how the foreclosure crisis is much more localized than the mainstream media would have you believe? Well, check this out… According to a recent report in USA Today, 35 counties accounted for 50% of the foreclosures that occurred in 2008. Amazing how such a small cross-section of the county could drag us down, isn’t it?
The Foreclosure Crisis, Revisited
8 Responses to “The Foreclosure Crisis, Revisited”
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CA, FL, MI, AZ and NV are the states that are driving this “collapse”. In 18 states, home prices have increased slightly. The remaining states are about even or slighlty down.
While the economic downturn is the primary factor for the decline in the aforementioned states, two states in particular stand out, due to high taxes and regulation, namely CA and MI.
I doubt if these states are doing anything to help by lowering income or property taxes, thereby lowering the debt service burden of homeowners, or at least what’s left of them.
Real estate still has a way to go, so the distribution of foreclosures could skew away from those 35 counties as job loss becomes more of an issue than bad loans.
This is going to change as more people lose jobs and can’t make their mortgage payments. Ultimately there will be more foreclosures due to job loss than there will be foreclosures due to bad loans.
That’s pretty amazing. At that level, you might be able to get down to the individual mortgage originators who helped the bubble take off. At some point, somebody had to relax their standards to the point that they were 1) getting lots of business, that 2) would lead to serious trouble down the road.
No no no! This CRISIS is everywhere! we need MORE gov’t intervention to stop this CRISIS! Gov’t is the ONLY solution! This is the worst economy in HISTORY!
I see your point, but don’t forget also that 50 percent of the foreclosures did not occur in those handful of counties. Here in KC, the ripple effect from the ones down the street are what are stalling our property values and making the municipal budget writers blanch.
Click through on the link and it has a map of the counties. The ones outlined in red are the 35. They are centered around LA, SF, Florida, and the Chicago-Detroit area.
This was a good read. Thanks for the post Nickel
I have always wondered… That is very interesting! Did they name the counties?
Thanks,
Nate