Home Seizures by Banks Jump 90% in Year

Lenders reclaim 45K properties as mortgage payments rise
By Jim O'Neill,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 26, 2008 2:00 PM CST
Home Seizures by Banks Jump 90% in Year
The front of a boarded up building in the Mount Pleasant section of Cleveland, Ohio, 25 January 2008. The area is filled with homes for sale or on the auction block. The city of Cleveland is the epicenter of the nation's home foreclosure crisis and is creating bad news for nearby homeowners and cities...   (Getty Images)

Banks seized more than 45,000 homes in January, nearly double the number from a year ago and up 8% from December, Bloomberg reports. Rising adjustable-rate mortgage payments were the culprit. Total foreclosure filings, which include default and auction notices in addition to seizures, increased 57% to 233,001, the sixth consecutive month with more than 200,000 filings.

California led the nation in January foreclosures filed; 57,158 properties were in danger of being seized, up 120% over a year ago and 7% higher than in December. Next in line were Florida, Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Colorado. RealtyTrac said 642,150 foreclosures were filed in the quarter, and CitiGroup said $460 billion of ARMs would reset in 2008. (More housing crisis stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X