How bad is the housing market?
March 5th, 2008, 6:42 pm · Post a Comment · posted by community
It seems like every time you turn on the television you are getting conflicting reports about the housing market. Foreclosures are at an all time high. Market values of homes in the River Bend area have seemed to go down. Mortgages are flocculating like crazy right now. So how worried should you be?
Trying to find accurate numbers can be a challenge! The ugly truth is the number of people behind on their mortgages and the number of foreclosures HAS risen!
Approximately 2.2 million nationwide had foreclosure notices sent to them in 2007. According to RealtyTrac, this has only affected 1 percent of the homeowners in the United States. However; the foreclosure numbers are up 79 percent when compared to 2006.
The six areas of are countries that have the highest foreclosure ratings are:
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Detroit/Livonia/Dearborn, Mich. (4.9 percent). |
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Stockton, Calif. (4.8 percent). |
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Las Vegas/Paradise, Nev. (4.2 percent). |
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Riverside/San Bernardino, Calif. (3.8 percent). |
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Sacramento, Calif. (3.2 percent). |
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Cleveland/Lorain/Elyria/Mentor, Ohio (3 percent) |
It is nice to know that Illinois is not in the top six!
Should you be worried?
Housing is one of the United States’ largest economic sectors. So how does all this data affect you, personally? If you have an adjustable-rate mortgage, find out what you owe, when your rate will reset and how much your new payments will be. If you know the new payment is more than you can afford I encourage you to contact your lender now! They may have other options available to you. If you wait until you are behind on payments it may be too late to do anything!
