Excluding AZ, CA, FL, MI and NV, Foreclosures Actually Decreased in August By -0.41%
IRVINE, Calif. – Sept. 12, 2008 – RealtyTrac, the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its August 2008 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 303,879 U.S. properties during the month, a 12% increase from the previous month and a 27% increase from August 2007.
Foreclosure filings were reported on 101,724 California properties in August, one-third of the national total and the most of any state. The state’s foreclosure activity increased more than 40 percent from the previous month and more than 75 percent from August 2007. California, Florida and Arizona together accounted for more than half of the nation’s foreclosure activity.
MP: That last sentence motivated the analysis displayed in the chart above. If you exclude the five states with the biggest foreclosure problems (Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada), and analyze foreclosures for the remaining 45 states, the results change dramatically. From July to August, foreclosures actually declined by -.41% in those 45 states, compared to a +12% increase when AZ, CA, FL, MI and NV are included. Over the last year from August 2007 to August 2008, foreclosures barely changed in the 45 states, increasing less than 1% (0.89%), much different than the 27% increase with all states.
Bottom Line: Foreclosure problems are highly concentrated in just five states (AZ, CA, FL, MI and NV), which distorts the national picture significantly. Excluding the five states with the biggest foreclosure problems suggests a much less severe problem, and an actual improvement in August foreclosures in the other 45 states (-0.41% vs. July).
(Note: Foreclosure data are available at RealtyTrac for August 2008. Using the August 2008 foreclosure levels by state and the percent changes from July 2008 and August 2007, the foreclosure levels for August 2007 and July 2008 were calculated for each state. The five states listed above were then excluded to calculate the percentages in the table above.)
4 Comments:
Thanks for sharing.
Realtytrac only goes back to 2005. The absolute numbers of foreclosures are eye-catching. I thik it would be interesting to see foreclosures as a % of total households in the recession of the early 1980's and early 1990's. That may put some perspective around today's climate in my opinion.
Yes, it’s only 5 states, but those 5 states comprise 24.4% of the U.S. population. There are 73,780,417 people in the 5 mentioned states among the 301,621,157 total U.S. population (Source: U.S, Census Bureau).
Since electoral votes are roughly determined by a state’s population, I imagine candidates McCain and Obama would like the electoral votes from those states :)
Mark J. Perry is a genius, we have all been fooled the economy is great, there are no home forclosures, no home loan crisis.
Mark J. Perry better tell us how the latest unemployment figures are also a figment of our imagination.
anon 2:04pm
If you will scroll down a bit, I think you will find that he has addressed unemployment on several occasions. Or maybe you just like buying into the media's hype about how the entire economy is headed for hell in a handbasket.
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