Citi stops foreclosures for the holiday

AP News reports, in a heart-warming announcement today, Citibank declared a moritorium on foreclosures during the holiday, starting Friday December 18th and ending on January 17th, 2010. Hopefully other banks will follow suit and show thanks for the TARP money they borrowed.

Image used under the creative commons license from Wikipedia.

Mortgage delinquency rate at 9.64 percent

The Mortgage Bankers Association reports today in their quarterly survey that the delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four unit residential properties rose to 9.64% at the end of the third quarter of 2009.

The delinquency rate breaks the record set last quarter. The records are based on figures back to 1972. The delinquency rate includes loans that are at least one payment past due but does not include loans in the foreclosure process. The percentage of loans in the foreclosure process at the end of the third quarter was 4.47%. The combined percentage of loans in trouble was 14.41 percent -- the highest ever recorded in the MBA delinquency survey.

Portland foreclosure rate doubles

Ryan Frank at the Oregonian reports that the foreclosure rate in Portland has doubled in a year.

He continues, "The Portland area and Oregon are still doing better than the national average in mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures. But the troubles here are growing worse at a faster than the nation in the September report from First American CoreLogic. Portland's delinquency rate was 5.99 percent in September, Oregon's 4.97 percent and U.S. 7.27 percent. But since September 2008, the delinquency rate in Portland and Oregon has grown more than twice as fast as the nation's. The foreclosure rate growth shows a similar is slightly less dramatic spread."

Although this makes for a great headline, it's important to know that the numbers the report references are inaccurate; foreclosures are counted when a property goes into default, then again when it goes up for auction. If the homeowner brings it current and then months later goes into default again, they are counted as an additional foreclosure. So although, the numbers are striking, there should be some sort of allowance for multiple listings of the same property. In the instance above, the home would be counted as three or four foreclosures, when in reality it was just one home.

249 properties added to Portland foreclosure list

249 Portland Properties Join Foreclosure List

PortlandForeclosure.com announces 249 properties located in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, Yamhill and Clark County joined the foreclosure list last week. "This week we see 9 less properties on the list, but huge drops in Clackamas, Clark and Yamhill Counties. Multnomah has about a 25 percent increase, while Washington County almost doubled its numbers," states Josh Leake, local real estate expert and mortgage loan officer.

The county break-down of foreclosures for the week of October 7th, 2009 include:

Multnomah County
109 properties, including vacant land and commercial property vs. 87 properties last week
25.3 percent increase from last week

Clackamas County
62 properties, including vacant land and commercial property vs. 86 properties last week
28 percent decrease from last week

Washington County
52 properties, including vacant land and commercial property vs. 27 properties last week
92.6 percent increase from last week

Clark County and the surrounding Vancouver Washington
13 properties, including vacant land and commercial property vs. 38 properties last week
66 percent decrease from last week

Yamhill County
11 properties, including vacant land and commercial property vs. 18 properties last week
39 percent decrease from last week

For more information on foreclosures in the Portland area go to PortlandForeclosure.com

One Million Homes in Foreclosure Process

The latest OCC and OTS Mortgage Metrics Report showed that difficult economic conditions resulted in higher rates of mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures in process, which increased to 8.5 percent and 2.9 percent of all serviced mortgages. So it looks like Portland and the Portland metro area bucked the overall trend by decreasing its troubled mortgages last month! Good news for us. To read the full report go to the OCC's website at the Department of Treasury.

Portland Declines in Troubled Property

PortlandForeclosure.com announced today that 258 properties located in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, Yamhill and Clark County joined the foreclosure list last week. "Week-to-week comparison shows a decline in troubled properties in all of the counties except for Clackamas," states Josh Leake, local real estate expert and mortgage loan officer.

The county break-down of foreclosures for the week of September 30th, 2009 include:

Multnomah County
87 properties, including vacant land and commercial property vs. 102 properties last week
14.7 percent decrease from last week

Clackamas County
86 properties, including vacant land and commercial property vs. 70 properties last week
22.85 percent increase from last week

Washington County
27 properties, including vacant land and commercial property vs. 40 properties last week
32.5 percent decrease from last week

Clark County and the surrounding Vancouver Washington
38 properties, including vacant land and commercial property vs. 49 properties last week
23 percent decrease from last week

Yamhill County
18 properties, including vacant land and commercial property vs. 15 properties last week
16.7 percent decrease from last week

For more information on foreclosures in Portland and the surrounding area go to PortlandForeclosure.com

Depression or recession?

A few bloggers are hashing out the semantics of depression and recession. Recently, I read a bumber sticker. For me, it sums up the debate nicely. "Recession is when you lose your job. Depression, is when I lose my job."