Foreclosure Summary

We knew that yesterday's numbers were bad, overall. But reading a summary of the numbers makes things seem even worse. This New York Times article titled Foreclosures Rise puts thing into perspective. Let's take a look -

One in 84 American housing units received at least one foreclosure filing in the first half of the year, according to RealtyTrac, the online marketplace for foreclosure properties.

Altogether, that makes for a total of 1,905,723 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — reported on 1,528,364 American properties in the first six months of 2009. Compared to the same period last year, the number of total foreclosed properties rose nearly 15 percent.

No green shoots in this direction. And not for some time to come. Almost 2 million homes in distress. With unemployment numbers still rising. And since there is a lag time from when people stop paying their mortgage to when the default notices start this will continue to rise for some time.

Gloomy indeed!