Housing Foreclosures Continue to Grow...

Here's an interesting article on the foreclosure problem from HousingWire.com:

Foreclosure activity surged 81 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, despite the undying efforts by lenders and lawmakers to ease the foreclosure fiasco, according to a report released Thursday by RealtyTrac.

The Foreclosure Market report showed a total of 3,157,806 foreclosure filings — including default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 2,3330,483 U.S. properties during the year. In more digestable terms, one in every 54 housing units received at least one foreclosure filing during the year. Wow.

"Wow" is right. We discussed this issue last fall in my Property I class and this 1 in 54 number is even worse than the worst case problem I discussed with my clients. Ouch.