Foreclosure backlog estimated at 1.7M homes

Well here we go again
full story

About 1.7 million homeowners were on the verge of foreclosure in the fall, a looming "shadow inventory" of homes that will be put up for sale in the coming years and weigh down prices, a report said Thursday.

Already, the foreclosure backlog is equal to nearly half the 3.8 million unsold new and existing homes currently on the market

So 1.1 million last year and another 1.7 this year. Its gotten so bad CITI has stopped all foreclosures for the next 30 days simply to catch up with the back log.

Its estimated that about 30% of bank owned props have been listed... or in other words 60% of distressed homes are still being held onto meaning this housing slump could drag on for years. remember the more they prolong the dumping these homes the more they drag down the market.

Why is that important? Simple there can be no economic recovery without a housing market recovery

[edit on 17-12-2009 by DaddyBare]

Well, if the banks would simply implement the Make Homes Affordable Program then a HUGE number of these could be averted. To date, less than 31,000 homeowners have been processed and approved for the program out of the estimated 17 Million homeowners. Reality is that neither the banks nor our scum politicians have any interest in fixing what is broken. All of this is carefully coordinated propaganda.

reply to post by kozmo


Yeah but... the Make Homes Affordable Program isnt...
if you get on the program what they do is reduce your intrest to 2% for five years... guess what happens after that...

The Make Homes Affordable program makes a permanent change, not a 5 year change. It readjusts your home value, and lowers your mortgage payment in most cases. I know.

I was briefly listening to L.A. radio station KROQ 106.7 this morning at about 7:10 a.m. and on their news segment they played a snippet of an interview of a Citibank representative and she said that there were about 7 million homes facing foreclosure. I don't have any other information but I was shocked and that's what was said. Hopefully it was a mistake.

reply to post by DaddyBare


CITI came short of selling their stocks to raise 20 billion dollars as their stocks were no received with high demand, they were able to scrap 17 billions in which they were planning to pay TARP money back.

I guess people can see that CITI future is no so bright.

A lot of people have fallen behind in their mortgage payments since back when everyone was caught off guard by those rising gas prices.

Some of the big top mortgage companies are now about 2 years behind on processing their foreclosures, meaning .. if you stopped paying today, it could be about 2 years or more from now before they got around to processing your foreclosure.

I know a couple that fell behind almost 3 years ago, and once they missed one payment their mortgage company wouldn't accept any further payments. Only last month did they finally get an actually legal notice of foreclosure. Dang near 3 years before they got around to THEM? That really tells me that there must be a LOT more people in default than these actual "in foreclosure" numbers indicate. Probably a LOT more.

great thread. remember, however, that there were a lot of new houses that were built for speculative investment purposes by "flippers" - investors that would have the house built with no money down, no payments (ever), and try to sell the house for a quick profit. there are whole subdivisions of these crappy speculative investment houses. so no one is really getting hurt in these situations.

now, certainly, there are people that have lost jobs that are facing foreclosure. good honest people. and i do feel sympathy for them.

but not the speculators. or the people that wanted that nice, "second home" in some exotic beach in florida. sorry, charlie. i don't have a lot of empathy for speculative investors that lost their shirt in the gold rush real estate boom years.

so keep these numbers in perspective. not all of these houses are really owner-occupied. there was a ton of mortgage fraud going on, and a lot of people that were taking advantage of the loose money. sometimes builders were on the take, sometimes working in collusion with mortgage brokers usign straw buyers and liars loans, etc. building dirt cheap houses and collecting big bucks from the construction loan from the bank, and the straw buyer walked and never paid a dime. some of the houses were funded and never even built - the mortgage broker doctored up the paperwork. the bank was left holding the bag, and trying to clean the mess up.

lots of bad stuff out there, and it is gonna take a long, long time to fix. and don't count on anyone to have any clear cut plan to make the necessary changes. we'll be living in this twilight zone in real estate for many years to come.

reply to post by lel1111


hate to be the barer of bad news but...
it looks like it'll be closer to 13 million when all is said and done

I’m not sure of how many homes in foreclosure are owner occupied or just flippers gone bad. Here on the east coast (from approximately 2003-2008) as the bidding wars heated up during the peak of the bubble. We saw appreciation levels on homes as high as 20% a year and some times more. I know this because I am in business of remodeling homes for a living. I would some times buy homes to fix up and resell for a profit from early 2002 and on.
But as time went on I saw increasingly higher prices in property, and the higher values went, the more people rushed to try and buy them. It was like a mad feeding frenzy, one like I’ve never seen before fueled by the desire to make a quick buck or just to get in before they were priced out of the market.
After discussing the situation with a friend of mine who is much smarter than me, I got out in 2006 and decided to wait for the bubble to pop. Now I’m buying again, but I’m still looking over my shoulder. It still feels like this whole house of cards will begin tumbling down at any time and it gives me pause.
1.7 mil homes in foreclosure is a huge number. That combined with trillions of dollars in deficit spending, the fed propping up bad assets with fictitious money, and a house and senate hell bent on pushing through an agenda that is going to break the backs of small businesses and the common Joe, scares the hell out of me.
Maybe my wife is right and I’m just paranoid and all is right again in the economic and financial universe. But I’m still stocking up on food and ammo just to be on the safe side. I just don’t get a worm and fussy feeling about things going on around me. Am I alone feeling this way????

reply to post by murfdog


Well I can only talk from my neck of the woods, how bad it is in my neighborhood?

Well we know at least three people in my street that lost their homes to foreclosures, from the three two were sold and one is for rent, one has been vacant for 7 months but maintained, one that we have no clue what is going on is falling apart and has been vacant for 3 months.

Going around the neighborhood (outside our street) is very sad, homes are lying vacant and unkempt.

I am getting to the point that I want to get the hell out of my housing area because is not looking good.

Crime has not been a big deal actually as today is none existing, but I wonder how bad is going to get as the homes that are empty become to tempting to be hit by vandals.