According to an article in Reuters, foreclosures rose by 18 percent in May from 2008, marking the third highest month on record.
The article said:
“There were almost one million foreclosure filings in a three-month period, and that’s simply unprecedented,” Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac in Irvine, California, said in an interview.
One in every 398 households with a mortgage received a foreclosure notice in May. Analysts don’t expect this number to decline significantly this year because the number of job losses continues to rise making it impossible for homeowners to pay their mortgages. Job losses are literally the fuel in the foreclosure engine that is affecting every community in this country. If we don’t get a handle on foreclosures the crisis is going to continue to negatively impact healthy homeowners by pushing down home values.
This process is already happening. Government sponsored bailouts and “voluntary loan modification” programs have failed to stop the foreclosure tsunami. Our lawmakers need to take more a proactive stance with mortgage lenders as we fight this foreclosure crisis. They also need to encourage seriously troubled homeowners to file bankruptcy especially when they are facing imminent foreclosure. Bankruptcy is the only legal tool available to homeowners to put an immediate stop to foreclosure. Homeowners should not be afraid or ashamed of using this tool.