Weren’t the perky talking heads telling us the housing recovery was zipping along just fine? But whoopsie, foreclosures in California in January were up 57% year over year. 21 other states also had sharp, unexpected increases in foreclosures in January.
In New Jersey, they soared 79%, in Connecticut 82%, and in Maryland 126%!
Golly, I’m sure this must be an outlier because the Fed and White House have been explaining how things are improving. In fact, housing has improved so much banksters are selling synthetic derivatives based on assumed rental streams from the thousands of houses they’ve bought. Only cynics among us would say this securitization is precisely the same type of thing that helped tank the economy in 2007.
From comments on Zero Hedge.
All of a sudden there are loads of preforeclosure listings in my hometown in eastern CT, after years of nothing. Suddenly on Zillow, 28 preforeclosures, to go with the 36 regular listings. I had been looking for so many years, and seeing nothing, that I took a break from looking, and then boom.
I checked neighboring towns, and the same: sudden huge number of preforeclosures easy to see.
I looked at West Hartford, too. Just six months ago I had checked; there was basically no sign of distress on the regular/free sites. Now about 115 preforeclosures. That is a very desirable town to many people.
I grew up in West Hartford. It’s a stable, prosperous upper middle class area. Yet the foreclosure demon just popped out of the closet. Why?
Maybe homes just got too expensive (again). Buyers stretch to make down payments and pay the mortgage. Unexpected bills, health problems, or job loss can have devastating consequences if you are already at your financial limit. Expiration of unemployment benefits for millions was probably the triggering factor. People knew the benefits would end in January and stopped paying the mortgage some months back. Â Also, quite clearly, the real economy, the one separate from Wall Street, isn’t getting healthier.