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April 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. foreclosure filings rose to a record in the first quarter as employers cut jobs in the recession and temporary programs to delay action on defaults came to an end, RealtyTrac Inc. said.
A total of 803,489 properties received a default or auction notice or were seized, 24 percent more than a year earlier, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data said in a statement today. Filings for the month of March totaled 341,180, also a record in four years of RealtyTrac data.
“Foreclosures haven’t peaked yet,” David Olson, president of the mortgage research firm Wholesale Access in Columbia, Maryland, said in an interview. “We’re catching up with what’s been delayed, and those foreclosures will have to be cleared.”
A flood of bank-owned properties is hitting the housing market as the U.S. recession deepens. The unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent in March, the highest since 1983, as 663,000 jobs were lost, according to the Labor Department.
Home prices fell 19 percent in January from a year earlier, the fastest drop on record, according to the S&P Case/Shiller Index of 20 U.S. cities. The measure has fallen every month on a year-over-year basis since January 2007. Mortgage applications declined last week for the first time in a month, a sign that even with borrowing rates below 5 percent may not be enough to spur a housing recovery.
A total of 803,489 properties received a default or auction notice or were seized, 24 percent more than a year earlier, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data said in a statement today. Filings for the month of March totaled 341,180, also a record in four years of RealtyTrac data.
“Foreclosures haven’t peaked yet,” David Olson, president of the mortgage research firm Wholesale Access in Columbia, Maryland, said in an interview. “We’re catching up with what’s been delayed, and those foreclosures will have to be cleared.”
A flood of bank-owned properties is hitting the housing market as the U.S. recession deepens. The unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent in March, the highest since 1983, as 663,000 jobs were lost, according to the Labor Department.
Home prices fell 19 percent in January from a year earlier, the fastest drop on record, according to the S&P Case/Shiller Index of 20 U.S. cities. The measure has fallen every month on a year-over-year basis since January 2007. Mortgage applications declined last week for the first time in a month, a sign that even with borrowing rates below 5 percent may not be enough to spur a housing recovery.
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