Continuing to pull back from offering new housing product, builders pulled the fewest annualized permits since early 1991 while housing starts fell by 12% during March. Meanwhile, foreclosure activity continues to rise, expected to reach a peak in the 3rd and 4th quarters of this year as ARM payments reset. From two stories (here and here) at MSNBC:
Home building projects started in March fell by 11.9 percent to a lower-than-expected annual rate while building permit activity, a sign of future construction plans, was off 5.8 percent, a government report on Wednesday said.
The Commerce Department said housing starts set an annual pace of 947,000 units in March, lower than the 1.02 million expected by economists. The February starts figure was revised upward to 1.075 million from the 1.065 million originally reported...
Building permits fell by 5.8 percent to an annual rate of 927,000, the slowest pace since a 916,000 rate set in April 1991. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast March permits at 970,000 after the 984,000 rate of February...
The onslaught of homes facing foreclosures has yet to ebb, a research report showed Tuesday, with bank repossessions skyrocketing last month as more troubled homeowners mailed in their keys and walked away.
And the worst isn’t over: The wave of adjustable-rate loans resetting to higher rates will crest in May and June. And that’s expected to push more homeowners into default and foreclosure in the third and fourth quarters of this year, according to RealtyTrac Inc. of Irvine, Calif...
The overall foreclosure rate is 5 percent higher than in February, which saw an unexpected month-to-month decline over January. March marked the 27th consecutive month of year-over-year increases in national foreclosure filings.
That meant one in every 538 households received a filing during the month. Forty-four percent were households that slipped into default for the first time and more than a fifth were homes banks took back...
between 750,000 and 1 million bank-owned properties will hit the market this year, or about a quarter of the homes up for sale. In some areas, these properties will continue to slow sales and depress prices further...
Nevada clocked in the worst foreclosure rate for the 15th straight month. Last month, one in every 139 households received a foreclosure-related notice, nearly four times the national rate. The number of properties with a filing increased 24 percent over February and 62 percent over the previous March.
California had the second-highest foreclosure rate in the country. One in every 204 California households received a foreclosure-related notice. The state had 64,711 properties facing foreclosure, the most of any state and more than double last year’s total.
In Florida, 30,254 homes reported at least one filing, down nearly 7 percent from February, but up 112 percent from the year before.
Rounding out the states with the highest foreclosure rates were Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Massachusetts and Maryland.
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