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Mortgage default rates worsen in Florida |
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Sunday, 14 September 2008 |
A recent report by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed that more than 75,000 new homes are at risk of being foreclosed on by mortgage lenders, adding more bad news to the foreclosure crisis in the state.
The percentage of homes that were in foreclosure in Florida, amounted to 6 percent higher than any other state in the country and approximately twice the national average of 2.75 percent.
At the end of March Florida’s foreclosures stood at 4.61 percent, and that was a great cause for concern, but the situation worsened during the second quarter of the year, coinciding with increased unemployment rates in the state. Translating the percentages to actual numbers, approximately 213,000 homes in the state were being foreclosed on. At the same time the report indicated that another 273,000 homeowners were at least one month late in their mortgage payments. This is an increase of 25,000 late payments over the first quarter of the year.
The state with the second highest rate of foreclosures is Nevada with 4.61 percent. The national average of 2.75 percent is the highest rate recorded in surveys conducted by the MBA over the past 39 years. Defaulted loans in Florida and California accounted for about three-fourths of the increase in foreclosures nationally over the past six months.
Approximately 29 percent of the loan defaults in Florida were related to subprime adjustable-rate loans, but there were also significant increase in defaults by prime borrowers, with good credit, who also had adjustable-rate loans.
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