March Home Foreclosures up 19% from February

IRVINE, Calif. – April 15, 2010 — RealtyTrac® (realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ for Q1 2010, which shows that foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 932,234 properties in the first quarter, a 7 percent increase from the previous quarter and a 16 percent increase from the first quarter of 2009. One in every 138 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing during the quarter.

Foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in March, an increase of nearly 19 percent from the previous month, an increase of nearly 8 percent from March 2009 and the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.

“Foreclosure activity in the first quarter of 2010 followed a very similar pattern to what we saw in the first quarter of 2009: a shallow trough in January and February followed by a substantial spike in March,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “One difference, however, is that the increases were more tilted toward the final stage of foreclosure, with REOs increasing 9 percent on a quarterly basis in the first quarter of 2010 compared to a 13 percent quarterly decrease in REOs in the first quarter of 2009.


Link to complete report

Let's check in on how well the administrations numerous "gifting" programs are working (The Obama administration's $75 billion foreclosure prevention program):

About 231,000 homeowners have completed loan modifications as part of the Obama administration's flagship foreclosure prevention program through March. That's about 21 percent of the 1.2 million borrowers who began the program over the past year.

But another 158,000 homeowners who signed up have dropped out -- either because they didn't make payments or failed to return the necessary documents. That's up from about 90,000 just a month earlier.

CNBC’s Steve Liesman will pull out his chart and prove how 932,234 non-performing mortgages actually boosted the economy. Julia “put her back in the box” Boorstin will assist as she will be responsible for moving the decimal point.

Using an average monthly mortgage payment of $1,500, Steve “senior economics reporter” Liesman will show that over $4 billion dollars became available for other retail purchases in just the 1st quarter. The CNBC Power Lunch crew will high 5 each other and the Dow will surge another 100 points.

Don’t fret America, this is a jobless and housing-less recovery.