Banks repossess US homes at record pace -RealtyTrac

July 15 (Reuters) - Banks repossessed a record number of U.S. homes in the second quarter, but slowed new foreclosure notices to manage distressed properties on the market, real estate data company RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

The root problems of job losses and wage cuts persist, making a sustained U.S. housing recovery elusive.

Banks took control of 269,962 properties in the second quarter, up 5 percent from the prior quarter and a 38 percent spike from the second quarter of last year, RealtyTrac said in its midyear 2010 foreclosure report.

Repossessions will likely top 1 million this year.

"The underlying conditions haven't improved," RealtyTrac senior vice president Rick Sharga said in an interview.

The housing market still grapples with "unemployment, economic displacement in general, and still sits on over 5 million seriously delinquent loans that in all likelihood will at some point go into foreclosure," he said.

In 2005, the last "normal" year in housing, Sharga said, about 530,000 households got a foreclosure notice and banks took over a comparatively minuscule 100,000 houses.

This year more than 3 million households are likely to get at least one foreclosure filing, which includes notice of default, scheduled auction and repossession, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac forecasts.

In the first half of the year, foreclosure filings were made on 1.65 million properties. That was down 5 percent from the last half of 2009 but up 8 percent from the first half of last year.

One in every 78 households got at least one foreclosure filing in the first six months of this year.

Grandpa: while banks repossess homes at a record pace, mortgage rates remain at half-century lows.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mortgage rates were unchanged this week at the lowest point in decades, but it hasn't been enough to jump-start the housing market.

Government-sponsored mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate for 30-year fixed loans this week was 4.57 percent. That's the same as a week earlier and the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking rates in 1971.

The last time home loan rates were lower was the 1950s, when most mortgages lasted just 20 or 25 years.

Rates have fallen since the spring. Investors, concerned with the European debt crisis, have poured money into the safety of Treasury bonds. Treasury yields have fallen and so have mortgage rates, which tend to track yields on U.S. debt.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans are unable to take advantage of the low rates. Many have seen the value of their homes plummet and have little or no equity. Or they lack good credit or steady income to get or refinance a mortgage.

Rates could go lower and still not budge the housing market, analysts say. That's because a person without a job can't afford a home and a person worried about losing their job is unlikely to do so either.

Hey, it could be worse. JP Morgan Chase reported earnings today and they are setting aside $5.8 billion for bonuses which is 3% less than last year (http://www.guardian.co.uk/). Notice how Wall Street always wins? What a farce!!