Foreclosure Crisis Just Now Hitting Some States

Many U.S. housing markets are recovering from the worst of the foreclosure crisis, but others are getting slammed.

Maryland, Oregon, and New Jersey had relatively stable housing markets even during the housing slump. But new foreclosure filings in those states climbed by double- and triple-digit percentages in July, according to RealtyTrac. New foreclosure filings in Maryland rose 275 percent compared to a year earlier.

“Foreclosures are continuing to boil over in a select group of markets where state legislation and court rulings put a lid on foreclosure activity during the worst of the housing crisis,” explained RealtyTrac’s Daren Blomquist.

In the D.C. metro area, foreclosure filings in the Virginia suburbs are down significantly year over year; but in nearby Maryland, the rate of new foreclosures is rising. Blomquist pointed out that, early in the housing crisis, Virginia’s government did not try to stop many defaulting loans from working their way through the foreclosure process, allowing the market to experience a painful hit but also to rebound more quickly. In Maryland, by contrast, the state launched an aggressive effort to save many homes but postponed a lot of inevitable foreclosures.

“That tells me that the difference has not much to do with underlying fundamentals of the housing market but the way the crisis was handled,” Blomquist concluded.

Source: “Surprising Foreclosure Hot Spots,” CNNMoney