Foreclosures: Lost jobs adding to tally

WASHINGTON -- The foreclosure crisis likely will persist well into next year as high unemployment pushes more people out of homes, pulls down housing prices and raises concerns about the broader economic recovery.

The latest evidence was a report Thursday that a rising proportion of fixed-rate home loans made to people with good credit are sinking into foreclosure. That's a shift from last year, when riskier subprime loans drove the housing crisis.

The report from the Mortgage Bankers Association also found that 14 percent of homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on payments or in foreclosure at the end of September. It was a record-high figure for the ninth straight quarter.

The data suggest the housing market and the broader recovery will remain under pressure from the surge in home-loan defaults, especially as unemployment keeps rising. Lost jobs are the main reason homeowners are falling behind on their mortgages.

Foreclosures rose slightly in South Carolina in the third quarter, and more people were on track to lose their homes as they fell behind on payments, according to the report.

More than 13 percent of mortgage holders in the state were at least 30 days behind on their payments, the report from the Association said.

That's up more than 1 percentage point from the second quarter and nearly 4 percentage points from the same period last year.

After three years of plunging prices, the housing market started to rebound this summer. That lifted hopes for the overall economy. But analysts say there are too many foreclosed homes that have yet to be dumped on the market and expect further price declines.

Among states, the worst damage is still concentrated in the states hardest hit from the start: Florida, Nevada, California and Arizona. Together, they accounted for 43 percent of new foreclosures.

One in four mortgages in Florida was either past due or in foreclosure, the most in the United States. Nevada was close behind at 23 percent.

"There's no indication in this data that foreclosures are going to abate anytime soon," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, who projects that nationwide home prices will fall up to 10 percent before bottoming next fall.

Driven by rising unemployment, prime fixed-rate loans to borrowers with good credit accounted for nearly 33 percent of new foreclosures last quarter. That compares with 21 percent a year ago.

Many laid-off homeowners might be able to survive on their savings for a while, but "the longer the economic situation stays in place, the less likely they are to hold on," said Jay Brinkmann, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association.

In markets where foreclosures already are high and still rising, prices likely will remain soft. That will cause developers to keep their bulldozers idle and prevent the industry from making a big contribution to the economy's recovery.

After a typical recession, foreclosures peak about six months after the unemployment rate does. But the process could take longer this time, in part because loan-modification programs and new state laws have prolonged the process. Unemployment, now at 10.2 percent, isn't expected to peak until next spring or summer.

Another unknown is the effectiveness of the Obama administration plan to attack the foreclosure crisis. As of last month, about 20 percent of eligible borrowers, or more than 650,000 people, had signed up. But most of those enrolled have been chosen for trials lasting up to five months.

The State contributed to this report.