Posts (RSS)Ohio Forclosure Listings Could Go Up After a Brief Respite
The foreclosure market in Ohio was given a breather for the moment with the flattening of repossession rates. However, industry experts warned that the continuing problems in the home lending market may force forclosure listings to go up again.
According to industry experts, many homeowners want to be given a chance to save their properties from foreclosures. Some of them were hoping to lower their mortgage interest rates and monthly payments.
Ohio is one of the states who took an early beating from the mortgage crisis, fueled by massive job loss in the automobile and manufacturing industries. The growth in forclosure listings spread in the region last year as the mortgage industry worsen due to homeowners who defaulted on their adjustable-rate payments.
The recent decline in Ohio?s foreclosures removed the state from the list of top states in the country with high repossession rate in the first half of 2009. In 2008, the state has the seventh worst foreclosure rate in the country, with 2.25 percent or 146,000 filings posted.
Last month, Ohio?s filings for forclosure listings declined to 11,252 or 14.2 percent compared with same month the previous year. Industry experts said that the state?s decline in foreclosure rates came amidst historically high rates. They noted that the rate of foreclosures in the state average 10 to 20 per week. And they are concerned that the numbers would pick up anytime soon.
Experts believed that the rising unemployment will create a bump in foreclosure filings across Ohio. In May, the state?s unemployment rate jumped to 10.8 percent, compared with 10.2 percent in April. The May figures were the highest monthly numbers for the state in over 25 years.
Additionally, the number of jobless people in the state soared from 609,000 in April to 646,000 in May.
Meanwhile, experts said that the current flat pace of foreclosure activity in the state may be due to an increase in bankruptcy filings which put a temporary stop on foreclosure proceedings.
In the first quarter of this year, Ohio reported foreclosure filings on 31,595 properties, representing a 3 percent drop from the last quarter of 2008. For the period, one out of 160 homeowners received at least one filing for forclosure listings, earning Ohio the 11th spot in the ranking of states with highest foreclosure rates.