One of eight U.S. households with a mortgage ended the first quarter late on loan payments or in the foreclosure process in a crisis that will persist for at least another year until unemployment peaks, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Thursday.
U.S. unemployment in April reached its highest rate in more than a quarter century and is still rising, helping propel mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures to record highs.
Such economic conditions drove up foreclosures of prime fixed-rate mortgages, which represented the largest share of new foreclosures for the first time since the rapid growth and the ensuing collapse of the subprime loan market.
“We clearly haven’t hit the top yet in terms of delinquencies or the bottom of the housing market,” Jay Brinkmann, the association’s chief economist, said in an interview.
clipped from: cryptogon.com