State foreclosures soar
New York State”™s first-quarter foreclosure numbers this year rose 14 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 and 40 percent from the first quarter a year ago, though the increase was substantially lower than the national average, according to a recent report by RealtyTrac Inc., an online real estate foreclosure market service.
Nevada and California ranked first and second respectively in first-quarter foreclosure rates. New York ranked 30th, with one foreclosure for every 550 households in the first quarter. The first-quarter national average was one in every 194 households.
New York recorded 14,377 foreclosure filings in the first three months of 2008, according to Realty Trac. The New York State Banking Department in its own analysis of the company”™s data said foreclosures for one-to-four-family homes increased at a higher rate than for total households, which include rental properties. Foreclosure filings for one- to four-family homes increased 18 percent from the fourth quarter of last year and approximately 48 percent from the first quarter a year ago.
Those filings represent one in every 256 owner-occupied households or one in every 167 owner-occupied households with a mortgage, state banking officials said.
Approximately 80 percent of the foreclosure filings are concentrated in 10 counties. Queens and Brooklyn account for about 32 percent and Long Island for approximately 24 percent.
More than 70 percent of foreclosure filings in the state were Lis Pendens, usually the first filing by borrowers in a process that takes an estimated 13 months in New York.
Westchester is one of the counties hardest hit by those filings, along with Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn, Suffolk, Nassau, Monroe and Staten Island.
Westchester County Clerk Timothy C. Idoni last month said judgments of foreclosure in the county jumped 80 percent in the first quarter this year compared with the first quarter of 2007, from 135 to 243. Foreclosure filings in the first quarter this year totaled 759, up from 530 a year ago or about 43 percent. Those filings have increased 211 percent since 2005, while foreclosure judgments have risen 220 percent in the same period, according to county clerk records.
“The large number of borrowers still entering the foreclosure process is a clear indicator that we are not near the end of this crisis,” said Superintendent of Banks for New York Richard H. Neiman. “As adjustable rate mortgages reset over the next 18 months, the number of families affected will continue to rise.”
“The Banking Department considers the situation in New York to be very serious as the overall foreclosure numbers continue to be significantly higher that prior periods and they disclose that certain counties within the state are being disproportionately impacted by the mortgage crisis, signaling a continuing need for intervention,” he said.
The Banking Department leads the interagency Halt Abusive Lending Transactions (HALT) task force, which brings together industry, consumer groups and government agencies to address the mortgage crisis and combat predatory lending practices in the state.