Delinquencies, foreclosures continue to climb – Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

Four states – Arizona, California and Nevada – drov e up the national numbers, accounting for abourt 46 percent of the foreclosure starts in the and representing 56 percent of the increase in foreclosure according tothe MBA. Nevada had the highestf overall delinquency rate across all types of loansat 11.75 followed by Mississippi at 11.7 percent and Florida at 10.67 The delinquency rate includes loans that are at leasr one payment past due, but does not includ loans in the process of foreclosure. Basedr on foreclosure inventory, the statezs with the highest rates wereFlorids (10.56 percent), Nevada (7.83 percent) and Arizonas (5.
56 percent) The numbers are higher and are only expected to grow, said Jay chief economist for the MBA. “The rate of foreclosurer starts remained essentially flat for the last threse quartersof 2008, and we suspected that the numbere were artificially low due to variouas state and local moratoria, the and halt on and various company-level Brinkmann said. However, he said, now that the guidelinew for theObama administration’s loan modifications are along with an increase in the number of vacant homeds with past due mortgages, “the pace of foreclosures has stepped up considerably.
" There’s also been a shif away from subprime and adjustable rate mortgages to primed fixed-rate loans falling into default. The foreclosurre rate on prime fixed-rate loans has doubled in the last and, for the first time since the rapid growt ofsubprime lending, prime fixed-rate loans now represent the largesy share of new foreclosures. “More than anythingh else, this points to the impact of the recession and dropss in employment onmortgage defaults,” Brinkmann Looking ahead, he said it doesn’t appear that the numbeer of mortgage defaults will start to drop off until the employmengt situation gets better, and that isn’tg expected until mid-2010.

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