Recent research by RealtyTrac Year-End 2009 Foreclosure Market Report shows us that 3,957,643 foreclosure filings have been reported on 2,824,674 U....
Recent research by RealtyTrac Year-End 2009 Foreclosure Market Report shows us that 3,957,643 foreclosure filings have been reported on 2,824,674 U.S. properties in the year of 2009. This also includes foreclosure auctions that were scheduled, default notices and bank repossessions.
That’s a twenty one percent increase in properties from numbers in data collected in 2008, and a one hundred and twenty percent increase in total properties from 2007. The report also revealed that one in forty five housing units, 2.21 percent, received at least one foreclosure filing during 2009, up from 2008’s 1.48 percent and 2007’s 1.03 percent.
In the month of December alone, foreclosure filings have been reported on 349,519 properties in December. This a fourteen percent jump from the previous month of November and a fifteen percent increase from 2008. But despite the fact that there was an increase in December, foreclosure actions in the fourth quarter of 2008 has decreased by seven percent.
Of all of the states in America, Nevada took the nation’s highest state foreclosure rate; more than ten percent of housing units received at least one foreclosure filing in 2009. This is Nevada’s third consecutive year at the top of the foreclosure list. Nevada’s foreclosure activity in the month of December increased twenty seven percent from the previous month, however it still was down by twenty two percent from December of 08.
Arizona claimed the nation’s second highest state foreclosure rate in 2009 with more than six percent of properties receiving at least one foreclosure filing during 2009, and Florida claimed the nation’s third highest foreclosure rate at 5.93 percent of its properties getting at least one foreclosure during the filing year.
This raises issues in the collection’s industry. Recent trends have told collections officials that consumers are purposely pumping up their credit debt and downplaying their assets to get lower payment plans. The fact that they are increasing debt on their credit cards to receive lower payment plans does not look promising.
Mallory Megan works for a agency. Also she writes articles on business, finance, the credit industry and .
Credit card issuer Capital One Bank and four other companies were sued by West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw for unfair and deceptive practices and bad business conduct. The complaint was filed this week in West Virginia’s Circuit Court and it claims that Capital One hooked consumers into repayment plans by mailing out solicitations disguised as new credit offers.
Capital One offered to give consumers one dollar of new credit if they agreed to transfer the whole balance of a charged off account to the new credit card. This meant that Capital One could re-age debts to get around the statute of limitations, which would start anew.
According to the suit, Capital One issued cards with limits as low as 200 dollars for low-income consumers with poor credit histories. The cards carried membership fees of up to 59 dollars per year. Typically, the annual fees were billed on the consumer’s second monthly statement, leaving the consumer with just 141 dollars of credit when they thought they had 200 dollars. Then, if the consumer mistakenly exceeded the limit, they could face over the limit fees of up to 29 dollars.
In the past few months, McGraw’s office has targeted debt collection agencies in part of an effort to protect West Virginia’s debtors. In November his office took two payday lending firms and four collection agencies to court.
As members of the debt collection industry, oftentimes we may scratch our heads and wonder why, in a suffering economy where debt is running rampant, we cannot retrieve the money that consumers owe. Analysts claim that with unemployment rates running so high, it is virtually impossible for consumers to repay their debts. But bad business practices are not going to help the situation either. It may be a knee jerk reaction to try to con consumers out of money, but it is just that. A knee jerk reaction.
Mallory Megan works for a company. She also composes pieces on bankruptcy, business, finance, and .
