Home / Daily Dose / St. Louis Fed: Foreclosure Crisis Nears Conclusion
Print This Post Print This Post

St. Louis Fed: Foreclosure Crisis Nears Conclusion

Foreclosure-Four-BH-300x198The U.S. mortgage crisis is drawing to a close. That, at least, is the assessment of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which stated recently that the final remnants of the recession’s “historically elevated rates of extreme mortgage distress and defaults” are largely in the rear view mirror and that the foreclosure crisis should officially end early this year.

Several industry reports over the past several months bear the bank’s statements out. Earlier this week, ATTOM Data Solutions reported that foreclosures have hit a 10-year low nationally, and that even those foreclosures still on the books are mainly remnants of originations from a decade ago.

“The end is near,” the bank wrote in its look at Eighth District states (the bank’s region). “The condition of current mortgage borrowers considered as a group—nationwide or state by state—is once again comparable to the period just before the Great Recession and the onset of the foreclosure crisis.”

The bank targets the last quarter of 2007 as the beginning of the crisis. By the end of 2016, “many as 10 million mortgage borrowers may have lost their homes,” the bank stated.

But by the end of 2016, several states had already exited their respective foreclosure crises, including Missouri and Tennessee. According to the bank, Arkansas and Illinois are primed to do so soon.

A few states, namely Indiana, Kentucky and Mississippi, however, experienced much longer crises than a decade and have held onto higher rates of foreclosed properties. These states, the bank said, saw their foreclosure troubles start as early as 2001.

Nevertheless, the bank wrote, foreclosure issues in Eighth District States, many of which were plagued by abnormally high foreclosure numbers during the recession, are nearing the accepted national benchmark of 2.81 percent of homes in foreclosure. Citing data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, the bank reported that foreclosure rates in all Eighth District states have been in sharp and steady freefall since 2013.

According to the bank, the national foreclosure rate at the end of 2016 was 3.2 percent, which should return to 2.81 percent this quarter. All remaining Eighth District states should be out of their crises by the end of 2017, except for Mississippi, which, still contending with a 4.27 percent foreclosure rate, is expected to close out its crisis by mid-2018.

About Author: Scott Morgan

Scott Morgan is a multi-award-winning journalist and editor based out of Texas. During his 11 years as a newspaper journalist, he wrote more than 4,000 published pieces. He's been recognized for his work since 2001, and his creative writing continues to win acclaim from readers and fellow writers alike. He is also a creative writing teacher and the author of several books, from short fiction to written works about writing.
x

Check Also

Federal Reserve Holds Rates Steady Moving Into the New Year

The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee again chose that no action is better than changing rates as the economy begins to stabilize.