Foreclosure Filings Rise in 75% of U.S. Cities

Foreclosure filings climbed in three-quarters of U.S. metropolitan areas in the first half as high unemployment left many homeowners unable to pay their mortgages, according to RealtyTrac Inc.
The number of properties receiving a filing more than doubled from a year earlier in Baltimore, Oklahoma City and Albuquerque, New Mexico, the mortgage-data company said today in a report. Notices of default, auction or bank seizure rose more than 50 percent in areas including Salt Lake City; Savannah, Georgia; and Atlantic City, New Jersey.
“Foreclosures are spreading out from areas that had been hardest hit,” Rick Sharga, senior vice president for marketing at Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac, said in a telephone interview. “We’re dealing with underlying economic weakness as opposed to unsustainable home prices and bad loans.”
Private employers added fewer jobs than economists projected in June and the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent as discouraged job seekers stopped looking for work, the Labor Department said July 2. The Commerce Department last month reduced its estimate for first-quarter economic growth after consumer spending grew less than previously forecast.