At the end of 2009, foreclosures were definitely "in the news." And for good reason. The number of foreclosures rose from 1.8 million at the end of 2008 to about 2.5 million at the end of 2009. According to RealtyTrac, at the end of 2009, there was a total of 2,824,674 properties involved in foreclosure filings; that total includes default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions. This means that 2.21 percent of all U.S. housing units - one in 45 - received at least one foreclosure filing during 2009. That is up from 1.84 percent in 2008, 1.03 percent in 2007 and 0.58 percent in 2006.
It is important, however, not to generalize foreclosure trends across all states. In fact, four states - Nevada, Arizona, Florida, and California - account for 45 percent of the foreclosure inventory (according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's Mortgage Delinquency Survey) and 50 percent of all delinquency filings (based on data from RealtyTrac). Nevada tops the list with more than 10 percent of its housing units receiving at least one delinquency notice. In general, throughout 2009 these four states topped the list with the highest rates of filings and the number of foreclosures.*
In contrast, Vermont boasted the lowest foreclosure rate - 0.05 percent of its housing units - as well as the lowest absolute number of foreclosures - 143. Similarly, North Dakota had only 0.13 percent of its housing units receiving a delinquency notice. West Virginia was third at 0.17 percent and South Dakota ranked fourth at 0.21 percent. For comparison, the average national delinquency rate in the same quarter was at 8.85 percent.
Current Situation
At the beginning of the foreclosure crisis, mortgage defaults were primarily among non-prime borrowers. But things changed. In 2009, the wave of foreclosures were largely among prime loans. This suggests that while the initial crisis stemmed from bad underwriting practices, the extension of the crisis was due to the national economic recession and borrowers losing their jobs. Actually, the number of seriously delinquent prime loans grew at a much faster rate in 2009 - 66 percent - than did the number of seriously delinquent subprime loans, which increased by about 20 percent. As a result, prime loan defaults accounted for about 60 percent of the increase in all delinquent loans over the past year.
Similarly, the number of prime loans in foreclosure has doubled in each of the past two years, 99 percent between 2007 and 2008, and 95 percent in 2009. In comparison, the number of subprime loans in the process of foreclosure increased only 5 percent in the past year and 12 percent the year before. There has been, however, a much lower share of subprime loans originated in the last year, falling by 14 percent from the year prior. In the 3rd quarter of 2009, prime mortgage foreclosures accounted for 54 percent of all foreclosures, while subprime loans accounted for 36 percent.
In the last couple of months, it has become evident that the foreclosure crisis has moved "up market." Among recent prime loan defaults, those loans with balances of between $417,000 and $600,000 have performed the worst. In fact, the monthly Mortgage Monitor by Lender Processing Services (LPS) suggests that non-agency jumbo prime loans have had the worst deterioration rates year-over-year for both delinquencies and foreclosures, with delinquencies increasing some 85 percent and foreclosures increasing some 190 percent, both significantly higher than other product types. In 2006, homes in the bottom one-third of home values accounted for almost 55 percent of all foreclosures. In 2009, the bottom one-third made up 35 percent of foreclosures, compared to 35 percent and 30 percent for the middle and top one-thirds, respectively. That means 30 percent of foreclosures are homes in the top tier of local home values, almost twice the proportion of foreclosures than three years ago. Data by Amherst Securities suggest that the increasing rate of negative equity among top home price tiers might be kindling this trend.
Underwater
Nearly 10.7 million, or 23 percent, of all residential properties with mortgages were in negative equity as of the second quarter of 2009. An additional 2.3 million mortgages were possibly approaching negative equity - or having less than five percent in equity. That adds up to nearly 28 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide.
The share of homeowners "under water" is still largely concentrated in five states - in fact, those states with the highest foreclosure rates, namely Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, and California. Among the top five states, the average negative equity share was 46 percent, compared to 13 percent for the remaining states.
In terms of larger metropolitan areas (with population greater than 50,000 people), the highest levels of negative equity are in those metros located in the top five "negative equity" states. Within smaller metropolitan areas largest losses are seen in Merced, CA and El Centro, CA (both 85 percent underwater), Modesto, CA and Stockton, CA (both 84 percent), Bakersfield, CA (79 percent), and Port St. Lucie, FL (79 percent).
"Strategic Defaults"
With estimates from LPS of some 25 percent of borrowers currently having negative equity nationwide, the question increasingly being asked is what the likelihood may be of homeowners underwater who are likely to "leave the pool", or "strategically default". According to a study by Experian and Oliver Wyman, more than a quarter of all existing defaults were found to be strategic and they more than doubled from 2007 to 2008 to 588,000. The study also found that borrowers with higher credit scores were 50 percent more likely to strategically default than those with lower credit scores.
In another survey study by Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales**, the authors found that 26 percent of existing defaults were strategic. They also found that no household would default if the equity shortfall is less than 10 percent of the value of the home. Yet, 17 percent of households would default, even if they could afford to pay the mortgage, when the equity shortfall reaches 50 percent of the value
of their house.
Besides relocation costs, the most important variables in predicting strategic default are moral and social considerations. All things being equal, people who consider it immoral to default are 77 percent less likely to declare their intention to do so, while people who know someone who defaulted are 82 percent more likely to declare their intention to do so. That said, there is some research that suggests that while borrowers with negative equity should be walking away in droves, most homeowners choose not to strategically default due to the desire to avoid the shame and guilt of foreclosure and exaggerated anxiety over the perceived consequences from foreclosure.
What May Lie Ahead
What many analysts are finding alarming is the decreasing rate of delinquencies that are ending up in foreclosures. Loss mitigation efforts such as the Making Home Affordable Program (HAMP), as well as backlogs caused by the elevated delinquent loan volumes, are extending the number of days in delinquency. The data by LPS suggest that average number of delinquent days for loans in foreclosure has risen from 249 to 406 from January 2008 to December 2009 - an increase of 63 percent. The fear is that the increasing pool of troubled loans, also referred to as the "shadow inventory," is only going to lead to more inventory and home price problems in the future. (We'll discuss shadow inventory in a follow-up article in next month's Real Estate Insights.)
The impact of HAMP is still difficult to evaluate. December's numbers suggest 1,164,507 cumulative trial-period plan offers extended to borrowers, and 902,620 trial modifications started. The goal is 3-4 million homeowners with lower mortgage payments through a modification through 2012. Available data indicate around 112,000 modifications have turned permanent. The latest assessment of the program's progress by the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group*** also suggests that while the HAMP has helped to slow down the foreclosure crisis, current efforts have been insufficient as the total number of struggling homeowners not on track for any foreclosure prevention assistance continues to grow. Indeed, the Working Group found that only four out of ten seriously delinquent borrowers were involved in loss mitigation efforts.
As the increase in the rates of prime loan defaults suggests, so does the predominant hardship reason for permanent modifications under the Making Home Affordable program: curtailment of income is currently the primary reason for mortgage defaulting. With the unemployment rate at or near 10 percent nationally, and millions of more Americans having either exited the workforce or remaining underemployed, it is very difficult to say definitively how the economy will play out in the next couple of years and what the effects will be on the future foreclosure rates.
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