RealtyTrac: Blame 6 states for the foreclosure mess

The housing slump has worsened into a "crisis," says Jerry Howard, the president and CEO of the National Association of Homebuilders, and "if Congress doesn't do anything, the end is not in sight." Builders are calling on Congress to target home prices in the next stimulus package, and Howard suggests a program like a mid-70s tax credit. "It worked very well, and led the country out of what was a six-quarter recession," he says.

There is more bad news from the home front as "we're still looking at foreclosure activity on the increase." Rick Sharga, at RealtyTrac says their most recent survey finds that "nearly 280-thousand US households in the month of October received some sort of foreclosure notice." According to Sharga, "that's up five percent from September and up 25 percent from a year ago." Sharga tells Steve Potisk, "this marks 34 consecutive months where we've seen a year over year increase" in foreclosure rates.

If you bought your home at the peak of the market in the last couple of years, you could be down "anywhere from five to, in areas of California, 30 or 40 percent off the value of your home." So says Amy Bohutinsky, the V-P for communications at Zillow.com. She tells Steve Potisk that has many people in "negative equity right now," or owing more on the mortgage than the house is worth. That means a third of Americans who sold their home in the past year lost money, according to a Zillow survey. The downward trend is expected to continue. Bohutinsky says of the 163 metro areas they surveyed, "only a handful of markets showed appreciation year over year."

"We're still seeing the highest rates of foreclosure activity in the same states." So says Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac. His group found foreclosure rates were up 71 percent in the third quarter when compared with a year ago. The top six states account for 60 percent of third quarter foreclosure activity; they are California, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, Michigan and Nevada.

"The days of easy credit are behind us. The days of really low mortgage rates may be behind us," too. But Steve Kerch, MarketWatch.com's real estate editor, tells Steve Potisk this week's spike higher in average rates may have "been one bad week given all that we've seen in financial markets." Kerch adds that if rates remain in the current range, topping near 6 1/2 percent, that's not bad.

Greg McBride, senior financial analyst with Bankrate.com, tells Nancy Lyons that savers are "getting thrown further under the bus." McBride says if you have a mortgage pegged to the treasury, it'll go down, but LIBOR-pegged mortgages may see a nasty increase.

"The real estate industry is rooting heavily for some type of bailout plan." Spencer Rascoff, Zillow.com's CFO says the reason is the expectation that a plan would "allow the federal government to buy these huge amounts of bad loans off of the balance sheets of investment banks and commercial banks." But Rascoff also tells Steve Potisk no bailout will be a panacea for housing since "there is just so much inventory on the market."

Economic forecasting firm Global Insight is in the process of revising its forecast for the U.S. and the news is dismal. The economy appears headed for a recession that could run an entire year. And Global Insight's Patrick Newport tells John Wordock it may not matter what Washington does with the Wall Street bailout. We're still headed for troubled waters.

The mortgage market meltdown was just a part of the reason Wall Street is in the tank. So says Peter Morici, an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland. He tells Steve Potisk there is plenty of blame to go around for this crisis.

Is the housing market frozen for the time being? Existing home sales dipped 2% in August and inventories fell 7%. But median home prices have dropped 9.5% in the last year. And MarketWatch real estate editor Steve Kerch thinks the price of your home may have to fall even more. He tells John Wordock the autumn housing market may be frozen until Congress resolves the Wall Street rescue plan issue. Kerch also offers some tips for selling your home in this climate.