Ohio/regional foreclosure news

With the Columbus Dispatch reporting last week that foreclosure filings in Ohio had risen18.6 percent last month, compared with August 2009, according to RealtyTrac, a California foreclosure service, and 2.5 percent during the first six months of this year according to figures collected by the Ohio Supreme Court, and headlines relating that "banks repossessed 95,364 properties last month, up 3 percent from July and an increase of 25 percent from August 2009, even as the number of properties entering the foreclosure process slowed for the seventh month in a row," and sources such as USAToday noting that "concerns are growing that the housing market recovery could stumble amid stubbornly high unemployment, a sluggish economy and faltering consumer confidence," another trend is being seen.

A Bloomberg News article yesterday relayed that "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest U.S. mortgage-finance companies, and their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, 'are concerned about borrowers who have an ability to pay but who choose to default on their mortgages,' FHFA acting director Edward DeMarco told a Congressional subcommittee hearing last week."

New York-based Morgan Stanley said in an April 29 report that about 12 percent of residential-loan defaults in February were strategic, meaning homeowners decided not to make payments even though they could afford to. The rate was about 4 percent in mid- 2007.

Then in a survey done last May of 2, 967 Americans – 1, 937 of whom were homeowners – the Pew Research Center last week released findings saying that "While a majority of Americans (59%) say it is 'unacceptable' for homeowners to stop making their mortgage payments and abandon their homes, more than a third (36%) say the practice of 'walking away' from a home mortgage is acceptable, at least under certain circumstances -- two-in-ten (19%) saying it's acceptable and an additional 17% volunteering that it depended on the circumstances…" [ Full Report ]

There is some "gray" in this otherwise gloomy picture, though, as Bloomberg this morning reported that GMAC Mortgage is halting all foreclosure actions on homeowners in 23 states, including Florida and Illinois, which, along with California, Michigan and Arizona account for more than half of all filings in the United States. Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana are also being reprieved.