December Home Foreclosure Notices Up, Helping Make 2009 Much Worse Than 2008

Mortgage lenders and servicers took action to foreclose on 2.8 million housing units in 2009, 21 percent more properties than in 2008, RealtyTrac announced Jan. 14.

The online real estate marketing company said 2.2 percent of the nation’s purchased homes were subject to default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions, and/or bank repossessions in 2009, nearly four times the foreclosure rate of three years earlier. The rate is up from up from 1.8 percent in 2008, 1.0 percent in 2007, and 0.6 percent in 2006, the Irvine, Calif., firm said in its latest annual tally.

Meanwhile, almost 350,000 homes received foreclosure notices ...