2 million troubled borrowers avoid foreclosure

The Hope Now coalition reports that it completed a record number of mortgage workouts in July - but that was outpaced by the increasing rate of foreclosures.

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer

August 27, 2008: 11:11 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Hope Now has helped more than 2 million at-risk borrowers stay in their homes during the past 13 months, according to numbers released by the coalition on Wednesday.

The alliance of mortgage servicers, counselors, and investors assembled to combat foreclosures fixed more than 192,000 problem loans during July, a one-month record that represents a 6% increase over June.

Brown County Foreclosure Snapshot

According to today's Green Bay Press Gazette, Green Bay is currently leading Brown County with 42 of it's 69 foreclosures.

I don't really find anything overly startling about these numbers. Green Bay is the largest city in Brown County, so it only makes sense that their foreclosure numbers would be a substantial proportion of the overall county numbers.

It will be interesting to see how this graph looks over the course of the next few months.

January 2008 Wisconsin Foreclosure Stats

According to recently released data compiled by ForeclosuresWI.com, a provider of Wisconsin foreclosure resources and statistics, there were a record 2,443 Wisconsin homes entering foreclosure in January, nearly 45 percent more than in the same month a year ago.

Over the last three years, foreclosures have risen more than 70 percent, to 20,995 in 2007 compared with 12,311 in 2005.

Milwaukee County leads the way with 616 in January 08 vs 410 in January 07.

Wisconsin 26th in January Foreclosures

Wisconsin ranked 26 in RealtyTrac's January 2008 Foreclosure Report. With 565 Real Estate Owned, or REO properties (that have been foreclosed on and repurchased by a banks). Eleven states are responsible for 80% of the January foreclosures with California, Texas, Ohio & Florida leading the way.

Comparatively speaking Wisconsin's numbers are a drop in the bucket, when considering those of California & Florida.

As I've speculated, this crisis is less detrimental to the housing market here in Wisconsin than in other parts of the country. If we can weather the current shower of Foreclosures, I think the real estate market will be at least satisfactory in Wisconsin before it is in many other areas of the country.