US Foreclosure Filings Up 81 Percent In 2008

Nationwide, more than 860,000 properties were actually repossessed by lenders, more than double the 2007 level, according to RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing firm based in Irvine, Calif., which compiled the figures.

Foreclosure activity rose 26 percent last year in Ohio, a state that had one of the nation’s highest foreclosure rates, the report said.

The four states with the highest foreclosure rates last year were Nevada, Florida, Arizona and California. Ohio ranked 7th.

More than 1.1 million properties in those four states received a foreclosure notice, almost half the national total. And more than one in five of those households were in California, which is coping with massive job losses in the housing and mortgage industries as well as a rapid decline in home prices.

In December, more than 303,000 properties nationwide received at least one foreclosure notice, up more than 40 percent from a year earlier and up 17 percent from November, according to RealtyTrac.

Nearly 79,000 properties were repossessed by lenders in December, a 61 percent increase over a year ago.

In a speech at the University of Delaware, Charles Plosser said that the unemployment rate probably won’t drop anytime soon, but that he doesn’t expect it to rise to double digits, as it did during the recession of the early 1980s.

“I expect the housing sector will finally hit bottom in 2009 and the financial markets will gradually return to some semblance of normalcy,” said Plosser, adding that the current recession could be one of the longest in the post-World War II era.