Foreclosures rose 75% in 2007

The number of U.S. homeowners entering the foreclosure process climbed 75 percent in 2007 from a year earlier, as mortgages became more difficult to refinance and falling property values made it tougher to sell.

Despite the increasingly difficult mortgage situation, Utah bucked the trend with a 26 percent decrease in foreclosures.

About 10 out of every 1,000 U.S. households were in some stage of foreclosure during the year, up from 5.8 per 1,000 in 2006, RealtyTrac Inc. said Tuesday. In Utah, 8.5 out of every 1,000 households were in foreclosure.

"There are more to come," said Paul Miller, a mortgage industry analyst at Friedman Billings Ramsey & Co. in Arlington, Va. "People who never should have been in a home bought them, and now the easy money is gone."

Home prices nationally fell in 2007 for the first time in at least 40 years, and the number of mortgages available to homeowners dropped, creating concern that the housing slump will hurt consumer spending and push the world's largest economy into recession.

Mortgage originations probably declined 14 percent to $2.34 trillion in 2007 compared with 2006, according to a forecast by the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association. Mortgage originations are expected to decline another 34 percent to $1.55 trillion in 2008, the mortgage bankers said.

Meanwhile, home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell 7.7 percent in November, the 11th consecutive month of declines, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index released Tuesday. No Utah cities were included in the Case-Shiller report.

According to figures released last week by the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, home prices along the Wasatch Front have held steady, rising 1.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006.

Across the nation, a record $375 billion of subprime loans reset to higher payments in 2007 and another $340 billion will reset this year, said Bose George, an analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods Inc. in New York.

The number of U.S. homeowners entering foreclosure doubled in December from a year earlier, RealtyTrac said. For the year, more than 2.2 million default notices, auction notices and bank repossessions were reported on about 1.3 million properties.

Utah thus far has been an exception to the national trend of increasing foreclosures. The state ranks 15th in overall percentage of households in foreclosure and was just below the nationwide average of 1.03 percent.