Oregon 4th Qtr 2008 Foreclosures: Starts are Up 111% and Seriously Delinquent Loans Up 140% from a Year Ago.

I have updated the Excel Current Oregon Foreclosure Tool in the right pane (and HERE) to include 4th quarter MBA data. (My prior 3rd quarter post, with explanation of what the tool does is HERE). Key feature of the tool is ability to compare for loans and problem loan rates between loan categories (all loans, prime loans, and subprime loans) and over time.

Four Items to Note

1. For all loans, foreclosure starts increased by 111% from 26 a DAY to 55 a DAY from 4th quarter 2007 to 2008. Prime loan foreclosure starts increased even higher, by 182% (see item 3 below).
   
2. Seriously delinquent loans (foreclosure inventory + 90 day delinquencies) increased by 140% from 8,578 to 20,331. Prime loan seriously delinquent loans grew even faster at 214% (see item 3 below).
   
3. Subprime loans continue to have higher rates of problems than prime loans, but the rate of increase in PRIME problem loans is much higher than for subprime loans. Suprime loans account for 9% of all loans but 40%+ of problem loans; prime loan problem loans however grew by 180%-240% in several problem loan categories.(The PDF HERE provide the data to demonstrate this conclusion).
4. Total loans serviced as reported by MBA declined by 8,454 loans. As the all loan total includes all loan categories, either reporting changes were made, loans switched to servicers not reporting in the MBA survey, OR we had 8,454 fewer homeowners with loans than a the same quarter a year ago. (or some mix of all three reasons). The national survey also saw a decrease of 592,000 loans but no explanation was offered for the change. This kind of change in loans surveyed may be a regular occurrence that slips public attention; I will look at future reports and call out changes for Oregon in future quarterly updates.