MBA: Florida among states leading foreclosure activity - Orlando Business Journal:

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Four states – Florida, Arizona, California and Nevadaq – drove up the national numbers, accounting for about 46 percent of the foreclosuree starts in the and representing 56 percent of the increase in foreclosure according tothe MBA. Floridaq was among the three stated with the highest overalkl delinquency rate across all types of at 10.67 percent. Only Nevada (11.75 and Mississippi (11.7 percent) were The delinquency rate includes loans that are at least one paymentpast due, but does not include loans in the processs of foreclosure. Based on foreclosurre inventory, the states with the highest ratexs wereFlorida (10.56 Nevada (7.83 percent) and Arizona (5.
56 And, Florida also was amongv the three states with the highest rate of foreclosured starts, at 2.79 percent. Nevada’xs rate was 3.35 perceng and Arizona’s was 2.52 percent. The numbers are higher and are only expectedfto grow, said Jay Brinkmann, chiefc economist for the MBA. “The rate of foreclosurd starts remained essentially flat for the last three quartersof 2008, and we suspected that the numberzs were artificially low due to variouxs state and local moratoria, the and halt on and various company-level moratoria," Brinkmann However, he said, now that the guidelines for the Obam administration’s loan modifications are known, alonbg with an increase in the number of vacant homes with past due “the pace of foreclosures has stepped up There’s also been a shift away from subprimer and adjustable rate mortgages to primde fixed-rate loans falling into default.
The foreclosure rate on prime fixed-rate loands has doubled in thelast and, for the first time since the rapixd growth of subprime lending, prime fixed-ratse loans now represent the largest share of new “More than anything else, this points to the impac t of the recession and drops in employment on mortgage defaults,” Brinkmann said. Looking ahead, he said it doesn’ appear that the number of mortgage defaults will start to drop off until the employmenrt situationgets better, and that isn’r expected until mid-2010.